Between Mechanism Talk And Mechanism Cult: New Emphases in Explanatory Sociology And Empirical Research
Between Mechanism Talk And Mechanism Cult: New Emphases in Explanatory Sociology And Empirical Research
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DOI：
10.1007/s11577-014-0272-7
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发表时间：
2014-09
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
F. Kalter;Clemens Kroneberg
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
F. Kalter;Clemens Kroneberg
近年来，对机制的研究受到越来越多的关注，并促成了所谓的“分析社会学”的形成，该社会学将社会机制的思想置于其核心地位。我们讨论了基于机制的解释的关键特征及其与解释社会学长期传统的关系。在目前的研究文献中，我们看到了越来越多的关于“机制”的参考文献，我们发现了基于机制的解释与理想的典型偏差。许多参考文献归结为机制论，因为它没有详细解释特定的投入如何以及为什么会导致特定的产出。为此，研究人员必须给出详细的口头说明，说明一种机制在特定条件下是如何展开的，或者指定一个可以通过分析或模拟进行分析的正式生成模型。这一议程在一段时间内一直是方法论个人主义、社会学理性选择理论和解释社会学的核心，但却被分析社会学粉饰了一层新的外衣。这一较新的理论运动提供了一个以问题为中心的新议程，其基础是众所周知的宏观-微观-宏观模型，并可能激发新一代的研究，这种研究更加重视分析社会动态，而不是发展行动理论。然而，我们认为，与其构成一种相互竞争的方法，这些冲动应该被置于社会学长期和多方面的解释议程中。避免任何形式的机械崇拜，
The study of mechanisms has received increased attention in recent years and contributed to the formation of so-called ‘analytical sociology’that has put the idea of social mechanisms at its core. We discuss the crucial characteristics of mechanism-based explanations and their relation to the longstanding tradition of explanatory sociology. Looking at the widespread and growing number of references to ‘mechanisms’ in the current research literature, we identify typical deviations from the ideal of a mechanism-based explanation. Many references come down to mechanism talk insofar as it is not explicated in detail how and why particular inputs tend to result in particular outputs. To this end, researchers have to give a detailed verbal account of how exactly a mechanism is thought to unfold under specified conditions, or to specify a formal generative model which can be analysed analytically or by simulation. This agenda has been at the core of methodological individualism, sociological rational choice theory, and explanatory sociology for some time, but has received a new coat of whitewash by analytical sociology. This more recent theoretical movement offers a fresh problem-centred agenda based on the well-known macro-micro-macro model and could inspire a new generation of research that places greater weight on analysing social dynamics than on developing theories of action. However, we submit that, rather than constituting a competing approach, these impulses should be located within the longstanding and multifaceted explanatory agenda in sociology. Avoiding any form of mechanism cult and