Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

As a subfield of sociological analysis and theory, macrosociology deals with large-scale, long-term social processes, phenomena, and structures, such as social change, stratification, or the capitalist world-economy. Conceptually, macrosociology is a relational term, meant to distinguish the broad level of sociological analysis from that characterizing microsociology, which studies small-scale units and individual relationships, like social roles, interaction, or deviance. The tension between the objects of study of macrosociology as opposed to microsociology has routinely been construed as a choice between the analysis of either structure or agency, respectively ( Sanderson 1991 ). While the alternating prominence of one approach over the other in the history of sociology as a discipline has been described as a “pendulum pattern” ( Alexander 1988 ) not meant to settle the debate for either side, several attempts at bridging the divide by means of a theoretical synthesis have been undertaken since the 1980s ( Giddens 1984 ; Ritzer 1981 ; Turner 1988 ). Together with the consolidation of mesosociology as an intermediate branch concerned with social networks, institutions, and organizations, this contributed to a slight depolarization of the “macro vs. micro” discussion. Methodologically, macrosociology relies on two of John Stuart Mill's five canons of induction, the method of ... log in or subscribe to read full text