The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations

The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations
Author: Johan Heilbron
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2018-04-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319732994

This volume employs new empirical data to examine the internationalization of the social sciences and humanities (SSH). While the globalization dynamics that have transformed the shape of the world over the last decades has been the subject of a growing number of scientific studies, very few such studies have set out to analyze the globalization of social and human sciences themselves. Arguing against the complacent assumption that Science is ‘international by nature’, this work demonstrates that the growing circulation of scholars and scientific ideas is a complex, contradictory and contested process. Arranged thematically, the chapters in this volume present a coherent exploration of patterns of transnationalization, South-North and East-West exchanges, and transnational regionalization. Further, they offer fresh insight into specific topics including the influence of the Anglo-American research infrastructure and the development of social and human sciences in postcolonial contexts. Featuring contributions from leading international scholars in the field, this work will advance the research agenda and will have interdisciplinary appeal for scholars from across the social sciences.

Cold War Social Science

Cold War Social Science
Author: Mark Solovey
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2021-05-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030702464

This book explores how the social sciences became entangled with the global Cold War. While duly recognizing the realities of nation states, national power, and national aspirations, the studies gathered here open up new lines of transnational investigation. Considering developments in a wide array of fields – anthropology, development studies, economics, education, political science, psychology, science studies, and sociology – that involved the movement of people, projects, funding, and ideas across diverse national contexts, this volume pushes scholars to rethink certain fundamental points about how we should understand – and thus how we should study – Cold War social science itself.

The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass

The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass
Author: Didier Fassin
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2023-02-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1478024097

In recent years, social scientists have turned their critical lens on the historical roots and contours of their disciplines, including their politics and practices, epistemologies and methods, institutionalization and professionalization, national development and colonial expansion, globalization and local contestations, and public presence and role in society. The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass offers current social scientific perspectives on this reflexive moment. Examining sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, legal theory, and religious studies, the volume’s contributors outline the present transformations of the social sciences, explore their connections with critical humanities, analyze the challenges of alternate paradigms, and interrogate recent endeavors to move beyond the human. Throughout, the authors, who belong to half a dozen disciplines, trace how the social sciences are thoroughly entangled in the social facts they analyze and are key to helping us understand the conditions of our world. Contributors. Chitralekha, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Didier Fassin, Johan Heilbron, Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Kristoffer Kropp, Nicolas Langlitz, John Lardas Modern, Álvaro Morcillo Laiz, Amín Pérez, Carel Smith, George Steinmetz, Peter D. Thomas, Bregje van Eekelen, Agata Zysiak

The Routledge Handbook of Soft Power

The Routledge Handbook of Soft Power
Author: Naren Chitty
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2023-07-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000904083

The Routledge Handbook of Soft Power (2nd Edition) offers a comprehensive, detailed, and ground-breaking examination of soft power – a key factor in cultural diplomacy, cultural relations, and public diplomacy. Interrogating soft power as influence, the handbook examines manifestations in media, public mind, policy, and theory – in a fraught geopolitical climate, one demanding reconceptualization of soft power’s role in state and civic society behaviour. Part I provides important new conceptualization and critical analysis of soft power from international relations, philosophical, and other social theoretical perspectives; analyses multiple methods of soft power measurement and makes proposals; and connects soft power innovatively with other concepts Part II addresses soft power and contemporary issues by examining new technology and soft power intentions, soft power and states’ performance during the global pandemic, and soft power and values Part III investigates cases from China, France, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kazhakstan, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Türkiye, and the United States – some in combination. This innovative handbook is a definitive resource for inquirers into soft power desiring to familiarize themselves with cutting-edge debates and research. It will be of interest and value to students, researchers, and policy makers working in cultural relations, international communication, international relations, public diplomacy, and contiguous fields.

Power & Society

Power & Society
Author: Thomas R. Dye
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Company
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1996
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780534260705

"Through six successful editions of Power and Society, Thomas R. Dye has encouraged readers to pursue their interests in the social sciences by illustrating how important these disciplines are to understanding many conditions of our lives." "As Dye introduces readers to the central concepts of sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, history, and psychology, he links elements of these disciplines through a dynamic and unifying theme: the manifestation of power in society. With this idea in mind, readers gain a real sense of social scientists' interests as they explore power in the context of social problems such as racism, sexism, poverty, crime, violence, urban decay, and international and ideological conflict." "Dye's presentation includes analyses of social science research studies and the contributions of masters of social thought such as Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Evocative discussions are enhanced with case studies and cross-national perspectives to highlight critical ideas, including the power and society theme." "The approach of learning to understand power as an integral part of our social world continues with great impact in this seventh edition. Among the new topics readers will find how men and women view their relations today; evolutionary psychology: the mating game; the burdens of government debt; Native Americans: an historical overview; social scientists look at sex in America; treating mental illness; a brief history of the cold war; the long history of women's protests; sexual harassment and the law; and should we limit the terms of Congress members?"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Shaping Human Science Disciplines

Shaping Human Science Disciplines
Author: Christian Fleck
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2018-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319927809

This book presents an analysis of the institutional development of selected social science and humanities (SSH) disciplines in Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Where most narratives of a scholarly past are presented as a succession of ‘ideas,’ research results and theories, this collection highlights the structural shifts in the systems of higher education, as well as institutions of research and innovation (beyond the universities) within which these disciplines have developed. This institutional perspective will facilitate systematic comparisons between developments in various disciplines and countries. Across eight country studies the book reveals remarkably different dynamics of disciplinary growth between countries, as well as important interdisciplinary differences within countries. In addition, instances of institutional contractions and downturns and veritable breaks of continuity under authoritarian political regimes can be observed, which are almost totally absent from narratives of individual disciplinary histories. This important work will provide a valuable resource to scholars of disciplinary history, the history of ideas, the sociology of education and of scientific knowledge.

Interpretation and Social Knowledge

Interpretation and Social Knowledge
Author: Isaac Ariail Reed
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2011-08-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0226706729

For the past fifty years anxiety over naturalism has driven debates in social theory. One side sees social science as another kind of natural science, while the other rejects the possibility of objective and explanatory knowledge. Interpretation and Social Knowledge suggests a different route, offering a way forward for an antinaturalist sociology that overcomes the opposition between interpretation and explanation and uses theory to build concrete, historically specific causal explanations of social phenomena.

An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology

An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology
Author: Eric Macé
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2024-07-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1538161036

Although sociology is present as a discipline or as a social practice in most countries in the world, its future as a not-only Western social science has hardly been addressed before. In this book, a team of interdisciplinary scholars have been working together not so much to offer one single response to the question than to raise important issues at stake for the future of sociology. Is it universal? Can it be indigenous? How is it possible – and is it even desirable – to write its history differently so as to know better about its early world diffusion and gradual Westernization? Do we need to expand or change its canon? This collection brings together essays that are all engaged in international discussions concerning the universality of sociology, or more precisely the epistemological and theoretical conditions of this universality. The postcolonial and decolonial critiques of the Eurocentrism of sociology are the basis for a reflection on how to continue to do sociology in a non-hegemonic way. That is, sociological ways of describing reality - including the history of sociology and its canon - that are not limited by Western-centrism or other nationalist or religious hegemonies.

Reconsidering American Power

Reconsidering American Power
Author: John D. Kelly
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 628
Release: 2019-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199097798

Postcolonial studies, postmodern studies, even posthuman studies emerge, and intellectuals demand that social sciences be remade to address fundamentals of the human condition, from human rights to global environmental crises. Since these fields owe so much to American state sponsorship, is it easier to reimagine the human and the modern than to properly measure the pervasive American influence? Reconsidering American Power offers trenchant studies by renowned scholars who reassess the role of the social sciences in the construction and upkeep of the Pax Americana and the influence of Pax Americana on the social sciences. With the thematic image for this enterprise as the ‘fiery hunt’ for Ahab’s whale, the contributors pursue realities behind the theories, and reconsider the real origins and motives of their fields with an eye on what will deter or repurpose the ‘fiery hunts’ to come, by offering a critical insider’s view.

Ideas on the Move in the Social Sciences and Humanities

Ideas on the Move in the Social Sciences and Humanities
Author: Gisèle Sapiro
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2020-04-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 303035024X

This edited collection analyses the reception of a selection of key thinkers, and the dissemination of paradigms, theories and controversies across the social sciences and humanities since 1945. It draws on data collected from textbooks, curricula, interviews, archives, and references in scientific journals, from a broad range of countries and disciplines to provide an international and comparative perspective that will shed fresh light on the circulation of ideas in the social and human sciences. The contributions cover high-profile disputes on methodology, epistemology, and research practices, and the international reception of theorists that have abiding and interdisciplinary relevance, such as: Antonio Gramsci, Hannah Arendt, Karl Polanyi, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak. This important work will be a valuable resource to scholars of the history of ideas and the philosophy of the social sciences; in addition to researchers in the fields of social, cultural and literary theory.