Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194154
George Hong Jiang
The prospect of democracy seems gloomy, as post-lockdown policies show no sign of democratic revival (Economist Intelligence, 2023), and strongman politics is becoming popular in the global stage (Rachman, 2022). While new quasi-autocracies, for example, electoral autocracies, are posing new challenges to international politics, they share some characters with the revolutionary dictatorship which mushroomed in the twentieth century. The key of the shared patterns lies in how an autocratic regime stabilizes itself. In sociology, for example, Max Weber (2005) has highlighted the importance of legitimacy (charismatic, traditional, and legal-formal) for political domination (see also Schluchter, 1985). In economics, the existence of a strong state apparatus is often rationalized by the aims to achieve collective actions and facilitate economic growth (e.g. Olson, 2000). In politics, the degree of democratic development is associated with the emergence of an effective state and/or the rule of law, contributing to stability/instability of a regime (Fukuyama, 2012). Instead of studying dictatorship in general, Levitsky and Way focus on the revolutionary regimes in the twentieth century. As stated in Chapter 1, the revolutionary regimes are surprisingly durable in that on average they have much longer regime longevity than nonrevolutionary regimes, and they managed to survive many crises that would normally have toppled a regime. They are mostly exempt from military coup d’état (e.g. China, Iran); As weak as some revolutionary regimes are, they are able to withstand strong foreign pressure (e.g. Cuba, Vietnam); Most revolutionary regimes can effectively quell domestic uprisings. Unique characters of the revolutionary regimes play a key role in their survival. Aiming to explain their durability, the book has a very clear argument: severe counter-revolutionary conflicts reacting to radical revolutionary actions foster three pillars, that is, a cohesive ruling party, a powerful and loyal state apparatus, and the extermination of alternative power centers, thereby contributing to durable authoritarianism, while the 1194154 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194154International SociologyReviews: Political Sociology review-article2023
{"title":"Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism","authors":"George Hong Jiang","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194154","url":null,"abstract":"The prospect of democracy seems gloomy, as post-lockdown policies show no sign of democratic revival (Economist Intelligence, 2023), and strongman politics is becoming popular in the global stage (Rachman, 2022). While new quasi-autocracies, for example, electoral autocracies, are posing new challenges to international politics, they share some characters with the revolutionary dictatorship which mushroomed in the twentieth century. The key of the shared patterns lies in how an autocratic regime stabilizes itself. In sociology, for example, Max Weber (2005) has highlighted the importance of legitimacy (charismatic, traditional, and legal-formal) for political domination (see also Schluchter, 1985). In economics, the existence of a strong state apparatus is often rationalized by the aims to achieve collective actions and facilitate economic growth (e.g. Olson, 2000). In politics, the degree of democratic development is associated with the emergence of an effective state and/or the rule of law, contributing to stability/instability of a regime (Fukuyama, 2012). Instead of studying dictatorship in general, Levitsky and Way focus on the revolutionary regimes in the twentieth century. As stated in Chapter 1, the revolutionary regimes are surprisingly durable in that on average they have much longer regime longevity than nonrevolutionary regimes, and they managed to survive many crises that would normally have toppled a regime. They are mostly exempt from military coup d’état (e.g. China, Iran); As weak as some revolutionary regimes are, they are able to withstand strong foreign pressure (e.g. Cuba, Vietnam); Most revolutionary regimes can effectively quell domestic uprisings. Unique characters of the revolutionary regimes play a key role in their survival. Aiming to explain their durability, the book has a very clear argument: severe counter-revolutionary conflicts reacting to radical revolutionary actions foster three pillars, that is, a cohesive ruling party, a powerful and loyal state apparatus, and the extermination of alternative power centers, thereby contributing to durable authoritarianism, while the 1194154 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194154International SociologyReviews: Political Sociology review-article2023","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45409138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194154b
Jesse Callahan Bryant
{"title":"Peter Staudenmaier, Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics Between Left and Right","authors":"Jesse Callahan Bryant","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194154b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194154b","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42159232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194158
Jack Palmer
Since its publication, Creolizing the Modern has won both the René Wellek Prize for outstanding books in the discipline of comparative literature and the Barrington Moore Book Award for the best book in comparative historical sociology. Few, if any, books can lay claim to receiving such esteemed accolades across the disciplines of sociology and literary studies and this alone should give the reader a sense of the significance that this intervention represents. A product of collaboration between a literary scholar (Anca Parvulescu) and a sociologist (Manuela Boatcă), the book is based around a close textual reading of Liviu Rebreanu’s 1920 modernist novel, Ion, which centres on struggle of its eponymous character for land ownership in the Transylvanian village of Pripas (now named after Liviu Rebreanu) in the early twentieth century. In Creolizing the Modern, Ion is situated within what the late French literary critic, Pascale Casanova, called the ‘world republic of letters’, a stratified and unequal global network of genre conventions, stylistic orders and linguistic systems. This notion of ‘world literature’ is itself melded with what Immanuel Wallerstein theorized as the capitalist ‘world system’, denoting the historical development of a transnational economy and an accompanying division of labour which divides the world into ‘core’, ‘peripheral’ and ‘semi-peripheral’ regions. Ion takes on a double significance in this meeting of world literature and world system. On the one hand, Ion is a modernist novel set in a rural part of a semi-peripheral region, written in the peripheralized language of Romanian and published within a marginal system of national literary institutions. This, resultantly, means that the novel has remained ‘virtually non-existent for global audiences’ (p. 12), a fact reflected in the difficulty of obtaining an English translation today (two versions exist, both produced in the 1960s and mostly held in university libraries having been acquired during the area studies heyday of the Cold War). On the other hand, Ion itself thematizes the formation of the capitalist world system and its attendant regimes of class, gender, ethnic and religious hierarchy. Over the course of Creolizing the Modern, various characters and passages from Ion are evoked to refract and connect themes such as the 1194158 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194158International SociologyReview: Historical Sociology review-article2023
自出版以来，《Creolizing the Modern》获得了勒内·韦勒克比较文学学科杰出图书奖和巴林顿·摩尔比较历史社会学最佳图书奖。很少有书能在社会学和文学研究领域获得如此受人尊敬的赞誉，仅此一点就应该让读者感受到这种干预所代表的意义。这本书是文学学者（Anca Parvulescu）和社会学家（Manuela Boatcă。在《Creolizing the Modern》中，Ion位于已故法国文学评论家Pascale Casanova所称的“世界字母共和国”中，这是一个由流派惯例、风格秩序和语言系统组成的分层和不平等的全球网络。这种“世界文学”的概念本身与伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦（Immanuel Wallerstein）所理论的资本主义“世界体系”相融合，后者表示跨国经济的历史发展以及随之而来的将世界划分为“核心”、“外围”和“半外围”区域的劳动分工。《离子》在这场世界文学与世界体系的交汇中具有双重意义。一方面，《离子》是一部以半周边地区农村为背景的现代主义小说，用罗马尼亚语的周边语言写成，并在国家文学机构的边缘体系中出版。因此，这意味着这部小说“对全球观众来说几乎不存在”（第12页），这一事实反映在今天很难获得英文译本上（有两个版本，都是在20世纪60年代制作的，大多保存在大学图书馆，是在冷战时期地区研究的鼎盛时期获得的）。另一方面，Ion本身将资本主义世界体系的形成及其随之而来的阶级、性别、种族和宗教等级制度主题化。在Creolizing the Modern的过程中，Ion的各种人物和段落被唤起，以折射和连接主题，如1194158 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194158国际社会学评论：历史社会学评论-文章2023
{"title":"Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatcă, Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania Across Empires","authors":"Jack Palmer","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194158","url":null,"abstract":"Since its publication, Creolizing the Modern has won both the René Wellek Prize for outstanding books in the discipline of comparative literature and the Barrington Moore Book Award for the best book in comparative historical sociology. Few, if any, books can lay claim to receiving such esteemed accolades across the disciplines of sociology and literary studies and this alone should give the reader a sense of the significance that this intervention represents. A product of collaboration between a literary scholar (Anca Parvulescu) and a sociologist (Manuela Boatcă), the book is based around a close textual reading of Liviu Rebreanu’s 1920 modernist novel, Ion, which centres on struggle of its eponymous character for land ownership in the Transylvanian village of Pripas (now named after Liviu Rebreanu) in the early twentieth century. In Creolizing the Modern, Ion is situated within what the late French literary critic, Pascale Casanova, called the ‘world republic of letters’, a stratified and unequal global network of genre conventions, stylistic orders and linguistic systems. This notion of ‘world literature’ is itself melded with what Immanuel Wallerstein theorized as the capitalist ‘world system’, denoting the historical development of a transnational economy and an accompanying division of labour which divides the world into ‘core’, ‘peripheral’ and ‘semi-peripheral’ regions. Ion takes on a double significance in this meeting of world literature and world system. On the one hand, Ion is a modernist novel set in a rural part of a semi-peripheral region, written in the peripheralized language of Romanian and published within a marginal system of national literary institutions. This, resultantly, means that the novel has remained ‘virtually non-existent for global audiences’ (p. 12), a fact reflected in the difficulty of obtaining an English translation today (two versions exist, both produced in the 1960s and mostly held in university libraries having been acquired during the area studies heyday of the Cold War). On the other hand, Ion itself thematizes the formation of the capitalist world system and its attendant regimes of class, gender, ethnic and religious hierarchy. Over the course of Creolizing the Modern, various characters and passages from Ion are evoked to refract and connect themes such as the 1194158 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194158International SociologyReview: Historical Sociology review-article2023","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48102998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194135
Christopher Adair-Toteff
Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber is a work that discusses what nihilism is and offers a possible means for overcoming it. Wendy Brown uses Nietzsche as the expert on nihilism and Max Weber as the thinker who offers a possible way to fight it. Brown references many of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished writings, but she focuses mainly on Weber’s two ‘Vocation’ lectures: ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ and ‘Politik als Beruf’; actually, she uses the translations ‘Science as Vocation’ and ‘Politics as Vocation’. This book is a revised and expanded version of the Tanner Lectures that she gave during November 2019. It is highly successful when read as a political work, but if read as a piece of scholarship, it is less successful. The book has four sections: ‘Introduction’, ‘Politics’, ‘Knowledge’, and ‘Afterword’. In the ‘Introduction’, Brown explains that the focus of the Tanner Lectures is to discuss values, and it has a goal to bring together values and knowledge which the Enlightenment had separated. Brown emphasizes that merging them now is critical, given the plethora of problems confronting humanity. She notes that it may seem counterintuitive to invoke Max Weber because he not only embraced the distinction between facts and values; he also seemed complicit with ‘some of the most sinister forces contouring our present’. Furthermore, Brown insists ‘Weber was a dark thinker’ (p. 7) and certainly he had a reputation as being volcanic. But he was realistic and that provides Brown with the first of three reasons to ‘think’ with Weber. The second was his willingness to confront the crises of liberalism. The third one which animates these essays was ‘his deep confrontation with the intellectual and political predicaments of our nihilistic epoch’ (pp. 7–10). Brown does not mean that all values have vanished nor does she suggest Weber thought the world lacked all meaning. However, she does insist that the world lost much of the basis for values when science replaced religion. She also insists that 1194135 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194135International SociologyReviews: Sociology and Sociologists review-article2023
{"title":"Wendy Brown, Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber","authors":"Christopher Adair-Toteff","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194135","url":null,"abstract":"Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber is a work that discusses what nihilism is and offers a possible means for overcoming it. Wendy Brown uses Nietzsche as the expert on nihilism and Max Weber as the thinker who offers a possible way to fight it. Brown references many of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished writings, but she focuses mainly on Weber’s two ‘Vocation’ lectures: ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ and ‘Politik als Beruf’; actually, she uses the translations ‘Science as Vocation’ and ‘Politics as Vocation’. This book is a revised and expanded version of the Tanner Lectures that she gave during November 2019. It is highly successful when read as a political work, but if read as a piece of scholarship, it is less successful. The book has four sections: ‘Introduction’, ‘Politics’, ‘Knowledge’, and ‘Afterword’. In the ‘Introduction’, Brown explains that the focus of the Tanner Lectures is to discuss values, and it has a goal to bring together values and knowledge which the Enlightenment had separated. Brown emphasizes that merging them now is critical, given the plethora of problems confronting humanity. She notes that it may seem counterintuitive to invoke Max Weber because he not only embraced the distinction between facts and values; he also seemed complicit with ‘some of the most sinister forces contouring our present’. Furthermore, Brown insists ‘Weber was a dark thinker’ (p. 7) and certainly he had a reputation as being volcanic. But he was realistic and that provides Brown with the first of three reasons to ‘think’ with Weber. The second was his willingness to confront the crises of liberalism. The third one which animates these essays was ‘his deep confrontation with the intellectual and political predicaments of our nihilistic epoch’ (pp. 7–10). Brown does not mean that all values have vanished nor does she suggest Weber thought the world lacked all meaning. However, she does insist that the world lost much of the basis for values when science replaced religion. She also insists that 1194135 ISS0010.1177/02685809231194135International SociologyReviews: Sociology and Sociologists review-article2023","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41737518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194154c
Amany Abdelrazek-Alsiefy
Forchtner B (2019) The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. New York: Routledge. İnal O (2022) Authoritarianism, populism, and the environment in Turkey. Environmental History 27(4): 634–641. Kaczynski TJ (1995) Industrial society and its future. The Washington Post. Available at: https:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm Lubarda B (2020) Beyond ecofascism? Far-right ecologism (FRE) as a framework for future inquiries. Environmental Values 29(6): 713–732. Ofstehage A, Wolford W and Borras SM Jr (2022) Contemporary Populism and the Environment. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 47: 671–696. Sedrez L (2022) Scorched land: The erosion of environmental governance during the Bolsonaro Administration. Environmental History 27(4): 657–664. Silke A and Morrison J (2022) Gathering storm: An introduction to the special issue on climate change and terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence 34(5): 883–893. Staudenmaier P (2013) Organic farming in Nazi Germany: The politics of biodynamic agriculture, 1933–1945. Environmental History 18(2): 383–411. Staudenmaier P (2022) Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics between Left and Right. Porsgrunn: New Compass Press. Taylor B (2019) Alt-right ecology: Ecofascism and far-right environmentalism in the United States. In: Forchtner B (ed.) The Far Right and the Environment. New York: Routledge, pp. 275–292.
{"title":"Moncef Marzouki, الدوحة .مجدد سياسي لفكر أسس أي : والبدائل المراجعات: [Reviews and Alternatives: Which Foundations for a Renewed Political Thought?] منصف ،المرزوقي","authors":"Amany Abdelrazek-Alsiefy","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194154c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194154c","url":null,"abstract":"Forchtner B (2019) The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. New York: Routledge. İnal O (2022) Authoritarianism, populism, and the environment in Turkey. Environmental History 27(4): 634–641. Kaczynski TJ (1995) Industrial society and its future. The Washington Post. Available at: https:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm Lubarda B (2020) Beyond ecofascism? Far-right ecologism (FRE) as a framework for future inquiries. Environmental Values 29(6): 713–732. Ofstehage A, Wolford W and Borras SM Jr (2022) Contemporary Populism and the Environment. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 47: 671–696. Sedrez L (2022) Scorched land: The erosion of environmental governance during the Bolsonaro Administration. Environmental History 27(4): 657–664. Silke A and Morrison J (2022) Gathering storm: An introduction to the special issue on climate change and terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence 34(5): 883–893. Staudenmaier P (2013) Organic farming in Nazi Germany: The politics of biodynamic agriculture, 1933–1945. Environmental History 18(2): 383–411. Staudenmaier P (2022) Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics between Left and Right. Porsgrunn: New Compass Press. Taylor B (2019) Alt-right ecology: Ecofascism and far-right environmentalism in the United States. In: Forchtner B (ed.) The Far Right and the Environment. New York: Routledge, pp. 275–292.","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42933441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194166a
Barbara Darimont
{"title":"Wenkai Sun, Population and Labor Market Policies in China’s Reform Process","authors":"Barbara Darimont","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194166a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194166a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45835900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194134
Housamedden Darwish
This critical review delves into Kevin Mazur’s latest publication, Revolution in Syria: Identity, Networks, and Repression (2021), which scrutinizes the transformation of a peaceful civil movement into a civil war characterized by ethnic divisions. The review offers a comprehensive assessment of Mazur’s approach to answering the pivotal question: How did the Syrian conflict evolve along ethnic lines? Spanning 306 pages, the book’s central premise revolves around the notion that the Syrian uprising’s evolution into an ethnicized conflict can be attributed to a confluence of factors, with the predominant catalyst being the ethnically exclusive nature of the incumbent political regime. Of particular interest in this review is the emphasis on the sectarian or ethnic perspective – a prominent lens used to analyse the political and societal landscapes of the Islamicate Arab world. Mazur’s ethno-sectarian perspective, commendably, avoids succumbing to primordial essentialism. However, this review contends that a critical appraisal is warranted regarding Mazur’s conceptualization of Syrians’ identities solely through religious, ethnic, or sectarian affiliations. Similarly, the presumption that these affiliations inherently explain attitudes towards both the ruling regime and the uprising against it raises valid concerns. One notable critique lies in the characterization of Syrians within Mazur’s narrative. Strikingly, absent are depictions of Syrians as a unified populace, individual actors or civic entities. This stems from the book’s classification framework, which hinges on two primary criteria: an ethnic-sectarian criterion and a local or regional one. This duality, while serving analytical purposes, potentially undermines the complexity and diversity inherent within Syrian society. In conclusion, this review acknowledges the significant contributions of Mazur’s book, recognizing its role in shedding light on the ethnicized trajectory of the Syrian conflict. Nonetheless, it urges cautious contemplation of the assumptions underpinning the ethnic-sectarian perspective. The book’s dual classification approach warrants critical consideration for its potential to oversimplify the multifaceted nature of Syrian identities. Thus, while appreciating the book’s value, this review underscores the need to acknowledge its limitations in fostering a comprehensive understanding of the Syrian conflict’s intricate dynamics.
{"title":"From Peaceful Civil Movement to Civil War and Sectarian Polarization: A Critical Review of Kevin Mazur’s Revolution in Syria: Identity, Networks, and Repression","authors":"Housamedden Darwish","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194134","url":null,"abstract":"This critical review delves into Kevin Mazur’s latest publication, Revolution in Syria: Identity, Networks, and Repression (2021), which scrutinizes the transformation of a peaceful civil movement into a civil war characterized by ethnic divisions. The review offers a comprehensive assessment of Mazur’s approach to answering the pivotal question: How did the Syrian conflict evolve along ethnic lines? Spanning 306 pages, the book’s central premise revolves around the notion that the Syrian uprising’s evolution into an ethnicized conflict can be attributed to a confluence of factors, with the predominant catalyst being the ethnically exclusive nature of the incumbent political regime. Of particular interest in this review is the emphasis on the sectarian or ethnic perspective – a prominent lens used to analyse the political and societal landscapes of the Islamicate Arab world. Mazur’s ethno-sectarian perspective, commendably, avoids succumbing to primordial essentialism. However, this review contends that a critical appraisal is warranted regarding Mazur’s conceptualization of Syrians’ identities solely through religious, ethnic, or sectarian affiliations. Similarly, the presumption that these affiliations inherently explain attitudes towards both the ruling regime and the uprising against it raises valid concerns. One notable critique lies in the characterization of Syrians within Mazur’s narrative. Strikingly, absent are depictions of Syrians as a unified populace, individual actors or civic entities. This stems from the book’s classification framework, which hinges on two primary criteria: an ethnic-sectarian criterion and a local or regional one. This duality, while serving analytical purposes, potentially undermines the complexity and diversity inherent within Syrian society. In conclusion, this review acknowledges the significant contributions of Mazur’s book, recognizing its role in shedding light on the ethnicized trajectory of the Syrian conflict. Nonetheless, it urges cautious contemplation of the assumptions underpinning the ethnic-sectarian perspective. The book’s dual classification approach warrants critical consideration for its potential to oversimplify the multifaceted nature of Syrian identities. Thus, while appreciating the book’s value, this review underscores the need to acknowledge its limitations in fostering a comprehensive understanding of the Syrian conflict’s intricate dynamics.","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49170914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194135b
Adfer Rashid Shah
Third, even if we agree with the principle of public sociology, does it really need to be encouraged or promoted within the academy? Given, as acknowledged by Burawoy, that there is already public sociology conducted elsewhere, why would we need to embark upon this exercise within a university and professional research setting? How would, for instance, academic recruitment be affected by Burawoy’s stance? If we were to follow his stance, should we recruit junior academics whose political commitments (and political associations) align with ours? Should we evaluate students’ work (including PhDs) on a similar basis? One can see that this easily leads to a problematic and at worst sectarian academic culture. Fourth, there is a broader methodological issue, one that is intimately connected to Burawoy’s insistence that public sociologists are supposed to learn as much from the publics that they serve, as these publics do from them. If this is indeed his position and that of his fellow public sociologists, then various questions arise. Most importantly, how reliable is this ‘local’ knowledge generated by the public(s) and how do public sociologists evaluate this knowledge? Would it not be vital, especially in some circumstances, for public sociologists to take critical distance from his knowledge provided by their public(s)? Similarly, what distinguishes expertise in the social sciences from the knowledge generated by the publics?
{"title":"Terje Ostebo (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Islam in Africa","authors":"Adfer Rashid Shah","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194135b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194135b","url":null,"abstract":"Third, even if we agree with the principle of public sociology, does it really need to be encouraged or promoted within the academy? Given, as acknowledged by Burawoy, that there is already public sociology conducted elsewhere, why would we need to embark upon this exercise within a university and professional research setting? How would, for instance, academic recruitment be affected by Burawoy’s stance? If we were to follow his stance, should we recruit junior academics whose political commitments (and political associations) align with ours? Should we evaluate students’ work (including PhDs) on a similar basis? One can see that this easily leads to a problematic and at worst sectarian academic culture. Fourth, there is a broader methodological issue, one that is intimately connected to Burawoy’s insistence that public sociologists are supposed to learn as much from the publics that they serve, as these publics do from them. If this is indeed his position and that of his fellow public sociologists, then various questions arise. Most importantly, how reliable is this ‘local’ knowledge generated by the public(s) and how do public sociologists evaluate this knowledge? Would it not be vital, especially in some circumstances, for public sociologists to take critical distance from his knowledge provided by their public(s)? Similarly, what distinguishes expertise in the social sciences from the knowledge generated by the publics?","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43908782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/02685809231194130
Lauri von Pfaler
This review essay considers Vivek Chibber’s social theory of capitalism critically and develops some of the themes that a historicist social theory of capitalist stability should integrate theoretically. I start by outlining Chibber’s notable book and present its key claim about the materiality and primacy of class structure in terms of economic decision-making. I then point out the limits and antinomies of structural theory as a historical explanation, sketch the contours of a historicist methodology and provide examples of three political phenomena that are irreducible to the class structure but that have been central for the reproduction of capitalism. The final section considers the political consequences of my historicist criticism of Chibber.
{"title":"Class structure without politics or history?","authors":"Lauri von Pfaler","doi":"10.1177/02685809231194130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231194130","url":null,"abstract":"This review essay considers Vivek Chibber’s social theory of capitalism critically and develops some of the themes that a historicist social theory of capitalist stability should integrate theoretically. I start by outlining Chibber’s notable book and present its key claim about the materiality and primacy of class structure in terms of economic decision-making. I then point out the limits and antinomies of structural theory as a historical explanation, sketch the contours of a historicist methodology and provide examples of three political phenomena that are irreducible to the class structure but that have been central for the reproduction of capitalism. The final section considers the political consequences of my historicist criticism of Chibber.","PeriodicalId":47662,"journal":{"name":"International Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47460044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：