European Sociological Review

VOLUME 20

NUMBER 3

JULY 2004

263269

263

Book Reviews
What is New in Soziologie?
A Rejoinder to Karl-Dieter Opps
Review
The book project Soziologie, in seven volumes, reviewed
by Karl-Dieter Opp was not planned in the way it was
finally realized and could not have been well planned
that way. The actual aim only emerged step by step and
it was precisely this aim which in the end made the process so long and the volumes so extensive: the theoretical
integration of the different sociological paradigms into
one unitary and comprehensive concept of a sociological
explanation, which allowed and this is where it differs
from other attempts each of the varieties of sociology
to retain its relevant core. However, they have been
integrated into the logic of explanatory sociology and
enriched by the respective relevant contributions of
neighbouring disciplines, especially of economics and
(social) psychology. At the very beginning the aim was
much more modest: a synopsis of the basic ideas, methodological rules and theoretical instruments of explanatory
sociology, which arose about the middle of the 1970s
and has been promoted primarily within European sociology, and especially by Raymond Boudon, Siegwart
Lindenberg, Reinhard Wippler, Rolf Ziegler, and later
also by John H. Goldthorpe, as well as quite early on by
Karl-Dieter Opp. This development reached a certain
peak with the major work entitled Foundations of Social
Theory by James S. Coleman (1990). The proponents of
explanatory sociology anchored the indispensable
nomological core in the only (at least at that time)
theory of action that has also proved methodologically
satisfactory: the so-called rational-choice (RC) theory.
As a result the whole approach was quickly labelled and
one-sidedly perceived as the RC paradigm.
Right from the start, and despite all its advantages,
the explanatory sociology project has thus displayed this
special weakness: Because all other paradigms of sociology defended themselves against this very core with
arguments that in part are understood only today and
that are meanwhile much more clearly substantiated, the
RC project had to couch its claim to being a general
theoretical framework in the form of theoretical

imperialism. Objections and anomalies have either

been ignored, more or less repaired or simply translated into the terms of the RC theory unless they were
merely sorted and exhibited as a kind of curiosity show
(like Jon Elster did for many years). Without doubt
there have also been great achievements in this respect,
but many blind spots have remained as well to date
the existence of which several proponents of the RC
approach do not (want to) acknowledge. Probably
the most important example is that human behaviour
is often massively culturally guided by ideas, thereby
deactivating any rational or strategic considerations
(such as calculation of consequences). This fact becomes
manifest, for example, in ethnic and religious conflicts
that can currently be observed throughout the world.
This blindness has in turn made it easy for the affected
paradigms to repulse the imperialistic claims of the
RC approach, to isolate it as a special paradigm and so
to render it harmless. According to Randall Collins,
for instance, the RC approach is nothing but the
continuation of only one of the four sociological traditions that otherwise do not have much in common.
It was not least James S. Coleman with his Foundations
who gave sufficient reasons for this displacement into
a special niche. Coleman has always insisted on the
(pure) theory of rational action, and the chapters and
parts in which he addresses cultural and non-rational
phenomena are so weak that critics could indeed win
hands down. To override this segmentation of sociological paradigms therefore became the central aim of
Soziologie. Thus, the volumes do not describe a further
paradigm or constitute merely an extension of the
conventional RC approach, but rather present an
attempt at a theoretical framework that includes (as
much as possible) all relevant aspects of social processes,
such as, for instance, material interests, institutional
rules and the cultural definition of situations. And insofar as the various paradigms have made important
contributions here, they are also considered although
within a comprehensive theoretical context and strictly
subject to the conditions of methodologically satisfactory sociological explanations.
It would be presumptuous to expect that, taken
together, the seven volumes of Soziologie reached this

264

BOOK REVIEWS

aim of theoretically integrating sociology into a comprehensive logic of sociological explanation down to the
smallest detail. But this surely cannot be demanded from
one single author. However, I would like to state that the
work, with its aim, makes a much clearer contribution to
progress than Opps review suggests (although it otherwise aspires to comprehension, fairness and accuracy).
In addition again contrary to what Opp suggests it is
no simple continuation or completion of the RC
approach in such a narrowly defined sense, as Coleman
in particular, and most of those who currently feel
obliged to this paradigm, has always decidedly presented
it. On the one hand, Opp indicates at the beginning and
at the end of his review that Soziologie represents a farreaching step towards the development of a reliable,
explanatory sociology, which goes in the right direction,
and that the volumes have some suggestions in store
for an integrative view. However, he actually retains the
exact perspective that the work tries to override: namely
that it is in fact the RC approach, which is the basis for
the reconstruction of all other perspectives. Soziologie
wants more and offers more: it also encompasses the RC
approach (in its narrow sense as well as in its broader
sense, e.g. by including altruistic motives in an utility
function) and assigns a special range to it just as it
does for other paradigms. The only feature that still
distinguishes the RC approach from all others, and
which Soziologie even now completely shares with it, is
its systematic orientation toward the methodological
requirements of adequate explanations [and the related
(formal) modeling of social processes]. Therefore, it
is not surprising that Soziologie systemizes and uses, to
a large extent, the currently available theoretical instruments of the RC approach (e.g. those of game theory
or the formalization of processes of aggregation). But
in its explanations it is not restricted by the narrow
conditions of (neoclassical) RC theories limits which
economists themselves are facing right now.
All this becomes most obvious in the evaluation of
the part that Opp calls the most innovative part: the
frame-selection theory (FST). In short, FST states that
any behaviour of actors is preceded by a definition of the
situation in the form of an activation of certain mental
models stored in the memory. The activation is at first
controlled by a usually extremely simple act of
pattern recognition. In the case of perfect recognition,
behaviour follows the shadow of the past in the stored
mental models without any further reflection. A rational
calculation of future consequences will only occur under
(very) special circumstances. In short, what the RC
approach considers as a general law constitutes only a

special case in FST. The consequences are profound,

for instance for the explanation of normative action: if
norms are strongly anchored as mental models and activated situationally, e.g. by significant symbols, actors
will not reflect any further, and all complicated RC
models of (strategic) adherence to norms will become
superfluous. Insofar as cultural ideas and collective
representations are cases of such mental models, FST
allows for the (easy) integration of non-strategic institutional and cultural aspects of societal processes, which
are ignored by conventional RC approaches, into one
explanatory frame. Frederico Varese and Meir Yaish, for
instance, impressively demonstrated some time ago that
such an unconditional and non-strategic impact of cultural models, e.g. helping behaviour even in (extreme)
high-cost situations (here, rescue of Jews in the Second
World War), does in fact exist. However, RC explanations of (normative) action will by no means become
superfluous with FST (for example, the explanation
which has been developed for the results of empirical
game theory on cooperation in dilemma situations).
However, they do have special conditions that can be
precisely specified by the FST. An important by-product
of this integration of cultural phenomena into the
framework of explanatory sociology is that one is now
able to go far beyond the common ethnographic thick
descriptions found there, and that there is no longer an
excuse for not trying to find a correct (nomological)
explanation of cultural processes. In several of the
receptions of Soziologie this has caused easily understandable excitement within the various paradigms an
unmistakable sign of the fact that one cannot simply
classify Soziologie as a completion of the conventional
RC approach only.
Without doubt, the integrative efforts have had their
price: Various things had to remain preliminary or could
not be illustrated in detail, and the traditional fields of
sociology (such as family, religion, city, social movements, etc.) were not included separately. And again
without doubt, there are many reasons for criticism.
Justly, Opp states several of them in his review, such
as, for example, George C. Homans being treated as
a stepchild. However, I do not want to address this
in more detail, the more so since a great part of Opps
objections relate to special methodological discussions
that can also be viewed in a different way (as, for example, in connection with the concept of social production
functions, or the principle of decreasing abstraction).
A couple of Opps objections are incorrect, such as the
claim that FST requires complicated calculations or
the criticism related to everyday behaviour, or I do

BOOK REVIEWS

not agree with them, such as the extensive criticism on

the way the norm problem is addressed. In this respect
(as with many other points that he criticizes), Opp has
ignored the fact that due precisely to the integrative
design details are addressed throughout the different
volumes. Therefore, the solution lies in the reception of
the various theoretical details described often in different
parts of the volumes and their final integration in a
special chapter as, for instance, for the explanation of
the emergence of institutional rules or norms. And this
may well be the central structural weakness of the
project: due to the integrative goal, the volumes had
to go far back and thus became longer than is normally
the case with textbooks. However, this length may
well cover up what in fact is new in Soziologie: The
(at least attempted) overcoming of its division into
paradigms.
I wish to thank Karl-Dieter Opp very much for providing an informed summary of the basic structure, the
general direction and many critical details of this
attempt. I hope, however, that in the course of time
there will be a good many readers who take time to
verify for themselves what is really new, or not, in
Soziologie, and whether the most important goal,
namely the integration of the various paradigms of sociology into one comprehensive explanatory framework,
was indeed achieved.
Hartmut Esser
University of Mannheim, Germany
DOI:10.1093/esr/jch021, available online at www.esr.
oupjournals.org

Elmar Rieger and Stephan Leibfried.

Limits to Globalization. Welfare
States and the World Economy
Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003. 402 pp.

With their new book, Elmar Rieger and Stephan Leibfried

compile five essays that address the relation between
economic globalization and the future of national welfare
states from a political economy perspective. To take their
stance on the globalization issue, Rieger and Leibfried
draw on a rich economic, sociology, political science and
legal literature to trace the post-war development of the
GATT, IWF and WTO systems that institutionalized

265

international free trade, and combine this with national

case study material on social and trade policies in the
USA, Germany and, in the final chapter, East Asia. Being
focused on the regulation of international economic
exchange, the theme of much of the book is then deliberately set against the popular complaint that globalization would sweep away national governments capacities
for policy formulation. Rather, Rieger and Leibfried
quite firmly assert that the rise of international economic
exchange has to be seen as one specific element of
primarily national production systems that so their key
thesis were able to exploit efficiency gains from international trade because of favourable political conditions
during the post-war years.
Taken together, Rieger and Leibfrieds essays thus add
important twists to both the sociological globalization literature and, maybe even more importantly, the broader
social science debate on the efficiency value of modern
welfare states. With respect to the former, Limits is firm
in considering globalization as an essentially endogenous
outcome of the post-war domestic political constellations
in the Western world. To be precise, Rieger and Leibfried
do not argue against a perception that increasing economic competition may act as an exogenous force of
change in many countries. They do assert, however, that
the globalization we are witnessing today is the product
of successful regulation of economic exchange across
national borders, which enables national production
systems to reap the welfare gains resulting from increases
in economic efficiency.
Chapter 2, arguably the strongest piece in the collection, provides Rieger and Leibfrieds main arguments for
this. Under the rubric of welfare mercantilism, Rieger
and Leibfried provide a political economy of globalization that departs from the observation that democratic
societies tie policy-making to the interest of the average
citizen, so that governments survival rests on the
welfare of the middle classes, broadly speaking. In consequence, governments prime political concern is with its
domestic constituency, in economic terms the contrast
between domestic and foreign markets is not nearly as
evident, however. Rather, precisely because governments
will have incentives to increase the welfare of the middle
classes, democratic governments also have considerable
incentives to exploit the efficiency gains of both national
and international markets. However, as voters are likely
to respond more quickly to welfare losses than gains
(what Rieger and Leibfried term the conservative welfare
function), governments also have clear incentives to
manage a regulated, piecemeal entry into international
markets that involves exposing highly competitive sectors