Here are some very fundamental questions that we can ask about social institutions -- the relatively durable sets of rules, practices, and norms through which a variety of human social activity is conducted. How are institutions formed? How do they work -- what are the enforcement mechanisms that exist within institutions that induce participants to …
Are there online solutions to rising college costs?
There are many, many voices offering observations and criticisms of universities in face of rising costs and tuitions. But none is more qualified than Bill Bowen to address these issues. He is the preeminent economist and analyst of the institutions of American universities, and he was a long-serving president of Princeton University. So it is …
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Organizations and strategic action fields
image: Hierarchical modularity of nested bow-ties in metabolic networks, Jing Zhao, Hong Yu, Jian-Hua Luo, Zhi-Wei Cao and Yi-Xue Li (link) Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam provide a full exposition of their theory of strategic action fields in A Theory of Fields. As observed in an earlier post, this theory presents an innovative way of …
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Moral intuitions as evolutionary modules
People have moral reactions to the situations they observe around themselves -- within the work environment, in the family, on the street, or in international affairs. This is a psychological fact that is prior to moral philosophy. How should we understand this feature of ordinary human consciousness and cognition? Jonathan Haidt is a moral psychologist …
Critical theory in the Frankfurt School
An earlier post raised the question of the meaning of the word "critical" in Roy Bhaskar's theory of critical realism. The most extensive discussions of the epistemology of critical theory occurred in the post-Marxist debates within the Frankfurt School, and Raymond Geuss presents those debates with great clarity in The Idea of a Critical Theory: …
Michael Mann on power
In 1986 Michael Mann began a strikingly ambitious project -- to give a theoretical and historical account of the history of power in human history. This effort came to closure in the past few months with the publication of volume 3 (The Sources of Social Power: Volume 3, Global Empires and Revolution, 1890-1945) and volume …
What is “critical” about critical realism?
Critical realism is an approach to the philosophy of social science advocated centrally by Roy Bhaskar. Other contributors include Margaret Archer and Andrew Collier. What, precisely, does this phrase mean? The "realism" part of the label is fairly straightforward. Bhaskar maintains that the social sciences (sometimes, often, once in a while) succeed in discovering and …
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Mechanisms of racial disparities
A fundamental fact about American society is the persistence of disparities between African-American and European-American populations. These disparities are manifest in the most important aspects of social life: income, wealth, education levels, health status, and incarceration rates. And several of these areas of disparity persist even when we control for income. Most observers interpret these …
Moral emotions
Why do people act morally? Why do people act altruistically, keep their promises, or act fairly? It is sometimes held that a part of the answer is that people have "moral emotions", and these emotions play a key role in the creation of moral actions. What is a moral emotion? I'm sure that there are …
What became of Detroit?
As Detroit approaches a new turn in its difficult journey over the past several decades, the imposition of an Emergency Financial Manager by the governor of Michigan (link), many people are asking a difficult question: how did we get to this point? The features that need explanation all fall within a general theme -- the …
Understanding Society 