Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Sociology 77
were the background against which sociology developed. Empirical research
techniques became an indispensable tool in America and were taught in hundreds
of colleges.
Slowly, however, uneasiness became noticeable. Even before the Second
World War, some American authors called for more ‘social theory’. Later, these
voices became much louder. Some sociologists regretted that broad social
issues were not dealt with in most studies. They feared that the investigation of
specialized topics might contribute to maintenance of the status quo. Translation
of the works by Weber, Durkheim and Simmel made the American pioneers
look rather provincial. The new international role of the United States directed
attention to underdeveloped countries. All these elements coalesced into a trend
which for lack of a better name we might call the macrosociological movement.
A new breed of studies now begins to appear, dealing with broad social units.
Topics are complex: what does it mean to live under socialism in the USSR?
Why has democracy no deep roots in Germany? Why was the Common Market
successful while it seems so difficult to unify the Arab world? Such questions
suggest a revival of the classical tradition, but there are two marked differences:
the issues while large are more circumscribed in time and space; concrete evi-
dence is much more plentiful and handled with more circumspection. We can
talk of a movement not only because so many studies became available, but
because we can see similarities with the survey movement. The first macro-
sociological phase is the rather general interest in social analysis represented by
19th century European sociology. The second phase wil be described here as a
movement in which sociologists of all countries try to develop their goals, sharp-
en their research techniques, and delineate the ways of reaching conclusions.
The third phase, the stage of codification, has not yet been reached. Actually,
the present section is intended to help begin it. The procedure will be an induc-
tive one. I shall not try to define macrosociology; instead I shall briefly describe
a number of studies in order to draw out the basic procedures they seem to have
in common. The examples will be taken from a list which is appended to this
section. The list of titles may serve as a temporary implicit definition of the
field. I I
The specific sociological aspect of the new macrosociology movement seems
to derive from two elements. Workers in this field are quite aware that they
usually concentrate on a rather small number of variables. Their selection is
clearly influenced by the traditions of general sociology. The very fact that a
kind of generalized variate language is used shows the strong influence of survey
analysis. The second feature characterizing the work of macrosociologists is not
as obvious, but a careful scrutiny of the writing shows that selected notions of
process influence the choice of topic and the interpretation of same.
These two observations dictated the outline of this section. I shall first use
four specific studies to carve out in some detail four types of macrosociological
variates. Additional studies treated more briefly, wil then strengthen the original
examples. Here a contrast to the treatment in Section I should be noted. In
Section I, Ididnot discuss the formation of survey variatesin detail because ample
literature on this matter is available. The logic of macrosociological ‘measure-