Social Science Information

In the social sciences, evaluation sometimes approaches a form of ‘quantophrenia’, as Sorokin put it. The factors that justify it (rationalization, the control of the correct use of public funds) are rapidly confronted with criticism which exposes the bureaucratization of research and asks major questions: in our disciplines what do we mean by finding and demonstrating? Can our research subjects be further generalized and organized in a sphere of discussion which has global scope without running the risk of being hindered by short-term logics of evaluation?

The purpose of the author in engaging with ‘the two great fears of 1789’ in France is mainly to illustrate various emotional mechanisms that almost certainly had some causal role in the events. The action ultimately chosen by the Assembly was neither to fight nor to flee, but to try to defuse the danger by acting on its causes. Although not one of the spontaneous action tendencies of fear, the author shows the action was to a large extent an emotional rather than a rational response.

The connections between emotion and rationality are reexamined. Historically, Plato’s doctrine of the tripartite soul has established the preconception of a strict separation of emotion/passion from cognition/rationality, encouraging the biased perception that emotions are inherently irrational. To examine whether emotions can be rational, one must first examine the various meanings of rationality as developed in philosophy, psychology and the social and economic sciences. In this article, three forms of rationality are distinguished, and it is suggested that they can act as criteria to judge the rationality of emotions. Furthermore, before examining the possible relationships between emotion and rationality, the concept of emotion needs a more precise definition. A convergent definition of emotion is proposed in the form of a componential model that is based on an appraisal mechanism that produces tendencies for action to deal rapidly with important and urgent events in an individual’s life. It is demonstrated that emotions can be more or less correct or appropriate depending on the accuracy or realism of the underlying appraisal, the appropriateness of the response pattern and the efficacy of the emotion regulation. Considered in the framework of this componential model, it is suggested that emotions can be assessed as to whether, in a particular situation, they are adaptive (functional), based on well-grounded, accurate inference from available information and considered as reasonable reactions by others. Emotions can be considered rational when they fulfill at least one of these three criteria of rationality.

Taking the philosophical standpoint, this article compares the mathematical theory of individual decision-making with the folk psychology conception of action, desire and belief. It narrows down its topic by carrying the comparison for Savage’s system and his technical concept of subjective probability, which, like Ramsey’s, is referred to the basic model of betting. The argument is organized around three philosophical theses: (i) decision theory is nothing but folk psychology stated in formal language (Lewis), (ii) the former substantially improves on the latter, but is unable to overcome its typical limitations, especially its failure to separate desire and belief empirically (Davidson), (iii) the former substantially improves on the latter and, through these innovations, overcomes some of the limitations. The aim of the article is to establish (iii) not only against the all too simple thesis (i), but also against the subtle thesis (ii).

This paper investigates the links between trust and recognition, first in terms of value judgments about social categories, then in terms of mutual commitments under inequality conditions, finally in terms of mutual recognition as competent members of a collectivity. It criticizes purely cognitive approaches of trust, which, because they reduce trust to propositional attitudes, fail to account for the dynamics and the rationality of its process.

The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of meaning as analytically different from the communication of information. Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. Whereas the communication of information is studied in the information sciences and scientometrics, the communication of meaning has been central to Luhmann’s attempts to make the theory of autopoiesis relevant for sociology. Analytical techniques such as semantic maps and the simulation of anticipatory systems enable us to operationalize the distinctions which Luhmann proposed as relevant to the elaboration of Husserl’s ‘horizons of meaning’ in empirical research: (1) interactions among communications, (2) the organization of meaning in instantiations, and (3) the self-organization of interhuman communication in terms of symbolically generalized media such as truth, love and power. Horizons of meaning, however, remain uncertain orders of expectations, and one should caution against reification from the meta-biological perspective of systems theory.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the existing studies of social capital in the framework of regional innovation systems and attempt to answer the question of whether any new insights or methodological shifts have occurred in the last few (seven or so) years. The reconstruction of empirical findings reveals a rather ambiguous picture. It seems that only radical modification of research design and methods can give new impetus and allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the role of social capital and/or its dimensions in (regional) innovation processes. Regarding the existing body of knowledge, the meta-analytical approach is appropriate in order to discern the most relevant, grounded and comparable theses and data. In the case of new research, more attention should be paid to the ethnographic approach and to triangulation.

Although they are often analysed as forms of reproduction, reconversions have been characterized as forms of mobility in a number of works. Both options are not strictly contradictory and can equally be justified. However, trying to better circumscribe this notion seems utterly necessary today. Although not pretending to offer a precise definition, the author mainly leans on research on the élite conducted in different geographical (France, Hungary, Russia) and historical contexts, and proposes a better-grounded and more heuristic approach to reconversions that would also permit them to be clearly distinguished from conversions.

Persecution of ethnic minorities, social exclusion and racism are phenomena that cannot be studied as isolated variables. Popular forms of these phenomena arise from multitudes of beliefs, values and images with long histories. In discussing the separation of facts and values, the ‘Eichmann experiment’ and obedience and disobedience towards authority, it is shown here that a mechanical obedience corresponds to scientific and technical practices, and to the disenchantment of the world with modern technology. Racism highlights the separation of facts and values and can be viewed as the process of transformation of ‘scientific’ knowledge into common sense and vice versa. The theory of social representations regards these phenomena as processes of anchoring and objectification and as networks of indices and symbols with an imaginary reflection. Drawing on our notion of themata, it is shown that in the case of Roma, themata are articulated around the long historical narratives artistic/criminal. In contemporary situations Roma have a tendency more towards emancipation than towards assimilation.

The Second Earth Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 will coincide with the ratification by the International Commission on Stratigraphy of the concept of a new geological era, the anthropocene. This term emphasizes the acknowledgement of the increasing impact of human intervention on the future of the Spaceship Earth. Humanity is thus at a crossroads and we need, more than ever, to abide by the principle of responsibility. We must mobilize ourselves to learn how to speedily mitigate deleterious climate change without losing sight of the urgent need to reduce the abyssal social disparities. The immediate imperative is to propose long-term development strategies to go hand in hand with an aggiornamento of long-term democratic planning. Such strategies must rely on two pillars: food security and energy security. Last but not least, the United Nations ought to take advantage of the forthcoming Earth Summit to set in motion a global transition towards a socially inclusionary and environmentally sustainable path.

This paper reviews the history of anthropology through the three globalization processes it has undergone since its origin in the 18th century. The discovery of the Other, and then that of the social change and of the historicity (especially of the colonial period) of its societies and cultures, settles all anthropologies at the same level today. This phenomenon calls into question the so-called natural hierarchy that has favoured the Western tradition, though today many new traditions are being elaborated and activated in anthropology by the countries and even the indigenous populations of the South. Elaboration of a common sociology of knowledge should enable all anthropologists to compare and evaluate themselves and their various backgrounds and traditions. Such a detour allows us to have a more egalitarian view of both the theoretical and the field experience of all anthropologies qualified today as world anthropologies or anthropologies without boundaries.

Fifty years ago, around 1960, the widely accepted sociology of modernization divided the world into ‘modern societies’ and societies that still had to undergo processes of ‘modernization and development’. After fundamental criticism of its evolutionist and functionalist assumptions, the theory was widely discredited two decades later. Its demise, though, has left the comparative sociology of contemporary societies with numerous problems. First, modernization theory has not been replaced by any other approach that aims at providing a sociological analysis of the global social configuration, despite all the talk about ‘globalization’. Second, the critique of functionalist reasoning has deprived sociology of the means of assessing collective problem-solving capacity. As a consequence, neo-liberal economics and comparative political economy have come to dominate this issue. Third, the critique of evolutionism has tended to throw overboard all normative concerns in the sociological analysis of social configurations. As a consequence, normative political theory in various guises has tended to become more central than sociology in the assessment of contemporary socio-political constellations. This article explores the ‘conceptual relation’ between the so-called modern societies of the 1960s and apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa over the past half century with a view to elaborating elements of a new sociology of the global social configuration, or in short: a world-sociology. Discussing at the outset the common assumption that a conceptual abyss separated apartheid society, which operated by means of violent oppression, from liberal-democratic societies, in which public action wants justification, the article insists instead on the need for a comparative-historical reconstruction of the trajectories of ‘Western societies’, on the one hand, and South Africa, on the other, in their changing connectedness in the world context. It is argued that violence has never been absent from the history of modernity and that concerns for justice can be expressed in more varied ways than much modernist thinking assumed. The comparative observations, furthermore, show that key questions of socio-political organization, such as the formation of a collective will, the relationship between individual freedom and collective self-determination, and social justice, have not found permanent answers; and that there is little reason to assume that the responses found in the ‘old modernity’ of the 1960s are superior to others in the current condition of global modernity.

The article suggests that the phylogenic basis for contemporary Western artistic practices lies in a social practice of the distinctive features found in the species, as seen in certain birds and mammals. Using the cases of birdsong, ape-paintings, knot-tying in certain orangutans and the intriguing stone-handling of some monkeys, the article shows that the question of non-human artistic practices is not only largely unexplored, but that contemporary ethology and psychology are still incapable of really tackling the problem. More generally, some of the problems encountered stem from the fact that one conception of the social sciences was constructed in opposition to the animal, leaving the study of the latter to biology. In this perspective, the study of artistic activity in non-human animals is a true challenge for the social sciences of the future.

The ongoing revolutions in the media and practices employed by both writing and reading, together with the development of digitalization and the growth in Internet applications present a profound challenge to the activities of all actors involved in traditional publishing, and this includes libraries. These revolutions have a particular impact on the Human and Social Sciences (HSS), which are thereby offered what were heretofore practically inaccessible social prospects. Hence the importance for researchers in the HSS – in particular in France – of the stakes presently playing out around the policies conducted in this area.

The founding fathers of the social sciences recognized commensality as a major issue but considered it mostly in a religious, sacrificial, ritualistic context. The notion of commensality is examined in its various dimensions and operations. Empirical data are used to examine cultural variability in attitudes about food, commensality and its correlates among countries usually categorized as ‘Western’ and ‘modern’. Clear-cut differences are identified, hinting at possible relationships between, on the one hand, cultural attachment to commensality and, on the other hand, a lower prevalence of obesity and associated health problems involving nutrition.

A process of normative change in academic science makes spin-off entrepreneurship compatible with the advancement of knowledge. A parallel process of normative change in industrial science produces a creative tension between organizational and scientific goals that enhances the attainment of both objectives. The creation of hybrid organizations mediating between university–industry and university–government brings these institutional spheres into closer contiguity. The emergence of triadic interactions and ‘taking the role of the other’ among university–industry–government in the transition from an industrial to a knowledge economy may be seen as a conscious innovative stream rather than a chance evolutionary event.

In 1928, Maurice Holland, Director of the Engineering and Industrial Research Division at the US National Research Council, produced a paper on what he called the ‘research cycle’. He portrayed the development of modern industries as a series of sequential steps from basic research to commercialization of technological inventions. The present article documents the source or context of the research cycle, the arguments on which it relies, and the use to which it was put, namely persuading more industrialists to build research laboratories in order to accelerate the development of industry. It suggests that Holland turned a frequently heard but poorly formalized argument into a ‘theory’, paving the way for what came to be called ‘the linear model of innovation’.

This article analyzes the cognitive structures and dynamics of a form of scientific discipline that differs importantly both from the disciplinary format of the 19th-century university system, and from the profile proposed by much postmodern interdisciplinary (anti-disciplinary) discussion. This recent form of discipline, here termed the ‘new disciplinarity’, is a product of the increasing complexity of scientific knowledge and activity. The approach privileges cognition. It emphasizes the concepts of disciplinary referent, robust boundaries, ‘borderland’, combinatorials and projects. It suggests that the new disciplinarity is highly elastic and that it is a spawning-ground for new disciplines.

This paper addresses the methodological gap that impedes the collection of empirical data on subjective experience. It describes a new family of methods for social science research (Subjective Evidence-Based Ethnography: SEBE). The methods are based on: first-person audio-visual recording with a miniature video-camera worn at eye-level (‘subcam’); confronting subjects with these first-person recordings to collect their subjective experience; formulating the findings and discussing the final interpretation with the subjects. These procedures enable subjects to reconstruct and describe their psychological state at the moment of action, especially their goals, by reviewing films of their own activity recorded from their own perspective with subcams. These films provide situated records of actual activity in natural environments, without the need of an external observer. This approach, by providing both detailed records of actual activity and evidence-based accounts of the subject’s own mental processes, supports grounded progress in ethnography, psychology, ergonomics, sociology and the social sciences in general. There are also applications for training and cross-cultural contacts. The techniques are described in sufficient detail for the reader to make use of them. Examples of applications are provided and limitations are discussed.

The paradigm ‘Cognition and Communication’ has served as a methodological basis for interdisciplinary studies carried out within the framework of Franco-Russian research projects in the field of psychology. The importance of investigating human cognition and activity in relationship with communication processes has been taken as a starting-point for these studies. This 25-year collaboration has made possible the development of new perspectives (e.g. the perceived quality approach) and research methods (e.g. techniques of free verbalization analysis) as well as their application in field studies. This collaboration has also resulted in a fruitful exchange of theoretical approaches among French and Russian researchers. The studies carried out in the field of cognition and communication have involved a number of disciplines: general, experimental and social psychology, ergonomics and education. This article presents a synthesis of a number of results obtained within the framework of Franco-Russian projects as well as various perspectives for future collaboration.

This article investigates the matrimonial web of migrants by first focusing on the economy of ethnic profiling which underlies it. Such ethnicization of the ‘love’ encounter is closely dependant on a complex articulation of gender, nationality and mobility (migration), which is called here an ‘international distribution of gender’. Finally, the migrant matrimonial web suggests a new form of ‘ethnic business’, in which the source of value does not result from the activation of pre-existing networks but from the very creation of ethnic networks.