Political sociology and social movements - bridging disciplinary by going meta

8 important questions on Political sociology and social movements - bridging disciplinary by going meta

What is the difference between sociology and political science?

It depends on where you put the emphasis, but it is mostly the same. You could however say that PS focuses more on raw supply side and that sociology is more demand-side

What are the differences between middle-range theories, ground theories and meta-theories?

- middle-range theories -> it is trying to explain some things in society

- ground theories -> wants to explain everything and is convinced that we can solve any question

- meta theories -> are at a very high level. It does the explaining and is about what we should put in our theories

What is the covering law account, that was very popular for theorizing in the social sciences?

It is a deductive-nomological model that says that we can explain an explanandum by general laws. Laws that we can explain under special conditions
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What are features of the covering law account?

- subsumption implied that science is a coherent, logical whole
- internal consistency of explanations can be evaluated by logic
- explananda can serve as hypotheses for empirical tests
- it is built on a logical argument

What is some critique about the covering law account?

- the social sciences arguably have no general laws
- the account remains at the level of constant conjunctions -> no real answer to the why
-  it is not able to deal with the asymmetry of causal relations

What is a mechanism, which can also function as an alternative to the covering law account?

- shows how specific outcomes/events or empirical regularities come about
- shows the structure of the causal approach
- shows the logical connection between X and Y
- is an answer to a why-question

How do weak versions, like structural individualism and the analytical view of mechanisms, treat social phenomena?

- fundamental importance to understand why actors at the way they act

- both endogenous as exogenous -> unintended consequences or action shaped by a pre-existing social context

What is Coleman's bathtub/boat?

It is to understand macro-level processes. It is used to get micro-processes involved in the explaining of macro-level phenomena. Important structures are
- situational mechanisms
- action-foundation mechanisms
- transformational mechanisms

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