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This book is designed to honor George Caspar Homans for his many and varied contributions to the development of modern sociology. The chapters have been written by sociologists and psychologists who value his work sufficiently to have made his basic approach their own. These original essays are intended to elucidate, assess, and give a progress report on the theoretical tradition Homans founded and to which he has given such significant impetus.
Public choice has been one of the most important developments in the social sciences in the last twenty years. However there are many people who are frustrated by the uncritical importing of ideas from economics into political science. Public Choice uses both empirical evidence and theoretical analysis to argue that the economic theory of politics is limited in scope and fertility. In order to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of political life, political scientists must learn from both economists and sociologists.
Presents insights in the sociological study of surveillance and governance in the context of criminal justice and other control strategies. This volume provides a varied set of theoretical perspectives and substantive research domains on the qualities and quantities of some of the transformations of social control.
Social Networks: An Introduction is the first textbook that combines new with still-valuable older methods and theories. Designed to be a core text for graduate (and some undergraduate) courses in a variety of disciplines it is well-suited for everybody who makes a first encounter with the field of social networks, both academics and practitioners. This book includes reviews, study questions and text boxes as well as using innovative pedagogy to explain mathematical models and concepts. Examples ranging from anthropology to organizational sociology and business studies ensure wide applicability. An easy to use software tool, free of charge and open source, is appended on the supporting website that enables readers to depict and analyze networks of their interest. It is essential reading for students in sociology, anthropology, and business studies and can be used as secondary material for courses in economics and political science.
Knoke explains the relevance of network theory in political science.
In this brief text examining gender roles in social movements, M. Bahati Kuumba shows how liberation struggles are viewed through women's eyes and how gender affects women's mobilization, strategies, and outcomes in social movement organizations. Gender and Social Movements is the ideal text to introduce a sophisticated view of race and gender into social movement courses. Visit our website for sample chapters!
The advent of social complexity has been a longstanding debate among social scientists. Existing theories and approaches involving the origins of social complexity include environmental circumscription, population growth, technology transfers, prestige-based and interpersonal-group competition, organized conflict, perennial wartime leadership, wealth finance, opportunistic leadership, climatological change, transport and trade monopolies, resource circumscription, surplus and redistribution, ideological imperialism, and the consideration of individual agency. However, recent approaches such as the inclusion of bioarchaeological perspectives, prospection methods, systematically-investigated archaeological sites along with emerging technologies are necessarily transforming our understanding of socio-cultural evolutionary processes. In short, many pre-existing ways of explaining the origins and development of social complexity are being reassessed. Ultimately, the contributors to this edited volume challenge the status quo regarding how and why social complexity arose by providing revolutionary new understandings of social inequality and socio-political evolution.
The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements is a compilation of original, state-of-the-art essays by internationally recognized scholars on an array of topics in the field of social movement studies. Contains original, state-of-the-art essays by internationally recognized scholars Covers a wide array of topics in the field of social movement studies Features a valuable introduction by the editors which maps the field, and helps situate the study of social movements within other disciplines Includes coverage of historical, political, and cultural contexts; leadership; organizational dynamics; social networks and participation; consequences and outcomes; and case studies of major social movements Offers the most comprehensive discussion of social movements available
The New Institutional Economics (NIE) and its two main branches, namely, the theory of transaction cost and contractual choice on the one hand, and that of collective action on the other, broaden the analytical framework of mainstream economics. In doing so the NIE attempts to explain the institutional phenomena which, although almost universally recognised as important, have previously eluded the group of economists. This book is concerned with the NIE and its possible application to Development Economics. It has two specific objectives. The first is to show the relevance and assess the applicability of the principles and insights of the NIE to the analysis of the problems of the LDC's. The second is to provide another set of applications and empirical investigations of the NIE. By combining the relevant theoretical background with applications, the book is self-contained and presented in such a way as to be accessible to each of the following types of reader: (1) development economists and practitioners (2) readers interested in institutions and the NIE (3) regional specialists in North Africa and in countries such as Tunisia and (4) those interested in political economy.
This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the first conference of the Society for Computational Economics held at ICC Institute, Austin, Texas, May 21-24, 1995. Twenty-two papers are included in this volume, devoted to applications of computational methods for the empirical analysis of economic and financial systems; the development of computing methodology, including software, related to economics and finance; and the overall impact of developments in computing. The various contributions represented in the volume indicate the growing interest in the topic due to the increased availability of computational concepts and tools and the necessity of analyzing complex decision problems. The papers in this volume are divided into four sections: Computational methods in econometrics, Computational methods in finance, Computational methods for a social environment and New computational methods.£/LIST£