COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY and SOCIAL THEORY Comparative Sociology and Social Theory Beyond the Three Worlds

COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY Comparative Sociology and Social Theory Beyond the Three Worlds

Graham Crow

Macmillan Education ISBN 978-0-333-63426-4 ISBN 978-1-349-25679-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25679-2

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First published in the United States of America in 1997

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. ISBN 978-0-312-17311-1 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-312-17312-8(paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crow, Graham Comparative sociology and social theory : beyond the three worlds I Graham Crow. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-17311-1 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-312-17312-8(paper) I. Sociology-Comparative method. I. Title. HM51.C887 1997 301--dc21 96-51081 CIP For Rose Contents

Acknowledgements viii Introduction: Comparative sociology and the sociological imagination 1 1 The theory and practice of comparative sociology 9 2 The making of the modern world: the historical sociology of Barrington Moore 31 3 The proliferation of capitalisms: organized capitalism, disorganized capitalism and beyond 51 4 Modern capitalism and the state: the contradictions of state welfare and corporatism 73 5 The rise and transcendence of state socialism: Stalinism, de-Stalinization and beyond 94 6 The rise and fall of the third world: development, disillusion and divergence 115 7 From three worlds to globalization: economic restructuring, democratization and cultural change in a global context 13 6 8 Comparative sociology and theories of social change: progress, unpredictability and visions of the future 15 8 Bibliography 179 Index 201

vii Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to many people for the assistance which they gave me in the course of writing this book. My undergraduate tutor, Gavin Williams, first pointed me in the direction of comparative sociology, and my erstwhile colleague John Hall later nurtured my developing interest. The Department of Sociology and Social Policy generously provided a period of leave in 1995, which allowed an uninterrupted spell during which the greater part of the first draft was written. Various colleagues in the Department also took time out from their busy schedules to read and comment on draft material and to discuss the underlying ideas; Graham Allan, Waltraud Ernst, Roger Lawson and Tony Rees deserve special thanks in this regard. In addition, useful feedback has come from the several cohorts of undergraduates who have taken my final-year course on comparative sociology. The secretarial staff in the Department, Doreen Davies, Glynis Evans, Gwen Gordon and Eileen Upward, also made valuable contributions to improving the quality of the final product. The library staff at both the University of Southampton and the London School of Economics helped in securing access to the wide range of material which work of this sort requires. At the publishers, the project has been speeded along at various points by timely and supportive editorial guidance from Frances Arnold, Catherine Gray and Nicola Young; the comments on the draft which were made by the publisher's anonymous reader were an important part of this process. Friends and colleagues at other universities gave further constructive advice and encouragement when responding to my requests for them to cast a critical sociological eye over draft chapters; Fiona Devine (who read every draft chapter), Will Medd and Claire Wallace are all owed a debt in this respect. Finally, special appreciation is due to Rose Wiles, whose contribution has been quite literally beyond comparison; this book is dedicated to her.

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