Kristoffer Kropp

A Sociology of Knowledge Approach to European Integration: Four Analytical Principles

Abstract Scholars are deeply involved in the process of European integration, but we lack systematic understanding of this involvement. On the one hand, scholars, academic ideas and ideologies shape European integration and policies (e.g. the Economic and Monetary Union and the free movement of people). On the other hand, EU institutions, policies and practitioners produce particular forms of knowledge (e.g. the Eurobarometer and benchmarking of national performances) that inform social scientific choices of theories, methods and research topics. Drawing on the new sociology of knowledge as well as Science and Technology Studies (STS) and political sociology, this introductory article develops a framework for studying the entanglement of EU studies with the EU around four analytical principles: (1) the principle of symmetry, (2) the principle of rejecting the internal/external division, (3) the principle of situatedness and (4) the principle of contextualism. A sociology of knowledge approach provides alternative explanations of the EU’s development and of our scholarly attempts to make sense of it.

Mode-2 social science knowledge production? The case of Danish sociology between institutional crisis and new welfare stabilizations

The notion of mode-2 knowledge production points to far-reaching transformations in science-society relations, but few attempts have been made to investigate what growing economic and political demands on research may entail for the social sciences. This case study of new patterns of social science knowledge production outlines some major institutional and cognitive changes in Danish academic sociology during ‘mode-2’ times, from the 1980s onwards. Empirically, we rely on documentary sources and qualitative interviews with Danish sociologists, aiming to reconstruct institutional trajectories expressive of wider changes in the field. The analysis shows this has been a period of exceptional volatility in Danish sociology, from institutional crisis in the 1980s to a gradual re-expansion since the 1990s. Drawing on a four-fold typology of professional, critical, public, and policy sociologies, we show how a particular cognitive modality of sociology — ‘welfare reflexivity’ — has become a dominant form of Danish sociological knowledge production. Welfare reflexivity has proven a viable response to volatile mode-2 policy conditions. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

No Crisis but Methodological Separatism: A Comparative Study of Finnish and Danish Publication Trends between 1990 and 2009

This article compares methodological trends in nationally and internationally oriented sociology using data from the articles of three Nordic sociological journals: one international (Acta Sociologica), one Finnish (Sosiologia), and one Danish (Dansk Sociologi). The data consists of 943 articles in total: 353 published in Acta Sociologica, 277 in Sosiologia and 313 in Dansk Sociologi over the period 1990–2009. We distinguish between three main types of article: those having no or very little empirical content; empirical articles applying qualitative analysis; and empirical articles applying quantitative methods. The results suggest that quantitative research is increasingly concentrated in international publishing venues, while national journals act more and more as platforms for qualitative research. In conclusion, the broader implications of these diverging publishing trends for sociological research are discussed.

Social sciences in the field of power – the case of Danish social science

The social science disciplines are strongly differentiated both on an epistemological level and in problem choice. It can be argued that they are characterized by a number of different epistemological ways of position-taking or ways of legitimizing social scientific knowledge production. Furthermore, different scientific problems and social institutions are allocated as research objects to different social science disciplines. This article looks into how these different epistemological styles and choice of scientific problems not only are internal principles of differentiation but also constitute important relations to other powerful social interests and institutions in the field of power. I argue that we can understand the social sciences as a field of force and struggle, where different disciplines compete in producing legitimate representations of the social that also represent specific societal interests. Using the language of Bourdieu, I construct a space of social scientific epistemological position-taking using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA). Into this space I project a number of supplementary variables representing social science disciplines, position-taking towards non-academic institutions, interests and research subjects, and thus show how different epistemological position-taking is connected to specific societal interests, problems and institutions. The article draws on data from a survey conducted among Danish social scientists in autumn 2009.

The European Social Survey and European research policy: Homological structures and conjunctural alliances

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the history of the European Social Survey (ESS) and its relationship to changes in European research policy, using Bourdieu’s field-analytical approach. It argues that the success of the ESS relied on three interwoven processes that we can understand theoretically in terms of the establishment of homological structures and the formation of conjunctural alliances between the field of European social-scientific research and the field of European policy. The three interwoven processes that I depict are: first, the production of a European field of social research, connected to both European and national scientific institutions; second, the establishment of European Union (EU) institutions and organisations that were able to identify and link up with social researchers; and third, the formation of conjunctural alliances between the two fields (social science and EU research policy) and the appearance of actors able to move capital between them.

The Cases of the European Values Study and the European Social Survey: European Constellations of Social Science Knowledge Production

This paper analyses two European social science surveys in a comparative perspective. Some twenty years apart, two groups of scholars launched two European social surveys. In 1981, the first round of the European Values Study (EVS) took place and twenty years later, in 2001, the first round of the European Social Survey (ESS) was launched. From the outset, both surveys were closely connected to national and European social scientific institutions, had ties to the EU and used the most sophisticated survey techniques of their time to address urgent contemporary political and social problems.xa0 However, only the ESS has managed to exploit these connections to European political institutions in order to obtain symbolic and monetary resources. The article argues that, in order to explain the trajectory of two social surveys, we need to understand not only the scientific and organizational properties of the two surveys, but just as importantly the constellation of the European field of research policy and the field of social science in Europe. In the twenty years separating the EVS and the ESS, social sciences and not least classical issues like social cohesion and political participation had become a part of issues funded through the EU research policies. In this way, the paper shows that success of social scientific projects are not only a result of the intrinsic qualities of the projects, but need to be understood in relation to and as a consequence of how it relates to of the social institutions and uses opening offers by changes in the settlement.

Dansk Sociologis rolle i dansk sociologi – vidensdeling og inspiration gennem 25 år

Artiklen skildrer historien om Dansk Sociologi fra etableringen i 1989-1990 til njubilaeumsaret 2014. Initiativet blev taget af Dansk Sociologforening under nden institutionelle krise i faget, der kulminerede da undervisningsminister nBertel Haarder besluttede at lukke uddannelsen. Tidsskriftet har vaeret benyttet nsom publiceringskanal af en meget stor andel af danske sociologer og noplagstal har vaeret stigende frem til omkring 2006. De seneste 10-15 ar har nman kunnet se et skift i indholdsprofilen, fra en dominans af teoretisk orienterede nemner over mod en bred vifte af empiriske emner og en tilpasning til nen mainstream akademisk, upersonlig form. Dansk Sociologi er et udpraeget npluralistisk tidsskrift og kontroverser mellem forskellige teoretiske retninger neller om specifikke sporgsmal har man ikke set. Artiklen drofter ogsa fremtidige nudfordringer som isaer er internationalisering, de nye digitale medier og nkrav om open access. n n nENGELSK ABSTRACT: n nKristoffer Kropp, Gry Malling Loehr and Heine Andersen: nThe Role of Dansk Sociologi in the Development of Danish Sociology. Dissemination of Knowledge and Inspiration for 25 years n nThis article describes and evaluates the journal Dansk Sociologi (Danish Sociology) nfrom its inception in 1989-1990 until its 25th anniversary in 2014. The nDanish Sociological Association took the initiative to set up the journal during nsociology’s institutional crisis due to fact that the Minister of Education had ndecided to close the sociology department at the University of Copenhagen, nthe only place in Denmark with the discipline. The article discusses the evolution nof the journal’s organizational framework, its authors, editors, and content. nThe journal has been used as a vehicle for publication by a large proportion nof Danish sociologists. Subscriptions have been growing until 2006. There nhas been a shift from theoretical articles to a wider range of empirical ones, nand from a more discussion-based form to a more detached and standardized nacademic one. There has been considerable pluralism, and there have been no nmajor controversies. The challenges that the journal must address are an internationalization pressure that could weaken authors’ incentives to write for a nDanish journal, the transition to internet media, and finally requirements for nopen access that could threaten the journal’s economy. n nKeywords: the journal Dansk Sociologi, the Danish Sociological Association, nsociology’s history.

From Pre-Disciplinary to Institutionalised Sociology

This chapter provides an overview of Danish sociology from around 1870 to 1960. The chapter analyses the many unsuccessful attempts to institutionalise sociology in Denmark in the early period. It shows how early sociologists pursued academic careers in the intersection between academia, civic society organisation and staThe bureaucracy, but despiThe relative success and academic recognition, sociologists were not able to establish continued sociological institutions often due to opposition from dominating disciplines like economics and philosophy.

Disciplines as Social Spaces

This chapter presents a conceptual framework for studying scientific disciplines inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s field analytical approach. Focussing on the social sciences, it argues that recent discussions have under-theorised scientific disciplines focussing too strongly on apparently changing condition of scientific knowledge production conceptualised as Mode 2 knowledge production. Following Bourdieu’s field analytical approach, Kropp suggests an analytical approach containing three analytical movements: mental structures, institutional structures and relations to other fields and to the field of power.

Welfare-State Sociological Knowledge

This chapter concludes on the previous four chapters. Using the conceptual framework from the first chapter, it analyses the contemporary staThe of Danish sociology, its historical roots and historical processes. It concludes that Danish sociology is characterised by its close connections to the Danish welfare staThe and its strategies of professionalization after the closing of the sociological departments in the 1980s. In this way the current structure of the field of sociology resembles the structure of 100 years ago despiThe obvious differences in institutional setup.