The New Sociological Imagination: Facing the Challenges of a New Millennium

This article introduces the reader to the problems and the topics treated by the contributors to this special issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. It offers a reflection on the concept of sociological imagination conceived as a key element for the task of facing the intellectual challenges of the present times. What is sociological imagination? How has it been used by the main cultivators of sociology throughout history? And particularly, how is sociological imagination being renewed nowadays by some of the most successful exponents of sociological research? These are some questions considered in this introduction. The new sociological imagination uses theory, history, empirical facts, logical formalization, systematic analysis, creativity, local knowledge, moral judgment and inspiration. What distinctively constitutes its elements is not just the search for correlations between abstract variables, but the search for pertinent relationships among facts, moral problems, structural conditions, historical concerns, personal worries and ethical values of contemporary societies. The new sociological imagination is a search for satisfactory ways of understanding the contemporary world in a rational, communicable, telling and coherent way, while also contributing to the development of the public sphere and a collective understanding of social issues.     

“The Sociological Imagination” as Cliché: Perils of Sociology and Practices of Journalism

The “sociological imagination” that connects personal troubles to public issues is an idea that was in the air when C. Wright Mills gave it a name and advanced it in a way to make it part of the intellectual armament of the New Left. Later, journalistic practice would turn it into a cliché while sociology would assume prematurely that it was a weapon for the left rather than a tool that could be used from and for different political positions. This essay is a set of second thoughts about the meaning of the “sociological imagination” since Mills.     

A Historical Sociology of the New Cultural Diplomacy

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - Although the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ is familiar, it was infrequently used before the end of the Cold War. In fact,...     

The Sociology of New Wars? Assessing the Causes and Objectives of Contemporary Violent Conflicts

The recent accounts of the new war paradigm have been thoroughly scrutinized in a variety of disciplines from security studies and international relations to political economy. The general trend is to focus on the scope, methods, tactics, strategies, forms of war, and/or the level of atrocity. However, there has been little sustained attempt to assess structural causes and the arguments about the changing aims of contemporary warfare. This paper provides a critical analysis of the macro sociological accounts of the new war paradigm with a spotlight on the purpose and causes of the recent wars. The author argues that despite the development of elaborate models, the sociology of contemporary warfare rests on shaky foundations and hence fails to convince. Rather than witnessing a dramatic shift in the causes and objectives of contemporary violent conflict, one encounters a significant transformation in the social and historical context in which these wars are waged.     

Security Through Sociology: The North Caucasus and the Global Counterinsurgency Paradigm

The global counterinsurgency strategy to combat terrorism emphasizes responding to the social and economic needs of communities where terrorists may find support. Public opinion data can help in that strategy, as shown by a 2006 survey of 1,200 young males from three provinces in Russia's North Caucasus. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the survey shows few signs of burgeoning radical Islam or ethnic animosity. Instead, economic conditions and poor governance are primary concerns. The region provides both an opportunity and threat: policymakers can and should address the region's needs; if not, radical Islamist groups can turn it into a flashpoint for terrorism.     

Dialogue and the Administrator-Mediator

Abstract

Conflict resolution is a widespread challenge in organizational life. Many common sense ideas about conflict fail to take into account communication behavior in a psychosocial context. Instead, they focus on “moves” and established techniques as the way to solve problems. This article presents a deeper conceptualization of conflict, mediation, and peacemaking that focuses upon psychosocial and existential issues embedded in both conflict and peacemaking. The central theme is that a host of human developmental variables interfere with “authentic dialogue.” These are the key for constructive and lasting dispute resolution.     

Suicide Terrorism,Occupation, and the Globalization of Martyrdom: A Critique of Dying to Win

This article offers a three-pronged critique of Robert A. Pape's book Dying to Win. The first section of the article highlights problems related to the book's definition of key concepts, its assessment of existing research on suicide terrorism, and its presentation of data. The next section challenges the book's argument that suicide attacks have a high success rate of 54 percent. The alternative analysis offered here arrives at a significantly lower success rate of 24 percent. The last section argues that Pape exaggerates the link between occupation and suicide terrorism, especially with regard to the case of Al Qaeda. In this context, a distinction between traditional (localized) and contemporary (globalized) patterns of suicide attacks is introduced. It is argued that the occupation thesis may help explain the traditional (localized) pattern of suicide attacks, but falls short of illuminating the causes of the contemporary “globalization of martyrdom.”     

朝韩对话前景与半岛形势转圜

2010年,东北亚地区经历了朝鲜战争之后不多见的外交对抗与军事紧张。2011年初,对话的希望再次复苏,朝韩对话也首次被提上地区多边协商必要前提的地位,聚集了世界舆论的关注,也承载了地区重回缓和协商之路的期待。然而在各方深层矛盾仍然纠结的情况下,朝韩对话能否顺利推进还不容乐观。     

Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

“四方安全对话”的新发展及前景探析

自2017年美、日、印、澳“四方安全对话”重新启动以来,其虽然只开展了少量且缺乏实质性内容的行动,却引发了大量讨论和高度的政策关注。纵观这一对话的发展演变可以看出,四国之间的某些共识构成了其重启后的显著特点,如更明确地将目标指向中国、以“民主价值观”作为秩序构建的出发点、服务于美国“印太战略”的需要以及开始将关注重点延伸至发展和治理领域等。基于这些新特点,“四方安全对话”在近三年来的实践中提升了四国之间的战略联系和协同作战能力、从议题领域和地理范围两个维度拓展了四国的战略合作、在外交上释放了四国团结一致的政治信号,并强化了美国主导的地区安全结构,从而对“印太”地缘环境产生了不容忽视的影响。尽管从组织内部以及次区域战略环境角度分析,“四方安全对话”的前景仍有很大的不确定性,但考虑到这一新的地缘战略安排针对中国的目标指向性,以发展的眼光看待并审慎地予以应对,是中国从外交上塑造地区和平秩序、维护国家安全和发展利益的应有之义。     

热话题与冷思考(三十五)--关于构建更加安全和谐的社会的对话

彭萍萍:20多年来,中国社会一直处于由传统社会向现代社会转型之中.但是,在伴随经济发展、社会进步以及文化繁荣的同时,我们的社会中已经隐含了许多风险,人们对安全社会的追求也越来越强烈.中共十六大报告提出了全面建设小康社会的目标,目的是要建设一个更加安全的社会,促进人与人的协调、人与社会的协调以及人与自然的和谐.那么,引发社会安全问题的因素主要有哪些呢?