Philip S. Gorski

The Protestant Ethic Revisited: Disciplinary Revolution and State Formation in Holland and Prussia

Current theories explain state structure and strength in terms of differences in socioeconomic and administrative development. Here, it is argued that a third factor was also critical in early modern state formation: a disciplinary revolution unleashed by ascetic Protestant movements. The essay critiques Foucalts and Eliass theories of social disciplinization, explores the importance of disciplinary revolutions for the formation of two types of states (constitutional republics and military-bureaucratic monarchies), and seeks to identify and correct deficiencies in the neo-Marxist and institutionalist theories of the state.

The Poverty of Deductivism: A Constructive Realist Model of Sociological Explanation

Despite the lip service which many sociologists pay to Poppers hypothetico-deductive model (HDM) of theory testing, few if any major social theories have been definitively falsified. The reason is that sociological explanations do not fit the deductivist model of explanation: They do not contain universal or statistical “covering laws” from which falsifiable hypotheses could be deduced. Sociological explanations are better conceived in realist terms as causal models of the social processes that produce certain outcomes. While few models are completely false, some are nonetheless more empirically adequate than others. This essay argues that (1) the CLM is inadequate to sociology and that (2) attempts to reformulate the HDM are therefore destined to fail. It then outlines (3) a constructive realist model (CRM) of sociological explanation and uses it to develop (4) explanatory realist (ER) criteria for evaluating explanations. Deductivist and realist approaches to methodology are then compared through an examination of Skocpols States and Social Revolutions.

Conditions of religious belonging: Confessionalization, de-parochialization, and the Euro-American divergence

This article presents an alternative account of comparative trajectories of secularization and religious change in Europe and America. Building on (1) ‘supply-side,’ (2) neo-orthodox secularization, and (3) historicist schools, the authors develop a synthetic explanatory framework which emphasizes changed conditions of religious belonging amid the transition to modernity. Modernization, they suggest, disrupted older, parochialized forms of religious community which emerged in the Middle Ages. The authors describe the rise and diffusion of newer, de-parochialized forms of religious belonging and organization in the 18th and 19th centuries and stress their comparative compatibility with modernity; here the authors draw special attention to the impact of missionary organizational schemas derived in colonial environments and re-purposed for domestic evangelism. They argue that mass unchurching was positively related to the persistence of parochialism and negatively related to the spread of post-parochialism. The salient comparison is therefore not merely between Western Europe and the US, but rather between national cases in which de-parochialization accompanied political and economic modernization and those in which it did not.

Causal Mechanisms: Lessons from the Life Sciences

This paper reviews recent scholarship on causal mechanisms in both the social and biological sciences. It does so with a particular focus on North America and from the perspective of critical realism. It identifies four conceptions of causal mechanisms within the social sciences: mainstream, analytical, counterfactual and neo-pragmatist. It argues that none are fully realist or sufficiently critical because all are influenced by a physicalist ontology characterized by ‘smallism’ and actualism. It then turns to recent work in the philosophy of biology, focusing in particular on the Chicago School around William Wimsatt. I argue that biological explanation cannot be adequately accounted for in physicalist terms. I conclude with critical reflections on the continuing influence of physicalism, even within critical realism, and on the disanalogies between the biological and social sciences.

Human Flourishing and Human Morphogenesis: A Critical Realist Interpretation and Critique

Critical Realists have long argued that social science has an axiological concern with “human flourishing.” But they have rarely spelt out what they mean by this term. It is urgent that they do so, in order to respond effectively to the post-humanist movement’s appropriation of the flourishing concept. This article sketches a theory of human flourishing that is: (1) rooted in the Aristotelian tradition that underlies most versions of CR; (2) compatible with central tenets of CR such as “emergence”, “ontological stratification”, “actualism” and “transcendence”; and (3) allows for a critical assessment of the posthumanist vision. The conclusion reflects on the implications of human morphogenesis for social morphogenesis and social theory.

Reflexive Secularity: Thoughts on the Reflexive Imperative in a Secular Age

What effect does the morphogenetic society have on contemporary religion, and vice versa? Pace classical secularization theory, social change is not leading to religious decline. Rather, globalization has triggered countervailing processes of dis/embedding and re/assemblage that are reshaping religion in contingent and unpredictable ways. Whether the religious future is “global denominationalism” (Casanova), a “clash of civilization” (Huntington) or something other remains unclear.

BARACK OBAMA AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISMS

Barack Obamas critics question whether he believes in “American exceptionalism.” Evaluating this judgment requires some historical perspective and analytical clarity about the shifting and manifold meanings of the term. There are two main types of American exceptionalism: a “crusader exceptionalism” favored by most of Obamas GOP rivals, and a “prophetic exceptionalism” articulated by Obama. Both forms are rooted in the Bible, but they draw on different parts of it. Republican positions on foreign policy have become steadily more unilateralist, exemptionalist, and preemptive. For Obama, the “promise of America” is the possibility of equality, solidarity, and unity among people from around the globe.

Product Review: An Archaeology of Sociology: Ancient Roots of a Modern Discipline

would write, but that every sociologist could read and which every sociological theorist and historical sociologist probably should read. It would not have been written by a sociologist, because it compares the lives, scholarship and politics of three figures— Max Weber, Karl Polanyi and Moses Finley— whom few, if any, of us would have thought to compare. We have not been trained to see the red thread that connects them all—the century-long oikos (household) debate—and, frankly, because few of us have read Weber, Polanyi and Finley’s writings on the ancient economy, the subject of the oikos debate, we surmise they are irrelevant to our more contemporary theoretical and political concerns. Nafissi shows us how wrong we are. While few sociologists have read Finley, most have read Polanyi, and all have read Weber. And because so much has been written about Weber and Polanyi, it is not easy to say anything new about them. However, by situating their work within the oikos debate, Nafissi is able to throw new light on some old questions. Attentive readers of The Protestant Ethic may have wondered why Weber makes “free labor” into a defining feature of modern capitalism. The common wisdom is that this is an ironic nod to Marx. Nafissi suggests a rather different reading. In the ancient world, Weber argues, capitalism and slavery not only coexisted, but reinforced one another: slavery, after all, made labor into a commodity and created labor markets. However, Weber contends that the availability of cheap labor also discouraged capital investments and technical innovations, thereby slowing growth in output and productivity. Thus, “free labor” is a distinguishing feature of “modern capitalism,” and one of the secrets of its extraordinary dynamism. The discussion of Polanyi is even more illuminating, both because the history of his life, work, and opinions will be less familiar to most sociologists, and because Nafissi’s discussion of Polanyi draws on a good deal of original, historical scholarship. Thus, we learn that The Great Transformation was the synthetic integration of a personal and intellectual odyssey that took Polanyi from Hungary to Vienna to London to New York and from orthodox Marxism to liberal radicalism to Tolstoyan Christianity to a Christian socialism and, finally, to a kind of negative synthesis of these views held together by a “scared hatred” of liberalism. During the course of Nafissi’s retelling, the reader is also reminded of certain aspects of Polanyi’s work that his admirers might want to forget, particularly his long and loving embrace of Stalinism, and his rather tepid feelings towards democracy. We are also given the classicists’ negative verdict on Polanyi’s final project: his effort to prove that the “self-regulating market” is uniquely modern by showing that ancient economies were based on (non-monetary) “reciprocity” and (state-led) “redistribution.” So by reading their work in a new context and against a biographical backdrop, Nafissi compels social theorists to reinterpret and reevaluate works they thought they understood. Nafissi’s book is also a must-read for the historical sociologist, because it gives us a new and wider vantage point on two seminal questions, viz., the origins of capitalism and A SYMPOSIUM ON THEORY CONNECTIONS: REVIEW ESSAYS ON THEORY AND HISTORY

Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

1. Introduction 2. The origins of patrimonial absolutism in Latin Europe 3. The triumph of patrimonial absolutism and the failure of reform in Latin Europe, c. 1500-1789 4. Bureaucratic constitutionalism in Britain 5. Bureaucratic absolutism in Germany 6. Patrimonial constitutionalism in Hungary and Poland and its premature demise in Scandinavia 7. Conclusion.

Christianity and Democracy after Trump

A little over a year ago, I wrote an essay asking: “Why did evangelicals vote for Donald Trump?” The answer, I argued, was that Trump’s rhetoric resonated deeply with the evangelical worldview, albeit in non-obvious ways. Today, the question is: “Why do evangelicals (still) support Donald Trump?” The answer, I worry, is that Trumpism has transformed evangelicalism in a worryingly anti-democratic direction. For much of American history, Christianity and democracy have mostly reinforced one another. Today, they seem mostly at odds – and not only in the United States. One of the most important tasks for contemporary political theology is to harmonize them once again. So, why did evangelicals vote for Trump? It is important to remember that most non-white evangelicals did not vote for Trump. The real question is why so many white evangelicals did so – four out of five, according to the exit polls. In answering that question, it is also important to remember that: (1) Trump was not the first choice of most evangelicals during the Republican primaries; (2) Trump embraced the evangelical position on key issues (e.g., abortion and gay marriage). The real puzzle is this: why was Trump the first choice for a plurality of white evangelicals in the Spring of 2016? One possible answer is that race trumped religion – that white evangelical voters voted as whites rather than as evangelicals. That is in fact the preferred answer on the left today: the election of Donald Trump was a reassertion of “white supremacy.” My own answer is more intersectional: the white evangelicals who voted for Trump in the primaries did not vote as whites or as evangelicals but rather as white evangelicals. More specifically, they voted as white Christian nationalists who believe the United States was founded by (white) Christians, and that (white) Christians are in danger of becoming a persecuted (national) minority. For them, “making America great again”means making White Christianity culturally dominant again. Trump himself is not really a white Christian nationalist. However, Trumpism can be understood as a secularized version of white Christian nationalism. In American Covenant, I argued that the American version of religious nationalism draws on Biblical discourses of apocalypse and blood conquest. Specifically, it draws on “premillennial dispensationalism,” a reading of the books of Daniel and Revelation to which most contemporary evangelicals now subscribe. In addition, it draws on a Protestant reading of the Jewish scriptures governed by the metaphor of blood: blood conquest, blood sacrifice, blood atonement and blood purity. Trump’s rhetoric is devoid of the Biblical allusions that peppered George W. Bush’s and even Ronald Reagan’s. But it is rife with blood and apocalypse. Consider two examples. Who can forget his dismissive remarks about anchorwoman Megyn Kelly – “blood coming out of her whatever”? Or his incessant descriptions of “disaster” including Obamacare, immigration, the Iran deal? In both these ways, Trump’s worldview resonated powerfully with the evangelical narrative. One of the most interesting findings to come out of the endless opinion polling in 2016 was this: amongst white evangelicals, there was an inverse correlation between churchgoing and Trump-supporting. In other words, the more often an evangelical attended, the less likely they were to prefer Trump. For #alwaysTrumpers, one suspects, “evangelical” was more of