Skip to content

Constructing Social Theories

Best in textbook rentals since 2012!

ISBN-10: 0226774848

ISBN-13: 9780226774848

Edition: 1987

Authors: Arthur L. Stinchcombe

List price: $34.00
Blue ribbon 30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!
what's this?
Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:
Carrot Coin icon
XP icon
You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

Description:

Constructing Social Theories presents to the reader a range of strategies for constructing theories, and in a clear, rigorous, and imaginative manner, illustrates how they can be applied. Arthur L. Stinchcombe argues that theories should not be invented in the abstract--or applied a priori to a problem--but should be dictated by the nature of the data to be explained. This work was awarded the Sorokin prize by the American Sociological Association as the book that made an outstanding contribution to the progress of sociology in 1970.
Customers also bought

Book details

List price: $34.00
Copyright year: 1987
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 7/15/1987
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 320
Size: 0.60" wide x 0.90" long x 0.07" tall
Weight: 0.902
Language: English

Preface
Introduction
The Status of Explanations
Proposed Empirical Derivations from Explanations
The Development of the Book
Concluding Comments
The Logic of Scientific Inference
Fundamental Forms of Scientific Inference
Theoretical and Empirical Statements
Testing Theories with Observations
Multiple Tests of Theories
The Fundamental Criterion of a Strong Test of Theory
Two Very General Alternative Theories: Statistical Inference
The Crucial Experiment
The Structure of Causal Theories
Definition of Variables
Definition of Causal Laws
Observation in Support of Causal Theories
Scientific Concepts
Change of Concepts as Theories
Change Conceptualization of Variables
Type-Concepts
Types as a Convenience in Talking
About Interaction Effects
Levels of Generality in Social Theory
An Outline of Levels of Generality
Levels of Critiques
Conclusions
Complex Causal Structures: Demographic, Functional, and Historicist Explanations of Social Phenomena
Demographic Explanations of Social Phenomena
The Simplest Integrated Demographic Theory: Population Growth with Negligible Reproductive Cycles
A More Complex Integrated Demographic Theory
Incomplete or Open Demographic Explanations: Rates, Quantities, and Proportions
Demographic Explanation Summarized
Functional Causal Imagery
Indications for the Use of Functional Imagery
Types of Social Selection Processes
The Logic of Functional Explanation
A Comment on the Conservative
Nature of Functional Explanation
Marxian Functionalism: Functional Arguments in a System of Unequal Power
Summary
Historicist Causal Imagery
The Causal Structure of Historicist Explanations
"Survivals" and Functional Explanations
Empirical Derivations from Functional Historicism
Institutions and Historicist Explanations
Summary of Empirical Derivations from Institutional-Historicist Theories
Historical Causes in Institutional-Historicist Explanations
Institutional and Functional Historicism
Sunk Costs and Historicist Explanations
The Conditions of the Permanence of Resources
The Historical Sources of Sunk Costs
Micro-historicism and Cohort Analysis
The Problem of the Choice of Variables in Causal Explanations
Technical Appendix to Chapter Three / The Linear Directed Graph
Approach to Complex Causal Structures
The Basic Idea of a Linear Graph
Chain or Cascade Graphs
Reduction of More Complex Graphs
Loops in Linear Graphs
The Relations Between Tensions and Homeostasis in Functional Structures
The Relation Between Tension and Structure Activity
A Formal Representation of Marxian Functionalism
Loops Not Touching the Causal Path
The General Solution for Graph Transmittance
Conclusion
The Conceptualization of Power Phenomena
Rights in Things and Rights in Persons
Individual Powers
Corporate Powers
Legitimacy of Powers
The Nesting of Power
Doctrines of Legitimacy
A Concept of Legitimacy
An Information
Conception of Power Decisions and Information
Prices in Markets as Information
Features of Price Systems
Situational Variations in Power
The Logical Structure of Information Concepts
Political Incorporation
Political Isolation and Incorporation
The Components of Political Access
The Incorporation of the German Proletariat
The Construction of a Concept of Incorporation Some Difficulties
The Logical Structure of the Concept
Institutions and Institutional Integration Values and Power
A Correlation Concept of Institutions
Institutional Areas and Rank-related Power
Institutional Conflict
The Logical Structure of the Concept of Institutions
The Creation of Organizations
The Dispersion of Powers Needed by Projects
Proposals and the Assembly of Powers
Feasible Coalitions
Forming Coalitions