Sociology and the Challenges

of the 21st Century

Slovenian Sociological AssociationLjubljana, 6 November 2015

Craig CalhounLSE

Sociology has always been shaped by the world around it

It is specifically a modern invention

There has always been social thought, but not always a science of society based on Systematic empirical observation Methodical analysis Theory-building

But sociology responded not just to intellectual change but material change

The Rise of the Modern State

A complex organization Increasingly self-consciously designed

With intensified capacity to intervene in social life

With new forms and extent of social participation

With increased reliance on “upward” legitimation With projects to make it the people’s:

Democracy Communism

The Rise of Capitalism

Self-regulating markets of ever-larger scale

Economy oriented to continued self-transformation Growth Accumulation Innovation

A new social organization of labor The upheavals of industrialization

New inequalities Massive externalities

Exploration, Empire, and ‘Globalization’

Source for comparative perspectives Denaturalizing views of society Bringing “culture” into the foreground

Development of sociological (and anthropological) knowledge in the administrative projects of empire

Challenge of pluralism and cross-cultural relations Contrast to earlier ‘segmental’

empires

Urbanization and Transformations of Scale

Cities as realms of political freedom Extended into social freedom (pace Simmel)

Cities as realms of sociability Including in new mixtures

The building of infrastructures Making urbanization a design and

investment project Communications Transportation

Anxiety over the loss of community

Transformation of Everyday Life

Family Gender Childhood Education Migration

Rural to urban as well as international Reconstruction of community

Consumption Including increasing cultural goods

Valuing ordinary happiness

Individualism

Not just possessive individualism or illusions of self-sufficiency Deepening the idea and experience of the person

From Protestantism through Romanticism to “the Care of the Self” Inwardness Value

Crucial to the “verstehende” perspective on social relations: Created, chosen, meaningfully interpreted

“Self and society are twinborn” (C.H. Cooley) Both a universal truism and historically specific

Secularism Not in the sense of irreligion nor of a “subtraction

story”

But as the growing capacity of this-worldly institutions to organize social life

From states to business corporations to universities

This-worldly explanations of social life

As in science

Related transformations of religion

By pluralism

Structured as choice rather than tradition

As sources for contending positions on the organization of social life

Nationalism

The mobilization of cultural commonality at the level of the state Whether ethnic or republican

The claim of a pre-political basis for citizenship

The model for the discrete society A world-system of nation-states

A framework for attempts to defend society Usually through identification with older

forms of society

The Rise of Social Movements

With the Protestant Reformation in the foreground

Resistance to capitalist transformations Extending through social revolutions

Not simply replacements of governments but projects of social transformation and constitution

Proliferating projects and mobilizations Addressing states Pursuing direct action

New Problems of Social Cohesion

Differentiation Of “value spheres” Of sectors Of institutions Of fields Of cultures and subcultures

Need for articulation and integration Mirrored in differentiation of sciences Comte on the need for a queen

Initially understood as national But also increasingly global

Science A material factor in the world and its transformations

Crucial to completing the transformation of social thought to science Though sociology is always shaped by both (and torn

between): natural science (objectivism) human science (cultural interpretation)

Grounded in new institutions Universities Academies Professional societies

But never contained entirely by those institutions and now spread more and more widely

All these social sources and foci for sociology remain important

The modern package of basic structuring conditions hasn’t simply vanished, though it is stressed.

Some modern transformations continue Dramatic new scales of urbanization Continued technological revolutions in communications Migration and new challenges to cohesion Renewal of public religion

But there are also epochal changes Not least in relations of “the West” to the rest of the World But also in the nature of capitalism In the prominence of transnational organization In the tacit social contracts shaping citizenship

The dog that didn’t bark Since 2008 much of the world has experienced massive

economic crisis without any major, anti-systemic social movement First European crisis since the early 19th Century in which

socialism didn’t pose a challenging alternative There were many movements, but they didn’t offer a

scalable, systemic alternative

Yet, there is massive disillusionment with governments And often populist responses.

And there are major problems throughout the west in developing effective policies Take the current refugee crisis.

The Need for Sociology Bring the social back in.

After neoliberalism After compartmentalisation of the political,

economic, and social After celebrations of markets and individuals

Ask the question again: what makes society? Crucial if society is being remade Recover macrosociology and relations across

levels and throughout systems

Be part of addressing basic public issues

21st Century Challenges Shifting issues will drive drive sociology’s

development. To start with, sociology has often been national in

focus and needs to develop ways of being more effectively global Comparison But also study of global social organisation

There are lots of challenges to list: Aging populations Urban transformation Refugees and migration Transformations of work and employment National and religious conflicts

Institutions State

Church

Universities And the rest of education and knowledge

Medicine and health care

Corporations

Challenged By costs – and government limits By ‘consumer’ dissatisfaction By disputed authority or legitimacy By bureaucratic dysfunctions

Solidarity

What accomplishes social cohesion? What makes society?

Forms: Identity categories Networks

Direct Indirect

Functional integration Power Public communication

Reinforcement or tension?

Security

Public order In re crime, war, etc.

Public health and safety In re risks from food or pollution

Protection In re unemployment, old age, hunger Or new risks like cyber-security

Metamorphoses We need not just a list but an understanding

of what drives and connects changes and shapes possible solutions. E.g., Capitalism Infrastructure Geopolitics Cultural creativity

Capitalism Not just markets

Drive to expansion Drive to accumulation Massive externalities

Polanyi’s double movement

One approach to problem-solving

Based in social institutions like corporations And reliance on states

Possibly being transformed by ‘state capitalist’ alternatives

Cultural creativity Science and technology

Renewal of religion

Media And the proliferation of new ‘apps’

Nationalism renewed

An enormous economy, but also a basic question about the organisation of social participation.

Infrastructure The most important factor in social organisation that

sociology tends to forget Transport, communications, water, waste The computers behind automation and global finance

Facilitating Connection Concentration Movement

Massive investments With financial impact Government impact Also impact on social relations

The Return of Geopolitics The weakness of global institutions

The growing importance of regional structures – and conflicts Changing relations of local to national

Crossroads, frontiers, and the footprints of old empires Central Asia Ukraine Middle East

New security challenges Small wars Terrorism

The geographies of social solidarity

Will the modern world system be renewed? Chinese hegemony? Multilateral leadership?

How are these connected?

Polanyi’s double movement

The search for responses to achieve social goods: The social (welfare) state

Or socialist transformation Capitalism with inequality and distribution

problems mitigated Philanthropy

Sociology is needed to understand a changing world - but sociology

also needs to change Sociology must be at once national and global

And this involves changing questions, changing relations and learning processes

Sociology needs better integration across some of its own internal divisions Methodological (esp. qualitative and quantitative) Theoretical (redefining objectivity as the maximization of

perspectives – Nietzsche) Subfields

Sociology needs to inform problem-oriented interdisciplinary fields and professions

Sociology needs to engage broad publics and movements