Neil Gross

A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanisms

Some sociologists have recently argued that a major aim of sociological inquiry is to identify the mechanisms by which cause and effect relationships in the social world come about. This article argues that existing accounts of social mechanisms are problematic because they rest on either inadequately developed or questionable understandings of social action. Building on an insight increasingly common among sociological theorists—that action should be conceptualized in terms of social practices—I mobilize ideas from the tradition of classical American pragmatism to develop a more adequate theory of mechanisms. I identify three kinds of analytical problems the theory is especially well poised to address and then lay out an agenda for future research.

The MechanistasAnalytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms, edited by DemeulenaerePierre. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 320pp.

There’s a new kid on the social-theoretical block, and he’s got a lot of swagger for someone who is so into video games. Analytical sociology, the approach to social explanation developed by Peter Hedström, Peter Abell, Raymond Boudon, Jon Elster, and others, can now boast talented followers, a regular conference series (the fifth annual meeting was just held in New York), and several edited volumes of programmatic and substantive papers. The most significant of the volumes is The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology (2009), edited by Hedström and Peter Bearman. Here the basic principles of the approach—methodological individualism, conceptual precision and formalization, a focus on causal mechanisms, a concern with aggregation dynamics, and an interest in bringing together theorization, observational data, and computer simulations—are on full display in meaty chapters. Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms, edited by Pierre Demeulenaere, is the newest contribution to this stream of scholarship. The best chapters showcase the promise of analytical sociology, while the less successful ones highlight its risk of sterility. Things do not get off to an auspicious start. ‘‘Analytical sociology should not. . . be seen as a manifesto for one particular way of doing sociology as compared with others,’’ Demeulenaere insists on the first page of his introduction, sounding a pluralistic note—only to continue by saying that analytical sociology is instead ‘‘an effort to clarify (‘analytically’) theoretical and epistemological principles which underlie any satisfactory way of doing sociology (and, in fact, any social science)’’ (p. 1). In other words, analytical sociologists are not trying to tell other scholars how they should formulate explanations, all they are saying is that unless they adopt the principles of analytical sociology, their explanations will not be satisfactory. That’s some kind of pluralism! The introduction picks up after that, as Demeulenaere fruitfully compares analytical sociology to methodological individualism, considers how the approach understands mechanisms (as generic interaction sequences), and tries to respond to some common objections, like the charge that analytical sociology is merely the latest incarnation of rational choice theory. The chapters in Part I delve into analytic sociology’s theoretical foundations. Forget theories of utility maximization, Raymond Boudon tells us in his contribution. The ‘‘best candidate to form the core principle, or grammar, of the social sciences’’ is the ‘‘theory of ordinary rationality,’’ in which people are seen to form beliefs that shape their action because they think they have good reasons for doing so (pp. 38, 33). For example, says Boudon, today there is ‘‘consensus’’ in most democratic countries about the need for a modestly progressive income tax, and the best explanation for this is simply that most people believe the poor should receive some government assistance, while also believing that too progressive a tax structure would lead the rich to flee. Leaving aside the question of whether any such consensus exists, Boudon’s approach is problematic because it can only generate explanations by treating as basically exogenous the assumptions, moral intuitions, and cultural schemas that lead people to draw the conclusions they do. Boudon tries to deal with this by distinguishing between ‘‘context-dependent’’ and ‘‘context-free’’ beliefs (p. 37)—that is, between beliefs that only make sense in a given sociocultural milieu and those that aim at more universal Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms, edited by Pierre Demeulenaere. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 320pp.

32.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521154352.

32.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521154352. 368 Review Essays

Is There a “Ferguson Effect?” Google Searches, Concern about Police Violence, and Crime in U.S. Cities, 2014–2016:

Between 2014 and 2016, the rate of homicide and other violent crime in the United States rose. One hypothesis discussed in the press and by some social scientists is that this increase was tied to political mobilization against police violence: As the Black Lives Matter movement gained support following protests in Ferguson, Missouri, perhaps police officers, worried about the new public mood, scaled back their law enforcement efforts, with crime as a consequence. In this article, we examine the association between public concern over police violence and crime rates using Google search measures to estimate the former. Analyzing data on 43 large U.S. cities, we find that violent crime was higher and rose more in cities where concern about police violence was greatest. We also find that measures of social inequality predict crime rates. We conclude by discussing the implications for future research on the “Ferguson effect” and beyond.

Looking back at "Social knowledge in the making"

In this response to comments on her book How Professors Think, Lamont discusses several points raised by discussants. She also contrasts their respective perspectives and the complementarity of their viewpoints. She identifies the questions they leave open, possible ambiguities in interpretation, as well as topics for future research.