Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the Mexican and U.S. Quests for Truth*

GABRIEL ABEND Northwestern University

Both U.S. and Mexican sociologies allege that they are in the business of making true scientific knowledge claims about the social world. Conventional conceptions of science notwithstanding, I demonstrate that their claims to truth and scientificity are based on alternative epistemological grounds. Drawing a random sample of nonquantitative articles from four leading journals, I show that, first, they assign a different role to theories, and indeed they have dissimilar understandings of what a theory should consist of. Second, whereas U.S. sociology actively struggles against subjectivity, Mexican sociology maximizes the potentials of subjective viewpoints. Third, U.S. sociologists tend to regard highly and Mexican sociologists to eagerly disregard the principle of ethical neutrality. These consistent and systematic differ- ences raise two theoretical issues. First, I argue that Mexican and U.S. sociologies are epistemologically, semantically, and perceptually incommensurable. I contend that this problem is crucial for sociology’s interest in the social conditioning of scientific knowledge’s content. Second, I suggest four lines of thought that can help us explain the epistemological differences I find. Finally, I argue that sociologists would greatly profit from studying epistemologies in the same fashion they have studied other kinds of scientific and nonscientific beliefs.

The phrase ‘‘Uruguayan physics’’ might refer to physics departments located in Montevideo or to physicists who possess Uruguayan citizenship. But insofar as it refers to theories and laws, the traditional conception of science would consider ‘‘Uruguayan physics’’ to be an oxymoronic phrase. Maxwell’s equations are not Scottish, nor is Lavoisier’s refutation of the phlogiston theory of combustion French. In fact, the oxymoron can be made even starker: ‘‘Scottish attitude toward value judgments’’ and ‘‘French conception of objectivity’’ seem to be, from the point of view of science, unintelligible expressions. Unlike mores, political cultures, and aesthetic judgments, science, this argument goes, is universal. In Mannheim’s ([1929] 1966:265) words, ‘‘the sociology of knowledge has set itself the task of solving the problem of the social conditioning of knowledge.’’ Taking

*Address correspondence to: Gabriel Abend, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 1810 Chicago Ave., Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: [email protected]. My research in Mexico was supported by the Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University and a Fulbright Alumni Initiative Award. I gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of the Centro de Estudios Sociolo´gicos at El Colegio de Me´xico, the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales at UNAM, and the Centro de Investigacio´n y Docencia Econo´micas. I have benefited from comments and suggestions from Sarah Babb, Charles Camic, Paula England, Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas, Andreas Glaeser, Rebeca de Gortari, Natividad Gutie´rrez, Carol Heimer, Jerry Jacobs, Miche` le Lamont, Jeff Manza, Ann Orloff, Juan Manuel Ortega, Devah Pager, Olivier Roueff, Michael Sauder, Ben Ross Schneider, George Steinmetz, Jessica Thurk, Francisco Zapata, several anonymous referees, and the editors of Sociological Theory. I owe special thanks to Bruce Carruthers, Elif Kale-Lostuvali, and Arthur Stinchcombe, who read more drafts of this paper than I care to remember.

Sociological Theory 24:1 March 2006 # American Sociological Association. 1307 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005-4701 2 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY science as a special case of knowledge, one would readily acknowledge that the fact that two communities of sociologists might be interested in different topics or privilege different methods can be accounted for by ‘‘the existential basis of mental productions’’ (Merton [1949] 1968:514). This argument is consistent with ‘‘the image of science by which we are [generally] possessed’’ (Kuhn [1962] 1970:1), according to which science is objective, rational, and universal. For it can be argued that the selection of a research interest or a methodological tool is just a matter of taste unrelated to the context of justification. By contrast, it would not be consistent with the traditional conception of science if two communities of sociologists differed in something more fundamental: the criteria through which they discriminate between true and false claims, their definition of what constitutes knowledge, their under- standing of what an acceptable theory should look like—that is, their epistemological assumptions. While there are theoretical and empirical grounds to expect variation in, for example, foci of attention and rates of advance, it may be an unexpected and unsettling empirical finding that sociology’s very foundations are in some way ‘‘socially constructed’’ (on these scare quotes, see Hacking 1999). This is precisely the question that this article addresses—its main argument is that the discourses of Mexican and U.S. sociologies are consistently underlain by signifi- cantly different epistemological assumptions. In fact, these two Denkgemeinschaften (Fleck [1935] 1979) are notably dissimilar in at least four clusters of variables (see, e.g., Andrade Carren˜o 1998; Brachet-Marquez 1997; Leal y Ferna´ndez et al. 1995; Girola and Olvera 1994; Davis 1992; Girola and Zabludovsky 1991; Paoli Bolio 1990; Garza Toledo 1989; Sefchovich 1989; Benı´tez Zenteno 1987): their thematic, theoretical, and methodological preferences; their historical development and intellectual influences; the society, culture, and institutions in which they are embedded; and the language they normally use. It is reasonable to expect that if variation in epistemological assumptions can be found at all, it would be more likely when there is variation in these clusters of variables as well. Then, the comparison of Mexican and U.S. socio- logies is a promising one to tackle the issue of that ‘‘more fundamental’’ difference. Both U.S. and Mexican sociologies allege that they are in the business of making true scientific knowledge claims about the social world. Conventional conceptions of science notwithstanding, I show that their claims to truth and scientificity are based on alternative epistemological grounds. My argument is organized as follows. After expounding my data and methods, I present my findings in three substantive sections, each of which addresses a different epistemological dimension. The first of them explores the nature and role of theories and the dialogue between theory and evidence. The second looks at whether and how epistemic objectivity is sought after. Finally, the third substantive section examines to what extent the ideal of a value-free science is pursued and realized. In turn, my empirical findings raise two theoretical problems, which I discuss in the conclusion. The first is how to explain the difference I describe. The development of a theory that could explain the exceptionally complex process through which U.S. and Mexican sociologies have come to hold their distinctive epistemological commitments would require a profound historical study, which is beyond the scope of this article. Nonetheless, I shall suggest four lines of thought from which this theory might profit. The second theoretical problem is in what sense variation in epistemologies can be said to be more fundamental than variation in, for example, methods or topics. This will lead us to the subject of commensurability or translatability, that is, whether the translation between theoretical claims rendered in these languages is at all possible (or whether there is a meta-language into which both could be translated). I shall argue STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 3 that this problem is crucial for the sociology of knowledge in general, and for what I call the ‘‘sociology of epistemologies’’ in particular. Obvious as it by now may seem, I would like nevertheless to underscore that this is not an epistemological treatise but an exercise in the sociology of knowledge. Hence, in accordance with Bloor’s ([1976] 1991:7) tenets of impartiality and symmetry, I do not grant any epistemic privilege to the Mexican or U.S. ways of going about studying the social world. I do not know nor do I care about how true and false beliefs are distributed.1 My approach is not theoretical, normative, or philosophical—it is empirical and sociological. As I argue in the conclusion, sociologists would greatly profit from studying epistemologies in the same fashion they have studied other kinds of scientific and nonscientific beliefs.

DATA AND METHODS My inquiry into the epistemological presuppositions that underlie the discourse of U.S. and Mexican sociologies is based on a content analysis of a sample of journal articles. The sample is drawn from two Mexican and two U.S. journals of sociology: American Journal of Sociology (AJS), American Sociological Review (ASR), Estudios Sociolo´gicos (ES), and Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a (RMS). These journals are the most cited and most prestigious ones in each of the communities.2 The following volumes are considered: AJS Volumes 101–106 (1995–2001), ASR Volumes 61–66 (1996–2001), ES Volumes XIV–XVIII (1996–2000), and RMS Volumes LVIII–LXII (1996–2000). Throughout these periods, three different editors served on AJS, two editors and one editorial team on ASR, three directores on ES, and two directores on RMS.3 These variations provide some small degree of control over the effect of the variable ‘‘editor.’’ The population of articles from which I draw my sample does not consist of all the pieces published in the volumes of the journals mentioned above. First, it excludes: editorials, book reviews and review essays, comments and replies, addresses, transla- tions, and any other nonrefereed piece (as far as it can be told). Nor does it include theoretical, methodological, and exegetical articles, for my chief interests include the dialogue between theory and data and the pursuit of objective representations of reality. There is still another group of articles not included in my population. For a naı¨ve ‘‘anthropologist of sociologies,’’ the most striking difference between ASR and AJS, on the one hand, and ES and RMS, on the other hand, would be the ubiquity versus virtual absence of statistical and formal models. This is most important because the variable ‘‘method’’ accounts for much of the variation of the epistemological dimen- sions under scrutiny. Specifically, the modal U.S. article, centered on a statistical model and employing highly standardized argumentative and rhetorical practices,

1As I discuss at some length in the conclusion, there is a sense in which this claim is reflexively problematic. On reflexivity in the sociology of scientific knowledge, see Ashmore (1989) and Woolgar (1988a). 2For example, ASR and AJS have regularly led the rankings of ‘‘total cites’’ and ‘‘impact factor’’ that appear in the Institute for Scientific Information’s Journal Citation Reports, as well as Allen’s (1990, 2003) ‘‘core influence’’ scores. While there are no comparable rankings in Mexico, RMS and ES are widely regarded as the most prestigious Mexican journals of sociology. Along with the theory journal Sociolo´gica, they consistently figure at the top of sociologists’ assessments of prestige (e.g., Cruz and Gutie´rrez 2001:112). Likewise, when the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT) established its register of journals ‘‘of excellence’’ in 1994, ES and RMS were the only two empirical journals of sociology included (Andrade Carren˜o 1995:201). 3However, Andrew Abbott’s tenure at AJS began only in the fourth number of Volume 106 and Jose´Luis Reyna’s in ES in the third number of Volume XVIII. 4 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY implies a certain relationship between theory and evidence and powerfully displays objectivity by means of numbers and formulae. That the mostly quanti- tative U.S. pieces and the mostly nonquantitative Mexican pieces are associated with dissimilar epistemological assumptions would not be difficult to establish. It is a more interesting argument that the difference persists after ‘‘method’’ is controlled for. And, given the characteristics of the two distributions, the only viable solution is to compare just nonquantitative articles. By introducing a bias in the populations of articles that makes it more difficult to reject the null hypothesis of no difference, this move in the research design subjects my claims to a much tougher test. It therefore allows for stronger conclusions and perhaps even afortioriarguments (for instance, along the lines of what Calhoun (1996) calls the ‘‘domestication’’ of historical sociology). In practice, I establish the following criteria to distinguish between ‘‘quantitative’’ and ‘‘nonquantitative’’ articles. A ‘‘standard quantitative article’’ (a) uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, more sophisticated statistical models, or other types of formal model- ing (game theory, network models, etc.); and (b) these models play a key role in the argument (if it is a multi-methods piece, the models play at least as important a role as the other method used).4 The population of articles thus delineated, I drew a random sample of 15 cases for each of the four journals considered.5 These samples constitute a different fraction of the overall number of nonquantitative empirical pieces published by each of them. This difference is due to the method through which I control for method, which leaves out approximately 80 percent of the U.S. articles. By contrast, only two Mexican articles meet the two aforementioned criteria. Therefore, inferences from the samples’ estimates to the populations’ parameters have different degrees of confidence. All the information concerning my sample is summarized in Table 1. For at least three reasons, conclusions reached with these data cannot be generalized tout court to U.S. or Mexican sociology. Hence, the expressions ‘‘U.S. sociology’’ and ‘‘Mexican sociology,’’ which I use throughout the article, are meant to be just convenient

Table 1. Characteristics of the Sample Number Total Non of Time Empirical quantitative Sample Journal Volumes Volumes Period Articles Articles Size Proportion

RMS LVIII–LXII 5 1996–2000 154 153 15 9.80 ES XIV–XVIII 5 1996–2000 92 91 15 16.48 ASR 61–66 6 1996–2001 258 45 15 33.33 AJS 101–106 6 1995–2001 167 40 15 37.50

RMS, Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a; ES, Estudios Sociolo´gicos; ASR, American Sociological Review; AJS, American Journal of Sociology.

4The criterion I establish to the effect that OLS regressions (rather than, say, cross-tabulations) mark the difference between quantitative and nonquantitative articles is based on the way in which the community itself marks this difference. That is, whereas articles that run OLS regressions are generally seen as quantitative, articles that present cross-tabulations are generally seen as nonquantitative. Two shortcomings of my criteria are: first, I do not construct an objective indicator for the second criterion; second, the notion of ‘‘more sophisticated statistical models’’ is admittedly fuzzy. 5The complete list of the 60 articles randomly selected is available from the author upon request. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 5 labels. First, a journal article is a literary artifact, which conceals the complex social processes involved in ‘‘doing’’ or ‘‘making’’ science. Other types of scientific practices and discourses could be searched for epistemological assumptions as well, especially if we are interested in studying ‘‘science in action’’ (Latour 1987). Second, there are books. Most sociologists write and publish both articles and books, and there are even ‘‘book people,’’ who do not write articles and do not like to be regarded as article authors (Clemens et al. 1995:450). The effect of genre on epistemological presuppositions is evident, and I can only encourage its empirical examination. Third, and most importantly, it is not a straightforward question what the four journals selected are representative of—probably most professional sociologists do not publish in them, there certainly is variation within each community, and disciplin- ary consensuses are weak. For example, in the United States, there is a wide array of journals and a corresponding wide array of epistemological inclinations.6 In particular, some of these journals are epistemologically at odds with ASR and AJS. Thus, even if we restrict ourselves to the world of journals, my data are not representative of the discipline as a whole but of one particular kind of sociological discourse. For my purposes, the most important feature of the four journals selected is their high status, their often being referred to as ‘‘leading,’’ ‘‘mainstream,’’ or ‘‘top’’ journals. And this is precisely why they were selected. Given my aims, it is reasonable to focus on the journals that are located at the center of the sociological field. Among other things, central actors can more effectively define normative standards, are more readily asso- ciated with the field itself, and usually set the terms of the debate. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that the four journals selected are not the only game in town, even if they occupy a privileged position in terms of power and influence. Let us conclude with two further methodological points. Journal articles are rheto- rical constructs designed to persuade the community to which they are addressed of the truthfulness of their claims (on the rhetoric of science, see Gross 1990; Bazerman 1988; Nelson, Megill, and McCloskey 1987; McCloskey 1985; Woolgar 1981; Gusfield 1976, 1981). In fact, thanks to the ‘‘invisible hand of the peer review’’ (Harnad 1998), the community not only can accept or reject a piece of work but can actually ‘‘correct’’ it. Thus, my analysis of journal articles is not about the ‘‘real epistemological self’’ of individual sociologists, the one that would have manifested itself had they not sub- mitted their papers to a prestigious journal. My analysis, then, is intended to shed light specifically upon communal epistemological presuppositions.7 Finally, while it is widely accepted that scientific discourses are underpinned by epistemological (and, for that matter, ontological) assumptions, even if not con- sciously adopted, it is more debatable how these can be accessed empirically. Evidently, they cannot be accessed as straightforwardly as an article’s topic or the authors’ gender. While views on epistemic objectivity are not explicitly acknowledged, the writing of an article presupposes a topic on which to write and encourages its explicit communication, and the authors’ names are most times a reliable indicator of their gender.8 However, since a conscious or unconscious stance on epistemic

6There is an asymmetry here between Mexican sociology and U.S. sociology because the number of journals in the former is much smaller than the number of journals in the later. 7Here I take up Fleck’s idea of thought-communities having a somewhat autonomous existence, beyond the aggregate sum of their individual components. Fleck suggests the analogies of a soccer match, a conversation, and the playing of an orchestra, which would lose their meaning if regarded as ‘‘individual kicks one by one’’ or ‘‘the work only of individual instruments’’ (Fleck [1935] 1979:46, 99). 8Androgynous names and names in, so to speak, little-known languages might be seen as exceptions. But still in these cases, the authors’ gender is a relatively unproblematic issue, and the difficulty is simply with its measurement. 6 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY objectivity is unavoidably informing the authors’ research and writing choices, it will necessarily yield observable, yet sometimes subtle, marks amenable to intersubjec- tively valid measurement. At least, this is one of the assumptions of this article.

THEORY AND EVIDENCE

What Is a Theory? Grand-theories, the formulation of a more or less general social regularity, the identification of the causal mechanism that brought about the outcome in a particular circumstance, an ‘‘abstractedly empiricist’’ (Mills [1959] 1967) analysis of the relation- ship between two variables, and a historian’s detailed description of a specific event ‘‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’’ are all, in some way, theoretical enterprises. In the latter two cases, often accused of being ‘‘atheoretical,’’ this is not just because observations and methods are theory-laden and accounts of the empirical world are mediated by language (Popper [1934] 1992; Duhem [1906] 1991; Hanson 1958; Winch 1958). Theories can be found not only in explicit explanatory systems of propositions but also in analytical, interpretive, methodological, and argumentative choices. Therefore, rather than imposing a particular definition, here ‘‘theory’’ becomes a variable itself. My questions are whether U.S. and Mexican sociologies’ theories are actually differ- ent, whether there are discrepancies in the meaning of the term, and whether theories relate differently to evidence and to other theories. In most of my U.S. articles (U-ART9), the concept of ‘‘theory’’ is quite faithful to Merton’s ([1949] 1968:39) famous definition of the ‘‘theories of the middle range’’: ‘‘logically interconnected sets of propositions from which empirical uniformities can be derived.’’ Merton ([1949] 1968:39, 68) emphasizes that ‘‘middle-range theory is principally used in sociology to guide empirical inquiry’’; from theories, ‘‘specific hypotheses are logically derived and confirmed by empirical investigation.’’ Seventy- seven percent of the theories found in U-ART are theories of the middle range—close to, unambiguously related to, and tested by the data. When drawing on grander theories, these are reformulated or curtailed so that they can function as theories of the middle range. In addition to actually testing theories with data, 87 percent of U-ART explicitly suggest one ought to ‘‘test,’’ ‘‘confirm,’’ ‘‘corroborate,’’ or ‘‘prove’’ theories with data (see Table 2). Interestingly, U-ART tend to talk in terms of confirmation rather than falsification (a term that is not found even once). Hypotheses are confirmed rather than nonfalsified, and the literature has ‘‘proven’’ or ‘‘demonstrated,’’ thereby tacitly adhering to a verificationist epistemology. Mexican sociologists10 have a very different understanding of the concept of theory. None of their theories is ‘‘tested’’ by and related to the data in the U.S. sense, and none of the articles explicitly say that theories ought to be tested by the data. Forty- seven percent of M-ART are theoretical in the sense that they provide a nonevident reading of the empirical world. The very distinction between theory and evidence that U.S. standards take for granted is put into question here—what U.S. sociologists might understand as the data, Mexican sociologists may see as the theory, as both the data and the theory. Another 50 percent of M-ART draw ‘‘freely’’ on

9Henceforth, I refer to my sample of U.S. and Mexican articles, respectively, as U-ART and M-ART. 10For the present purposes, it does not matter where authors were trained, work, or were born; the issue here is the community that accepts their piece for publication. Thus, the terms ‘‘Mexican sociologists’’ and ‘‘U.S. sociologists’’ do not mean sociologists who were born in those countries. Rather, they mean sociologists who have published in those countries’ journals. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 7

Table 2. Theory and Evidence in Mexico and the United States United States Mexico (%) (%) Use of theory Mertonian ‘‘middle-range’’ logic 77 0 Draw ‘‘freely’’ on grand-theory 10 50 Do not explicitly employ theories 0 47 Other 13 3 Statement that theories should be tested by data Yes 87 0 No 13 100 General proposition among central claims Yes 87 7 No 13 93 Role of the empirical problem Empirical problem in itself is the main concern 7 93 Empirical problem speaks to a broader theoretical issue 93 7 Justification of problem in terms of a broader theoretical issue Yes 90 0 No 10 100 Deductivism Yes 60 0 No 40 100 Number of cases 30 30 theories—theories that tend to be ‘‘total systems of sociological theory,’’ such as Habermas’s, Luhmann’s, Giddens’s, Bourdieu’s, Touraine’s, and Marx’s (see Table 2). Authors borrow concepts and definitions from these theories, or use them to interpret or illuminate particular aspects of their arguments. Sometimes, theories are also presented as Weltanschauungen or inspiring meta-viewpoints, general frame- works that suggest how to formulate questions and how to look at the world, and what is and what is not interesting. For example, in his study of the Mexican urban social movement, Tamayo (1999:501) says:11 ‘‘To introduce this theme and contextualize it in some way, I rescue [rescato] Alain Touraine’s idea when he affirms that the transit to globalization has ended.’’ Consider now Zermen˜o’s (1999) article on the Mexican social crisis, Urteaga Castro-Pozo’s (1996) on female punks in Mexico, Gonza´lez’s (1999) on Mexican Catholicism and the Catholic Church, and Astorga’s (1997) on ‘‘corridos’’ about drug traffickers. As these articles illustrate, Mexican sociologists may borrow termi- nology from Habermas (Zermen˜o 1999:191), Bourdieu, and Marx (Gonza´lez 1999: 68–69, 91); recall an observation made by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Zermen˜o

11As with Abbott (1992:54), ‘‘I have used quotations extensively, since the exact locutions employed are of central importance.’’ All translations are mine, except for titles and abstracts, which the Mexican journals themselves translate into English. Because the exact locutions—in all their semantic and syntactic nuances— are of central importance, my translations try to retain as much as possible the original style, even when alternative phrasings would have been less awkward. 8 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

1999:186); resort to Le´vi-Strauss to analyze a certain aspect of the subculture of Mexican punks (Urteaga Castro-Pozo 1996:114); or make a brief reference to Bourdieu’s concepts of field, objective positions, and dispositions (Astorga 1997:247). Similarly, He´au and Gime´nez (1997:223) analyze the ‘‘insurgent poetics’’ of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas ‘‘from the perspective of Claude Duchet’s literary sociocritique.’’ This ‘‘perspective’’ provides foci of interest and jargon; it does not provide any propositions with empirical content. The word ‘‘hipo´tesis’’ may occur. But Mexican hypotheses are definitely not Merton’s ‘‘specific hypotheses,’’ ‘‘logically derived and confirmed by empirical inves- tigation.’’ For example, Arciniega (1996:331–32) says: ‘‘Our hypothesis is that since 1975 . . . Peru initiated a process of reorganization of industrial relations that the State will implement through its labor policies with the intention of marginalizing and demobilizing trade unionism.’’ Perhaps here the most semantically accurate transla- tion of ‘‘hipo´tesis’’ would be ‘‘theory.’’ The statement is at such a level of abstraction that U.S. sociologists may argue that one needs to operationalize the concepts con- tained in the theory and then put forward the hypothesis. The same is true of Tamayo (1999:499; emphasis in original), who writes: ‘‘The argumentation of this article is twofold: the first is the hypothesis that a new social subject, the citizen, is coming into being [constituye´ndose] in Mexico, who [the citizen] is sustained by considerations of a structural character and of precise historical conditions.’’ The exact location of theories in the argument is significant as well. As He´au and Gime´nez (1997) exemplify, M-ART draw on theoretical systems whenever it seems useful, at whichever point of the argument the theory might be needed. Alternatively, theories might be simply embedded in or grow up with the argument. In contrast, 93 percent of U-ART follow a standard format of organization of the argument (see below for a lengthier discussion of this point). Theories are employed at a certain point of the text, which suggests and constrains their function in the argument. They are separated from and precede the data. What it is thus assumed is, first, the epistemological independence of evidence from theory: whatever the ontological status granted to ‘‘reality,’’ the process of cognition does not affect its observable manifestations. Second, most times theories are not a consequence of the empirical investigation, but of the unscientific, arcane, and irrelevant context of discovery. They are either ‘‘relevant’’ theories, formulated by prestigious scholars and drawn from ‘‘the literature,’’ or ex nihilo constructions.

General Regular Reality Perhaps the main ontological assumption that informs the dialogue between theory and evidence in U.S. sociology is the great regularity of the social world, a version of the principle of uniformity of nature. Epistemologically, it is further assumed the sociologist’s ability to grasp that regularity in the form of lawlike propositions. I shall call these two principles the ‘‘general regular reality’’ (GRR) assumption.12 Only 7 percent of M-ART central claims are general propositions; this is the case in 87 percent of U-ART (see Table 2). The GRR assumption is well illustrated by Samuel Clark (1998) and Nancy Whittier (1997). Drawing on the experience of four 17th-century minorities, Clark formulates 14 ‘‘nomothetic propositions’’ (1998:1268) about the relationship between

12The phrase is inspired by Abbott’s (2001) ‘‘general linear reality.’’ STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 9 the treatment of minorities and international competition. Nancy Whittier (1997) offers three propositions about generational processes in social movements.

PROPOSITION 4.—The greater the fusion between local struggles and great-power rivalries, the less likely is conciliation. (Clark 1998:1293; emphasis in original)

Proposition 1: The collective identity of a given cohort of social movement parti- cipants remains consistent over time. (Whittier 1997:763; emphasis in original)

These propositions are presented in universal terms. Lacking scope conditions, they hold regardless of time and place (provided, I note, the objects could be meaningfully defined). Logically, the propositions begin with universal quantifiers. Despite the fact that U-ART never discuss whether these generalizations are ‘‘nomic’’ or ‘‘accidental,’’ they can still be labeled ‘‘social laws’’ or ‘‘lawlike generalizations.’’ Even when not explicitly advancing ‘‘nomothetic propositions,’’ most U-ART arguments are predicated on GRR. Cooney (1997:316) exemplifies this with his article’s main question: ‘‘Does the state diminish violence in human affairs?’’ The point of the piece is to elucidate that relationship in general terms, regardless of any other confounding factor, regardless of time and place. Diani (1996:1054) affirms that ‘‘[t]he success of the [Italian] leagues challenges current theoretical approaches to collective action.’’ In other words, theories are supposed to explain all instances of collective action, and therefore they are ‘‘challenged’’ by the fact that they do not seem to work in one case. In another example, Collins (1997:844) tries to explain Japanese capitalist growth by applying his ‘‘general institutional model of capitalist development.’’ The model identifies in general terms a ‘‘chain of causal conditions for self-transforming capitalist growth’’ (1997:845). And the explanation consists of substituting those general terms with the particular names of their Japanese instantiations (1997:852). Collins (1997:844; emphasis added) makes an epistemological case for his method:

Only a general model of the institutional components of capitalist growth and of the obstacles to these institutions in agrarian-coercive societies provides the context in which we can assess whether the conditions for the independent development of capitalism were present in Japan and elsewhere.

In a comparable fashion, Bernstein (1997:536, 539–41, 558) verbally presents and graphically represents ‘‘a general model to explain identity strategies.’’ According to her (1997:539) model, ‘‘identity strategies will be determined by the configuration of political access, the structure of social movement organizations, and the type and extent of oppositions.’’ Bernstein claims that her model can be ‘‘applied’’ (1997:531, 557) not only to her focal case (lesbian and gay movements) but also to the southern civil rights movement, black nationalism, and the older and younger wings of the feminist movement. For it to be a truly ‘‘general model,’’ though, it must be applicable to any case. One final interesting example is the article of Biggart and Guille´n’s article (1999). The authors (1999:725; emphasis in original) point out a ‘‘limitation to much of the development scholarship of recent decades: the search for a unified theory of development applicable to all countries.’’ They criticize the approach of ‘‘applying general theory to explain historical instances’’ (1999:730) and try to ‘‘avoid falling into the trap of universal explanations’’ (1999:729). Even if departing from the typical GRR assumption, the way they make the case against a general ‘‘critical factor’’ 10 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY explanation of development still manifests the influence of the dominant epistemolo- gical worldview. Biggart and Guille´n (1999:723; emphasis in original) argue that ‘‘development depends on successfully linking a country’s historical patterns of social organization with opportunities made available by global markets.’’ Rather than arguing that there is no general system of propositions that can explain economic develop- ment, the authors formulate their generalization, but one step higher in the ladder of abstraction. Of course, the empirical nature of those links between the characteristics of the country and the global markets will vary significantly, but the existence of a certain causal variable is constant across time and space. This claim allows them to ‘‘formulate a sociological theory of cross-national comparative advantage’’ (1999:722) or ‘‘institutional perspective on development’’ (1999:728, 742). The GRR logic is apparent in the widespread search for ‘‘conditions under which’’ things happen. For example, Loveman (1998:477, 479) asks: ‘‘under what conditions will individuals risk their lives to resist repressive states?’’ and ‘‘when (under what conditions) do high-risk social movements and organizations emerge?’’ Bernstein is interested in ‘‘under what political conditions . . . activists celebrate or suppress differences from the majority’’ (1997:532, 539, 561). Hagan (1998:56) identifies ‘‘par- ticular conditions under which social networks can develop or weaken.’’ As we shall see, these formulations invite deductivism and, in particular, deductive-nomological explanations. This type of reasoning is nonexistent among Mexican sociologists. That Mexican sociology is close to the idiographic pole of Windelband’s ([1894] 1980) dichotomy is reflected by another indicator: 93 percent of M-ART are princi- pally driven by the comprehension of an empirical problem—that is the main thrust of the exercise. While some authors argue about the importance of the case or cases as such, no one justifies its or their selection in theoretical terms. Thus, the purpose of most articles is to make sense of, tell a persuasive story about, give a good account of, or shed light upon that empirical problem. Even though this problem might involve one, a few, or several ‘‘cases,’’ it is not through general models that these cases are dealt with, nor is it against the background of a general regular reality that stories about instances are told. According to the Mexican assumptions, abstracting general principles from concrete empirical occurrences may be a misguided strategy, for it is only in those particular contexts that the observed relations are valid. On the contrary, in 93 percent of U-ART the main function of the empirical problem is to prove, illustrate, or speak to a ‘‘broader’’ theoretical issue—articles are not ‘‘mere’’ examinations of empirical problems. Consequently, 90 percent provide an explicit justification of why the case or cases under study were selected that concerns its or their theoretical relevance (see Table 2). Still, given the widespread belief in and prestige granted to lawlike propositions, most nonquantitative social research faces the problem of specifying the epistemic role of empirical cases from which inferences to broader populations are not statistically reliable. The crucial argumentative moment, then, is that transitional one when authors have to move from particulars to general statements, ordinarily in the concluding section of the article. For instance, how precisely does the author move from four lesbian and gay rights campaigns in Vermont, Oregon, and New York City to a ‘‘general model of identity deployment’’ (Bernstein 1997:558)? How exactly is the connection made between the debates and riots about abolitionism in antebellum Cincinnati and the general pro- blem of ‘‘how episodes of collective action affect the success or failure of different frames’’ (Ellingson 1995:135)? Debating with Snow and his collaborators, Ellingson (1995:136–37) contends that STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 11

these processes of frame alignment are influenced as well by the course and interpretation of collective action events. Such events intervene in the process of creating frames or discourses, change the value actors assign to collective beliefs, and motivate some groups to abandon a set of arguments and adopt those of a rival or create new ones. They also provide some speakers with new information that they can use to substantiate their claims and discredit the claims of others.

But Ellingson also affirms that ‘‘[e]pisodes of collective action may lead speakers to reopen the discursive struggle by providing evidence for speakers and audiences’’ (1995:135), and ‘‘[e]vents, then, may change the underlying ideas or beliefs that make up discourses and frames used by movement actors’’ (1995:136). The third conclusion of this study is that ‘‘speakers occupying different positions within a field of debate may respond to episodes of collective action and construct their arguments in very different ways’’ (1995:137). The important contrast here is between universal statements and those statements whose generality is affected by the modal verb ‘‘may.’’ While it might be debatable how the analysis of antebellum Cincinnati leads to claims about what generally—let alone always—influences processes of frame alignment, it is clear that an instance suffices to prove that something may or can be the case or happen (or to illustrate how something is the case or happens, or at least how something was the case or happened). The same tension is apparent in two different wordings of Zhao’s (1998:1498, 1523; emphases added) argument, one in his introduction, and the other in his conclusion: ‘‘This article argues that ecology is relevant to movement mobilization because it determines the structure and strength of social networks . . .’’ versus ‘‘This article demonstrates that ecological conditions can be important to a political process as complex as a large-scale social movement . . .’’ The use of ‘‘may’’ or ‘‘can’’ in contexts like these is a concession from the point of view of GRR, especially when it is meant to indicate a retreat from determinism to probabilism (rather than conservativeness about the degree of confirmation of a deterministic social law). But, in any event, it is probably the only reasonable rheto- rical choice for small-N studies that intend to contribute to ‘‘theory’’ (in the U.S. sense). On the contrary, these problems do not arise for those few arguments whose inferential structure is modus tollens rather than modus ponens, as originally argued by Popper ([1934] 1992). For instance, Biggart and Guille´n (1999) need only to show that the paths of development of the automobile industry in South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, and Argentina have been different to refute any ‘‘critical factor’’ theory of develop- ment. Indeed, two cases would have sufficed. Because the number of potential instances tends to infinity, the degree of confirmation added by two more cases is almost zero. Likewise, Centeno (1997) can challenge the universality of the positive relationship between war and state making by showing that it does not hold in the case of 11 new Latin American states between 1810 and 1830. In their analysis of the outcomes attained by 15 homeless social movement organ- izations active in eight U.S. cities, Cress and Snow (2000:1101) say:

While it is an empirical question whether this conjunction of conditions holds for other movements, the findings and analysis suggest that attempts to understand movement outcomes that focus on the ways in which different conditions interact and combine are likely to be more compelling and robust, both theoretically and empirically, than efforts that focus on the conditions specified by a single per- spective or that pit one perspective against another. 12 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

This paragraph illustrates two of my points. Having studied 15 organizations, Cress and Snow are cautious not to affirm that their substantive conjunction of conditions holds beyond their cases. However, they still maintain that their ‘‘findings and analysis’’ ‘‘suggest’’ something that pertains to the study of ‘‘movement outcomes’’ in general. But Cress and Snow are also cautious in another way. What the authors’ findings and analysis suggest is that certain approaches to the study of social move- ments ‘‘are likely’’ to be ‘‘more compelling and robust’’ than some others. That this is said to be just ‘‘likely’’ is another reflection of the tension between the demands of GRR and the so-called small-N problem.

Deductivism A variable closely related to GRR is what I call ‘‘deductivism.’’ I define deductivism as the use of deductive logic for either explanation of events or confirmation of theories. Although they pursue different aims and the truth status of their components is different, I emphasize here the structural similarity between the deductive-nomologi- cal model of explanation and the hypothetico-deductive method for confirmation (Salmon 1989). Stinchcombe (1968:16; emphasis in original) puts the latter thus: ‘‘From [a] theoretical statement we derive, by logical deduction and by operational definitions of the concepts, an empirical statement. The theoretical statement then implies logically the empirical statement.’’ For its part, Hempel and Oppenheim’s deductive-nomological or covering-law model argues that ‘‘in empirical science, the explanation of a phenomenon consists in subsuming it under general empirical laws’’ (Hempel [1942] 1965:240; Hempel 1965; Hempel and Oppenheim [1948] 1965; see also Gorski 2004; Ruben 1990; Salmon 1989, 1998; Cartwright 1983; Wright 1971). The explanantia are the premises of the syllogism: the major is a universal law, and the minor a statement of initial conditions. The explanandum is the conclusion, which, of course, follows logically. While not a single M-ART proceeds in a deductive fashion, 60 percent of U-ART deduce empirical statements from theories of the middle range, be it to explain the former or to confirm the latter (see Table 2). In an illustrative article, Goldstone and Useem ‘‘apply’’ (1999:988, 1025) a reformulation of Skocpol’s ‘‘formula for revolu- tion’’ (1999:992) to prison riots. The central empirical question is whether the same ‘‘conditions for a revolutionary situation’’ (1999:1002) can account for prison riots as well (and perhaps, the authors speculate, also for instability in military organizations, schools, or business firms; in fact, in ‘‘any hierarchical, absolutist-type social organ- ization, whether it operates on the scale of millions, or merely hundreds, of individ- uals’’ (Goldstone and Useem 1999:1024)). Actually, the deductive ideal is explicitly put forward: ‘‘A hallmark of good theory is that i[t] can usefully be extended to phenomena not anticipated in the original development of the theory’’ (1999:1025). One of Goldstone and Useem’s chief assumptions here is the meaningfulness of their theoretical translation. The application of a theory to a particular case requires that the entities under examination belong to the class of entities the theory refers to. This correspondence is not given in the facts but needs to be theoretically established. Yet, prior to that, Goldstone and Useem had to ‘‘translate’’ or ‘‘rephrase’’ Skocpol’s theory ‘‘to create analogues for prison riots’’ (1999:1002). They claim that this task is ‘‘straightforward’’ (1999:1002), but it might be so only in light of certain decisions as to what should be taken into account in order to say that two given entities are similar or different. And these decisions are suggested neither by the empirical world nor by the theory that is being extended. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 13

Koopmans and Statham’s piece exemplifies how, by using the hypothetico-deduc- tive method, competing theories can be confronted. The authors present three theo- retical perspectives on citizenship: ‘‘postnational,’’ ‘‘multicultural,’’ and ‘‘national.’’ From these theories, they ‘‘derive’’ (1999:652, 655) a set of hypotheses about the collective claims making of migrants and ethnic minorities. The authors express (1999:670–75) that the three theories ‘‘imply,’’ ‘‘predict,’’ ‘‘lead us to expect,’’ ‘‘allow us to derive a clear expectation,’’ ‘‘imply clear expectations,’’ or are ‘‘associated with’’ certain values of the dependent variable—patterns of minority claims making. Being logical implications, they are assumed to be the theories’ predictions for the case at hand. Finally, Koopmans and Statham (1999:655) ‘‘confront these hypotheses with [their] data in order to assess the relative merits of the three models.’’ The deductive approach found in U-ART can be fruitfully compared with Nava Navarro’s article (1997:301), which studies, ‘‘from [a partir de] the perspective of collective action and social movements,’’ the case of the Refresquera Pascual (a Mexican cooperative that produces soft drinks). The author affirms (Nava Navarro 1997:302) that ‘‘our argument [planteamiento] stems [se desprende] fundamentally from the European perspective represented by Alain Touraine, and from Anthony Obers[c]hall’s arguments [planteamientos], because of the manner in which they high- light the concept of social conflict and this concept’s importance for our object of study.’’ But what does the author precisely mean by the verb ‘‘to stem?’’ Rather than drawing predictions from, or explaining the case by subsuming it under Touraine’s theory, Nava Navarro (1997:302) ‘‘understands’’ social movements ‘‘in Tourainian terms’’: ‘‘in Tourainian terms, we will understand a social movement as the most complex form of collective action, which one defines as the set of interactions normatively oriented between adversaries who possess opposing and conflicting inter- pretations about the reorientations of a model of society.’’ From Touraine and Oberschall, Nava Navarro (1997:303) borrows the idea that ‘‘in order to understand collective action’s import [alcance] it is necessary to analyze the dynamics of the conflict’’; then, ‘‘starting with these considerations, we will reconstruct the experience of the case of Refresquera Pascual’s workers.’’ Her empirical inquiry is informed by those considerations but does not explicitly return to them. Mexican sociologists’ theories are constructed ‘‘much nearer to the facts’’ (Stinchcombe 1978:117). Indeed, they are constructed so close to the facts that they are sometimes inseparable from them—the theories are the facts; the theories are the facts as they are told. Now, despite the impression that U-ART often try to convey, it seems to me that theories are not constructed through insightful intuitions, introspec- tion, or speculations in a state of aloofness and detachment from sensory experience.13 Instead, theorists do draw on the empirical world—the principles of a theory are based on the more or less systematic observation of a limited number of instances. Because theories are understood in the United States as (at least moderately) general explanatory systems of propositions, they are expected to be relevant to cases beyond those from which they were originally drawn. Thus, theory construction involves ampliative or nondemonstrative reasoning. Like physicists’ theories, sociologists’ theories are haunted by the specter of Hume’s problem of induction. Therefore, as in physicists’ theories, the principle of uniformity of nature or GRR has to be assumed.

13This does not seem to be even possible. Even if it were, it would be enormously costly, for any logically consistent theory, however empirically implausible, would have the same probability of being formulated than any other. 14 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Then, both physicists and sociologists can proceed as though their theories were, rather than inductive generalizations, laws of nature. From these laws of nature, one can deduce other laws, explain by subsumption, and derive predictions. In this regard, the current state of affairs in the United States approximates Homans’s (1964, 1967, [1961] 1974) or Blalock’s (1984, 1969:2) ‘‘realistic’’ ‘‘ideals’’:

It has been noted that theories do not consist entirely of conceptual schemes or typologies but must contain lawlike propositions that interrelate the concepts or variables two or more at a time. . . . Ideally, one might hope to achieve a completely closed deductive theoretical system in which there would be a minimal set of propositions taken as axioms, from which all other propositions could be deduced by purely mathematical or logical reasoning. More realistically we might take the model of the completely closed deductive system as an ideal which in practice can only be approximated.

All in all, perhaps the chief contrast lies in that while in the United States most theories have substantive content, Mexican sociologists tend to think and make use of theories as grammars. The guidance provided by these theories is completely different from the one Merton’s theories of the middle range provide. Grammars are conven- tional tools and therefore lack truth-value. Grammars are ‘‘ways of worldtelling.’’14 There are numerous grammars, and they can be seen simply as different equally acceptable instruments with which the world is talked about. Mexican sociologists ‘‘tell’’; U.S. sociologists ‘‘show’’ (Booth 1961). This argument leads us to the next section.

EPISTEMIC OBJECTIVITY In the realm of science, the term ‘‘objectivity’’ has had at least two different meanings: one ontological and one epistemological (see Lloyd 1995; Megill 1994; Daston 1992; Daston and Galison 1992). For the scientific enterprise to be meaningful, the existence of some kind of objective reality and the equation of this ontological objectivity with truth have to be assumed, and discussions about realism can be safely left to philo- sophical speculation. But once this is granted, science faces the epistemological problem of the cognition and representation of reality. Let us consider the analogy of realist painters, who try to represent things as they really are. Naturally, they have to use certain paints, brushes, and grounds. They have to look at their object from some point of view. If we further assume, for the sake of the argument, that their object is ‘‘the world,’’ then they have to paint themselves, too. Indeed, they have to paint themselves looking at and representing the world from their specific location. Therefore, their paintings of the world inevitably acknowledge some subjective elements. Similarly, with the exception of Popper’s world of intelligibles ([1972] 1979:106–52), knowledge and knowing necessitate a subject, the knower. Insofar as this subject is not the Universal Reason or the Objective Spirit, but a linguistically and historically situated individual, subjectivity is to some extent necessarily involved. Then, how do scientists deal with the conflict between their aiming at the objective world and an unavoidably present subjectivity?

14It is irrelevant here if they are ‘‘ways of worldmaking’’ (Goodman 1978) as well, as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests (Lucy 1997). STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 15

One possible strategy is to define ontological objectivity as the neutralization of epistemological subjectivity. In Thomas Nagel’s (1986:5) words,

[a] view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the specifics of the individual’s makeup and position in the world, or on the character of the particular type of creature he is. [. . .] We may think of reality as a set of concentric spheres, progressively revealed as we detach gradually from the con- tingencies of the self.

Objective knowledge is thus related to impersonality and impartiality; disinterest, neutrality, detachment, and impassibilite´; it is antithetical to the knower’s individual- ity, idiosyncrasies, contingencies, biases, prejudices, and whims. As a result, scientists pursue the ‘‘absolute conception of the world’’ (Williams 1978, 1985); they know ‘‘sub specie aeternitatis.’’ Their views are ‘‘views from nowhere’’ (Nagel 1986), ‘‘viewpoints of no-one in particular’’ (Fine 1998), ‘‘God’s eye points of view’’ (Putnam 1981:49–50), or ‘‘escapes from perspective’’ (Daston 1992). In practice, this stance has crystallized into a conception of objectivity as procedural. A standardized, rigid, and formulaic procedure, the mythical scientific method, severely limits the exercise of discretion and repudiates any form of unarticulated ‘‘tacit knowledge’’ (Polanyi 1958). One alternative strategy denies the equation of reality with detachment from the contingencies of the self. It denies that the knowledge true of the objective world is that knowledge that anyone can reach—only ‘‘certain positions have the advantage of revealing the decisive features of the object’’ (Mannheim [1929] 1966:301; see also Harding 1986, 1991, 1998). Hence, idiosyncrasies, individualities, and contingencies are not obstacles to be surmounted, but vantage points. Thus, this second strategy— customary among 17th- and 18th-century natural scientists, 18th-century atlas makers, and 19th-century British actuaries and French engineers—leaves room for two aristocratic, anti-democratic, and ineffable attributes: genius and skill (Scott 1998:309–41; Porter 1995; Shapin 1994; Daston 1992:609–12; Daston and Galison 1992:118). Ontological objectivity is associated with the maximization of epistemolo- gical subjectivity. Rather than a standardized method that anyone can follow, the knower’s approach to the known should be a function of their nature and the nature of their relationship. While this stance does not imply ontological relativism, it does pose critical challenges to intersubjective validity. In the following pages, I argue that Mexican sociology presupposes this second model of objectivity. As we shall see, no attempt is made to attain ‘‘views from nowhere,’’ and standardized procedures are rarely followed. Moreover, its discourse admits, perhaps encourages, the paradigmatic exemplar of perspective: value judg- ments. In contrast, U.S. sociology presupposes the first model of objectivity. According to this model, as Pearson ([1892] 1937:6) wrote in his Grammar of Science, one of the main characteristics of ‘‘the scientific frame of mind’’ is its reliance on ‘‘judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind.’’ Let us now turn to the data.

Reconstruction of the Research Process Most times, research processes do not follow the orderly steps outlined in textbook introductions to the scientific method. Yet, scientists often pretend in their research reports or journal articles to have religiously respected those steps. This ‘‘a posteriori rationalisation of the real process’’ (Latour and Woolgar 1979:252) is crucial to the 16 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY ideal of neutralization of subjectivity, for it veils the chaotic, the contingent, and the unmethodical. In turn, veiling the chaotic, the contingent, and the unmethodical is crucial to the possibility of replication.15 Doing ethnographies of laboratories and contrasting natural scientists’ formal and informal accounts, sociologists have high- lighted the fictional character of these rationalizations (Gilbert and Mulkay 1981, 1984; Knorr-Cetina 1981; Latour 1981; Latour and Woolgar 1979; Gilbert 1976; see also Medawar [1963] 1990). This particular type of ‘‘impression management’’ (Goffman 1959) is evident in 80 percent of U-ART but none of M-ART (see Table 3). One suggestive indicator is the vocabulary of ‘‘expectations’’ and ‘‘anticipations,’’ ‘‘hypotheses’’ and ‘‘predictions’’ about the empirical world, presented before the ‘‘findings’’ or ‘‘results’’ (e.g., Lieberson, Dumais, and Baumann 2000:1249, 1253; Zhao 1998:1494; Diani 1996:1056, 1057; Ferree and Hall 1996:935, 936). Then, results might turn out to be ‘‘as expected’’ (Stearns and Allan 1996:710), or one can encounter a ‘‘surprising finding’’ (Koopmans and Statham 1999:689) or ‘‘surprising result’’ (Lieberson, Dumais, and Baumann 2000:1261). Lavin and Maynard (2001:469; emphasis added) illustrate the point:

Given that there are no restrictions placed on interviewer laughter at the University of Midstate survey center, we would expect that interviewer practices for tacitly declining respondent-initiated laughter would be less prevalent and that reciprocation would be more frequent. Our counting of acceptances, declina-

Table 3. Epistemic Objectivity in Mexico and the United States United States (%) Mexico (%) Rational reconstruction of research process Yes 80 0 No 20 100 Sections Standard 93 0 Nonstandard 7 80 Two or no sections 0 20 Average number of tables 4.40 0.33 Data discussion Yes, in a section 67 0 Yes 20 10 No 13 90 Methods discussion Yes, in a section 63 0 Yes 7 0 No 30 100 Number of cases 30 30

15Because of practical difficulties, meager incentives, and the Duhem-Quine thesis (Duhem [1906] 1991; Quine 1953; see also Harding 1976), few studies are actually replicated. Yet, science heavily relies on the possibility of replication (see Collins 1985). For the Duhem-Quine thesis at work in recent U.S. sociology, see Ferree and Hall’s (1996) article, Manza and Van Schyndel’s (2000) comment, and Ferree and Hall’s (2000) reply; and Finke and Stark’s (1988) article, Breault’s (1989a) ‘‘new evidence,’’ Finke and Stark’s (1989) comment, and Breault’s (1989b) reply. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 17

tions, and pseudo-laughing techniques in the two data sets confirmed these expectations.

This vocabulary is reminiscent of the standard quantitative article and its ‘‘expecta- tions’’ about what the statistical models will yield. In fact, as Latour (1981:66) points out, a ‘‘temporal framework’’ is being invented, with the help of ‘‘temporal markers.’’ The question, for both quantitative and nonquantitative articles, is not whether expectations in fact arise in the mind of researchers previously to their encounter with the data, whether they were really surprised to find out what they found out, or whether the literature review is actually the first section they write up. The point is that the community expects a rational reconstruction of the research process that describes it as though that were the case. Even when every individual scientist knows how things actually work most of the time, the community seems to believe in the tale of orderly sequence. The reconstruction of the research process is also visibly indicated by the fact that, as mentioned above, 93 percent of U-ART exhibit, with minor variations, a standard format of organization of the argument (see Table 3). This format is modeled on the research report in the natural sciences. It is based on the tidy steps of the scientific method: ‘‘introduction,’’ ‘‘theory’’ or ‘‘literature review’’ or ‘‘previous literature,’’ ‘‘data and methods’’ (instead of the experimentalist ‘‘materials and methods’’), ‘‘results’’ or ‘‘findings,’’ and ‘‘discussion’’ or ‘‘conclusion.’’ This sequence tries to appear as natural, logical, and necessary. It makes ‘‘available to the reader a picture of the discovery process as a path-like sequence of logical steps toward the revelation of a hitherto unknown phenomenon’’ (Woolgar 1981:263).

Language, Mathematics, and Symbols Standardization efforts concern language as well. Procedural objectivists and ordinary language have always had a difficult relationship. For instance, logical positivists, pointing out language’s impreciseness and ambiguity, aimed at a completely formal language for science (see, e.g., Nagel 1961:7–10). The problem with ordinary language is that it is too malleable; the imprint of the author’s subjectivity is too conspicuous. Thus, for example, the new ‘‘scientific’’ professional historian of the end of the 19th century rejected its ‘‘literary,’’ ‘‘gentleman amateur’’ predecessor’s ‘‘Gothic style’’ (Novick 1988). The issue of sociology’s prose and its alleged abstruseness has many dimensions, including the relationship between complex ideas and dense style, and how the mastery of a code inaccessible to the layperson legitimizes professional niches. Here, I want only to note that, given that texts’ meanings are the product of a dialectical process in which the reader plays a significant role, the greater the prose’s obscurity, the more its meaning depends on the reader, and the less it achieves objectivity or, for that matter, intersubjectivity. Despite U.S. sociologists’ complaints (e.g., Erikson 1990; Becker 1986), Mexican prose is by far more abstruse than U.S. prose. Very much like in the case of continental (as opposed to analytic) philosophy (Rorty 1982:220), in Mexico the burden of understanding the text is usually placed on the reader.16

16There is no reason to believe that the grammatical nature of the two languages is a source of spuriousness (i.e., that Spanish lends itself more readily than English to abstruse prose). 18 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

For reasons related to the economy of research, I cannot offer an objective indicator here (for example, one that counted the average number of clauses per sentence17). I can only illustrate the point with one not atypical sentence from M-ART, which a translator not so preoccupied by style may have rendered into English in two or three sentences:

In other words, even though in a first moment one should be careful to under- stand certain social processes as possessing a neutrality that methodologically save us from politically opposing to something that can be of indisputable benefit for a country, then, after doing this act of analytical composure, one must consider the possibility of a quarrel in the field of the effects or outcomes of those processes, crucial dilemma in the case of a co-government between the left and other groups of the political scenario and one of the fundamental ways to exert, from the left, differentiation without having to wait for the thorough application of all and every one of the properly leftist proposals, in the assumption of course that they have left the limbo of fantasy. (Barrios Suvelza 2000:180–81; emphasis in original)

At the antipodes of natural language stands mathematics. Mathematics embodies the ideal of objectivity as neutralization of subjectivity. First, it is the existing con- ventional language that best surmounts individualities and contingencies, and best serves commensurability, publicity, and communicability. Once social concepts have been translated into the language of mathematics, they can be manipulated and treated as though they were that type of entities, taking advantage of mathematics’ elegance and exactitude. Second, mathematics is thought to be objective, universal, and untouched and untouchable by social factors (for counterarguments by sociolo- gists of mathematics, see Bloor [1976] 1991; Restivo 1992). Thus, in addition to the epistemic purposes that regression coefficients and equations serve in quantitative social research, they symbolically convey a sense of objectivity and scientificity. All these are very convenient for quantitative sociologists oriented toward the language- game of science who have followed Lord Kelvin’s dictum about the meagerness (or meagreness) of knowledge not expressed in numbers (McCloskey 1985:7; Merton, Sills, and Stigler 1984; Kuhn 1977:178; Wirth 1940:169). But what do nonquantitative sociologists oriented toward the same language-game do? Whereas Mexican sociology disregards mathematics and statistics almost comple- tely, U-ART recurrently resort to mathematical and statistical jargon and symbols. For example, Koopmans and Statham (1999:668) report Cronbach’s alphas for intercoder reliability, and in their seven cross-tabulations (1999:676–86) they report chi-square values, P values, and degrees of freedom, employing the usual statistical notation. Lieberson, Dumais, and Baumann (2000:1266, 1281, 1283) report P values and Spearman’s rhos, and graphs and numbers are prominent. The authors (2000:1260fn) also construct an Index of Androgyny, ‘‘derived from the P* index,’’ and provide its equation in a footnote. Guseva and Rona-Tas’s ‘‘theoretical’’

17It would even be necessary to contemplate the grammatical function of those clauses to build a reliable indicator of ‘‘abstruse prose.’’ Two other plausible indicators are the average numbers of relative and demonstrative pronouns per sentence. As for the vocabulary’s obscurity, it would be yet harder, for how would one define a word’s degree of obscurity? How would one measure the degree of obscurity of each article’s thousands of words? Bazerman’s (1988:167–71) analysis of spectroscopic articles published in the Physical Review from 1893 to 1980 relies on variables such as type of subordinate clauses, sentence length, or type of word used as the subject of the main clause. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 19

(2001:624) section discusses various scholarly approaches to credit, risk, uncertainty, and trust. In their gloss of the approach of mainstream economic theory to uncer- tainty and risk, they (2001:624) present an algebraic expression that represents ‘‘the standard theorem of expected utility maximization.’’ Conversation-analysis pieces are another good example. Their symbolic apparatus is ostensibly displayed in numerous ‘‘extracts’’ or ‘‘excerpts’’ and in comprehensive appendices with ‘‘transcribing conventions used in this article’’ (Lavin and Maynard 2001:474–76) or ‘‘transcription symbols’’ (Greatbatch and Dingwall 1997:167). Conversation analysts claim that their transcripts enable ‘‘researchers to reveal and analyze tacit, ‘seen but unnoticed,’ aspects of human conduct that otherwise would be unavailable for systematic study’’ (Greatbatch and Dingwall 1997:153). It should be noted that this ‘‘revelation’’ is achieved by following a standardized method that mechanically translates utterances into symbolic representations. This method gener- ates two types of numbers: arbitrary progressions indicating the line number and numbers in parentheses indicating lengths of silences in tenths of seconds. In the second case, one is in the presence of precise numerical measurements of an aspect of the empirical world, that is, numbers correspond in some way to nature. This is rapidly taken advantage of—for instance, Duneier and Molotch (1999:1277) refer to and interpret ‘‘a full 2.2 second silence’’ in their transcripts, and Lavin and Maynard (2001:46) do so with a ‘‘1.9 second pause.’’ While authors retain interpretative discre- tion to some extent, the methods of conversation analysis have limited part of it and thus helped in the accomplishment of procedural objectivity. In their quest for procedural objectivity, U-ART can undertake more systematic formalizations. Goldstone and Useem’s (1999:1020) comparative-historical study of 13 prison riots in the United States is supplemented by a ‘‘formal data analysis’’: ‘‘the matched-pairs signs test.’’ Cress and Snow’s (2000) research on homeless social move- ment organizations employs Ragin’s (1987) qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). QCA’s truth tables, Boolean equations, and the very mention of ‘‘the logic of Boolean algebra’’ (Cress and Snow 2000:1079) conspicuously give off impressions of objectivity and scientificity. But, more importantly, QCA realizes procedural objectivity by being an algorithmic rule into which one—anyone—enters data and obtains results. Like statistical models, truth tables are presented as yielding undisputable truths indepen- dent from the whims of the knower. Let us now look at the usage of tables and figures. The difference between U-ART and M-ART is quite significant: the average number per article in U-ART is 4.40 and in M-ART is 0.33. A discussion of the pictorial language (Lynch and Woolgar 1990; Gilbert and Mulkay 1984) of tables and figures is well beyond the scope of this article. Let us just note that tables and figures stand closer to mathematics than to natural language in their appeal to commensurability and rejection of subjectivity. For instance, tables very often contain numbers. Their shape and appearance is extremely suggestive of a certain style of thought. Sometimes, tables even supply the algorithmic rule that nonquantitative articles generally lack. Take the case of Cooney (1997). His Table 3 (1997:323) compares rates of death from war and homicide between stateless societies and democratic state societies. It is easy to notice in the table that the former have much higher rates. Then, Cooney (1997:324) writes: ‘‘Thus, the conclusion to be drawn from Table 3 seems clear: The more violent . . .’’ What deserves mention is that the conclusion is drawn from the table rather than from, say, the narrative. It is as though the table were not showing the data or supporting an argument but producing the results, and by looking at it one could find out the previously unknown relationship. 20 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Discussion of Data and Methods To allow for replication, scientists have to exhaustively describe how their knowledge claims were arrived at. This includes the description of the data on which the article draws, the methods employed to collect it, and the operations performed on the evidence. As one of the biochemists interviewed by Gilbert and Mulkay (1984:53) puts it, ‘‘the scientific paper should make it possible, assuming that a library is available, for a Martian to come and do your experiment.’’ Eighty-seven percent of U-ART have some sort of data discussion. Sixty-seven percent is in the form of a ‘‘data’’ or ‘‘data and something else (usually methods)’’ section. Ninety percent of M-ART do not make a single reference to the evidence on which they draw; no ‘‘data’’ section is ever found (see Table 3). That is, arguments are based on empirical evidence, but there is no discussion of its characteristics, how it was collected, its ‘‘limitations,’’ and so on. By the same token, while not a single M-ART refers to the methods through which its knowledge claims were reached, such references appear in 70 percent of U-ART (see Table 3). Even when Mexican authors conducted costly research in the field, it is not rhetorically profitable to describe it in detail. If they are interested, readers have to struggle to infer from hardly visible cues what the research consisted of and how it was carried out. For example, Salas-Porras uses footnotes to indicate that ‘‘Expansio´n and various international newspapers were consulted’’ (2000:70) and to mention the interviews she conducted (2000:66–68, 75; see also Botero Villegas 1998). U.S. ethnographies are particularly worthy of note in this respect. How do ethno- graphers deal with procedural objectivity, given that the method through which they collect the data seems to be essentially subjective? One recurrent strategy is an extremely detailed account of their data and methods. Ethnographies may report such details as how a research project fortuitously began when the author met several gang members while administering a survey (Venkatesh 1997:86); who introduced the interviewees to the authors (Edin and Lein 1996:255); or a precise description of where and when the ethnography was conducted (Duneier and Molotch 1999:1265): ‘‘on three adjacent blocks along Sixth Avenue, from Eighth Street and Greenwich Avenue to Washington Place, over the period September 1992–October 1998, with daily observation from September 1992 to June 1993 and complete immersion during the summer months of 1996 and 1997.’’ Duneier and Molotch (1999:1268) further illus- trate the point:

Mitch became a general assistant to the street vendors, sometimes watching their merchandise while they went on errands, occasionally also buying up merchan- dise offered in their absence, and assisting on scavenging missions. He also performed such favors as going for coffee. He eventually worked for two full summers as a scavenger and vendor.

The basic idea that underlies these detailed descriptions seems to be that one can control for ‘‘performing such favors as going for coffee.’’ In other words, although the fact that the author went for coffee might introduce biases and it certainly introduces idiosyncratic elements, by means of a ‘‘benign introspection’’ (Woolgar 1988b) one would be expunging any unwelcome effects from the data. Through the fragments of the paper devoted to ‘‘tales of the field,’’ ethnographers might be actually exorcizing the data from the evil spirits of subjectivity. Afterward, their knowledge claims can be asserted in the customary tone of objectivity. This point about field research takes us STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 21 to a more general issue that is not restricted to ethnographies: the relationship between authoriality, passive voice and first-person pronouns, and epistemic objectivity.

Authoriality As Booth (1961:8) has shown, James and Flaubert initiated a major shift in the rhetoric of fiction: true novels had to be realistic, all authors had to be objective, true art had to ignore the audience: ‘‘Since Flaubert, many authors and critics have been convinced that ‘objective’ or ‘impersonal’ . . . modes of narration are naturally superior to any mode that allows for direct appearances by the author or his reliable spokesman.’’ Natural scientists, too, seem to be fond of impersonal modes of narra- tion. Thus, sociologists of science have often reported that natural science papers are mostly written in the passive voice and in the ‘‘style of nonsytle’’ (Gilbert 1976; Gusfield 1976:20, 17). But, at least in science, the author’s choice of voice has more than stylistic implications. Scientists seem to believe that direct appearances by the author are detrimental for the objectivity of their claims. As suggested above, this is related to the role that an ‘‘anti-subjectivity’’ understanding of objectivity can bestow on the author: ‘‘the scientist is regarded only as a messenger relaying the truth from Nature . . . [T]he message from Nature he brings should not be seen as his own particular message’’ (Gilbert 1976:285; see also Foucault 1984:109). Drawing on conceptualizations of textuality and facticity more popular among literary critics than sociologists, Agger (2000) has argued that ‘‘mainstream U.S. sociology’’ conceals authoriality and purges literariness. ‘‘Positivist’’ science is ‘‘com- posed in the passive voice’’; ‘‘the first-person presence of the author is expunged’’ (Agger 2000:28). According to my data, however, this is only partially correct. Because authors want to appear as ‘‘conceivers, doers, and owners’’ of their knowl- edge claims, ‘‘the first person frequently is used to express the author’s active role in constructing ideas and collecting data as well as to claim credit for the research process and results’’ (Bazerman 1988:287). Thus, in U-ART the first person is promi- nent only in certain ‘‘approved topoi’’ (Clifford 1983:132), such as data and methods sections, and the paragraphs where authors specify what their hypotheses, their findings, and their contributions to science are. Then, like Geertz (1973) in his notes on the Balinese cockfight, sociologists ‘‘abruptly disappear’’ (Clifford 1983:132) from the text. As Latour (1999:132; emphasis in original) notes in his discussion of Pasteur’s famous article on lactic fermentation: ‘‘[t]he director withdraws from the scene, and the reader, merging her eyes with those of the stage manager, sees a fermentation that takes form at center stage independently of any work of construc- tion.’’ A prime example of this is comparative-historical sociologists’ narrative pre- sentation of historical data as unproblematic facts, in which all vestiges of authoriality are banished. After the introduction, the formulation of a research question, and the theoretical discussion, they let history ‘‘speak for itself.’’ First-person singular pronouns are rare in M-ART. Sometimes they are supplanted by the regal ‘‘we.’’ But M-ART are mostly rendered in the impersonal form of the third-person singular. Data and methods are not discussed, and asking for credit for knowledge claims, although not entirely absent, is less frequent than in the United States. Thus, grammatically, Mexican authors are for the most part not present in their texts. How can we account for this type of impression management? First, it is clearly related to the pragmatics of standard Spanish: the aforementioned third- personal form is very common and natural, even in colloquial speech. Second, 22 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Mexican sociologists may take for granted that sociological accounts consist of interpretations. Instead of letting the facts speak for themselves as much as possible while ‘‘intervening’’ only when necessary, a Mexican article is believed to be in its entirety the product of its author’s ‘‘intervention.’’ Thus, it might be unnecessary to say explicitly that those interpretations are the author’s, for how could it be other- wise? In particular, that Nature is not speaking for itself is suggested by the ubiquity of value judgments. It should be recalled that, after all, Nature fervently adheres to the positivist doctrine of ethical neutrality.

ETHICAL NEUTRALITY The ideal of a value-free science has diverse philosophical roots, from Hume’s famous argument about the impossibility of deriving ‘‘ought’’ from ‘‘is,’’ to logical positivists’ argument about the meaninglessness of value judgments (Proctor 1991; Hume [1739– 1740] 1978:469–70; Ayer 1952). Among U.S. sociologists, the standard reference is Weber’s (1946, 1949) purportedly sharp distinctions between value and fact, Wertfreiheit (value freedom or ethical neutrality) and Wertbezogenheit (value rele- vance or value relatedness), and context of discovery and context of justification (see Ciaffa 1998; Turner and Factor 1984). In fact, modern science associates values with bias and perspective and thus makes ethical neutrality a prerequisite of epistemic objectivity. Values are confined to what Reichenbach (1938) dubbed ‘‘context of discovery’’ (‘‘when smoking a cigar on the sofa,’’ as Weber (1946:136) says). They are removed from the presentation of the scientific self in the journal article. In what follows, I examine to what extent Mexican and U.S. sociologies conform to this prototype. Yet what is it about a judgment that makes it count as a value judgment? How do I distinguish wertende from wertfrei statements? In three types of cases this is a rela- tively straightforward task. First, overt judgments of goodness, beauty, rightness, or worth. Second, in fact a subtype of the first, when authors take sides, breaking the rule of impartiality toward one’s ‘‘characters,’’ to put it in the way Chekhov and Flaubert have (Booth 1961:77). Third, statements about what one (morally) ought or ought not to do. The fourth type is not so easy to detect. For in this case authors do not overtly declare that such-and-such a thing is good or that such-and-such a thing ought to be done. Rather, in particular discursive contexts and in the context of a particular community of discourse, certain words, expressions, tones, citations, gestures may connote particular value judgments. Indeed, certain vocabularies may in and of themselves indicate loyalty to certain values.18 As we shall see below, this is one of the ways in which facts and values may be intertwined.19 By extremely conservative standards of measurement, value judgment can be found in 80 percent of M-ART and only 10 percent of U-ART (see Table 4). The first thing to realize is that this difference is not purely epistemological, as the type of topics Mexican sociologists address themselves to has a lot to do with it. For the chances of

18These sort of statements may aspire to be true knowledge claims, and (as per my methodological orientation) I do not imply that this aspiration is irreconcilable with their also being value-laden. 19This rough characterization of value judgments suffices for my purposes. I am of course aware that one can define values in such a way that most or even all knowledge claims be value-laden. For example, theory choice is partly based on epistemic values (see, e.g., Putnam 2002). Values can be said to be built into the sociologist’s very concepts (see, e.g., Taylor 1985). Furthermore, the ideal of a value-free science is itself a moral one, so that the absence of moral statements can be interpreted as a particular kind of moral statement. Nevertheless, one can still consistently and usefully distinguish between these senses of value- ladenness and the more restricted sense that I employ. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 23

Table 4. Ethical Neutrality in Mexico and the United States United States (%) Mexico (%) Presence of value judgments Yes 10 80 No 90 20 Number of cases 30 30 complying with the principle of ethical neutrality seem to be lower if one is discussing the current leftist administration of Mexico City rather than mimetic institutional isomorphisms. Let us consider some examples from my data. Salas-Porras’s (2000) article on Mexican entrepreneurs’ participation in electoral politics is full of trenchant censures of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the then incumbent Partido Revolucionario Institucional. Significantly, her (2000:77, 80) very approach to her main object of inquiry, the relationship between entrepreneurs and electoral politics, is by no means neutral:

The financial contributions of the wealthy make the electoral field more unba- lanced and unjust, give additional means of influence and power to a small minority, increase the traffic of influence, political clientelism, disloyal economic competition and corruption.

[A very select group of entrepreneurs] erode [sic] more serious and consistent efforts, both of small and large entrepreneurs, to develop a more ethical, plural and democratic version of liberalism than the one we have hitherto known in Mexico: unilateral, classist and deformed.

Take now the case of Pucciarelli (1999), who discusses the current political, social, and economic situation in Argentina. His major knowledge claim is that the Argentinean social structure has recently undergone major transformations toward greater ‘‘social polarization,’’ ‘‘social segmentation,’’ ‘‘social fragmentation,’’ and ‘‘social exclusion.’’ While this claim does not necessarily entail a value judgment, Pucciarelli hastens to harshly condemn all these transformations, offering an ardent critique of Argentina’s political affairs. Interestingly, just as several other M-ART authors refer to their homelands, he (1999:121, 126) refers to Argentina as ‘‘our country,’’ identifying himself with the nation and the community. More relevantly, condemnation and description are so enmeshed that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. This is most evident when the author (1999:148; emphasis added) explicitly makes a case for employing the term ‘‘decadence’’ over the less value-laden ‘‘crisis’’:

[I]t seems to us that the notion of ‘‘decadence’’ [decadencia] is more appropriate for our purposes, that it contains a more precise meaning and it allows us, besides, to take adequate advantage of its principal property, namely its descrip- tive, comparative and also valorative [valorativo] sense.

Tellingly, Pucciarelli entitles the article ‘‘Crisis or Decadence?’’ Now, simply by adopting a Marxist terminology (in its Latin American left variant), one might be espousing in the epistemological terrain the spirit of the 11th thesis on Feuerbach, and 24 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY perhaps in the political terrain the progressive or even the revolutionary cause, too. And, at the same time, one might be displaying adherence to the ‘‘right’’ values, much in the way citations of ‘‘right’’ theorists work (Stinchcombe 1982, 2001; Gilbert 1977). Mexican sociologists frequently talk about ‘‘dominant classes’’ (Dilla Alfonso and Oxhorn 1999:132; Pucciarelli 1999:134, 140, 149; Botero Villegas 1998:394, 395; Stavenhagen 1998:7); ‘‘dominant power’’ (He´au and Gime´nez 1997:224); ‘‘dominant groups’’ (Stavenhagen 1998:9); ‘‘dominant sectors’’ (Botero Villegas 1998:406–07); and ‘‘bourgeoisie’’ (Barrios Suvelza 2000:191, 193; Tamayo 1999:502, 509). They likewise talk about ‘‘popular classes’’ (Barrera 1998); ‘‘popular sectors’’ (Pucciarelli 1999:134, 149; Barrera 1998:passim; Iba´n˜ez Rojo 1998:359; Massolo 1996:136); ‘‘popular strug- gles’’ (He´au and Gime´nez 1997:passim); and ‘‘proletariat’’ (Tamayo 1999:502).20 Yet, the beˆte noire is undoubtedly ‘‘neoliberalism’’ (Pucciarelli 1999:129, 130; Tamayo 1999:510; Barrera 1998:passim; Massolo 1996:134, 136). One might refer to the ‘‘neoliberal depredation’’ (Dilla Alfonso and Oxhorn 1999:132); to ‘‘neoliberal eco- nomic policies’’ (Zermen˜o 1999:passim; Ziccardi 1999:110); to ‘‘the importance that current neoliberal politics attribute to big firms to the detriment of small ones’’ (Mingo 1996:91); to the ‘‘subtle imposition of neoliberal values [normativa]’’ (Barrios Suvelza 2000:176); or to a situation that has been ‘‘considerably aggravated by the neoliberal policies of governments and multinational financial organisms’’ (Stavenhagen 1998:13). In the present context, ‘‘neoliberalism’’ is obviously a value- laden word. It does not mean an economic doctrine based on the ‘‘laissez faire, laissez passer’’ dictum. It means an economic doctrine based on the ‘‘laissez faire, laissez passer’’ dictum that is conceptually incorrect and morally deplorable. In fact, arguments related to, broadly speaking, ‘‘neoliberalism’’ are the place in which most often values and facts are brought together in M-ART. For example, Stavenhagen (1998:3–4) talks about ‘‘the neoliberal dogma’’:

Like all dogmas, this one stays firm against any evidence with an impressive advertising apparatus and has taken over the principal inter-governmental agen- cies, the dominant arguments of the governments of the planet, and most academic institutions and universities (not to mention the associations of entrepreneurs, who are the first to be interested in promoting the myth).

Referring to Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, Stavenhagen (1998:8–9) con- trasts two camps: ‘‘peasant movements, left parties, and some intellectuals’’ that ‘‘demanded the necessity of agrarian reforms, based on convincing economic, social, and political arguments’’ with ‘‘the dominant groups’’ that ‘‘organized themselves nationally and internationally and soon managed to contain the popular tide by installing more or less brutal military regimes, with ample help from the U.S.’’ One does not need additional clarification to understand that the author is morally reject- ing the ‘‘neoliberal dogma’’ or that ‘‘the peasant movements, the left parties, and some intellectuals’’ are the good guys and the ‘‘dominant groups’’ are the bad guys. And once again, his value judgments, entrenched in his reasoning and vocabulary, can be separated neither from his account of the facts nor from his argument about the causes of poverty in Latin America.

20Other expressions with Marxist connotations are: ‘‘class struggle’’ (Tamayo 1999:507); ‘‘oppression’’ and ‘‘exploitation’’ (Massolo 1996:134); ‘‘oligarchy’’ and ‘‘class for itself’’ (Barrera 1998:15); ‘‘class conscious- ness’’ (Barrera 1998:20); ‘‘hegemony’’ (Botero Villegas 1998:495); ‘‘organic intellectuals’’ (Dilla Alfonso and Oxhorn 1999:137; He´au Lambert and Gime´nez 1997:242); and ‘‘superstructural variables’’ (Barrios Suvelza 2000:176, 200). STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 25

For his part, Zermen˜o (1999:183) sets out to ‘‘analyze the widespread disorder and social atomization caused by trade liberalization and globalization.’’ The author believes that one should ‘‘temper’’ ‘‘those incommensurable powers’’ such as ‘‘Washington and the big transnational corporations [trasnacionales] and financial institutions’’ (Zermen˜o 1999:199). A similar mood toward Washington is found in Dilla Alfonso and Oxhorn’s (1999:123, 142) article, which refers to the ‘‘aggressiveness of the U.S. [against Cuba]’’ and the ‘‘interfering [injerencista] Helms-Burton law.’’ Finally, Barbieri (2000:51) points out that ‘‘the strong resistance of large multinational corporations and governments of countries such as the U.S. and Japan to taking measures that affect their economic interests, placed [centro´] on the poor population of poor countries, and specifically on their women, the cause of the world’s misfor- tunes [males].’’ Only 10 percent of U-ART (i.e., three articles) are not entirely value-free.21 In two of them, there are only minor words, expressions, or references that could be inter- preted as value-charged. For its part, Edin and Lein’s article (1996) is especially illustrative of how values might be incorporated into scientific discourse in the United States. Edin and Lein’s findings about single mothers’ economic survival strategies are reached through scientific methods, from which values are conspicu- ously absent and procedural objectivity devices conspicuously present. In the final part of the conclusion, after summarizing their findings, the authors point out that they ‘‘have clear policy relevance,’’ and proceed to offer six policy suggestions (1996:264). For example:

(1) Allow recipients to count participation in high-quality training or educational programs that lead to living wages as satisfying the work requirement. (3) Expand the Federal Unemployment Insurance program to cover more work- ers in the low-wage sector, including part-time workers. (Edin and Lein 1996:264)

The Humean problem is whether Edin and Lein’s normative statements follow from their scientific findings. It seems to me that, since in their account values are totally isolated from facts, no logical relationship is needed: their normative statements simply ascertain the best means to reach ends that policymakers have selected and with which science has nothing to do. Even though in the present case the authors do endorse those ends, from a logical point of view this step is not necessary: ‘‘We believe that as states move single mothers from welfare to work, mothers’ and their children’s material well-being should be safeguarded’’ (Edin and Lein 1996:264; emphasis added). U.S. sociologists’ overall attitude toward values might be well summarized by a paragraph of Ganz’s (2000:1007–08; emphasis added) piece:

The data on which this analysis is based is drawn from primary and secondary sources as well as my experience with the UFW [United Farm Workers] from 1965 to 1981 as an organizer, organizing director, and national officer. This raises a potential problem of bias based on my personal experiences, interests I may have in particular accounts of controversial events, and personal relationships with persons on all sides of the conflict. But my experience also equips me with a deep

21An ingrained and institutionalized value judgment into which I am not able to delve is the different ways in which generic third-person singular pronouns and their inflected forms are used in the United States to avoid so-called gendered language. 26 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

understanding of the context of these events, direct information as to what took place, and access to important research resources. In an attempt to realize the benefits while minimizing the risks, I ‘‘triangulate’’ my data for this study by drawing on multiple primary and secondary sources, relying on my own experi- ence only where specifically noted.

Even though—or, actually, precisely because—they are the source of unique under- standings and evidence, ‘‘personal experiences,’’ ‘‘interests,’’ and ‘‘personal relation- ships’’ are seen as threats to objectivity. They may introduce biases and thus jeopardize the ‘‘viewpoint of no-one in particular.’’ Still, through the triangulation of data it can be found out whether one’s accounts are not objective, and correct them. One can correct those ‘‘bad’’ biases, and keep the ‘‘good’’ ones. As Ernest Nagel (1961:489) would say, ‘‘since by hypothesis it is not impossible to distinguish between fact and value, steps can be taken to identify a value bias when it occurs, and to minimize if not to eliminate completely its perturbing effects.’’ Let us finally note that U.S. sociologists are believed to be, on average, much more ‘‘liberal’’ than the rest of this country’s population. Indeed, sociology has been shown to be the most liberal academic discipline in the United States (Hamilton and Hargens 1993; Ladd and Lipset 1975). Furthermore, U.S. sociologists publish in several venues that welcome ethically committed work. The point is that those outlets are not the most prestigious and professional journals. In these, there is only room for true science.

CONCLUSION

Incommensurability and the Sociology of Knowledge The main finding of this article is that the epistemological assumptions of Mexican and U.S. sociologies—as represented by a random sample of nonquantitative articles drawn from four leading journals—are significantly different. First, they assign a different role to theories, and indeed they have dissimilar understandings of what a theory should consist of. Second, whereas the U.S. articles actively struggle against subjectivity, the Mexican articles maximize the potentials of subjective viewpoints. Third, U.S. sociologists tend to regard highly and Mexican sociologists to eagerly disregard the principle of ethical neutrality. This finding has an important implication for the ongoing research program of the sociology of knowledge, whose ambition is to account not only for religious beliefs, moralities, and ideologies, but also for mathematical theorems and scientific theories. There are several ways of construing the argument that scientific knowledge is ‘‘con- ditioned,’’ ‘‘determined,’’ ‘‘shaped,’’ ‘‘influenced,’’ etc. by its social context. Many of these versions are at best unclear and at worst plainly false. Of course, science is a human activity, scientists have interests, biases, and so on. Of course, as any human institution, science involves politics, inequalities, culture, language, rhetoric, emo- tions, and so on. But how exactly does it follow that Go¨del’s incompleteness theorem or Pauli’s exclusion principle (i.e., the theorem itself or the principle itself) is ‘‘socially constructed?’’ I believe that my investigation suggests a more promising direction for the social conditioning argument. It is easy to see that underlying epistemological assumptions have an effect upon the so-called cognitive content of scientific theories. What is more, this effect is of a particular character, which makes it theoretically consequential: one may not be able to factor it out; it may be built into the theory STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 27 itself. As we shall see, that two truth-seeking communities make dissimilar epistemo- logical assumptions may entail the incommensurability of the bodies of knowledge that they produce: there might be no common metric by means of which their truth claims could be measured against reality; translation might be impossible in principle. Yet epistemological assumptions, as assumptions, are by definition not entirely detached from the contingencies of the self and society. Therefore, the cognitive content of scientific knowledge claims might be in one (literally fundamental) respect influenced by the social conditions of its production. In 1962, both Kuhn ([1962] 1970) and Feyerabend ([1962] 1981) first presented in print ‘‘the’’ ‘‘incommensurability thesis.’’ But already in Kuhn’s magnum opus (let alone in posterior commentaries, debates, Feyerabend’s writings, and Kuhn’s various rounds of ‘‘second thoughts’’), there are several somewhat incommensurable ‘‘incom- mensurability theses.’’ One can organize this field by distinguishing between semantic, epistemological, and perceptual incommensurability (Hoyningen-Huene and Sankey 2001; Bird 2000; Sankey 1994; Hoyningen-Huene 1993:201–22; Kitcher 1983; see also D’Agostino 2003; Chang 1997; Wong 1989). The semantic thesis argues that ‘‘there is no language, neutral or otherwise, into which [two] theories, conceived as sets of sentences, can be translated without residue or loss’’ (Kuhn 1983:670). In fact, the meaning of observation and theoretical terms is a function of the theory in which they occur. The perceptual thesis is based on Kuhn’s ([1962] 1970:150) statement that ‘‘the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds’’—what Hacking (1993:276) calls the ‘‘new-world problem.’’ The basic idea is that worldviews and perceptual experience are not independent. Finally, the epistemological thesis argues that paradigms differ in their standards of theory appraisal. In Kuhn’s ([1962] 1970:109) words, ‘‘scientific schools disagree about what is a problem and what a solution.’’22 To consider the epistemological thesis, let us pose the following thought experi- ment. Suppose a Mexican sociologist claims p and a U.S. sociologist claims not-p. Carnap’s or Popper’s epistemology would have the empirical world arbitrate between these two theoretical claims. But, as we have seen, sociologists in Mexico and the United States hold different stances regarding what a theory should be, what an explanation should look like, what rules of inference and standards of proof should be stipulated, what role evidence should play, and so on. The empirical world could only adjudicate the dispute if an agreement on these epistemological presuppositions could be reached (and there are good reasons to expect that in such a situation neither side would be willing to give up its epistemology). Furthermore, it seems to me that my thought experiment to some degree misses the point. For it imagines a situation in which a Mexican sociologist claims p and a U.S. sociologist claims not-p, failing to realize that that would only be possible if the problem were articulated in similar terms. However, we have seen that Mexican and U.S. sociologies also differ in how problems are articulated—rather than p and not-p, one should probably speak of p and q. I believe that Mexican and U.S. sociologies are perceptually and semantically incommensurable as well. On the one hand, I suspect that equal stimuli do not generate in Mexican and U.S. sociologists equal sensations—they may ‘‘see different things when looking at the same sorts of objects’’ (Kuhn [1962] 1970:120; emphasis in

22From this, Feyerabend (1970:228, 1975:214, 285) concludes that theory choice, rather than rational, is a ‘‘matter of taste’’ and ‘‘subjective wishes.’’ More conservatively, Kuhn (1977:331) rejects Lakatos’s (1970:178) ‘‘mob psychology’’ charge and suggests that his criteria function ‘‘not as rules, which determine choice, but as values, which influence it.’’ 28 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY original). However, I do not have the data, presumably experimental, to support this proposition. On the other hand, I believe my data suggest that the vocabularies of Mexican and U.S. sociologies are theory-laden and thus may fail to share common meanings. Terms such as ‘‘social class,’’ ‘‘social movement,’’ ‘‘hypothesis,’’ and ‘‘vari- able’’ resemble some of Kuhn’s favorite examples: the meaning of the term ‘‘mass’’ for Newton’s and Einstein’s mechanics and the meaning of ‘‘earth’’ for Copernican and Ptolemaic astronomy. Likewise, what ‘‘decadence’’ means is a function of how the theory in which it occurs conceptualizes the relationship between values and facts. Finally, as Kuhn (1983) himself emphasized regarding the case of ‘‘force’’ and ‘‘mass,’’ U.S. and Mexican vocabularies consist of sets of terms, whose meaning is crucially dependent on their being a set. In yet a fourth sense, the incommensurability thesis has been read as suggesting unintelligibility. With Kuhn’s turn toward Quine’s (1960) ‘‘indeterminacy of transla- tion’’ thesis, incommensurability becomes tantamount to untranslatability. From there, the ‘‘inability of advocates of rival cosmologies and ontologies to understand one another’’ (Laudan 1996:9) seems to follow. Not only did critics find the empirical evidence for this claim weak (Toulmin 1970:43–44), but they also pointed out that Kuhn’s argument was incoherent and logically self-defeating (Putnam 1981:114–15). Is it not the case that historians of science, such as Kuhn himself, make sense of earlier paradigms in the language of the dominant one? Is it not the case that Whorf (1956:214), claiming that English and Hopi cannot be ‘‘calibrated,’’ ‘‘uses English to convey the contents of sample Hopi sentences’’ (Davidson 1984:184)? In fact, trans- latability might even be a criterion of languagehood: an untranslatable utterance would not be speech behavior but random noises (Davidson 1984; Putnam 1981). I strongly deny that Mexican and U.S. sociologies are incommensurable if this is taken to mean unintelligible. Of course, my own endeavor presupposes and, if successful, demonstrates that one can plot them on a common coordinate system and render one of them in the language of the other. But an important nuance should be brought up here. As Kuhn (1983) himself retorted, inability to translate does not entail inability to understand. I do not claim to have translated Mexican sociology into U.S. sociology meeting the standards that a Quinean manual of translation would have set. Rather, I have presupposed and demonstrated that a certain language can be understood, interpreted, and communicated in such a way that it becomes intelligible to the members of a different linguistic community. Given its reflexive character, I would like to use the present article to provide one last illustration of my argument about incommensurability. As mentioned in the introduction, I have followed Bloor’s tenets, in the sense that neither the Mexican nor the U.S. epistemological approach has been assumed to be more fruitful, reason- able, or likely to get one closer to the truth. Unfortunately, in a strict sense there is no uncommitted manner to put forward knowledge claims about how knowledge claims are put forward. For the epistemological assumptions of one’s own claims, the language in which they are written can be said to performatively support a certain way of doing science. Not surprisingly in view of its conditions of production, at the performative level this article sides with the U.S. epistemological approach. For instance, I present a ‘‘data and methods’’ section and four tables (slightly below the mean). I reconstruct my own research process so that it fits the textbook model of scientific research, without mentioning errors, cul-de-sacs, and reformulations.23 I aim

23This is, however, a performative contradiction. By mentioning that I am not mentioning errors, cul-de- sacs, and reformulations, I am in fact mentioning them. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 29 at objective reality through intersubjectively valid measurements and do not let any value judgments into my argument. The question then becomes: Could ‘‘Styles of Sociological Thought’’ be rendered in both the U.S. and Mexican sociological languages? Could it be rendered in both languages ‘‘without residue or loss?’’ I do not think so. Suppose I did let value judgments into my argument, did not carefully explain what my data and methods are, and did not emphasize the intersubjective validity of my measurements. The outcome could hardly be said to be a faithful, semantically equivalent translation of this article. Because many essential things would indeed be lost, the outcome should rather be viewed as a different article. Above all, the very question I have addressed to the empirical world is—in terms of its substance, conceptual bases, and most importantly logical form—of the kind accepted by and meaningful to the U.S. sociological community. But our hypothetical Mexican version of this article would have to ask a question of a different form, and ipso facto the correspondence between the two would collapse.

Accounting for Epistemological Variation Not only do I believe that epistemological presuppositions vary across communities, but also that they are not randomly distributed. Future research should work out a theory about how the nature of Mexican and U.S. epistemologies is related to their being Mexican and U.S. Here I just want to suggest four lines of thought that might be worthy of further elaboration and eventually empirical corroboration. For an academic discipline to establish itself, it must appear in the eyes of the relevant actors and constituencies as distinct from both neighboring disciplines and— what I would like to emphasize here—nonprofessional, unaccredited, or nonscientific knowledge. That is, an epistemological ‘‘boundary’’ must be drawn (Lamont and Molna´r 2002; Babb 2001; Camic 1995; Camic and Xie 1994; Fisher 1993; Lamont 1992, 2000b; Cozzens and Gieryn 1990; Abbott 1988; Gieryn 1983, 1995, 1999). Thus, a theory of epistemological variation must consider which actors count as relevant in a particular context, as well as their positions, dispositions, views, and interests. In this regard, several scholars have brought to light the ‘‘unique role played by funding in American sociology, and the distinctive affinities between American sociology, foundation, and scientism’’ (Turner 1998:70; see also Turner 1994; Fisher 1993; Geiger 1993:94–110; Ross 1991; Turner and Turner 1990; Bannister 1987; Silva and Slaughter 1984; McCartney 1970; but see Platt 1996). For U.S. public and private foundations and university administrations, scientificity has meant ‘‘scientism,’’24 quantification, and neutralization of subjectivity, and through these criteria they have distinguished between scientific and nonscientific discourses about society. In Mexico, external funding agencies have played a less significant role, and, in fact, there have not been comparable funding agencies in terms of financial and institu- tional resources. Moreover, the Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico (UNAM), the institutional home and source of support for most research and teach- ing throughout the history of Mexican sociology, has been far from demanding scientism from its social scientists. In turn, this is a consequence of how Latin American public universities are governed and administered, the great formal and informal power that professors and students have in this system, the nature of the

24By ‘‘scientism’’ it is generally meant the thesis that the science of society should be modeled on the natural sciences (see Steinmetz 2004; Platt 1996; Ross 1991; Bannister 1987; Bryant 1985; Halfpenny 1982; Giddens 1974; Hayek 1952). 30 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY intellectual culture predominant in these institutions, and the degree to which university matters are political and indeed closely connected to national politics (Ordorika 2003; Mendoza Rojas 2001; Lorey 1993; Brunner 1985; Clark 1983:156; Mabry 1982; Ribeiro 1967). My second dimension attends to one type of relationship between sociology and the polity (see Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000, 2001; Jepperson 1992, 2002; Wagner, Wittrock, and Whitley 1991; Wagner 1990, 2001; Wittrock and Wagner 1990, 1996). In the United States, as the first editor of the magazine Contexts pointed out (Fischer 2002:iii), there is a wide moat surrounding the ivory tower (see also Burawoy 2005a, 2005b). In general, sociologists are scientists oriented toward scientific institutions and rewarded primarily according to their contributions to pure science. In contrast, Mexican sociologists are scientists oriented toward both scientific and political insti- tutions and evaluated according to contributions to both pure science and political life. Indeed, sociology qua scientific discipline has been to a large extent constituted through and defined by its involvement in politics—specifically, as a critical left-wing force (see, e.g., Zapata 1990). However, it is important that not just any kind of contribution to political life has been constitutive of the me´tier of the sociologist. Rather than just performing utilitarian calculations or developing algorithms that provide the most efficient means to realize political ends established elsewhere, sociologists have been expected to identify, articulate, and criticize those very ends (Mun˜oz Garcı´a 1994; Castan˜eda 1990:417–18; Sefchovich 1989; Villa Aguilera 1979). It is precisely this capacity to illuminate practical problems by drawing on ‘‘social thought,’’ provide public opinion with theoretically informed accounts couched in suitable terminologies, substantiate normative standpoints in the public sphere, and bring knowledge ‘‘to the service of . . . justice and reason’’ that sociologists have claimed as one—and arguably the—essential component of their professional exper- tise (Contreras 2000:160; Ibarrola 1994:184; Portes 1975). And most of the actors with which sociology has interacted—the state, the media, public opinion, the UNAM, student bodies, neighboring disciplines—have not only accepted these claims as legitimate but also expected it to assume such roles as being the ‘‘moral consciousness’’ of the state (Girola and Olvera 1995; Castan˜eda 1990, 1995a:294, 1995b). Thus, the physicist could obviously not be a model for the sociologist. A third promising explanatory idea is based on Steinmetz’s (2005c:36) ‘‘social- epochal or macrosociological’’ approach, which focuses on ‘‘the impact of large- scale social structural processes and cultural discourses on sociologists’ sense of the plausibility of different ways of thinking about the social’’ (Steinmetz 2005d:278; see also Steinmetz 2005a, 2005b). Independently of factors such as sociologists’ interest in drawing particular boundaries or foundations’ interest in promoting particular types of research, in any given social context some epistemologies and ontologies would just strike people as more plausible than others. In these papers, Steinmetz directs his attention to the case of U.S. sociology’s ‘‘methodological positivism,’’ which is found to be causally connected to the Fordist mode of societal regulation. But one can draw on this approach to think about the causal connections between third world modes of societal regulation and the epistemological foundations of the sociological knowledge produced in these regions (a line of reasoning both suggested and encouraged by Steinmetz himself). If one looks at the specific Fordist elements that bolstered posi- tivism in the United States—for example, economic stability, ‘‘security,’’ a ‘‘postideo- logical’’ culture, social regularity and predictability, geopolitical centrality—it is clear that in Mexico most of these conditions did not obtain (or, at the very least, did not obtain to the same degree). Ultimately, however, only systematic empirical research STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 31 can determine whether and how these and other social-epochal factors have had an impact on the epistemological worldview of Mexican sociology. Last but not least, our theory should not forget that the two cases under considera- tion are not independent. That Mexican sociology has opposed scientism is to some extent a consequence of what Reyna (1979:67) calls the ‘‘Latin Americanization’’ of Mexican sociology: ‘‘a sort of ‘reaction’ against the methods and approaches that came, principally, from the U.S.’’ (see also Hiller 1979). In fact, Mexican sociology has explicitly drawn inspiration from European traditions (primarily French sociol- ogy) that lend great prestige to public intellectuals and view ‘‘views from nowhere’’ with suspicion (Lamont 2000a; Loyo, Guadarrama, and Weissberg 1990:37; Lemert 1981; Villa Aguilera 1979).25 In sum, the general point I put forward is that epistemological stances can be accounted for by the social conditions of production of the discourses they underlie. This is, of course, a reformulation of the central question of the sociology of knowl- edge, from Mannheim (1952, [1929] 1966) to the Edinburgh school (Bloor [1976] 1991; Barnes 1974); from Berger and Luckmann (1966) to Bourdieu ([1984] 1988). A first generation of sociologists of science argued that social ‘‘factors’’ may influence foci of attention and rates of advance (see, e.g., Cole 1992) but that they do not affect the cognitive ‘‘content’’ of science. A second generation, the sociologists of scientific knowledge, violated the sanctuary that neither Mannheim (1952, [1929] 1966) nor Merton (1973) had dared to violate.26 Now science’s ‘‘assemblage of truths’’ (Hacking 1999:66) was said to be ‘‘socially constructed.’’ The irony is that, as Trevor Pinch and Trevor Pinch (1988:186) observe, ‘‘sociology, the ‘softest’ of all the scientific disci- plines, should make claims to be able to account for physics—the Queen of the Sciences.’’ I believe it is high time sociologists pressed this irony further and tried also to account empirically and sociologically for the putative ultimate foundations upon which science’s edifice of knowledge has been erected. In fact, even though sociolo- gists have largely not adopted this approach, there have recently been a few hints and efforts in this direction: Kurzman’s (1994) call for an ‘‘empirical epistemology’’; Somers’s (1996, 1998) ‘‘purposefully oxymoronic’’ ‘‘historical epistemology’’; Knorr- Cetina’s (1999) ‘‘epistemic cultures’’; Shapin’s Social History of Truth (1994); Steinmetz’s (2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d) work on U.S. sociology’s positivism; Mallard, Lamont, and Guetzkow’s (2002) ‘‘epistemological codes’’; and Fuchs’s (1992, 1993, 2001) conceptualization of epistemology as a dependent variable. An empirical sociology of epistemologies would set out to show that beliefs about the best path to the truth have varied across time and place as much as beliefs about morality and beauty. It would also maintain that variations in epistemological beliefs should be accounted for sociologically. Finally, it would be interested in how the relationship

25My account applies, roughly, from the 1960s to the 1990s. Mexican sociology achieved a sizeable degree of institutionalization only in the 1960s (Girola 1996; Valenti 1990). In its inchoate phase the predominant tradition was a somewhat idiosyncratic version of positivism (Andrade Carren˜o 1998; Garza Toledo 1989; Sefchovich 1989). For the past few years, Mexico has undergone major political and social changes, which have impinged on both the higher-education system and the social legitimacy of different kinds of boundary work. For example, the influence of the CONACyT has increasingly become substantial, thanks to its program of economic incentives for researchers and its register of journals and graduate programs ‘‘of excellence.’’ More importantly—and despite sociologists’ complaints—CONACyT explicitly equates scien- tificity with scientism (see, e.g., Be´jar Navarro and Herna´ndez Bringas 1996:123–31; Perlo´Cohen 1994). While policies of this kind were first implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, epistemological outlooks are structurally ingrained features that may be affected only in the long run. 26Some of them even questioned the distinctions between social and cognitive ‘‘factors,’’ content and context, and ‘‘internalist’’ and ‘‘externalist’’ explanations of science (Latour 1999; Callon 1981). 32 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY between epistemological discrepancies and incommensurability can buttress sociol- ogy’s challenge to the traditional conception of science. Thus, an empirical sociology of epistemologies would constitute a step forward in the agenda of the sociology of knowledge, as it would further our understanding of the social conditioning of scientific knowledge.

REFERENCES

Abbott, A. D. 1988. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1992. ‘‘What Do Cases Do?’’ Pp. 53–82 in What Is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry, edited by C. C. Ragin and H. S. Becker. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2001. Time Matters: On Theory and Method. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Agger, B. 2000. Public Sociology: From Social Facts to Literary Acts. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Allen, M. P. 1990. ‘‘The ‘Quality’ of Journals in Sociology Reconsidered: Objective Measurers of Journal Influence.’’ Footnotes 18(9):4–5. ———. 2003. ‘‘The ‘Core Influence’ of Journals in Sociology Revisited.’’ Footnotes 31(9):7, 10. Andrade Carren˜o, A. 1995. ‘‘Comunidades acade´micas en sociologı´a: su integracio´n a trave´s de las revistas especializadas.’’ Pp. 195–220 in La Sociologı´a Contempora´nea En Me´xico. Perspectivas Disciplinarias y Nuevos Desafı´os, edited by J. F. Leal y Ferna´ndez et al. Me´xico: Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. ———. 1998. La Sociologı´aenMe´xico: Temas, Campos Cientı´ficos y Tradicio´n Disciplinaria.Me´xico: Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. Arciniega, R. 1996. ‘‘Relaciones industriales y sindicalismo en Peru´.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XIV:331–52. Ashmore, M. 1989. The Reflexive Thesis: Wrighting Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Astorga, L. 1997. ‘‘Los corridos de traficantes de drogas en Me´xico y Colombia.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LIX(4):245–61. Ayer, A. J. 1952. Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover Publications. Babb, S. L. 2001. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bannister, R. C. 1987. Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 1880–1940. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Barbieri, Teresita de. 2000. ‘‘Derechos reproductivos y sexuales. Encrucijada en tiempos distintos.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LXII(1):45–59. Barnes, B. 1974. Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory. London, UK; Boston, MA: Routledge & K. Paul. Barrera, M. 1998. ‘‘Las reformas econo´micas neoliberales y la representacio´n de los sectores populares en Chile.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LX(3):3–20. Barrios Suvelza, F. X. 2000. ‘‘El discurso neoliberal boliviano y la crisis de sus cientı´ficos sociales.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LXII(1):175–208. Bazerman, C. 1988. Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Becker, H. S. 1986. Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Be´jar Navarro, R. and H. H. Herna´ndez Bringas. 1996. La Investigacio´n en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades en Me´xico.Me´xico: Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, and Miguel A´ngel Porru´a. Benı´tez Zenteno, R. 1987. Las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico.Me´xico: Instituto De Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico; Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales; and Consejo Nacional De Ciencia y Tecnologı´a. Berger, P. L. and T. Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Bernstein, M. 1997. ‘‘Celebration and Suppression: The Strategic Uses of Identity by the Lesbian and Gay Movement.’’ American Journal of Sociology 103:531–65. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 33

Biggart, N. W. and M. F. Guille´n. 1999. ‘‘Developing Difference: Social Organization and the Rise of the Auto Industries of South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, and Argentina.’’ American Sociological Review 64:722–47. Bird, A. 2000. Thomas Kuhn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Blalock, H. M. 1969. Theory Construction: From Verbal to Mathematical Formulations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ———. 1984. Basic Dilemmas in the Social Sciences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Bloor, D. [1976] 1991. Knowledge and Social Imagery, 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Booth, W. C. 1961. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Botero Villegas, L. F. 1998. ‘‘La´zaro Condo, muerto y resucitado. Reflexiones sobre la relacio´n entre simbolismo y polı´tica.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XVI:393–428. Bourdieu, P. [1984] 1988. Homo Academicus. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Brachet-Marquez, V. 1997. ‘‘Mexican Sociology: Contradictory Influences.’’ Contemporary Sociology 26:292–96. Breault, K. D. 1989a. ‘‘New Evidence on Religious Pluralism, Urbanism, and Religious Participation.’’ American Sociological Review 54:1048–53. ———. 1989b. ‘‘A Reexamination of the Relationship Between Religious Diversity and Religious Adherents.’’ American Sociological Review 54:1056–59. Brunner, J. J. 1985. Universidad y Sociedad en Ame´rica Latina: Un Esquema de Interpretacio´n. Caracas, Venezuela: CRESALC-UNESCO. Bryant, C. G. A. 1985. Positivism in Social Theory and Research. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Burawoy, M. 2005a. ‘‘For Public Sociology.’’ American Sociological Review 70:4–28. ———. 2005b. ‘‘Provincializing the Social Sciences.’’ Pp. 508–25 in The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and its Epistemological Others, edited by G. Steinmetz. Durham, NC; London, UK: Duke University Press. Calhoun, C. 1996. ‘‘The Rise and Domestication of Historical Sociology.’’ Pp. 305–37 in The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, edited by T. J. McDonald. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Callon, M. 1981. ‘‘Struggles and Negotiations to Define What Is Problematic and What Is Not: The Sociology of Translation.’’ Pp. 197–219 in The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, edited by K. Knorr, R. Krohn, and R. Whitley. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. Camic, C. 1995. ‘‘Three Departments in Search of a Discipline: Localism and Interdisciplinary Interaction in American Sociology, 1890–1940.’’ Social Research 62:1003–33. Camic, C. and Y. Xie. 1994. ‘‘The Statistical Turn in American Social Science: Columbia University, 1890–1915.’’ American Sociological Review 59:773–805. Cartwright, N. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. Castan˜eda, F. 1990. ‘‘La Constitucio´n de la Sociologı´aenMe´xico.’’ Pp. 397–430 in Desarrollo y Organizacio´n de las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico, edited by F. Paoli Bolio. Me´xico: Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Humanidades, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, and Miguel A´ngel Porru´a. ———. 1995a. ‘‘Ideologı´a y Sociologı´aenMe´xico.’’ Pp. 287–301 in Estudios de Teorı´a e Historia de la Sociologı´aenMe´xico.Me´xico: Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, and Universidad Auto´noma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco. ———. 1995b. ‘‘La Sociologı´a Mexicana: La Constitucio´n de su Discurso.’’ Pp. 13–32 in La Sociologı´a Contempora´nea en Me´xico. Perspectivas Disciplinarias y Nuevos Desafı´os, edited by J. F. Leal y Ferna´ndez, et al. Me´xico: Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. Centeno, M. A. 1997. ‘‘Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.’’ American Journal of Sociology 102:1565–1605. Chang, R., ed. 1997. Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ciaffa, J. A. 1998. Max Weber and the Problems of Value-Free Social Science: A Critical Examination of the Werturteilsstreit. Lewisburg, NJ: Bucknell University Press. Clark, B. R. 1983. The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Clark, S. 1998. ‘‘International Competition and the Treatment of Minorities: Seventeenth-Century Cases and General Propositions.’’ American Journal of Sociology 103:1267–1308. Clemens, E. S., W. W. Powell, K. McIlwaine, and D. Okamoto. 1995. ‘‘Careers in Print: Books, Journals, and Scholarly Reputations.’’ American Journal of Sociology 101:433–94. 34 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Clifford, J. 1983. ‘‘On Ethnographic Authority.’’ Representations 2:118–46. Cole, S. 1992. Making Science: Between Nature and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Collins, H. M. 1985. Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London, UK; Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Collins, R. 1997. ‘‘An Asian Route to Capitalism: Religious Economy and the Origins of Self-Transforming Growth in Japan.’’ American Sociological Review 62:843–65. Contreras, O´. F. 2000. ‘‘Tres Compromisos para las Ciencias Sociales.’’ Pp. 151–74 in La Investigacio´n Humanı´stica y Social en la UNAM. Organizacio´n, Cambios y Polı´ticas Acade´micas, edited by H. M. Garcı´a. Me´xico: Coordinacio´n De Humanidades, UNAM, and Miguel A´ngel Porru´a. Cooney, M. 1997. ‘‘From Warre to Tyranny: Lethal Conflict and the State.’’ American Sociological Review 62:316–38. Cozzens, S. E. and T. F. Gieryn, eds. 1990. Theories of Science in Society. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Cress, D. M. and D. A. Snow. 2000. ‘‘The Outcomes of Homeless Mobilization: The Influence of Organization, Disruption, Political Mediation, and Framing.’’ American Journal of Sociology 105:1063–1104. Cruz, M. S. and R. L. Gutie´rrez. 2001. ‘‘Quince An˜os de Sociolo´gica: Trabajo Editorial y Quehacer Sociolo´gico en la UAM-Azcapotzalco.’’ Sociolo´gica 16:111–39. D’Agostino, F. 2003. Incommensurability and Commensuration: The Common Denominator. Aldershot, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Daston, L. 1992. ‘‘Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective.’’ Social Studies of Science 22:597–618. Daston, L. and P. Galison. 1992. ‘‘The Image of Objectivity.’’ Representations 40:81–128. Davidson, D. 1984. ‘‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.’’ Pp. 183–98 in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. Davis, D. E. 1992. ‘‘The Sociology of Mexico: Stalking the Path Not Taken.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 18:395–417. Diani, M. 1996. ‘‘Linking Mobilization Frames and Political Opportunities: Insights from Regional Populism in Italy.’’ American Sociological Review 61:1053–69. Dilla Alfonso, H. and P. Oxhorn. 1999. ‘‘Cuba: virtudes e infortunios de la sociedad civil.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LXI(4):129–48. Duhem, P. M. M. [1906] 1991. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Duneier, M. and H. Molotch. 1999. ‘‘Talking City Trouble: Interactional Vandalism, Social Inequality, and the ‘Urban Interaction Problem’.’’ American Journal of Sociology 104:1263–95. Edin, K. and L. Lein. 1996. ‘‘Work, Welfare, and Single Mothers’ Economic Survival Strategies.’’ American Sociological Review 62:253–66. Ellingson, S. 1995. ‘‘Understanding the Dialectic of Discourse and Collective Action: Public Debate and Rioting in Antebellum Cincinnati.’’ American Journal of Sociology 101:100–44. Erikson, K. 1990. ‘‘On Sociological Prose.’’ Pp. 23–34 in The Rhetoric of Social Research: Understood and Believed, edited by A. Hunter. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Ferree, M. M. and E. J. Hall. 1996. ‘‘Rethinking Stratification from a Feminist Perspective: Gender, Race, and Class in Mainstream Textbooks.’’ American Sociological Review 61:929–50. ———. 2000. ‘‘Reply: Gender Stratification and Paradigm Change.’’ American Sociological Review 65:475–81. Feyerabend, P. K. 1970. ‘‘Consolations for the Specialist.’’ Pp. 197–230 in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1975. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London, UK: NLB; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. ———. 1981. Realism, Rationalism, and Scientific Method. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Fine, A. 1998. ‘‘The Viewpoint of No-One in Particular.’’ Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 72(2):9–20. Finke, R. and R. Stark. 1988. ‘‘Religious Mobilization in American Cities, 1906.’’ American Sociological Review 53:41–49. ———. 1989. ‘‘Evaluating the Evidence: Religious Economies and Sacred Canopies.’’ American Sociological Review 54:1054–56. Fischer, C. 2002. ‘‘From the Editor.’’ Contexts 1(1):iii. Fisher, D. 1993. Fundamental Development of the Social Sciences: Rockefeller Philanthropy and the United States Social Science Research Council. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 35

Fleck, L. [1935] 1979. Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, edited by T. J. Trenn and R. K. Merton, translated by F. Bradley and T. J. Trenn. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, M. 1984. ‘‘What Is an Author?’’ Pp. 101–20 in The Foucault Reader, edited by P. Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books. Fourcade-Gourinchas, M. C. 2000. The National Trajectories of Economic Knowledge: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Great Britain and France. Ph.D. Dissertation. Harvard University. ———. 2001. ‘‘Politics, Institutional Structures, and the Rise of Economics: A Comparative Study.’’ Theory and Society 30:397–447. Fuchs, S. 1992. The Professional Quest for Truth: A Social Theory of Science and Knowledge. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ———. 1993. ‘‘Positivism Is the Organizational Myth of Science.’’ Perspectives on Science 1:1–23. ———. 2001. Against Essentialism: A Theory of Culture and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ganz, M. 2000. ‘‘Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959–1966.’’ American Journal of Sociology 105:1003–62. Garza Toledo, E. 1989. ‘‘Historia de la Epistemologı´a, la Metodologı´a y las Te´cnicas de Investigacio´nenla Sociologı´a Mexicana.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LI(1):103–33. Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geiger, R. L. 1993. Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II. New York: Oxford University Press. Giddens A., ed. 1974. Positivism and Sociology. London: Heinemann. Gieryn, T. F. 1983. ‘‘Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.’’ American Sociological Review 48:781–95. ———. 1995. ‘‘Boundaries of Science.’’ Pp. 393–443 in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by S. Jasanoff et al. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ———. 1999. Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gilbert, G. N. 1976. ‘‘The Transformation of Research Findings into Scientific Knowledge.’’ Social Studies of Science 6:281–306. ———. 1977. ‘‘Referencing as Persuasion.’’ Social Studies of Science 7:113–22. Gilbert, G. N. and M. J. Mulkay. 1981. ‘‘Contexts of Scientific Discourse: Social Accounting in Experimental Papers.’’ Pp. 269–94 in The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, edited by K. Knorr, R. Krohn, and R. Whitley. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. ———. 1984. Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Girola, L. 1996. ‘‘Tradiciones Interrumpidas y Comunidades Disciplinarias en la Sociologı´a Mexicana.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XIV:139–64. Girola, L. and M. Olvera. 1994. ‘‘Cambios Tema´tico-Conceptuales en la Sociologı´a Mexicana de los U´ltimos Veinte An˜os.’’ Sociolo´gica 9:91–121. ———. 1995. ‘‘Comunidad Disciplinaria: Etapas de Desarrollo y Cambios en la Sociologı´a Mexicana de los An˜os Setenta y Ochenta.’’ Pp. 175–93 in La Sociologı´a Contempora´nea en Me´xico. Perspectivas Disciplinarias y Nuevos Desafı´os, edited by J. F. Leal y Ferna´ndez et al. Me´xico: Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. Girola, L. and G. Zabludovsky. 1991. ‘‘La Teorı´a Sociolo´gica en Me´xico en la De´cada de los Ochenta.’’ Sociolo´gica 6:11–63. Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Goldstone, J. A. and B. Useem. 1999. ‘‘Prison Riots as Microrevolutions: An Extension of State-Centered Theories of Revolution.’’ American Journal of Sociology 104:985–1029. Gonza´lez, F. 1999. ‘‘Iglesia cato´lica mexicana: desacralizacio´n y resacralizacio´n, 1996–1999.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LXI(1):67–91. Goodman, N. 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publications Co. Gorski, P. S. 2004. ‘‘The Poverty of Deductivism: A Constructive Realist Model of Sociological Explanation.’’ Sociological Methodology 34:1–33. Greatbatch, D. and R. Dingwall. 1997. ‘‘Argumentative Talk in Divorce Mediation Sessions.’’ American Sociological Review 62:151–70. Gross, A. G. 1990. The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Guseva, A. and A. Rona Tas. 2001. ‘‘Uncertainty, Risk, and Trust: Russian and American Credit Card Markets Compared.’’ American Sociological Review 66:623–46. Gusfield, J. 1976. ‘‘The Literary Rhetoric of Science: Comedy and Pathos in Drinking Driver Research.’’ American Sociological Review 41:16–34. 36 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

———. 1981. The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hacking, I. 1993. ‘‘Working in a New World: The Taxonomic Solution.’’ Pp. 275–310 in World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, edited by P. Horwich. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———.1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard University Press. Hagan, J. M. 1998. ‘‘Social Networks, Gender, and Immigrant Incorporation: Resources and Constraints.’’ American Sociological Review 63:55–67. Harding, S. G., ed. 1976. Can Theories Be Refuted? Essays on the Duhem-Quine Thesis. Dordrecht, Holland; Boston, MA: D. Reidel. ———. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1991. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1998. Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Halfpenny, P. 1982. Positivism and Sociology: Explaining Social Life. London, UK; Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin. Hamilton, R. F. and L. L. Hargens. 1993. ‘‘The Politics of the Professors: Self-Identifications: 1969–1984.’’ Social Forces 71:603–28. Hanson, N. R. 1958. Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Harnad, S. 1998. ‘‘The Invisible Hand of Peer Review.’’ Nature [Online] (5 November 1998). Hayek, F. A. 1952. The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. He´au L. C. and G. Gime´nez. 1997. ‘‘El cancionero insurgente del movimiento zapatista en Chiapas: ensayo de ana´lisis sociocrı´tico.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LIX(4):221–44. Hempel, C. G., 1965. ‘‘Aspects of Scientific Explanation.’’ Pp. 331–496 in Aspects of Scientific Explanation, and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press. ———. [1942] 1965. ‘‘The Function of General Laws in History.’’ Pp. 231–43 in Aspects of Scientific Explanation, and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press. Hempel, C. G. and P. Oppenheim. [1948] 1965. ‘‘Studies in the Logic of Explanation.’’ Pp. 245–95 in Aspects of Scientific Explanation, and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press. Hiller, H. H. 1979. ‘‘Universality of Science and the Question of National Sociologies.’’ American Sociologist 14:124–35. Homans, G. C. 1964. ‘‘Contemporary Theory in Sociology.’’ Pp. 951–77 in Handbook of Modern Sociology, edited by R. E. L. Faris. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. ———. 1967. The Nature of Social Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. ———. 1974. Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Hoyningen-Huene, P. 1993. Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S. Kuhn’s Philosophy of Science. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hoyningen-Huene, P. and H. Sankey, eds. 2001. Incommensurability and Related Matters. Dordrecht, Holland; Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hume, D. [1739–1740] 1978. A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. Iba´n˜ez Rojo, E. 1998. ‘‘Las razones del sindicalismo revolucionario boliviano.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XVI:359–91. Ibarrola, M. 1994. ‘‘Evaluacio´n de la Investigacio´n en Ciencias Sociales, las Preguntas Clave.’’ Pp. 171–90 in Las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico: Ana´lisis y Perspectives, edited by M. P. Cohen. Me´xico: Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, and Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales: Unidad Azcapotzalco. Jepperson, R. L. 1992. National Scripts: The Varying Construction of Individualism and Opinion Across the Modern Nation-States. Ph.D. Dissertation. Yale University. ———. 2002. ‘‘Political Modernities: Disentangling Two Underlying Dimensions of Institutional Differentiation.’’ Sociological Theory 20:61–85. Kitcher, P. 1983. ‘‘Implications of Incommensurability.’’ Pp. 689–703 in PSA 1982, vol. 2, edited by P. D. Asquith and T. Nickles. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association. Knorr-Cetina, K. 1981. The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science. Oxford, UK; New York: Pergamon Press. ———. 1999. Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 37

Koopmans, R. and P. Statham. 1999. ‘‘Challenging the Liberal Nation-State? Postnationalism, Multiculturalism, and the Collective Claims Making of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Britain and Germany.’’ American Journal of Sociology 105:652–96. Kuhn, T. S. [1962] 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1977. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1983. ‘‘Commensurability, Comparability, Communicability.’’ Pp. 669–88 in PSA 1982, vol. 2, edited by P. D. Asquith and T. Nickles. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association. Kurzman, C. 1994. ‘‘Epistemology and the Sociology of Knowledge.’’ Philosophy of the Social Sciences 24:267–90. Ladd, E. C. and S. M. Lipset. 1975. The Divided Academy: Professors and Politics. New York: McGraw- Hill. Lakatos, I. 1970. ‘‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.’’ Pp. 91–195 in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lamont, M. 1992. Money, Morals, and Manners: The Culture of the French and American Upper-Middle Class. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2000a. ‘‘Comparing French and American Sociology.’’ Tocqueville Review 21:109–22. ———. 2000b. The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lamont, M. and V. Molna´r. 2002. ‘‘The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 28:167–95. Latour, B. 1981. ‘‘Is it Possible to Reconstruct the Research Process? Sociology of a Brain Peptide.’’ Pp. 53–73 in The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, edited by K. Knorr, R. Krohn, and R. Whitley. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. ———. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1999. Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. and S. Woolgar. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Laudan, L. 1996. Beyond Positivism and Relativism: Theory, Method, and Evidence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Lavin, D. and D. W. Maynard. 2001. ‘‘Standardization vs. Rapport: Respondent Laughter and Interviewer Reaction During Telephone Surveys.’’ American Sociological Review 66:453–79. Leal y Ferna´ndez, J. F., A. A. Carren˜o, A. M. Lores, and A. C. Farfa´n, eds. 1995. La Sociologı´a Contempora´nea en Me´xico. Perspectivas Disciplinarias y Nuevos Desafı´os. Me´xico: Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. Lemert, C. C. 1981. French Sociology: Rupture and Renewal Since 1968. New York: Columbia University Press. Lieberson, S., S. Dumais, and S. Baumann. 2000. ‘‘The Instability of Androgynous Names: The Symbolic Maintenance of Gender Boundaries.’’ American Journal of Sociology 105:1249–87. Lloyd, E. A. 1995. ‘‘Objectivity and the Double Standard for Feminist Epistemologies.’’ Synthese 104: 351–81. Lorey, D. E. 1993. The University System and Economic Development in Mexico Since 1929. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Loveman, M. 1998. ‘‘High-Risk Collective Action: Defending Human Rights in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina.’’ American Journal of Sociology 104:477–525. Loyo, A., G. Guadarrama, and K. Weissberg. 1990. ‘‘El Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales y la Sociologı´a Mexicana (1930–1990).’’ Pp. 1–108 in La Sociologı´a Mexicana desde la Universidad.Me´xico: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. Lucy, J. A. 1997. ‘‘Linguistic Relativity.’’ Annual Review of Anthropology 26:291–312. Lynch, M. and S. Woolgar. 1990. Representation in Scientific Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mabry, D. J. 1982. The Mexican University and the State: Student Conflicts, 1910–1971. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Mallard, G., M. Lamont, and J. Guetzkow. 2002. ‘‘The Pragmatics of Evaluation: Beyond Disciplinary Wars in the Assessment of Fellowship Proposals in the Social Sciences and the Humanities.’’ Paper Presented at the ASA Annual Meetings, Chicago, IL, August 2002. 38 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Mannheim, K. 1952. Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, edited by P. Kecskemeti. London, UK: Routledge & K. Paul. ———. [1929] 1966. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, translated by L. Wirth and E. Shils. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. Manza, J. and D. Van Schyndel. 2000. ‘‘Comment: Still the Missing Feminist Revolution? Inequalities of Race, Class, and Gender in Introductory Sociology Textbooks.’’ American Sociological Review 65:468–75. Massolo, A. 1996. ‘‘Mujeres en el espacio local y el poder municipal.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LVIII(3):133–44. McCartney, J. L. 1970. ‘‘On Being Scientific: Changing Styles of Presentation of Sociological Research.’’ American Sociologist 5:30–35. McCloskey, D. N. 1985. The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Medawar, P. B. [1963] 1990. ‘‘Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud?’’ Pp. 228–33 in The Threat and the Glory: Reflections on Science and Scientists. New York: Harper Collins. Megill, A., 1994. ‘‘Introduction: Four Senses of Objectivity.’’ Pp. 1–20 in Rethinking Objectivity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mendoza Rojas, J. 2001. Los Conflictos de la UNAM en el Siglo XX. Me´xico: Centro de Estudios sobre la Universidad, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, and Plaza y Valde´s. Merton, R. K. [1949] 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. ———. 1973. The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Merton, R. K., D. L. Sills, and S. M. Stigler. 1984. ‘‘The Kelvin Dictum and Social Science: An Excursion into the History of an Idea.’’ Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences XX(4):319–31. Mills, C. W. 1967. The Sociological Imagination. London, UK; New York: Oxford University Press. Mingo, A. 1996. ‘‘El sinuoso camino de las organizaciones productivas de campesinas.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XIII:75–95. Mun˜oz Garcı´a, H. 1994. ‘‘Notas sobre la Formacio´n de Recursos Humanos en Ciencias Sociales.’’ Pp. 131–46 in Las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico: Ana´lisis y Perspectives, edited by M. P. Cohen. Me´xico: Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, and Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales: Unidad Azcapotzalco. Nagel, E. 1961. The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. Nagel, T. 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press. Nava Navarro, A. 1997. ‘‘De la accio´n colectiva al movimiento social. El caso de la Cooperativa Pascual.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LIX(3):301–16. Nelson, J. S., A. Megill, and D. N. McCloskey. 1987. The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Novick, P. 1988. That Noble Dream: The ‘‘Objectivity Question’’ and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ordorika, I. 2003. Power and Politics in University Governance: Organization and Change at the Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico. New York: Routledgefalmer. Paoli Bolio, F. J., ed. 1990. Desarrollo y Organizacio´n de las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico.Me´xico: Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Humanidades, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, and Miguel A´ngel Porru´a. Pearson, K. 1937. The Grammar of Science. London, UK: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. Perlo´Cohen, M. 1994. Las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico: Ana´lisis y Perspectivas. Me´xico: Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, and Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales: Unidad Azcapotzalco. Pinch, T. and T. Pinch. 1988. ‘‘Reservations about Reflexivity and New Literary Forms, or Why Let the Devil Have All the Good Tunes.’’ Pp. 178–97 in Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge, edited by S. Woolgar. London; Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Platt, J. 1996. A History of Sociological Research Methods in America: 1920–1960. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Polanyi, M. 1958. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Popper, K. R. [1972] 1979. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ———. [1934] 1992. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, UK; New York: Routledge. Porter, T. M. 1995. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 39

Portes, A. 1975. ‘‘Trends in International Research Cooperation: The Latin American Case.’’ American Sociologist 10(3):131–40. Proctor, R. N. 1991. Value-Free Science? Purity and Power in Modern Knowledge. Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard University Press. Pucciarelli, A. 1999. ‘‘Crisis o decadencia? Hipo´tesis sobre el significado histo´rico de algunas transforma- ciones recientes de la sociedad argentina.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XVII:121–52. Putnam, H. 1981. Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Quine, W. V. 1953. From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ragin, C. C. 1987. The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Reichenbach, H. 1938. Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and the Structure of Knowledge. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Restivo, S. P. 1992. Mathematics in Society and History: Sociological Inquiries. Dordrecht, Holland; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Reyna, J. L. 1979. ‘‘La Investigacio´n Sociolo´gica en Me´xico.’’ Pp. 47–72 in Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico: Desarrollo y Perspectiva. Me´xico: Colegio de Me´xico. Ribeiro, D. 1967. ‘‘Universities and Social Development.’’ Pp. 343–81 in Elites in Latin America, edited by S. M. Lipset and A. E. Solari. New York: Oxford University Press. Rorty, R. 1982. Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays, 1972–1980. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ross, D. 1991. The Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Ruben, D.-H. 1990. Explaining Explanation. London, UK; New York: Routledge. Salas-Porras, A. 2000. ‘‘Hacia un nuevo mecenazgo polı´tico? Democracia y participacio´n electoral de los grandes empresarios en Me´xico.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XVIII:53–84. Salmon, W. C. 1989. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 1998. Causality and Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press. Sankey, H. 1994. The Incommensurability Thesis. Avebury, UK: Aldershot. Scott, J. C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sefchovich, S. 1989. ‘‘Los Caminos de la Sociologı´a en el Laberinto de la Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LI(1):5–101. Shapin, S. 1994. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Silva, E. T. and S. Slaughter. 1984. Serving Power: The Making of the Academic Social Science Expert. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Somers, M. R. 1996. ‘‘Where Is Sociology After the Historic Turn? Knowledge Cultures and Historical Epistemologies.’’ Pp. 53–89 in The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, edited by T. J. McDonald. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ———. 1998. ‘‘ ‘We’re No Angels’: Realism, Rational Choice, and Relationality in Social Science.’’ American Journal of Sociology 104:722–84. Stavenhagen, R. 1998. ‘‘Consideraciones sobre la pobreza en Ame´rica Latina.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XVI: 3–15. Stearns, L. B. and K. D. Allan. 1996. ‘‘Economic Behavior in Institutional Environments: The Corporate Merger Wave of the 1980s.’’ American Sociological Review 61:699–718. Steinmetz, G. 2004. ‘‘Odious Comparisons: Incommensurability, the Case Study, and ‘Small N’s’ in Sociology.’’ Sociological Theory 22:371–400. ———. 2005a. ‘‘The Epistemological Unconscious of U.S. Sociology and the Transition to Post-Fordism: The Case of Historical Sociology.’’ Pp. 109–57 in Remaking Modernity: Politics, History and Sociology, edited by J. Adams, E. Clemens, and A. S. Orloff. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ———. 2005b. ‘‘The Genealogy of a Positivist Haunting: Comparing Prewar and Postwar U.S. Sociology.’’ boundary 2 32:107–33. ———. 2005c. ‘‘Positivism and its Others in the Social Sciences.’’ Pp. 1–56 in The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and its Epistemological Others, edited by G. Steinmetz. Durham, NC; London, UK: Duke University Press. 40 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

———. 2005d. ‘‘Scientific Authority and the Transition to Post-Fordism: The Plausibility of Positivism in U.S. Sociology Since 1945.’’ Pp. 275–323 in The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and its Epistemological Others, edited by G. Steinmetz. Durham, NC; London, UK: Duke University Press. Stinchcombe, A. L. 1968. Constructing Social Theories. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. ———. 1978. Theoretical Methods in Social History. New York: Academic Press. ———. 1982. ‘‘On Softheadedness on the Future.’’ Ethics 93:114–28. ———. 2001. When Formality Works: Authority and Abstraction in Law and Organizations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tamayo, S. 1999. ‘‘Del movimiento urbano popular al movimiento ciudadano.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XVIII:499–518. Taylor, C. 1985. Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Toulmin, S. E. 1970. ‘‘Does the Distinction Between Normal and Revolutionary Science Hold Water?’’ Pp. 39–47 in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Turner, S. P. 1994. ‘‘The Origins of ‘Mainstream Sociology’ and Other Issues in the History of American Sociology.’’ Social Epistemology 8:41–67. ———. 1998. ‘‘Did Funding Matter to the Development of Research Methods in Sociology?’’ Minerva 36:69–79. Turner, S. P. and R. A. Factor. 1984. Max Weber and the Dispute Over Reason and Value: A Study in Philosophy, Ethics, and Politics. London, UK; Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Turner, S. P. and J. H. Turner. 1990. The Impossible Science: An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Urteaga Castro-Pozo, M. 1996. ‘‘Chavas activas punks: la virginidad sacudida.’’ Estudios Sociolo´gicos XIII:97–118. Valenti, G. 1990. ‘‘Tendencias de la Institucionalizacio´n y la Profesionalizacio´n de las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico.’’ Pp. 431–70 in Desarrollo y Organizacio´n de las Ciencias Sociales en Me´xico, edited by F. Paoli Bolio. Me´xico: Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Humanidades, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, and Miguel A´ngel Porru´a. Venkatesh, S. A. 1997. ‘‘The Social Organization of Street Gang Activity in an Urban Ghetto.’’ American Journal of Sociology 103:82–111. Villa Aguilera, M. 1979. Ideologı´a Oficial y Sociologı´a Crı´tica en Me´xico, 1950–1970.Me´xico: Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Facultad de Ciencias Polı´ticas y Sociales, Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos. Wagner, P. 1990. Sozialwissenschaften und Staat: Frankreich, Italien, Deutschland 1870–1980. Frankfurt, Germany; New York: Campus-Verlag. ———. 2001. A History and Theory of the Social Sciences: Not All That Is Solid Melts into Air. London, UK; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wagner, P., B. Wittrock, and R. Whitley, eds. 1991. Discourses on Society: The Shaping of the Social Science Disciplines. Dordrecht, Holland; Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Weber, M. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1949. The Methodology of the Social Sciences, translated and edited by E. A. Shils and H. A. Finch. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Whittier, N. 1997. ‘‘Political Generations, Micro-Cohorts, and the Transformation of Social Movements.’’ American Sociological Review 62:760–78. Whorf, B. L. 1956. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings, edited by J. B. Carrol. Cambridge, MA: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Williams, B. A. O. 1978. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. Hassocks, UK: Harvester Press. ———. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winch, P. 1958. The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press. Windelband, W. [1894] 1980. ‘‘Rectorial Address, Strasbourg, 1894.’’ History and Theory 19:169–85. Wirth, L., ed. 1940. Eleven Twenty-Six: A Decade of Social Science Research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wittrock, B. and P. Wagner. 1990. ‘‘Social Science and State Developments: The Structuration of Discourse in the Social Sciences.’’ Pp. 113–37 in Social Scientists, Policy, and the State, edited by S. Brooks and A. Gagnon. New York: Praeger. STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 41

———. 1996. ‘‘Social Science and the Building of the Early Welfare State: Toward a Comparison of Statist and Non-Statist Western Societies.’’ Pp. 90–113 in States, Social Knowledge, and the Origins of Modern Social Policies, edited by D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Woolgar, S. 1981. ‘‘Discovery: Logic and Sequence in a Scientific Text.’’ Pp. 239–68 in The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, edited by K. Knorr, R. Krohn, and R. Whitley. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. ———, ed. 1988a. Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge. London, UK; Newbury Park, CA: Sage. ———. 1988b. ‘‘Reflexivity Is the Ethnographer of the Text.’’ Pp. 14–34 in Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge. London, UK; Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Wong, D. B. 1989. ‘‘Three Kinds of Incommensurability.’’ Pp. 140–58 in Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, edited by M. Krausz. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Wright, G. H. 1971. Explanation and Understanding. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Zapata, F. 1990. Ideologı´a y Polı´tica en Ame´rica Latina.Me´xico: Colegio de Me´xico. Zermen˜o, S. 1999. ‘‘Me´xico: todo lo social se desvanece?’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LXI(3):183–200. Zhao, D. 1998. ‘‘Ecologies of Social Movements: Student Mobilization During the 1989 Prodemocracy Movement in Beijing.’’ American Journal of Sociology 103:1493–1529. Ziccardi, A. 1999. ‘‘Pobreza, territorio y polı´ticas sociales.’’ Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a LXI(4):109–26.