Is Theory for Demographers?
| Autor: | Rupert B. Vance |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1952 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Social Forces. 31:9-13 |
| ISSN: | 1534-7605 0037-7732 |
| DOI: | 10.2307/2572565 |
| Popis: | periphery expansions and contractions will occur, depending on many variables. Sometimes these changes in the fringe areas follow a certain pattern, as Siegfried has shown for some regions of France. Areas of agrarian unrest naturally expand in times of agricultural depression and contract in times of prosperity. The unrest may disappear entirely for some time, only to revive at the next drought or depression in the very same areas. The same is true of areas of labor unrest in cities. Other changes in the boundaries of political ecological areas may be caused by changes in population; migrants into an area may bring with them political attitudes characteristic of their region of origin. Changes in the political ecology can thus be due to changes in the social stratification or to changes in the over-all economic and political situation. It has been suggested by Nilson that, as a rule, those areas which are the typical breeding grounds of extremist or radical movements are also areas of high instability of political attitudes. There is not sufficient space to discuss in this paper the influence of religious cleavages and of ethnic differences on voting. These and some other factors should be given careful and circumspect consideration. The very essence of political ecology or sociography consists in the avoidance of monocausal explanations. Political attitudes and tendencies are part of the entire personality of an individual, an expression of his view of society, of his way of life. They can be understood only through an integration of specialized knowledge obtained in the various social sciences. I believe that the kind of studies which we have been discussing in this paper lend themselves especially well to the practice of integration. This observation leads to a more general consideration concerning the present situation in sociology with which I want to conclude my remarks. The rising interest in political sociology is more than a fashion or fad. Contrary to a popular opinion which identifies sociology with the practical discipline of social welfare, our science had an eminently political origin. Today it is almost forgotten that Saint Simon, Auguste Comte, and Lorenz Stein conceived the new science of society as an antidote against the poison of social disintegration which, in their opinion, had taken effect since the turn of the eighteenth century, if not much earlier. We in our generation have made great strides towards an objective, detached approach to social facts. Sometimes it seemed as if over this endeavor we had forgotten the raison d'gtre of our discipline. If in these days we see many of our colleagues turn towards the study of power and authority, of social stratification and social movements and related political phenomena we welcome these endeavors not only as steps towards the recapture of a lost tradition but also as an advance towards the re-integration of the social sciences. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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