Classical Sociological Theory. Sinisa Malesevic

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Classical Sociological Theory

       Steven Loyal

      I would like to dedicate this book to my former teachers who served as exemplary academic role models, István Mészáros and Barry Barnes.

       Sinisa Malesevic

      I dedicate this book to John A. Hall, a wonderful scholar, my teacher and a lifelong friend.

      Classical Sociological Theory

       Steven Loyal

       Siniša Malešević

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      © Steven Loyal and Siniša Malešević 2021

      First published 2021

      Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

       Library of Congress Control Number: 2019956917

       British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      ISBN 978-1-5297-2572-8

      ISBN 978-1-5297-2571-1 (pbk)

      Editor: Natalie Aguilera

      Assistant editor: Eve Williams

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      Acknowledgements

      This book and its accompanying volume, Contemporary Sociological Theory, took many years to complete. Initially we envisaged writing one shorter volume focusing on both classical and contemporary social thought, but soon realised that we had to cover many more sociological theories and theorists than we originally planned. Since sociological thought is so rich and diverse, including thousands of scholars who have made a significant contribution to the development of sociology, it became apparent that a single volume could not do justice to all forms of sociological thinking. Hence after completing 32 chapters and discussing it with our editors at SAGE, it was agreed to split the original manuscript into two separate books – Classical Sociological Theory and Contemporary Sociological Theory. The original manuscript was also substantially shortened in this process, the principal aim of which was to make the two books as accessible as possible to students. Both authors have contributed equally to these two volumes. In Classical Sociological Theory, Loyal was responsible for writing Chapters 1, 4, 5, 11 and 12 and Malešević wrote 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. In Contemporary Sociological Theory, Loyal was the lead author for Chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 while Malešević was responsible for Chapters 1, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, with the Introduction and Chapter 3 a product of joint work.

      We would especially like to thank Roddy Condon for his invaluable work in producing the boxed pedagogical material and compiling the references. We would also like to thank Chris Rojek for encouraging us to write this book and also for commissioning the project. Thanks also to Tim Mooney for helpful comments on Chapter 1, and Kieran Allen for comments on Chapter 5. We are also very grateful to everyone at SAGE for their goodwill and enormous patience with the numerous new deadlines that we never met. Finally, we would like to thank our families for their support during the very long and sometimes arduous, but mostly enjoyable, writing process.

      About the Authors

      Steven Loyal is Associate Professor at the School of Sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland. His areas of interest include sociological theory, migration, the sociology of knowledge, social stratification and historical sociology.Siniša Malešević is a Full Professor of Sociology at the University College, Dublin. His recent books include Grounded Nationalisms (CUP, 2019), The Rise of Organised Brutality (CUP, 2017) and Nation-States and Nationalisms (Polity, 2013). His work has been translated into 12 languages.

      Introduction: The Rise of Social Thought

      In 1971 Lewis Coser wrote an unusual, and later highly successful, textbook Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context. The book differed from the standard social science textbooks of its time. Instead of summarising the main concepts, ideas and theories of various thinkers, as other textbooks have done, Coser aimed to frame these intellectual developments within the wider social and historical context. While other books would usually provide only a few biographical and historical paragraphs, Coser’s work devoted almost as much attention to the history, social environment and biography as it did to the key sociological contributions of respective scholars. He justified this strategy in the following terms:

      We have a great number of books that attempt to elucidate what Marx or Weber or Pareto really meant but only few and scattered efforts to use the tools of the sociologist to investigate the role of sociological theorists within the social structure in which they are variously placed. There has been no sustained attempt to show how social origins, social position, social network, or audience found a reflection in the problems that a theorist addressed himself to or in the overall orientation of his life’s work. (Coser, 1971: xiv)

      This unusual approach proved popular with the audiences and many students found Coser’s textbook enlightening, informative and accessible. Most of all, this approach made