Analytical sociology
Analytical sociology is a strategy for understanding the social world. It is concerned with explaining important macro-level facts such as the
The analytical approach is founded on the premise that proper explanations detail the "cogs and wheels" through which social outcomes are brought about, and it is driven by a commitment to realism. Empirically false assumptions about human motivation, cognitive processes, access to information, or social relations cannot bear the explanatory burden in a mechanistic explanation no matter how well they predict the outcome to be explained.
With its focus on the macro-level outcomes that individuals in interaction with one another bring about, analytical sociology is part of the "complexity turn" within sociology. Until very recently sociologists did not have the tools needed for analyzing the dynamics of
Contemporary scholars working in this tradition include
was of pivotal importance for the development of the analytical approach.References
- P. Hedström and P. Bearman (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
- P. Hedström Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
- P. Hedström and R. Swedberg (Eds.) Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
- P. Hedström and P. Ylikoski. 2010. "Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences". Annual Review of Sociology 36: 49–67.
- F.J. León-Medina 2017. Analytical Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling: Is Generative Sufficiency Sufficient?. Sociological Theory, 35(3), pp. 157–178.
- G. Manzo "Analytical Sociology and Its Critics". European Journal of Sociology (Archives Européennes de Sociologie), 2010, 51(1): 129‐170.
- T. Kron and T. Grund (Eds.) Die Analytische Soziologie in der Diskussion. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010.
- P. Y.-z. Wan "Analytical Sociology: A Bungean Appreciation." Science & Education, 2011, Online First Version. .