Theorizing social change

The social structure is constantly changing. While striving to study society, it is therefore clear that sociology has to identify, highlight and embrace the fundamental concepts, the conceptual categories that make it possible to become familiar with, understand, interpret and explain events. However, if the analysis of social transformations can reveal a common denominator that appears to be the characteristic interpretative key for each society, does it mean that there is a common underlying structure at the root of every change? After the existence of a common principle (form) or a common denominator for every society and historical-social period has been established, we need to ask if this common denominator contributes towards the organisation of social phenomena (first perspective) or whether it is an interpretive category, an analytical grid that the subject applies in his knowledge of society (second perspective). Does the subject give form to society through specific interpretive categories (Panofsky), or is society generated and modified by a formal social structure (Goldmann)?

The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2014

Our commentary focuses on juxtaposing the proposed science of intentional change with facts and concepts pertaining to the level of large populations or changes on a worldwide scale. Although we find a unified evolutionary theory promising, we think that long-term and large-scale, scientifically guided - that is, intentional - social change is not only impossible, but also undesirable.

How Change Happens puts the study of social and cultural history and social change and cultural evolution on a scientific basis capable of rational analysis and understanding. It shows how social and cultural change happens and explains the sequence of events in social and cultural history. It shows how social and cultural history followed a necessary path that can be analysed and rationally understood and explained. Most books on history describe how one thing followed another. How Change Happens describes why one thing followed another.

2013

International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2012

The present paper attempts to lay the foundations of a cultural approach for the study of social change, in which change is understood as a result of a conflict of self-interpretations among different groups or spheres in a society. This cultural approach seems to be particularly appropriate to explain the emergence of social movements, which always presuppose a clash of views, say, between the aspirations of the people and the official doctrine of the state, just to mention the most typical case. The concepts and methodological principles offered here owe a great debt to the work of the Canadian Philosopher Charles Taylor – although he never spelled out a meta-theory on change. The paper will then try to show in what would consist such a Taylorian theory of social change, an this we do not only by reconstructingTaylor’s views on this issue, but also through a critical examination of a range of key assumptions found both in mainstream social science and, more specifically, in existing theories of social change

Macdonald, G. 2011. Change in Social Theory. In P. Mcgrath and T. Bauman, Anthropologies of change: Theoretical and methodical challenges, Select proceedings, Canberra: AIATSIS Research Publications.

The word "change" denotes a difference in anything observed over some period of time. Social change, therefore, would mean observable differences in any social phenomena over any period of time.  M. D. Jenson. "Social change may be defined as modification in ways of doing and thinking of people."  Anderson and Parker. "Social change involves alteration in the structure or functioning of social forms or processes themselves."  Lundberg and others. "Social change refers to any modification in established patterns of inter human relationships and standards of conduct."  Koenig, S. "Social change refers to the modifications which occur in the life patterns of a people."  Jones. "Social change is a term used to describe variations in, or modifications of, any aspect of social processes, social patterns, social interaction or social organisation."  Mazumdar, H. T. "Social change may be defined as a new fashion or mode, either modifying or replacing the old, in the life of a people, or in the operation of a society." social change refers to the modifications which take place in the life patterns of people. It does not refer to all the changes going on in the society. The changes in art, language, technology; philosophy etc., may not be included in the term 'Social change' which should be interpreted in a narrow sense to mean alterations in the field of social relationships.

Papers. Revista de Sociologia, 2006

Analytical sociology is a middle-range approach to sociological theorizing which seeks to develop precise and realistic action-based explanations of various social phenomena. At the heart of the analytical approach is the idea that acceptable explanations must detail the mechanisms through which the phenomena to be explained were brought about. In this article I discuss the most important elements of this approach and I try to illustrate the various components involved in an explanation of social change. The analytical approach adopted here seeks to closely integrate mechanism-based theories of action and interaction, and agent-based computational modelling. The article is organized in the following way: first I present the guiding ideas behind the mechanisms approach. Second I discuss various mechanisms of action and interaction to illustrate what it is all about. Third I use a socalled agent-based model for illustrating how one can link individual-level mechanisms to social outcomes. Fourth I show how important it is to empirically calibrate these types of models. And fifth, and finally, I round it all up with some concluding remarks.