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The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology
Abstract
The methodological foundations of comparative-historical sociology have been transformed dramatically in recent years. Arguments against general theoretical models have proliferated, while the complexity and uniqueness of historical events and the virtues of inductive methods have been emphasized. The growing convergence of sociology and history has led to a decline in the use of general theories. This article begins with a description and analysis of the recent transformation of the methodology of comparative-historical sociology. An overreliance on inductive methods has resulted in inadequate specifications of causal relations and causal mechanisms in recent comparative-historical sociology. The concluding section discusses a nascent rational choice research program in political sociology to illustrate an alternative methodology.
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Citations
Cites
Statistics and Causal Inference
Holland, P. W. (1986) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.1080/01621459.1986.10478354 · Cited by 5,293
The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry
Skocpol, T., & Somers, M. (1980) · Comparative Studies in Society and History · doi:10.1017/s0010417500009282 · Cited by 1,074
Two methods in search of science: Skocpol versus Trotsky
Burawoy, M. (1989) · Theory and Society · doi:10.1007/bf00147158 · Cited by 152
Cited by
Path dependence in historical sociology
Mahoney, J. (2000) · Theory and Society · doi:10.1023/a:1007113830879 · Cited by 3,469
The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach
Somers, M. R. (1994) · Theory and Society · doi:10.1007/bf00992905 · Cited by 2,935
Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology
Hedstrom, P. (2005) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511488801 · Cited by 816
(2005) · Cited by 772
Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory
Goldstone, J. A. (2001) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.139 · Cited by 566
Metadata
- Authors
- Kiser, E., & Hechter, M.
- Venue
- American Journal of Sociology
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 1991-07
- Volume
- 97
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-30
- ISSN
- 0002-9602 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5390
- OpenAlex
- W2045287826
- Cited by
- 330
- References
- 3
- FWCI
- 40.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Kiser, E., & Hechter, M. (1991). The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology. American Journal of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1086/229738
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
