Suchergebnisse

Preliminary Material /Massimo Pendenza -- Introduction: Is Classical Sociology Still in Vogue? A Controversial Legacy /Massimo Pendenza -- Simmel on Global Society /Vittorio Cotesta -- Tönnies Today: A Living Legacy in the Sociology of Globalization and Globality /David Inglis -- Vilfredo Pareto's Contribution to a Sociology of Globalization /Emanuela Susca -- Understanding the Social: Cosmopolitanism and Gabriel Tarde's Cosmopolitics /Michael Schillmeier -- The "Social" as Reciprocity: Marcel Mauss and the Idea of Nation /Dario Verderame -- "Merging the National with the Human Ideal": Émile Durkheim on Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism /Massimo Pendenza -- Ubi Bene, Ibi Patria: Patriotism, Nationalism and Internationalism in Robert Michels' Reflection /Federico Trocini -- Beyond Methodological Nationalism? Concepts of Nationhood in German Liberal Social Thought of the Weimar Years /Austin Harrington -- Index of Names /Massimo Pendenza.

Global studies, or the study of globalization, is a diverse field of research, with different disciplinary focuses and with some national versions. Russian Alexander Chumakov constructed it as a philosophical discipline, while in U.S. academia it is considered an empirical inquiry at the intersection of area studies, international studies, and international relations. This paper focuses on American global studies, pointing out the heavy epistemological burden it inherited from the field of knowledge dominated by international relations, which enshrines both methodological and political nationalism. International relations makes claims to be the sole theory originator in this field, but it may be criticized for several methodological and ethical issues (such as unwarranted simplifications that purge empirical contents to the point of unfalsifiability, antiquated epistemic ideals, Western and hegemonic biases, besides methodological nationalism), thus alternate theorizations are highly desirable.

The political theory of migration has largely occurred within a paradigm of methodological nationalism and this has led to the neglect of morally salient agents and causes. This article draws on research from the social sciences on the transnationalism, globalization and migration systems theory to show how methodological nationalist assumptions have affected the views of political theorists on membership, culture and distributive justice. In particular, it is contended that methodological nationalism has prevented political theorists of migration from addressing the roles of non-state agents and of transnational economic, social and political structures. These agents and structures contribute to the asymmetrical distribution of goods and opportunities and thus have important implications for debates about migration and distributive justice.

Nowadays, the widespread view is that classical sociology is tainted with 'methodological nationalism and it would appear that there has been a significant overlap between social and political space. We disagree with this point of view for three reasons: (1) by dealing with the global world, classical sociology has already glimpsed the possibility of going beyond the nation-state as a unit of analysis; (2) having operated above all with the notion of 'social' rather than 'national', its categories are transnational; and (3) when classical sociology has dealt with national society, studies have not reified it within its political boundaries. Consequently, in our opinion, classical sociology highlights both analytical categories that go beyond the ontology of the nation-state as well as new socio-political forms defined within the trajectory of modernity under the pressure of globalization processes.

Global studies, or the study of globalization, is a diverse field of research, with different disciplinary focuses and with some national versions. Russian Alexander Chumakov constructed it as a philosophical discipline, while in U.S. academia it is considered an empirical inquiry at the intersection of area studies, international studies, and international relations. This paper focuses on American global studies, pointing out the heavy epistemological burden it inherited from the field of knowledge dominated by international relations, which enshrines both methodological and political nationalism. International relations makes claims to be the sole theory originator in this field, but it may be criticized for several methodological and ethical issues (such as unwarranted simplifications that purge empirical contents to the point of unfalsifiability, antiquated epistemic ideals, Western and hegemonic biases, besides methodological nationalism), thus alternate theorizations are highly desirable.

The equation between the concept of society and the nation-state in modernity is known as methodological nationalism in scholarly debates. In agreement with the thesis that methodological nationalism must be rejected and transcended, this article argues that we still lack an understanding of what methodological nationalism actually is and, because of that, we remain unable to answer the substantive problem methodological nationalism poses to social theory: how to understand the history, main features and legacy of the nation-state in modernity. The first section of the article reconstructs the origins of the critique of methodological nationalism in the 1970s and differentiates between its logical and historical versions. It then critically reviews the most salient critique of methodological nationalism in contemporary social theory, that of Ulrich Beck. The final part of the article assesses the thesis of social theory's immanent methodological nationalism by demonstrating how social theory's equivocations towards the nation-state only mirror the nation-state's own ambivalence within modernity. It is shown that social theory's ambivalent attempts at conceptualizing the nation-state reflect the actual ambivalence of the position of the nation-state in modernity: its historical opacity, its sociological uncertainty and its normative ambiguity.

The colonial translation of the "nation-state logic" to Southeast Asia is commonly understood to have superseded what O.W. Wolters called the pre-colonial mandala model, in which power was exerted by a sort of central "sun king" whose gravitational pull weakened with distance and was overlapped by other spheres of power in a complex system of tributary relationships. The historian David Biggs has argued that, in accepting the undeniable importance of national sovereignty in contemporary political analyses of Southeast Asia, there has been too definitive a break with pre-existing understandings of power relations, which may prove useful to explaining the particularities of politics today. In political science, the translation of nationalism and sovereignty to Southeast Asia is reflected in an entrenched "methodological nationalism," whereby the nation-state is frequently taken for granted as the central unit of analysis. Paying attention to the "margins" of society still implicitly assumes a national centre, for example. Historians of Vietnam, including Keith Taylor and Li Tana, have made significant advances in loosening the "stranglehold" of nationalist historiography. Anthropologists and geographers of cosmopolitanism and migration have also long questioned the analytical usefulness of bordered nation-states. Building on these insights, the article calls for a paradigm shift in political enquiry and playfully proposes the "post-modern mandala" as an alternative to methodological nationalism applied to Southeast Asia. ; The colonial translation of the "nation-state logic" to Southeast Asia is commonly understood to have superseded what O.W. Wolters called the pre-colonial mandala model, in which power was exerted by a sort of central "sun king" whose gravitational pull weakened with distance and was overlapped by other spheres of power in a complex system of tributary relationships. The historian David Biggs has argued that, in accepting the undeniable importance of national sovereignty in contemporary political analyses of Southeast Asia, there has been too definitive a break with pre-existing understandings of power relations, which may prove useful to explaining the particularities of politics today. In political science, the translation of nationalism and sovereignty to Southeast Asia is reflected in an entrenched "methodological nationalism," whereby the nation-state is frequently taken for granted as the central unit of analysis. Paying attention to the "margins" of society still implicitly assumes a national centre, for example. Historians of Vietnam, including Keith Taylor and Li Tana, have made significant advances in loosening the "stranglehold" of nationalist historiography. Anthropologists and geographers of cosmopolitanism and migration have also long questioned the analytical usefulness of bordered nation-states. Building on these insights, the article calls for a paradigm shift in political enquiry and playfully proposes the "post-modern mandala" as an alternative to methodological nationalism applied to Southeast Asia.

The changing political and social meanings of space under conditions of advanced globalization point to the need to analyze security – or the deployment and management of violence -- as a socio-spatial practice. This article draws attention to the "methodological nationalist" bias that has traditionally characterized mainstream security studies, and discusses its effect on how security issues are studied and conceptualized. Building on insights from political geography and sociology, the article makes the case for a "spatial turn" in the field. It discusses how a socio-spatial approach can help make sense of evolving state security practices, and presents examples of non-national spaces of security -- including cities, cyberspace and the global polity. Such spaces are increasingly objects of security practices, but the implications of this remain largely under-theorized in security studies.

The changing political and social meanings of space under conditions of advanced globalization point to the need to analyze security – or the deployment and management of violence -- as a socio-spatial practice. This article draws attention to the "methodological nationalist" bias that has traditionally characterized mainstream security studies, and discusses its effect on how security issues are studied and conceptualized. Building on insights from political geography and sociology, the article makes the case for a "spatial turn" in the field. It discusses how a socio-spatial approach can help make sense of evolving state security practices, and presents examples of non-national spaces of security -- including cities, cyberspace and the global polity. Such spaces are increasingly objects of security practices, but the implications of this remain largely under-theorized in security studies.

This article seeks to further our understanding of what methodological nationalism is and to offer some insights towards its overcoming. The critical side of its argument explicates the paradoxical constitution of the current debate on methodological nationalism – namely, the fact that methodological nationalism is simultaneously regarded as wholly negative and all-pervasive in contemporary social science. I substantiate the idea of this paradox by revisiting some of the most successful attempts at the conceptualization of the nation-state that have sought to transcend methodological nationalism in four disciplines: sociology, nationalism studies, anthropology and social psychology. The positive side of my argument offers a distinction between different versions of methodological nationalism with the help of which it tries to address some of the problems found in the literature. Theoretically, methodological nationalism is associated with, and criticized for, its explanatory reductionism in which the rise and main features of the nation-state are used to explicate the rise and main features of modernity itself. Historically, the article reassesses the problem of its prevalence, that is, whether methodological nationalism is a key feature of the history of the social sciences.