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devel- 1
Theda Skocpol opmental story or as a
set of standardized sequences . Instead,
it is understood that groups or
organizations have chosen, or stumbled
into, varying paths in the past. Earlier
"choice s, " in turn, both limit and open
up alternative possibilities for further
change, leading toward no
predetermined end . To be sure, some
of sociology's founders focused more
closely than others on explaining
particular sequences of historical
events . And some founders, or their
followers, turned more readily than
others to the fashioning of
transhistorical generalizations and
teleological schemas . Thus, strictly
speaking, Tocqueville and Weber -and
Marx in his essays on current events were more "historical" in the senses I
have listed than Durkheim, or Marx in
his more philosophical writings . Yet
Contributiop to Historiography," in
Ideology in Social Science: Readings
in Critical Social Theory, ed. Robin
Blackburn (New York: Vintage Books,
1973), pp . 265 -83; Reinhard Bendix,
Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait
(Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday
Anchor, 1960); Gunther Roth, "Max
Weber's Comparative Approach and
Historical Typology," in Comparative
Methods, ed. I . Vallier, pp. 75-96; and
David Zaret, "From Weber to Parsons
and Schutz: The Eclipse of History in
Modern Social Theory, " American
Journal of Sociology 85(5) (1980)
:1180-1201 . 4. See Robert N. Bellah,
Tokugawa Religion: The Va lues of
Pre-Industrial Japan (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1970; orig. 1957); Reinhard
Bendix, Work and Author ity in
Industry (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1974; orig. 1956);
and Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian
Socialism (Berkeley: University of
.21 Neither Bloch nor Febvre ever imagined that the Annales' contribution
should be to claim historical in sight
without being able to meet, at the very
least, the standard qualifi cations
demanded of all members of the craft.
They felt that good history should go
beyond this, but not to the detriment of
what had already been achieved in
developing a sound historical method.
One of the major innovations of the
Annales school was its use of
geographic evidence. The inspiration
for this came from Vidal de la Blache
.22 In an essay about Bloch written
after his death, Febvre re called the
liberating effect of geography on those
of Bloch's generation who learned
from this master. Not only did Vidal de
la Blache promote geography to a
position of honor among the social
scientific disciplines, but in the gloomy
classrooms of the turn of the century,
"geography was fresh air, the walk in
md-In-wages. Thus a 55
Fred Block, Margaret Somers new
class of employers had been created
with no corresponding class of
employees that could constitute itself
as a class; the laws against trade
unions were the final structural
obstacle to workers' capacity to force
up wages for the employed.
Speenhamland was repealed in 1834,
according to Polanyi as a result of the
political victory in 1832 of the new
industrial middle class armed not only
with new legislative power but also
with "scientific" laws of althusan
population theory.16 The Poor Law
Reform eliminated out- / door rehef to
the unemployed and forced those
displaced in the coun tryside into the
hated workhouse as the only
alternative to the de spised factorie s.
This was the full institutionalization of
labor as a com j modity in that
major inspirations for his worldsystem theory. There are many imp
ortant differences, however, between
Polanyi' s formulations and those of
Wallerstein's, of which two are
particularly relevant here. First,
Wallerstein tends to define the global
level of analysis primarily in terms of
a world market in which nations
compete . He pays far less attention
than does Polanyi to the institutional
arrangements, such as the gold
standard system, by which that world
market is organized . This omission
makes it harder for Wallerstein to
integrate international politics into his
analysis of the world market, since the
strength or weakne ss of international
economic regimes is closely linked to
the balance of political and military
power among state s. Second, as a
number of his critics have noted,
Wallerstein tends to collapse the three
different levels of analysis into one; at
of active opposition 75
Fred Block, Margaret Somers to first
the Hungarian Social Democrats and
then to the Hungarian ommunist
Party. While a devoted supporter of
working-class emanci ation, Polanyi
did not limit his vision of the social
revolution to the , proletariat; he
considered the peasantry an equally
important force for \ liberating change.
\ Nevertheless, Polanyi's writing can
only be understood as a contin- ation
and development of certain ideas
within the Marxist tradition. Polanyi
was aware of the fundamental tension
in Marx' s work between a societal
approach, which recognized the
dominance of the social, and an
economistic one, which sought to
locate determining economic laws.56
While fiercely critical of the latter
tendency in Marx and the Marxist
tradition, the former view was the
Humphreys, S. C . "History,
Economics and Anthropology: The
Work of Karl Polanyi." History and
Theory 8(2)(1969):165-212 .
Kindleberger, Charles P. "The Great
Transformation by Karl Polanyi."
Daedalus (Winter 1973):45-53 . Levitt,
Kari. "Karl Polanyi and Co-Existence
." Co-Existence 2 (November 1964):
113-21 . North, Douglass C. "Markets
and Other Allocation Systems in
History: The Challenge of Karl
Polanyi." Journal of European
Economic History 6(3) (Winter
1977):703- 16. Pearson, Harry.
"Editor's Introduction." In Karl
Polanyi, The Livelihood of Man. New
York: Academic Press, 1977. Sievers,
A. M. Has Market Society Collapsed?
A Critique of Karl Polanyi's New
Economics . New York: Columbia
University Press, 1949. Stanfield, J.
Ron. "The Institutional Economics of
Karl Polanyi." Journal of Economic
interpenetration of method and the orythat appear throughout his work. These
dimensions are, of course, influenced
by structural functionalism, but not
exclusively so. In varying degrees, all
theoretical perspectives are flexible;
they allow partisans considerable
latitude to develop their own
predilections . Consider, for instance,
the wide range of positions that
individuals take under the rubric of
Marxian sociology, while still
considering themselves faithful to that
tradition. Structural functionalism is no
different, and Eisen stadt's stand in
relation to this intellectual tradition
reveals as much about his own vision
of history as about something
fundamental in the nature of structural
functionalism. This essay is a
discussion of Eise j n stadt' s attempt to
construct a sociology of history in its
own right, as it is distinct from but
related to structural functionalism . To
history, attempting all the while to distinguish between the forms and flux
contained therein. About whether it is
possible to examine history and society
in this fashion, Eisenstadt simply
comments, "The proof of the pudding
is, of course, in the eating -it is only
through attempts at the construction of
such types, at different levels of
abstraction, that the limits of the
usefulness of the comparative
approach and the possibility of
subsum ing these types under general
laws can be discerned. "48 The next
sec tion looks at the pudding, at
Eisenstadt's classification of history
and theories about historical
configurations as well as historical
interpreta tions based on them. The
final section will evaluate its
palatability. Configurational Analysis
The centerpiece of Eisenstadt's
sociology of history is what I call conigurational analysis. This is a
pattern to predict a nd 94
Configurations in History: S. N .
Eisenstadt explain any empirical case
that can be similarly classified; this
step is eJ1lpirical interpretation.
Throughout, configurations are the
fulcrum of analysis. They are the
objects of classification, the subjects
of theory, and the sources of empirical
interpretations . I will examine each of
these steps in turn as they are manifest
in two of Eisenstadt's most ambitious
works, The Political Systems of Empires and Revolution and the
Transformation of Societies . Besides
provid ing good illustrations of
Eisenstadt's configurational analysis,
both books represent Eisenstadt's
serious attempi("fO deal with
historical complexity - with continuity,
diversity, and hange. The complexity
emerges in Political Systems as
Eisenstadt isolates./a type of societal
configuration, historical bureaucratic
::::-::-c!:s in
which thy are found . This is the
case, argues. Eisenstadt, because
change is directed by and rooted in the
systemic nature of societit::::.)Even
so, each society institutionalizes its
configurational system in sl ightly
different ways. Each society works out
the potential of a configuration, and
attempts to institutionalize that
potential in a concrete form. Change
arises from the specific modes of
institutionalization and not simply from
the configurations. In this sense,
Eisenstadt maintains that minor
variations on major con figurational
themes determine the specific
directions of change, and consequently
of history itself. Configurations in
history do not line up in a necessary
sequence, such that all societies move
in an orderly fashion from one
development stage to another. Instead,
the minor variations supply the
Tilly, compares the argument developed in Revolution with his greatuncle's Marbelator. You put a small
marble in the slot at the top, and the
ball began its antic trip through the
machine. It clicked and whirred across
bridges, down steps, and around
corners, sometimes speeding and
sometime dawdling, often veering into
the depths of the runways only to shoot
out unexpectedly at a lower level. But
when it rolled from the bottom chute,
the marble was still the same glass ball
that went in . Revolution and the
Transformation of Societies is an
abstract Marbelator - a simple,
familiar argument careening -through a
vast conceptual contraption:108
Like those of many others, Tilly' s
critique centers on the absence of case
detail. Eisenstadt "offers neither a
systematic body of evidence 108
Configurations in History: S. N .
Eisenstadt a sustained analysis of any
nature. 113
Gary G. Hamilton Where is one to find
such concepts and what sort of
concepts are they? Eisenstadt uses
Parsonian concepts . Marx was more
eclectic, bor rowing concepts from
Hegel and the British economists,
among others. Regardless of where
they were found, the concepts
determined what features of society
were to be preserved as significant
similarities and what other features
could be regarded as inconsequential
differences . In other words,
classificatory concepts are
predeterminations and nee essarily
interpenetrate with one's theoretical
framework. Unlike a microscope,
abstractions are not inductive devices
by which one explores a natural world.
Instead, their logical structure is
deduc tive; intertwined with theory,
they deductively establish which and in
:PoliticaLSy:stems: A Preliminary
Comparative Analysis." American
Anthropologist 61 (1959): 200-20.
"Anthropological Studies of Complex
Societies." Current Anthropology 2
(June 1961): 201-22. 126
Configurations in History: S. N.
Eisenstadt "Religious Organizations
and Political Processes in Centralized
Empires ." Jour nal of Asian Studies
21 (May 1962): 271-94. "Breakdowns
of Modernization." Economic
Development and Cultural Change 12
(July 1964): 45-67. . . . . .
"Institutionalization and Change ."
Amertcan Socwlogzcal Revzew 29
(Apnl 1964): 235-47 . "Social Change,
Differentiation, and Evolution."
American Sociological Review 29 (
June, 1964): 375-86. ''Modernization
and Conditions of Sustained Growth ."
World Politics 16 (July 1964): 576-94.
"Transformation of Social, Political,
and Cultural Orders in Modernization
contribution to a wide-ranging
discussion, in which he at tacks the
unhistorical dualism of tradition and
modernity, insists on the variety of
traditional social orders, and points to
the different paths societies have taken.
Bendix also emphasizes the changing
leader follower relations among
countries, which shaped processes of
political and socioeconomic
modernization. 9 This chapter does not
seek to review the whole of Bendix's
work and to assess its significance. It
will focus on one -set of questions
raised with particular acuity by
Bendix's comparative historical
studies. These works, as well as his
related essays, show a persistent
concern with the 132 Historical
Particularity: Reinhard Bendix ,::'tPln.:
:t J.'-'.._ and antinomies between
the universalizating thrust of socioland an appreciation of historical
particularity. Foreshadowed in his re
enlightened by generalized . .
theoretical propositions and guesses,
but inevitably bound up with the
historical particularity of divergent
contexts and increasingly also with the
historicity of worldwide interrelations
between them. The actual , : methods
used, as well as the more detailed
methodological arguments , 'l' : ,
advanced in Bendix's work, have to be
judged in terms of these funda , '
mental assertions about the goals and
limitations of comparative his ' torical
sociology. Four Cases Systematically
Compared Work and Authority in
Industry is the most theoretically
oriented compara tive work of Bendix.
It begins with the assertion that
"wherever enter prises are set up, a
few command and many obey"39 and
pursues the same question - how this
authority is justified - in four historical
contexts: early industrialization in
England and Czarist Russia and
the
Dietrich Rueschemeyer evidence . On
the other hand, when we approach the
evidence "definition at hand, " we
often find its analytic ultility
diminished because the characteristics
to which it refers are in fact neithe;
unequivocal nor general. 95 From this
derives the suggestion to use contrast
conceptions as well as static and
dynamic concepts in conjunction with
one another: Implicitly or explicitly,
we define such terms as feudalism,
capital ism, absolutism, castesystem, bureaucracy, and others by
con trast with what each of these
structures is not. For example, fealtyties are contrasted with contractual,
absolutist centralized with feudal
decentralized authority, caste with
tribe or estate, impersonal with
personalized administration, the unity
of house hold and business with
p. 15. 163
Dietrich Rueschemeyer 37. Bendix, Na
tion-Building and Citizenship, p. 17.
38 . Bendix, "Concepts and
Generalizations, " p. 180. 39 . Bendix,
Work and Authority in Industry, p. 1 .
40. Ibid., p. 1. 41. Ibid., p. XX. 42.
Ibid., p. 6. 43. Ibid., p. 10. 44. Ibid., p.
6. 45. Ibid., p. xxi. 46 . See, for
example, Work and Authority in
Industry, pp. xix, xxif., 7-8 . 47. Arthur
L. Stinchcombe, Theoretical Methods
in Social History. (New York:
Academic Press-, 1978), pp . 104-13
and 117-18. Stinchcombe observes:
"The sort of theory we have been
analyzing in the parts we have chosen
from Bendix, Smelser, and the other
analysts, comes in bits and pieces,
rather than integrated systems of
thought. This makes it hard to learn; to
train oneself to be a 'theorist' of social
change one has to read a great many
concepts which are not themselves derived from the 'facts' " (p . xix) . 60 .
Bendix is quite aware of this: "This
study ...differs from inquiries in
economics, sociology, and psychology,
which frequently examine the rec ord
of human behavior. Such inquiry into
underlying structures has been a
dominant theme in recent intellectual
history. Marxists and Freudians are at
one in their attempt to discern the
underlying cause of manifest discontents, even if they differ in what they
purport to find. Some anthropolo gists
and psychologists have turned their
attention from behavioral to the
analysis of myths in searching for the
underlying constants of the human
condition. And some sociologists and
political scientists engage in a search
for universals when they analyze the
functional prerequisites of all social
and political structure s. Such a search
for structural forces can yield in sights
193. 165
Dietrich Rueschemeyer 81. See
Merton, Social Theory and Social
Structure, pp. 84-86, for the problem's
long history. 82 . Bendix, Kings or
People, p. 14. 83 . Ibid., p. 3. 84. Ibid.,
p. 5. 85. Ibid., p. 197. 86. Ibid., p. 241.
87. Bendix, Work and Authority in
Industry, p. 446. 88. Thus Bendix
argues against systemic equilibrium
notions that "men . ..by their actions
(however conditioned) achieve a
certain degree of stability, or fail to do
so. Here the definition of social
structure in terms of a set of issues
helps, because it points to the
contentions through which individu als
and groups achieve a measure of
accommodation or compromise between conflicting imperatives ." And:
"Stability of a social structure is . .. the
end-product of always proximate
efforts to maintain stability" ("Con-
classes i 111timatly;.!
.g!_-! the politi_C1l::
:7 not at the economic or lhe 'culh.iral
-level of society. In other words, it is
the construction and destruction of
States which seal the basicshifts in the
relations of produc t_ion so long as
classes subsist. "5 Thus PassagesLineages does "history /r6m above,"
focusing especially on the ris a,nd
fall o.fgmp!:t:_ indassical f.,J:; ,w1 ----- - 170 Destined Pathways:
Perry Anderson the growth of
monarchies in medieval Europe, and
the life - ;h1storlt: ::
of absoiufisCsfates -- f r om
Impe:riar"Spairi .to czarist Russia.
Fur as we shall see, Anderson studies
the political history of the to elucidate
poiical alter11atives
fm;)vf!}rxjan $Ocialists n the
present)"' ,{ :"' not oniy ' "a" oes " his '
emphis on the political raise
theoretical issues for I, . ,v,a..J.A-'-'"''
tQdcaL...sodolggy , QLID1!!.L
,gJ;_f,lder scope anci .greater depth
than 'Drlgins ." Yet in both works Perry
"A:nders.on.. .pu sues his- torical
understanding in similar ways and for
similar ends. The charac teristic
concerns wifu,.!,Q.tl! ! Y,.!
!lnmistakably present in PassagesLin eages : "Ancient society, "
"Germanic society, "
"Feudalism.:..:W. .e ste:r:n-, -
" Absolutism" and "Eastern
Absolutism" (concepts that
_A:.11clrsqn regu lariy capita!Izesrfi n!stexfr:::Echispartray e2:li..:i:.'fYn
ti2EL!l:!.!Yt..- _ . comx
. .ra2Ei Q
Q1Q J11 it... IL Q !!..
e!':--?5!!rl pattrns, all
of Wl'l l cfi, tal<en together, constitute
the given significant whole of the
particular sociopolitical order. What is
more, Passages-Lineages takes its 177
Empire, and therefore never participated in the original "synthe sis" ....
Nevertheless, .. . the far North
eventually entered [through conquests
and cultural diffu sions] the orbit of
Western feudalism, while preserving
the dur able forms of its initial distance
from the common "occidental" matrix:- A-converse process can be-traeed in
the-far -South of East ern Europe. For
if Scandinavia ultimately produced a
Western variant of feudalism without
benefit of the urban-imperial heritage
Destined Pathways: Perry Anderson
Figure 6. 1 . Regional Variations of
European Feudalism We st Northwest
Feudalism despite no Antiquity .;
FetldaJism through F : : 'SvntheSIS of
Slave East Feudalism by Western
Colonization CoJmrrmn1al Modes \-1--f-1--1--+ Heritage of Antiquity in
We stern or Eastern Form Home of (or
Exposure to) Tri baVCommunal
Formations Agricultural Nomadic
forms
Mary Fulbrook, Theda Skocpol dally
acute. The first two chapters of Part
One lay out the pure type-con cept of
Western absolutism and illustrate its
major features with ex amples from
England, France, Spain, Sweden, and
even parts of Italy . Then follow five
individual chapters devoted to
discussing the cases in detail. In these
chapters the emphasis is on
individuating each case, showing its
peculiarities in contrast to the others
and drawing implicit or explicit
contrasts to the defining features of the
pure type. Anderson apparently intends
Italy (except for Piedmont) as a
negative case, one where the
deviations from the type were so great
as to preclude the development of a
Western absolutism. But the other
cases are supposed to fit the type, and
their long-run dynamics are somehow
part 3 of W. G. Runciman,
"Comparative Sociology or Narrative
His tory? A Note on the Methodology
of Perry Anderson, " Archives
Europeenne de Sociologie 21 (1980):
162-78 for a good discussion of the
problems with Anderson's discussion
of Japanese feudalism. 40. Anderson,
Lineages, p. 18. 41. Ibid., p. 15. 42.
Ibid., p. 7. 43. Anderson, Passages, p.
26 . 44. Ibid., p. 28 . 45. Ibid. 46.
Ibid., p. 128. 207
Mary Fulbrook, Theda Skocpol 47.
Ibid., p. 265 . 48. Ibid., p. 213-14. 49.
It is, of course, absolutely essential to
Anderson's argument that Sweden end
up being classified as an instance of
Western absolutism, because Sweden
became the "hammer of the East," the
catalyst through military pressure of
absolutist developments in Eastern
Europe. Anderson says th at the "more
advanced societies" of the West put
(industrial/pre-industrial;
modern/traditional; 'mature'/'pri mitive'
working class) inapposite because they
entail reading back into a prior society
categories for which that society had
no resources and that culture no terms
."52 Thompson does not commit the
opposite empiricist error of believing
that the fcts spc:tk for themselves
. He wants the historian to work hard
to en'l.l?l historical subjects to find
their own voices, but he knows tht "what they are able to 'ay' and some
part of their vocabu lary is determined
by the questions which the historian
proposes . They cannot ' speak' until
they have been 'asked.' "53 Thompson
also knows that the historians can
nver shed their own historically
specific values and concepts;
Historians can never completely
escape their own world nor totally
empathize with their subj ects. Hence,
Thompson continu- . ally stresses the
Reasoner 1 (1) (Summer 1957): 10543. and Choice ." The New Reasoner 1
(5) (Summer 1959):89-106.
Comn:titineJn.t in Politics ."
Universities and Left Review 6
(Spring 1959):50-55 . 1'Rf>volution."
New Left Review 3 (May-June
1960):3-9. Again. " New Left Review
6 (November-December 1960):18-31 .
Out of Apathy. Ed. E. P. Thompson.
London: New Left Books, 1960. "The
State Versus Its Enemies. " New
Society, October 19, 1978:127-30 .
"The Secret State ." Race and Class 20
(3) (1979) :219-42. "Notes on
Exterminism: The Last Stage of
Civilization." New Left Review 121
(May-June 1980):3-31 . "A Letter to
America." The Na tion, January 24,
1981:68-93 . THOMPSON'S
DEBATES WITH OTHER
MARXISTS Anderson, Perry. "Origins
of the Present Crisis ." New Left
Review 23 (1964):26- 53. Nairn, Tom.
to _zy_and.JheErnch...RY_olnti.Q.n,.. _
_Qg:rJ.shi_:Q! !I! -Q_C:!<?
_lggy_ _!ld___ the rise
ofJhe.natior.t,.,state (see Bibliography)
. ddressing this exceptional range of
interests and productivity, I have
divided what follows into five sections
. In the first one, on Tilly' s agenda, I
describe what I think are the main
concerns informing Tilly's work. The
second section, on theoretical
_9rientations, places the age nda
within tb Jield
..oLhis.toricalsociolog. The
thlrc:C-oi1 -reseaicn ses on
Tillys :earticular and often
controversial historical method. The
fourth secti-o , on explanations,
includes an -examinatio -- ------------ of some of Tilly's substantive
conclusions, and the final section more
generally assesses Tilly's impact on
historical sociology. ( "Agenda" is one
Eu()J? .vglv_ u
nderthejnfll}ence of long-term
structural trans-forations?) Several
kind of transforma- tion are at issue:
urbanization, industrflization,
statemaking, an4 the gro'YJh _ ()f
capitalis:p. Within the broad
category of collective action, Tilly
focuses on contentious, and es_B
eill!y __y:i,olent, public gatherings
. Most of his _ articles nd books
o cern<l!s es,
oo,ot.p ,
rebellion:> . ,__ demonstrations
against conscnption, and the hke. .:,: \':,
<.-'- -' There are two sides to Tilly's
approach, which, though they are mea
0 to be complementary, are at times in
tension with each other. On the one
side is Tilly's concern for "the ways
that people act together in 245
Lynn Hunt puruit of hared
interests ."5 Like E. P. Thopson and
ro - -!ion to
moderiUty but he - does want to test
the proposition that modernization
breeds violence. - - --- Theoretical
Orientations "Collective action" is a
curious concept, and many aspects of
Charle s Tilly's theoretical position are
implicit in his choice of this analytical
category. Like Neil Smelser' s
"collective behavior, " collective
action is a broad, seemingly neutral or
at least ideologically ambiguou s concept. Collecti- action is certainly
much less loaded than "class cf.1c.
sruggl,'' "mob violence, " or
"social deviance ." Tilly dfines
collec- S-;:-:'" :\- ? JIVe_
ac:hon very 1 roadly as "people
acti:r:!:_g__!g_etl!er_in_pgrsuit of
com- 0>/' m<:?!:"!: interests ."
There is no necessary reference here to
mode of r . l :::: . :_ n _ b .. e . . .
:_ v :. . . . r . s t o 0 c i e
a m . l . _ . - ... . .. o . . i ..
z _ ' . gy - th . e tr:Z!:. _ _; .
. e . e_ s !} . c . f o ;. . i .;
.. =. a :. i ::. . . :. ether is not
imply: _q _ :t'Sp_Q_! ! S to
chiinging conditions, for it can ntail a
purp_oseful shap_in,g o(
C()l_ld_n -(e.-g, -thp;tie type). -i From
Mobilization to Revolution Tilly
dscribes collective action as a
concept that straddles two major kinds
of social analysis, the causal and the
purposive . A __ causal explanation
considers the action of an individual or
a group "as the resultant of forces
external to the indi vidual or group ." A
purposive explanation considers the
individual or group to be "makingcno!ces'" according to some set of
rules, implicit 1-\ or explicit. " As he
himself admits, it is difficult to
synthesize the two \ J kinds of
explanation .13 In other words, and as
might be expected, the "-y->
violence an _ adequtrac:.:_ _ of
cc? How can standardized
hstorical :ience capte the
vital, !ocal particularities of events?
Til l y himself cnhc1zes the Millmns
for therr tendency to stress variables
that are easy to quantify, and he is subj
ect to some of the same criticism.3s
Nevertheless, there are also
considerable rewards attached to the u
se of quantitative evidence . Because
he has large, standardized sets of
evidence covering nearly four
centuries of French history, Tilly can
address problems of long-term change
in a systematic fashion. He shares the
interest in long-term, quantifiable
evidence with the social historians of
France who have used serial records
of prices, vital statis tics, and marriage
contracts in much the same way that
Tilly utilizes strike data. 36 Tilly
differs from the Annales school in one
essential aspect, however: he seeks to
ehaviorism. S: N: Eisenstadt's
attempt to synthesize functionalism
with comparative history was
politically dis credited by the events of
the 1960s, as was Seymour Lipset's
political 278 World System of
Immanuel Wallerstein sociology.
Reinhard Bendix, true Weberian that he
was, presented far complicated a
picture of the world. He had no
overarching model; important country
was discussed with the aid of
particular ideal types . This style did
not appeal to the students and young
scholars . : who were trying to
understand events at home and abroad
in terms of :a single perspective .
Barrington Moore, alone of the major
figures of the generation preceding
Wallerstein, served as guide to some of
the disaffected young scholars of the
1970s, but he never aspired to create a
school of thought with an organized
following. That Wallerstein's success
perspective, will also criticize and expand it. What explains this widespread
emulation of Wallerstein? In many
respects, it is his vision of social
science more than his vision of the
world system. Every aspect of
Wallerstein's vision of social scientific
work challenges social scientists to
view social phenomena broadly, to
examine seemingly isolated social
phenomena as parts of a larger sys tem.
He encourages social scientists to
locate the phenomena they study within
"totalities" so that all possible
influences can be identi fied. He states
further that they should view social
phenomena histori cally and that they
should not let disciplinary boundaries
between the social sciences constrain
their investigations . Finally, he
challenges so cial scientists to clarify
their implicit political assumptions and
not be deceived into thinking that they
can conduct social science in a vac-
Wallerstein, The Modern WorldSystem II, p. 204. 43. Ibid., p. 225. 309
Charles Ragin, Daniel Chirot 44.
Wallerstein, The Capitalist WorldEconomy, p. 101. 45. Wallerstein, The
Modern World-System II, pp . 95 -118.
46 . Ibid., pp. 30-31. . 47. Theodore
Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin? A
Reappraisal of the Russian Revolution,
1900-1930 (Philadelphia: Lippincott,
1971). 48 . Charles Ragin,
"Comparative Sociology and the
Comparative Method, " International
Journal of Comparative Sociology 22
(1981): 102-20. 49 . Alex Inkeles and
David H. Smith, Becoming Modern:
Individual Change in Six Developing
Countries (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1974). 50. Robert
Nisbet, Social Change and History
(New York: Oxford Univ ersity Press,
1970) . 51. Wallerstein, The Capitalist
World-Economy, p. 2. 52. Major
IMPORTANT WORKS OF
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN "M
cCarthyism and the Conservative ."
Master's thesis, Columbia University,
1954. Africa; The Politics of
Independence. New York: Vintage
Books, 1961. The Road to
Independence: Ghana and the Ivory
Coast. The Hague: Mouton, 1964.
Social Change: The Colonial Situation.
New York: Wiley, 1966. Afr ica: The
Politics of Unity: An Analysis of a
Contemporary Social Movement. New
York: Random House, 1967.
University in Turmoil: The Politics of
Change. New York: Atheneum, 1969.
The Modern World-System: Capitalist
Agriculture and the Origins of the
European World-Economy in the
Sixteenth Century. New York:
Academic Press, 1974. "The Three
Stages of African Involvement in the
World-Economy." In The Political
Economy of Contemporary Africa,
interplay 319
Dennis Smith requires careful
narrative presentation . Combining
narrative history and comparative
analysis within a single coherent
argument is techni cally difficult and
important to attempt. As will be seen,
Social Origins constitutes one such
attempt. The two other kinds of
statements with which Moore is
concerned_ counter-factual and
evaluative - will be dealt with a little
more briefly. When analyzing human
choices and social transformations not
only in the past but also in the present,
Moore frequently asks (to paraphrase)
either What is likely to have happened
if certain antecedent conditions or
specific human choices had been
different? or What is likely to happen
(in the future) if choice A as opposed
to choice B is actually made or if
structural outcome X as opposed to
importance of Marxist-Leninist
ideology in shaping attempted answers
to all these questions . The government
had allowed private enterprise to
continue in many spheres but had
retained control over the "commanding
heights" of the economy. In Moore's
words: "If a group of Manchester
Liberals had been in control of Russia
at this time, they would not have
perceived any dilemma ."19
Unfortunately, the very forces that were
responsible for economic recovery in
the early 1920s were actively or
passively opposed to bolshevism. The
tensions that resulted meant that an
authoritarian response was bound to
follow. Moore traces implementation
of such a policy through the 1920s and
early 1930s . This policy had a number
of characteristic features . Demo cratic
sentiments were exploited by directing
popular hostilities toward minor party
functionaries and away from the
is an impressive synthesis of
sociological and historical
perspectives. Moore's achievement in
this book, which was written at a time
when clear thinking about Soviet
Russia was a scarce commodity, is to
have identified the intrinsic
requirements that had to be satisfied
and the intrinsic limits on the ambitions
that could be realized in that society at
that time . He shows that both the limits
and the require ments were in part a
consequence of the need to manage an
industrial society within a given social
structure and international setting. They
were also in part a result of constraints
imposed by an ideology that, while
fulfilling the "apparent necessity" in all
societies for a set of beliefs that were
"in part above and beyond rational
criticism, " also imposed yet further
demands, which had the effect of
restricting the fre edom of ma:rieuveY
ciftli:e 1eadership.22 Above all,
flowing 359
Theda Skocpol through the present. In
the realm of actual research practice,
moreover, sociologists may borrow
archival methods from historians, or
they may use historians' works as
"secondary sources" of evidence . Yet
such historical techniques and
evidence can readily be combined with
other methods of gathering and
analyzing evidence about the social
world. In fact, quantitative techniques
traditionally identified with nonhistorical sociological research have
been reworked to become relevant for
the analysis of temporal processes .17
Even more than has occurred so far,
quantitative and qualitative approaches
could be creatively com bined in
research .18(fnrough quantitative and
qualitative modes of analysis alike,
sociolOgical theorizing can become
more sensitive to sequences over time
senses . ::;;cn:Y!ei
e!eh:;e:a =e:o!
:1ti p::c,, .
the very rhetorical structure of works
in this genre, for they invariably devote
entire chapters or sections to <i.he
logical elaboration of highly abstract
concepts and propositionS')before
using them to analyze the historical
instance(s) . For readers already
sympathetically oriented to the kind of
theoretical perspective at issue, this
may not seem problem- atic. For those
who find the model incomprehensi!
.jncoher:errt; or questionable, a
sense of arbitrariness can arise from
the start. p Secondly, given the mdel,
questions can also arise about its
applica tion to each case . Since highly
general concepts and propositions are
at 365
Theda Skocpol issue, how are we to
know that any two investigators would
desire._J:S!_!-'1,9r.a:n:,rgg.mgnt se.Rnas
potentially generalizable beyond the
single Soviet instance . An important
work of comparative history that
combines moments of explicit
hypothesis testing with interpretation
and telling contrasts is White
Supremacy: A Comparative Study in
American and South Afr ican His tory,
by the historian George Fredrickson.49
Each chapter in this im pressive and
beautifully written work slices
comparatively into a differ ent epoch
and aspect of the relations between
whites and nonwhites in South Africa
and the United States from colonial to
modern times. Fredrickson, like
Geertz, primarily wants to let his two
cases comment on each other's
distinctive features . But here and
there, at points where issues come up
on which relevant bodies of theorizing
are to be found, Fredrickson breaks his
History, " and the Appendix, "On Intellectual Craftsmanship," are especially
relevant. Moore, Barrington, Jr.
"Strategy in Social Science ." In
Political Power and Social 398
Annotated Bibliography Theory, pp. 11
-159. Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard
University Press, 1958 . This is an
apology for historical research in
sociology and a careful discus sion of
how to situate an explanatory historical
sociology between univer salistic
theorizing and idiographic
historiography. Nisbet, Robert A.
Social Change and History: Aspects of
the Western Theory of Devel opment.
New York: Oxford University Press,
1969. Instead of the develop mentalist
concept of endogenous, progressive,
evolutionary social change that has
dominated Western thought since
ancient times and reappeared in
structural functionalist theories of
modernization, Nisbet advocates "a
historiographical methods IS
especmlly good on sources of primary
evidence and rules for the effective
and valid interpretation of documents.
Sewell; William H., Jr. "Marc Bloch
and the Logic of Comparative History.
" Hzstory and Theory 6(2) (1967):20818. This systematic gloss on Bloch's
classic 1928 essay incorporates
examples from Bloch's own use of
historical comparisons in his various
substantive studies. Skocpol, Theda,
and Margaret Somers. "The Uses of
Comparative History in Macrosocial
Inquiry." Comparative Studies in
Society and History 22(2) (1980):
174-97. This article delineates and
evaluates three different ways of doing
comparative history: the "contrastoriented" approach best exem plified
by Bendix; the "macro-analytic"
approach exemplified by Moore,
Skocpol, and . Hamilton; and the
"parallel" approach exemplified by
experimental ad statistcal
approaches, but tailored to the special
prob lems of comparmg relatively
small numbers of "historically given"
cases. Smel . sr urveys a
comprehensive array of issues about
research design, classification,
measurement, and analytic inference,
using examples from the work of
Tocqueville, Durkheim, and Weber, as
well as from modern studies in
sociology, anthropology, and beyond.
Smith, Dennis. "Social History and
Sociology -More Than Just Good
Friends ." 400 Socologial
Review 30(2) (!982) :286-308. Smith
suggests that sociology and soCial
history are --expenenemg a
convergence -of - interests; although this may have been obscured by recent
preoccupations with structuralism. He
discusses works by Peter Burke, R. S .
Neale, Anthony Giddens, E. P .
Annotated Bibliography Thompson,