The Significance of Method

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacek Szmatka ◽  
Michael J. Lovaglia
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Effective Manner

While the importance of metatheory for theory growth has received some attention from sociologists, the importance of methodological preferences has been overlooked. We examine an influential model of theory growth in social science. This model focuses on theory. We show how recent work in the sociology of science suggests an equally important place for methodological preference in guiding social research. Bringing in method allows us to recognize that what often passes for fundamental metatheoretical differences among subfields in sociology actually consists of minor squabbles over resource allocation. We show that not only does social theory grow strategically through theoretical research programs, but that the different forms of theoretical work in sociology serve to integrate the work of diverse researchers in a less efficient but still effective manner.

Political Science Methodology

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier ◽  
Henry E. Brady ◽  
David Collier
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Political Methodology ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
Social Science Methodology

Political methodology offers techniques for clarifying the theoretical meaning of concepts such as revolution and for developing definitions of revolutions. It also provides descriptive indicators for comparing the scope of revolutionary change, and sample surveys for gauging the support for revolutions. It then presents an array of methods for making causal inferences that provide insights into the causes and consequences of revolutions. An overview of the book is given. Topics addressed include social theory and approaches to social science methodology; concepts and development measurement; causality and explanation in social research; experiments, quasi-experiments, and natural experiments; general methods of quantitative tools for causal and descriptive inference; quantitative tools for causal and descriptive inference; qualitative tools for causal inference; and organizations, institutions, and movements in the field of methodology. In general, the Handbook provides overviews of specific methodologies, but it also emphasizes three things: utility for understanding politics, pluralism of approaches, and cutting across boundaries. This volume discusses interpretive and constructivist methods, along with broader issues of situating alternative analytic tools in relation to an understanding of culture.

Feudal Europe, 800–1300: communal discourse and conflictual practices

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Structural Theory ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Scientific Argument

The discipline of international relations faces a new debate of fundamental significance. After the realist challenge to the pervasive idealism of the interwar years and the social scientific argument against realism in the late 1950s, it is now the turn of critical theorists to dispute the established paradigms of international politics, having been remarkably successful in several other fields of social inquiry. In essence, critical theorists claim that all social reality is subject to historical change, that a normative discourse of understandings and values entails corresponding practices, and that social theory must include interpretation and dialectical critique. In international relations, this approach particularly critiques the ahistorical, scientific, and materialist conceptions offered by neorealists. Traditional realists, by contrast, find a little more sympathy in the eyes of critical theorists because they join them in their rejection of social science and structural theory. With regard to liberal institutionalism, critical theorists are naturally sympathetic to its communitarian component while castigating its utilitarian strand as the accomplice of neorealism. Overall, the advent of critical theory will thus focus the field of international relations on its “interparadigm debate” with neorealism.

Theory, Method, and Social Reproduction in Social Science History: A Short Jeremiad

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-499
Author(s):  
Charles Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Collective Enterprise

Let me begin with a simple theme, repentance, and a simple message: repent from complacency in the practice and defense of social science history (SSH). I say this because I do not see social science historians meeting three major challenges that must be overcome if the larger, collective enterprise is to survive with the same vitality it had a decade ago. Those challenges are, first, to bring social theory forcefully back into historical research; second, to take formal methods to a new, higher level; and, third, to seek to train the next generation of social science historians in the theory and methods they will need in the next century.

Understanding Bayesianism: Fundamentals for Process Tracers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Andrew Bennett ◽  
Andrew E. Charman ◽  
Tasha Fairfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Bayesian Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Methods ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
The State ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Bayesian Reasoning ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Positive View

Abstract Bayesian analysis has emerged as a rapidly expanding frontier in qualitative methods. Recent work in this journal has voiced various doubts regarding how to implement Bayesian process tracing and the costs versus benefits of this approach. In this response, we articulate a very different understanding of the state of the method and a much more positive view of what Bayesian reasoning can do to strengthen qualitative social science. Drawing on forthcoming research as well as our earlier work, we focus on clarifying issues involving mutual exclusivity of hypotheses, evidentiary import, adjudicating among more than two hypotheses, and the logic of iterative research, with the goal of elucidating how Bayesian analysis operates and pushing the field forward.

Why they shared: recovering early arguments for sharing social scientific data

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-119
Author(s):  
Emily Hauptmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The University ◽  
University Consortium

ArgumentMost social scientists today think of data sharing as an ethical imperative essential to making social science more transparent, verifiable, and replicable. But what moved the architects of some of the U.S.’s first university-based social scientific research institutions, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), and its spin-off, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), to share their data? Relying primarily on archived records, unpublished personal papers, and oral histories, I show that Angus Campbell, Warren Miller, Philip Converse, and others understood sharing data not as an ethical imperative intrinsic to social science but as a useful means to the diverse ends of financial stability, scholarly and institutional autonomy, and epistemological reproduction. I conclude that data sharing must be evaluated not only on the basis of the scientific ideals its supporters affirm, but also on the professional objectives it serves.

Book Reviews: Behavioral Sociology: The Experimental Analysis of Social Process, Balance in Small Groups, Racial Violence in the United States, The Education of Borstal Boys, The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom, IV, Types of Religious Man, Men in Mid-Career: A Study of British Managers and Technical Specialists, The Family and the Handicapped Child: A Study of Cerebral Palsied Children in Their Homes, The Assessment of Social Research: Guidelines for the Use of Social Research in Social Work and Social Science, The Conditions of Social Performance: An Exploratory Theory, Families and Their Relatives: Kinship in a Middle-Class Sector of London, The Population Census: A Social Science Research Council Review, Introduction to Social Work, Theories of Social Psychology, Put Away: A Sociological Study of Institutions for the Mentally Retarded, City Lads in Borstal: A Study Based on 100 Lads Discharged to Addresses in Liverspool, Science, Industry and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Science, Interaction Concept of Personality, Hightown Grammar: The School as a Social System, Causes of Delinquency, towards a Sociology of the Cinema: A Comparative Essay on the Structure and Functioning of a Major Entertainment Industry

1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-456
Author(s):  
A. P. M. Coxon ◽  
Patrick Doreian ◽  
Robin Oakley ◽  
Ian B. Stephen ◽  
Bryan R. Wilson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Population Census ◽  
Sociological Study

The Edwards' Report and the International Relations profession

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Science Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Community

The Economic and Social Research Council recently published a Report commissioned from a committee chaired by Professor Edwards, a psychiatrist, so that the Council, and the social science community in general, might know what was good and bad in British social sciences, and where the promising future research opportunities lie over the next decade. Boldly called ‘Horizons and Opportunities in the Social Sciences’, the Report condensed the wisdom of social scientists, both British and foreign, and concludes with a broadly but not uncritically favourable picture of the British scene.

scholarly journals 5G Wireless/Wired Convergence of UFMC Based Modulation for Intensity Modulation Direct Detection

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keerthivasan K ◽  
Shibu S
Keyword(s):  
Network Architecture ◽  
Direct Detection ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Base Stations ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Implementation Model ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Media Applications

Faster data speeds, shorter end-to-end latencies, improved end-user service efficiency, and a wider range of multi-media applications are expected with the new 5G wireless services. The dramatic increase in the number of base stations required to meet these criteria, which undermines the low-cost constraints imposed by operators, demonstrates the need for a paradigm shift in modern network architecture. Alternative formats will be required for next-generation architectures, where simplicity is the primary goal. The number of connections is expected to increase rapidly, breaking the inherent complexity of traditional coherent solutions and lowering the resulting cost percentage. A novel implementation model is used to migrate complex-nature modulation structures in a highly efficient and cost-effective manner. Theoretical work to analyses modulations’ behavior over a wired/fiber setup and wireless mode is also provided. The state-of-the-art computational complexity, simplicity, and ease of execution while maintaining efficiency throughput and bit error rate.

The New Sociology: Essays in Social Science and Social Theory in Honor of C. Wright Mills

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 554
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Roucek ◽  
Irving Louis Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory
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