What is analytical sociology? And is it the future of sociology?

Transcription

1 What is analytical sociology? And is it the future of sociology? Twan Huijsmans Sociology Abstract During the last few decades a new approach in sociology has been developed, analytical sociology (AS). In the several descriptions from different authors, there are a couple of common core concepts. Analytical sociologists want to explain a social phenomenon by forming a specified mechanism. The mechanisms are entities and activities that are organized in a way that can produce social changes (Manzo, 2010). In this mechanism they differentiate between two analytical levels: the micro and the macro. Finally, they allow for the important consequences of the social structure and relationships between individuals by describing an aggregation process. In my opinion AS can play an important part in the future of sociology, because of the clear explanations it can provide for various social phenomena. Important is that researchers work on more consensus about the definitions of the core concepts of AS. This will make it easier to compare different articles about the same sociological topics, which will lead to a better understanding of these social phenomena. In this way more researchers will see the advantages of the approach and AS can become more important. Keywords: Analytical sociology, DBO theory, theory of action, aggregation processes, micro-macro link Introduction During the last few decades, a new approach in sociology has been developed. This approach is sort of a new toolbox for how to do sociology and has its place in the tradition of methodological individualism. Not everyone has exactly the same idea about what sociology really is. I myself define it as follows: the study of how human actions and interactions cause social phenomena. Of course, this is a very simple definition, but I think it is very useful, especially for non-sociologists. The purpose of this article is to answer the following question: Can analytical sociology be the future of sociology? Before answering this question, I will first discuss the origins and definition of analytical sociology (AS), the strengths and weaknesses of its approach, and an alternative approach. In doing so, this article offers an overview of the future of sociology in general. It also provides a brief summary of the recent history of analytical sociology. In his article, Analytical sociology and its critics, Gianluca Manzo provides a brief overview of the origins of AS. According to Manzo, contemporary AS consists of two sets of older ideas, namely the concept of mechanism and the concept of analyticity (Manzo, 2010). In his view, the former arose between the 1950s and the 1970s. Manzo stated that a mechanism began to be defined as a bundle of constraints and interdependent actions able to generate some macro-consequences (p.135). In the 1960s, the concept of mechanism was studied in models for mathematical sociology, for example by James Coleman (1964). Schelling (1971) and Granovetter (1978) also used mechanisms in their more widely known aggregation models. Therefore Manzo concluded that between the 1950s and the 1970s there took shape an approach centered on the concept of mechanism (p.135). The concept of analyticity arose between the 1960s and 1990s, but there was no link with the concept of mechanism at that time (Manzo, 2010). The development of this first form of analytical sociology was based on dissecting and abstracting social phenomena. In this way clearly

2 defined conceptual systems were constructed with which to interpret social reality (Manzo, 2010, p. 138). In other words, analyticity in this context refers to the dissecting and abstracting of social phenomena. In the last two decades, the concepts of analyticity and mechanism have been combined to form a new definition of AS. The definition of this contemporary AS will be discussed in the next few paragraphs. Core concepts of contemporary AS As noted above, AS has been defined in a number of different ways. However, there are a couple of common elements in these definitions. Almost all the authors write about different levels of analysis, mechanisms, theories of action and aggregation processes. That is why I will explain these concepts in this section. I will begin by explaining the concept of different levels of analysis. This is what Barbera refers to as a multilevel theory (Barbera, 2006). This means that there are two analytical levels in sociology: micro and macro. The macro level contains collective properties like social security laws or social phenomena like income inequality, high crime rates or high unemployment rates. The micro level contains the individual actions of actors and the social interactions among them. A multilevel theory further states that, as Barbera writes, social causality between two macro phenomena cannot be found without the processes at the level of social action and interaction, the micro level (Barbera, 2006). This point is further clarified by Manzo. He writes that the beliefs, desires and opportunities of each actor, which cause the actor s actions, are partially formed by social structures at the macro level. On the other hand, these actions influence other actors action, which influences the social structures at the macro level (Manzo, 2010). The important aspect of the division between macro and micro levels is that there is interaction and reciprocal influence between the two. This is why Hedström and Bearman(2009, p.11) wrote: the micro-macro relationship is a part-to-a whole relationship rather than a cause-to-effect relationship. This is clearly illustrated in the well-known Coleman Boat, presented in James Coleman s article Microfoundations and Macrosocial Behavior (Coleman, 1987). Figure 1 graphically displays Coleman s notion that macro conditions (levels of education) can cause other macro phenomena (income inequality) as a result of the consequences of these macro conditions for individuals on the micro level (i.e., individual educational level and income). In other words, the Coleman-boat represents a macro-micro-macro process. Manzo adds in this regard that an entity of a causal model, like the Coleman-boat, can contribute to the given collective outcome, but it always needs other entities from the other level to fully produce this outcome (Manzo, 2010). Figure 1. The Coleman Boat (Coleman, 1987, p. 165).

3 The concept of mechanism is still important in contemporary AS. At the center of the approach is the idea that a good sociological explanation has to specify the mechanisms that caused the social phenomena to be explained (Hedström, 2006). According to Manzo, mechanisms are entities and activities that are organized in a way that can produce social changes (Manzo, 2010). He also further explains this definition by writing what these entities and activities could be. Some examples he gives for entities are: norms, organizations, informal groups, social networks and actors. Learning, reasoning, evaluation and action are examples of activities (Manzo, 2010).From Hedström (2005) we can add that the type of [social] change depends on the properties of the entities and the way in which the entities are organized (Hedström, 2005, p. 25). From this, it follows that the Coleman Boat depicted above is a mechanism that explains inequality of outcomes, although it is perhaps not detailed enough. According to Barbera AS undertakes to model and test the mechanism or process that generates the relationship between X and Y (Barbera, 2006). The division into the macro and the micro levels, in combination with the concept of mechanism, requires a good theory of action at the micro level of the explanatory mechanism. A theory of action is an explanation for the actions of the actors at the micro level. As Hedström writes: The basic entities of a mechanism are always actors, and the basic activities tend to be the actions of these actors (Hedström, 2005). Hedström provides several criteria for a good theory of action: (1) psychological and sociological plausibility; (2) simplicity; and (3) explanation of action in meaningful intentional terms (Hedström, 2005). Psychological plausibility here means that we have to know how actors make their decisions. Sociological plausibility means that the theory should take into account the structure of social interaction (Hedström, 2005). Explaining action in intentional terms means that we should explain an action by reference to the future state it was intended to bring about (Hedström, 2005). In other words, we have to keep in mind what the intentions of an actor are at the moment he undertakes the action. Barbera (2006) generally agrees with these criteria, although he says it in different words. According to him, the actor is not the object, because the social phenomenon we need to explain is at the macro level. Because of this, he says that theories of action have to be as simple and abstract as possible, but also realistic. By realistic he means that a theory has to pay attention to mental states, learning processes and interactions (Barbera, 2006). An example of a theory of action is Hedström s desires, beliefs and opportunities (DBO) theory. In this theory, he assumes that a desire, belief or an opportunity can cause the action of an actor. He also explains how these desires, beliefs and opportunities are formed and how they can be influenced by the actions of other actors. This is called social interaction. According to his theory, there are several social interaction mechanisms. The purpose of this section is to briefly explain what a theory of action is according to analytical sociologists. That is why I will not elaborate further on this theory. The last important core concept I will discuss is the aggregation process. An aggregation process is the process by which individual actions of all the actors are summed up and cause a social phenomenon. In other words, an aggregation process describes the relationship between individual actions and social outcomes. According to Hedström, the outcome depends to a high degree on how individual parts are interrelated (Hedström, 2005, p. 75). He further states: (...) small and seemingly unimportant changes in the way actors are interrelated can have profound consequences for social outcomes (Hedström, 2005, p.75). To study these aggregation processes, analytical sociologists use computer simulations. In a concluding paragraph about this topic, Hedström states four important conclusions about the relationship between individual actions and social outcomes:

4 (1) There is no necessary proportionality between the size of a cause and the size of the effect. (2) The structure of social interaction is of considerable explanatory importance in its own right for the social outcomes that emerge. (3) The effect a given action has on the social [environment] can be highly contingent upon the structural configuration in which the actor is embedded. (4) Aggregate patterns say very little about the micro-level processes that brought them about. (Hedstrom, 2005, p.99) From the explanations of the core concepts above, I can draw a brief conclusion about what analytical sociologists do. They want to explain a social phenomenon by forming a specified mechanism. In this mechanism they differentiate between two analytical levels: the micro and the macro. On the micro level they specify a theory of action about the behavior of individuals. Then they allow for the important consequences of the social structure and relationships between individuals by describing an aggregation process. A recent alternative approach Now that we know what analytical sociology is, I will briefly discuss an alternative approach presented by Neil Gross (2009). In his article A pragmatist theory of social mechanisms, he criticizes analytical sociologists that I mentioned above, like Hedström. His critiques and his alternative can help us understand what has to be improved in analytical sociology in order to enable it to make a more valuable contribution to sociology in the future. In this section, I will briefly point out why Gross (2009) thinks that the mechanism approach to AS is problematic. Then I will briefly show what his alternative approach entails. Gross first problem with AS theories like the DBO theory is that it suggests an individual armed with beliefs and desires who steps out of the flow of action to face and evaluate a choice between competing means (Gross, 2009, p. 365). In other words, the DBO theory assumes that individuals act intentionally and always have the ability to evaluate their beliefs and desires before they engage in any form of behavior. Gross states that these moments are empirically rare. The assumption that all actions are motivated is also a problem for Gross, because many sociological theorists argue that socially learned habit is a major proximate cause of behavior (Camic 1986) (Gross, 2009, p.365). According to Gross, often no real motivation or choice is involved in producing behavior (Gross, 2009). From these statements, Gross concludes that several leading conceptualizations of social mechanisms are problematic because they are constructed around inadequate understandings of social actions (Gross, 2009, p. 375). Theories from analytical sociology are based on the concept of methodological individualism, which means that the social phenomena can only be explained in terms of individual actions. The approach Gross prefers, the pragmatic approach, is not based on methodological individualism (Gross, 2009). Pragmatism insists that it is necessary to find out how the actors understand the situations and act on those understandings. The meaning individuals give to particular situations is stressed in this approach. Thereby Gross states that meaning is not reducible to belief in Hedström s sense of propositions about the world that actors hold to be true (Gross, 2009, p. 369). He further argues that this differs among individuals from different cultures. That is why he argues: the study of social mechanisms must be undertaken alongside a project of cultural interpretation (Gross, 2009, p. 369). At this point we already can conclude that pragmatists differ from analytical sociologists in the way that they stress the importance of habits (instead of intentionality) and cultural differences. Another difference between AS and the pragmatist view is in the definition of mechanism. In the view of Gross, a mechanism consists of actors, problem situations and habits of cognitions and action. Due to such a mechanism, a particular response becomes the

5 most likely, but always with the possibility (...) that a novel way of responding to a problem could emerge for any of the actors involved, potentially altering the workings of the mechanism (Gross, 2009, p. 369). A reply to this criticism In sum, Gross made several criticisms, three of which I mentioned above. Gianluca Manzo replied to Gross s criticisms in his article Analytical Sociology and Its Critics. In this article Manzo replied to these three criticisms. First, in response to Gross s criticism that the DBO theory assumes that individuals act intentionally and have the ability to evaluate their beliefs and desires before acting (proposing alternatively that habit is an important cause of behaviour (Gross, 2009)). Manzo responded as follows: DBO theory admits that beliefs and desires are often inconsistent and irrational (Elster, 2007, p.211). (...) AS aims at modelling mechanisms that account for such inconsistency, and admits that they tend to operate behind actor intentionality (Manzo, 2010, p. 25). The next criticism from Gross(2009) is that DBO theory reduces meaning to belief, which is not correct, and does not account for the fact that meaning differs among cultures. Manzo stated that several authors in AS have paid attention to cultural embeddedness. To argue this, Manzo gives a couple of examples. I will provide one of these examples here: that of cognitive rationality (Boudon, 1998). Boudon provides criteria to define what constitutes a strong enough reason for actors to produce certain behavior. The first one is that the actor has to perceive a set of reasons as grounded and consistent. The second one is that he has to judge that these reasons can convince other actors (Manzo, 2010). Manzo further explains that this depends on two factors, according to Boudon. First, the quality and quantity of the information and, secondly, the set of beliefs taken for granted in a given community (Manzo, 2010). This example shows that analytical sociologists are trying to take account of cultural differences. The third criticism of Gross refers to the definition of mechanism in AS. What Manzo has to say about this is that Gross s definition reintroduces some ambiguities that AS is trying to eliminate (Manzo, 2010, p. 149). He defends his argument by pointing out that the definition of mechanism in AS is about entities and activities, whereas Gross s definition is about events or processes (Manzo, 2010). According to Manzo, the latter definition tries to equate a process and a mechanism, so it is not clear what the difference is. Therefore the definition of analytical sociologists is preferable for Manzo, because AS suggests that a process is the dynamic side of a mechanism. A process is the sequence of changes triggered by activities and (interactions of) the entities contained in the mechanism (Manzo, 2010, p. 150). In this way, AS provides a clearer distinction between the concepts of process and mechanism. Conclusion From all the above we have learned that analytical sociologists want to explain a social phenomenon by forming a specified mechanism. The mechanisms are entities and activities that are organized in a way that can produce social changes (Manzo, 2010). In this mechanism they differentiate between two analytical levels: the micro and the macro. The importance of this division is that there is interaction and reciprocal influence between the two. On the micro level they specify a theory of action about the behavior of individuals. An example of a theory of action is the DBO theory. Finally, they allow for the important consequences of the social structure and relationships between individuals by describing an aggregation process. The idea behind this is that the social outcome depends on how individuals are interrelated. Summing up all these actions and interactions is a complex process and computer simulations can be useful.

6 The purpose of this article is to answer the following question: Can analytical sociology be the future of sociology? I think analytical sociology can become a more important type of sociology in the future. It provides a set of rules by which researchers can give clear explanations of social phenomena. I think the analytical explanations are clear, because the different parts of complex social mechanisms are clearly distinguished. The development of computer simulation techniques can also cause a growth of analytical sociology. If analytical sociologists want this to happen, I think they have to search for more consensus in defining the core concepts of the approach. This will lead to less criticisms, like the criticisms made by Gross (2009) and mentioned above. Clearly defining these core concepts in the same way will make it easier for sociologists to compare different articles about the same sociological topic, which will lead to a better understanding of the causes of these social phenomena. If analytical sociologists are able to generate this, more researchers will see the advantages of the approach in the future and analytical sociology can be important for the future of sociology. References Barbera, F. (2006). A star is born? The authors, principles and objectives of analytical sociology. Papers: revista de sociologia, 80, Boudon, R. (1998). Limitations of Rational Choice Theory, American Journal of sociology, 104 (3), pp Coleman, J. (1987). Microfoundations and macrosocial behavior. In J.e. Alexander, The Micro-Macro Link (pp ). Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Coleman, J.S. (1964) Introduction to mathematical sociology. London: Free Press Glencoe. Granovetter, M. (1978). Threshold models of collective behavior. American Journal of Sociology, Gross, N. (2009). A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanism. American Sociological Review, 74 (3), Hedström, P. (2005). Dissecting the social: on the principles of analytical sociology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hedström, P. (2006). Explaining Social Change: An Analytical Approach. Papers: revista de sociologica, 80, Hedström, P. & Bearman, P. (2009). The Oxford handbook of analytical sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. Manzo, G. (2010) Analytical sociology and its critics. European Journal of Sociology (51), Scheling, T. (1971). Dynamic models of segregation. Journal of mathematical sociology, 1(2),