NFSV5; CYTcN O f fHG January 1991 Volume 3: Number 2 Chair Editor's Introduction Barbara Laslett Univ. of Minnesota With this issue, my term as section newsletter editor begins. By Sec'y-Treasurer way of (brief) introduction, I am a "new Ph.D." and assistant professor at Said Aijomand the University of Michigan. My dissertation addressed the classical socio­ SUNY-Stony Brook logical problem of the causes of the differentiation of states from economic institutions. By means of a comparative analysis of the Dutch, French and Council English East Indies companies in the early modem period (1500-1800), I William Brustein argued that developing metropolitan states and mercantile/colonial initia­ Univ. of Minnesota tives shaped each other in ways that structured this process. The central puzzle was raised by the "zigzag" pattern of development of the Nether­ Michael Kimmel lands, where precocious politico-economic differentiation was blocked and SUNY-Stony Brook reversed. I then used the Dutch case as an entree to reanalyzing the more familiar French and English trajectories. Ewa Morawska Besides revising the thesis for publication, I am also working on a Univ. of Pennsylvania comparative-historical analysis of the impact of early modem European family practices on state structures and policies. In the past year, under Lisa Fuentes' able editorship, the newsletter William Sewell, Jr. has functioned as a forum for substantive debate as well as a bulletin Univ. of Chicago board. I would like to see these debates continue. Please send your com­ ments and announcements to me at the University of Michigan Sociology Margaret Somers Department; 3012 LS&A Building; Ann Arbor, MI 48109, or call 313- Univ. of Michigan 936-0785. The next newsletter will be out in the spring. Viviana Zelizer Julia Adams Barnard College A Marriage Made in Heaven: Newsletter Editor Demography and Comparative & Historical Sociology Julia Adams Univ. of Michigan By Susan Cotts Watkins, University of Pennsylvania Demography, said Marion J. Levy, is wasted on the demographers. He is not, of course, entirely right, but I think that demography could be more useful to those interested in historical and comparative sociology than has usually been the case. Although at the former dates most of the countries were demography has long been accepted as a respect­ demographically quite heterogeneous, while by able subfield of sociology, it has been 1960 the countries were demographically more ghettoized. Sociology departments (other than homogeneous (Watkins, 1990). Another way of those with demographic centers) seem to feel saying this is that on a demographic map of that it is a good thing to have one demographer, western Europe in 1870, national boundaries but one is enough; rarely are either demographic would be rather faint, but by 1960 demographic methods or subjects (births, deaths, marriages) of boundaries would be more deeply etched. This interest to anyone but demographers. Yet has implications for comparison. As late as 1870, demography would seem to have much to offer comparison across countries would be somewhat other areas of sociology, including comparative dubious because they were so heterogeneous. By and historical sociology. 1960, this heterogeneity had diminished substan­ In what follows I will show connections tially, thus making it more reasonable to com­ from my own work on demographic change in pare national units. It is not possible to do the Western Europe between 1870 and 1960 and one same sort of comparisons for sub-national socio­ of the concerns of historical and comparative economic groups, because adequate data are not sociology: the issue of the appropriate unit for available early enough; it is likely, however, that analysis. I will also suggest that this work raises the story would be much the same. A more questions about the centrality of the rational general implication of this work is that it may be actor framework for accounting for demographic reasonable to use demographic behavior as a change, and, by implication, for other kinds of way of defining societies. If, for example, demo­ changes as well; rather, it suggests paying graphic behavior is relatively homogeneous attention to the institutional environment, and within a group but distinctive from another how it changes over time. group, we could draw the social boundary Consider first the issue of the appropriate between the two. units for comparison raised earlier in these pages I suspect that these findings would be by Ewa Morawska (1990). Candidates range generalizable to other kinds of behavior as well. from a small group (e.g. a village) over time to We usually consider births and marriages to be the familiar macro-level cross-sectional compari­ among the most private of behaviors. There is sons of nation-states. The use of the latter can, now almost no state regulation of marriage or and has been, criticized on the grounds that birth (with the exception of regulating age of nation-states are too internally diverse to be marriage at a level that is in any case well below considered "societies"; rather, it is argued, they historical ages of marriages for western popula­ are collections of sub-societies which may lie tions), and there is widespread support for the within the same territorial boundary, or fall belief that when and whom one manies (or if under the same political authority, but have so one marries at all), and how many children one little in common with each other, and so little has, are decisions that are properly left to the interaction among themselves, that what we have individual (or couple). are "phantoms", not societies (Eberhard, 1964). Against these assertions of the primacy The results of my examination of demo­ of individual choice (both in rhetoric and in graphic change over the course of the last cen­ regulations), it is rather surprising to find so little tury suggests that nation-states have become an variation in behavior. Analysts of modem demo­ increasingly appropriate level of analysis. Using graphic behavior make much of the slight varia­ measures of marital fertility, illegitimacy and tion that remains: we usually overlook the fact marriage for sub-units (e.g. counties, depart­ that we are playing with a much smaller deck ments, cantons) of 15 western European coun­ than in the past. If this is the case with demo­ tries between 1870 and 1960, one can show that graphic behavior — that intensely private domain Page 2 — is it not likely to be the case also with other accounts, individuals are apparently not only sorts of behavior? It seems to me at least reason­ rational but also isolated. I do not wish to sug­ able to argue that if demographic behavior is gest that we replace an assumption of rationality similar across subgroups in a society, then it is of rationality with one of irrationality. It does likely that other kinds of behavior are at least as seem, however, that individuals are far less similar as well. Thus, since the demographic data isolated, far more subject to social control than show that the nation-state has become a more our theories usually assume. We rarely examine appropriate unit of analysis over time, it is likely the influence of "others" on demographic that the nation-state has become a more appro­ behavior. On surveys, women are asked how priate unit for other analyses as well. many children they expect to have. They are A second theme of relevance to compara­ sometimes asked about their spouse, but not tive and historical sociology that this work raises about what their parents, siblings, friends or is that of connections between macro- and neighbors had to do with the decision. Indeed, it micro-level changes. The decline in demo­ would probably be somewhat embarrassing to graphic diversity is paralleled by national market respond that these others did have an influence — integration, state expansion, and nation building, reproduction is supposed to be a private indi­ all topics that have been of interest to compara­ vidual or couple decision. The responses from tive and historical sociologists. The problem is these surveys are then analyzed as if what mostly how to connect these macro-level structural mattered were the characteristics of the indi­ changes with what went on in the bedrooms and vidual woman (e.g. years of education, whether courting parlors of western Europe. she worked or not) or perhaps those of her One way of providing this linkage is to husband (e.g. his occupation). The role of net­ look at the effects of market integration, state- works in accounting for the greater demographic and nation-building on personal networks. These uniformity of nations in western Europe suggests personal networks seem to be important in both that we should also ask about her (or his) signifi­ spreading information about new practices (for cant others - those whose opinions on these example, contraception) but also in legitimizing issues would matter. their use. I think women talked to other women In other words, rational actors should be about private matters, and in doing so reached a embedded in communities. If this is true for consensus with friends and neighbors about what behavior as private as marriage and reproduc­ was appropriate behavior — the right age to tion, it is likely to be true for other behavior of marry, whether or not it was proper to use interest to sociologists as well. contraception, how many children was enough. What market integration, state expansion and REFERENCES: nation-building did was to expand the geographic range of these personal networks. In Eberhard, Wolfram. 1964. "Concerns of the mid-19th century, most conversations were Historical Sociology." Sociologus: A Journal likely to be with members of the local for Empirical Sociology, Social Psychology community; by 1960, many more were likely to and Ethnic Research.