Methodological Individualism

374 Notesnot due only to the fact that I am a sociologist, myself, but is justified by the fact thattheories of exchange in anthropology are not typically individualistic.27 Homans sometimes complains about his theory being called a theory of exchange(Homans, 1980: 20; 1983: 35). Since nothing important seems to be at stake I followthe common habit of calling Homans’s version of behaviourism a ‘theory ofexchange’.28 Homans’s four autobiographical writings are ‘Autobiographical Introduction’ toSentiments and Activities (1962), ‘A Life of Synthesis’ (1968), ‘Steps to a Theory of SocialBehavior. An Autobiographical Account’ (1983) and Coming to My Senses. TheAutobiography of a Sociologist (1984).29 On Homans’s critique of functionalism, see also Homans (1964a: 809ff; 1964b:963–7 and 1967b: 64–70).30 ‘See, e.g., Homans (1964a: 811ff; 1964c: 221–31; 1969: 1–24 and 1975: 313ff).31 The second half of this statement exhibits an interesting similarity to many statementsby ethnomethodologists, but it is one of very few similarities between theseapproaches. For one thing, ethnomethodologists would certainly disagree with thedeterminism of behaviourism. Much more than Parsons, behaviourism treats thehuman being as a ‘cultural dope’.32 See Homans (1964c: 11–31 and 1964d: 113–31), for a restatement of the originalformulation. See Homans (1967a: 30–78) and (1974: ch. 2) for a somewhat modifiedversion.33 See, however, the contributions to Burgess and Bushell (ed.) (1969) and Hamblin andKunkel (ed.) (1977).34 His contribution to the theory of exchange is Exchange and Power in Social Life ([1964]1986). ‘The implicit assumption [of this work] is that macrosociological theory restson the foundation of microsociology. This is the assumption I have come to question’([1964] 1986: vii). The difference between Homans and Blau are clearly visible intheir exchange over the relevance of psychology to the explanation of socialphenomena (Homans, 1975a: 313–28; 1975b: 340–3; Blau, 1975: 329–39). Thedifference between Blau and Emerson emerge clearly in his contribution to Karen S.Cook (ed.), Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1987), which brings out his doubts about theneed for a microsociological foundation for structural macrosociology.35 The theory of networks, like that of social exchange, has strong roots in anthropology,which I neglect because of ignorance. See Scott (1991: ch. 2) for an accountof the development of social network analysis.36 In his last contribution to a theory of social exchange, Emerson might seem to moveback to a more psychologistic approach (cf. Turner, 1987: 225ff). His main concern,now, is to develop a theory of value, as the foundation of the theory of socialexchange (Emerson, 1987). This appearance is probably deceptive, however, andmerely reflects his wish to develop both the individualist and structuralist elements ofhis theory.37 See Haines (1988) and Mathien (1988) for a discussion of network analysis andmethodological individualism. Both argue that network analysis is a form of methodologicalindividualism, but not a radical or extreme form of this principle. Bothobserve that the focus of network analysis is on social relations, but this is not incompatiblewith methodological individualism. Haines argues that there are importantsimilarities between network analysis and Giddens’s theory of structuration, but this aweak argument. Network analysis works with a dualistic view of individual action andsocial structure, whereas the main point of Giddens’s theory of structuration is toreplace this dualism with a duality, which is something else.38 For a survey, see Wippler (1978c) and Raub (1982). See also Wippler (1978b).39 See, e.g. Lindenberg (1985a; 1985b; 1995), Opp (1978; 1985; 1988) and Wippler andLindenberg (1987).