I want, in this paper, to examine several specific ways that electronic computers are being used in the study of social organization. But some of this work constitutes a rather sharp departure from established modes of research and theory-construction in sociology, and therefore leads at the outset to a look at these established modes and at the nature of sociology's subject matter (1).

The present article addresses the question of secularism in Greece. It discusses the prevalent modernist and civilisationist explanations of the recent crisis in state-church relations in Greece. Based on the idea that there is neither a single route to, nor a single pattern of, modernity and secularism, the article argues that the entanglement between state and church in modern Greece does not necessarily indicate either incomplete modernity or incomplete secularism. The paper emphasises both the structural weakness of the Orthodox Church in the modern Greek state and the secularisation of the church's ideology as core dimensions of the particular pattern of secularism in this country. The recent crisis is interpreted as a result of the twofold challenge of democratisation and globalisation that this historically grown pattern of secularism is facing over the last decades. Further, the article seeks to demonstrate that the nationalist stance of the Church of Greece should not be seen as persistent blind traditionalism and anti-modernism.

The origins of the modern Sicilian latifundium go back to the early nineteenth century when feudal land was transformed by law into private property. In what is called the Risorgtmento, a rising rural bourgeoisie gradually replaced the traditional feudal elite by acquiring most of the land that came on the market. Although the peasants had become legally free, they obtained their freedom at the cost of title to the land they held under feudal conditions. The common use rights of gleaning and pasturage, which the peasants exercised on the former fiefs, guaranteed them the fundamental means of living. But arbitrarily excluded by the avid bourgeoisie from a share in the land that should be given out to them as a recompense for the lost use rights, the Sicilian peasants emerged from social servitude only to fall into economic and political dependency. A growing rural proletariat was the necessary concomitant of the partly feudal and partly capitalist enterprise that was the latifundium.

This article was originally published in 1915; it stands out as a rare example of an attempt to sociologically understand the main features of the war conducted with universal conscription. The process in which the machinery of war made itself more and more autonomous is analysed. The same process made the nations at war more and more similar, despite the ideological claims of radical differences.

This paper presents an analytical framework for the study of constitutional design from the point of view of the structure of interaction and mechanisms of institutional selection that affect the behavior and choices of the actors involved in a constitution-making process. This framework is used to explain the various limitations introduced to the powers of the President in the Argentine constitution of 1994. I argue that two levels of causation determined this reform. At the macro level, the limitation of presidential powers was the outcome of a distribution of political resources and a configuration of preferences among the actors that made possible the resolution of conflicts by means of compromise. At the micro level, the new set of institutions derived from the limited influence of the incumbent executive over constitutional design, the pluralism of the constituent assembly that approved the constitution, and the prevalence of bargaining as a mechanism of collective decision-making. Both levels of action facilitated a consensual constitution-making process from which emerged a powersharing structure that has the potential to lower the stakes of political competition for presidential office and create new rules of mutual trust between government and opposition.

For much of his life Weber favored the rational activity of the ascetic in contrast to the irrational passivity of the mystic. However, Weber developed a growing interest in mysticism both in the East and the West. Johannes Tauler and his teacher Meister Eckhart offered Weber glimpses of the western mystic's beliefs. Perhaps in Weber's last years, religion and mysticism moved from being merely intellectual interests to something more significant and personal.

It is a commonplace observation of most sociology textbooks and of many historical discussions that the label or name ‘sociology’ was invented by Auguste Comte in the 1830s. I will raise no dispute concerning this, since none is possible, but I will strongly confront an often made corollary from this observation, namely that the discourse or conceptual frame of sociology was also invented or formulated by Auguste Comte. I will maintain that such a conclusion is preposterous.

On peut lire, en tête du Prospectus annoncant, en 1829, la première livraison des Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, que « la medecine n'a pas seulement pour objet d'étudier et de guérir les maladies, elle a des rapports intimes avec l'organisation sociale; quelquefois elle aide le législateur dans la confection des lois, souvent elle éclaire le magistrat dans leur application, et toujours elle veille, avec l'administration, au maintien de la santé publique. Ainsi appliquée aux besoins de la société cette partie de nos connaissances constitue l'hygiène publique et la médecine légale ». Au premier abord, rien de bien remarquable; s'agit-il de la collaboration des médecins et des magistrats? Depuis quelque vingt ans, le Code pénal et surtout la pratique des tribunaux l'ont sanctionnée; quant au statut d'une hygiène auxiliaire de l'administration, s'appliquant, comme le souligne plus loin le Prospectus, à « prêter ses lumières à la science du gouvernement è, le projet en est très clairement ébauché depuis les Encyclopédistes. Alors, l'État partenaire naturel de l'hygiéniste? Mais cette pensée, inaugurée par Turgot, puis affirmée avec force par la Constituante, demeurera la préoccupation la plus constante des artisans du programme sanitaire, et ce jusque vers 1920, quand l'idée de prévention voudra, à l'inverse, libérer la médecine sociale du carcan trop étroitement administratif scellé pour elle dans la loi de 1902; encore convient-il d'observer que ce souhait de voir s'assouplir la relation de la médecine sociale avec la puissance politique intervient peu ou prou au moment où l'hygiéniste pénètre — discrètement — l'appareil de l'État.

When Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society first appeared in English translation in 1933, it was greeted by a terse and scathing critique by Ellsworth Faris, who suggested that there was no empirical foundation to Durkheim's thesis, and that subsequent anthropological research—in the forty years since the publication of the book in French—had rendered the work redundant. In particular, Faris called attention to the fact that in primitive societies—in stark contradistinction to Durkheim's basic theme—there was much division of labor and very little repressive law.

The history of ideas demonstrates conclusively that certain ideas can become so pervasive and central to the thought of a culture that over many centuries the members of that culture unquestioningly apply these ideas in many different ways to new fields of experience (1). Such ideas are what we shall call metaphysical ideas. Such metaphysical ideas normally form the ground for common-sense discourse. The history of ideas has shown that they also form the ground for, and frequently constitute much of the substance of, serious intellectual works. Though science in the western world was born and developed partly as an explicit revolution against all such unexamined, “unempirical” ideas, recent work in the history of science has led to the conclusion that scientific thought is largely the result of and partly constitued by just such metaphysical ideas (2). Moreover, more recent work in the history of science has led to the conclusion that once scientific ideas have been accepted by the members of a scientific discipline, these ideas in turn come to form the unexamined ground and substance of the normal scientific works within that discipline. Though these ideas thus have far more in common with common-sense and humanistic discourse than most scientists would ever care to admit, there are some important differences which are taken into consideration by giving the established, unexamined ideas of sciences a different name—that of paradigmatic ideas (3).

In modern societies profession and formal organization are the most important institutional patterns controlling occupational and administrative decisions and actions. They have many characteristics in common. To use Parsons' pattern variables: in both cases we find universal standards, specificity of expertness, and affective neutrality (I). Bureaucratic as well as professional authority is based on special knowledge and skill (Fachwissen) and may be characterized as functional authority (2). Both professional and bureaucratic status are achieved, not ascribed positions.

Before turning directly to fascism, we should recall certain facts that form the background to all that follows. In 1919, Italy, a country of about 35 million people, should be characterized neither as industrialized nor as underdeveloped, but as slowly and very unevenly industrializing. Still predominantly agricultural, the Italian peninsula can be divided into three distinct areas with markedly different social structures, each undergoing in very contrasting ways the twin transformations of the rise of industry and of intensive commercialized farming. The North was the most developed of the three areas, with the peninsula's most modern industrial enterprises heavily concentrated in the Milan-Genoa-Turin triangle, while commercial farming was centered in the fertile valley of the Po River. It is important to note, however, that even the North was still in a state of transition and that in the northern countryside more traditional systems of land tenure and cultivation still existed alongside some of the most mechanized farms in Europe. The other two areas of Italy—Center and South—were alike in being traditional societies less affected by modernization, though the Center of the peninsula and the South were very different social systems (1).

The recent politico-military events of Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and even France demonstrate that the application of unabashed armed might to the solution of civic problems is not peculiar to Latin America, nor indeed a phenomenon to be correlated only with economic underdevelopment. Public violence and political instability in Latin America have all too often been treated either as merely comic or else a manifestation of “spirit”, “temperament”, or “Latin blood”. Riots in the streets of Buenos Aires are no less tragic than riots in the streets of Algiers—and no less related to the basic facts of social disorganization as they may be reflected in crises of political legitimacy and consensus.

There is room for unilateral action to improve international relations in areas other than nuclear test bans, the cessation of bomb production, or general disarmament. One such area—the subject of this article—concerns the effects of international competition for prestige on peaceful coexistence.

Explanation of the growth of Christianity in the third century Roman Empire has long been controversial. However, recent game-theoretic research shows how a strategy of unconditional altruism such as Christianity formally enjoined can, under certain conditions, resist invasion by defectors, free-riders and cheats. It is accordingly plausible to suggest that in the particular environment of the third century Empire this uniquely distinguishing feature of Christianity accounts for much of its otherwise surprising degree of success.

In the context of the recent financial meltdown, the financial industry has frequently been accused of being indifferent to the irregular practices of its members or even to be criminogenic. But how do actors of the financial industry respond to such accusations and defend themselves? How do they justify their actions when facing legal charges as well as public blame? This article elucidates these questions through a rare ethnographic case: the first criminal trial of a trader involved in the manipulation of Libor, which took place in London in 2015. Tied to at least $300 trillion contracts, Libor is a benchmark that plays a key role in the financial industry. The paper offers a sociological framework to capture the justifications of financial wrongdoings, arguing that they are structured around three elements: (a) a conception of rules; (b) a narrative; (c) a form of responsibility. I distinguish three justifications: the one of the maker, of the interpreter and of the user. I finally discuss how these justifications contribute to the general tolerance towards white-collar crime.

in applying rational choice theory to the debates about power, it has been proposed that distinguishing power from luck yields new insights. specifically, it has been suggested that, where social and institutional structures favour some and disfavour others, the former have the good luck to get what they want without trying and the latter the bad luck to be faced with collective action problems that prevent them from furthering their interests. against such proposals, it is argued that luck, thus understood, is non-explanatory and, moreover, depoliticizing. it is further argued that they exemplify a narrow conception of power that defines it as intentional, as involving positive interventions in the world, as furthering the wants of the powerful and as altering the incentive structures of others. such a conception closes off questions about the operations of power where these are more or less indirect, ongoing and often inaccessible to direct observation, and only very partially and superficially captured by the “snapshot'” accounts of structured interaction among strategic actors characteristic of rational choice theory. a broader and more dynamic view, revealing the complexities of power, allows that the powerful can hold and exert their power without intending to, without positively intervening in the world and irrespective of their actual “brute” wants; and that their power consists in being capable and responsible for affecting (negatively or positively) the subjective and/or objective interests of others.

Objective investigation into suicide as a social and psychological phenomenon dates back to the opening of the nineteenth century (1). Few other areas of human behaviour, in fact, can have attracted the same measure of continuous interest on the part of students in several disciplines. H. Rost's Bibliographie des Selbstmords, published in 1927, lists well over 3,000 items (2). Today the total must be something over 5,000 (3). The reader surveying this voluminous literature, however, is impressed by several notable lacunae: 1) most of this literature is descriptive rather than explanatory; the great bulk of it consists of surveys of the distribution of suicide, or of clinical descriptions of individual cases (4); 2) there is a marked degree of disciplinary “compartmentalisation”. It has been evident for many years that both sociology and psychology have complementary contributions to make to the explanation of suicide (5); but theory and research into suicide in these two disciplines has tended to proceed separately with little more than a token acknowledgement of the potential relevance of one to the other (6). The object of this paper is to establish a schematic typology upon which a bridge between sociological and psychological theory might be built.