Anthony Giddens - Sociology

The theory of human-made global warming, despite being supported by the majority of natural scientists, has been the subject of acrimonious debate and theoretical disagreement.

The former US president, Donald Trump, has long argued that he does not believe in the theory of anthropogenic or ‘human-caused’ climate change. In 2017 he announced that the USA would withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2020. Then, in interviews following a state visit to the UK in 2019, he said:

I believe there’s a change in the weather, and I think it changes both ways. Don’t forget, it used to be called global warming, that wasn’t working, then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather you can’t miss…. I don’t remember tornados in the United States to this extent but then when you look back 40 years ago we had the worst tornado binge we ever had. In the 1890s we had our worst hurricanes. (Cited in Weaver and Lyons 2019; BBC News 2019e).

Donald Trump is clearly at odds with the overwhelming majority of natural scientists who say the evidence increasingly supports the theory of anthropogenic (human-forced) global warming. Trump questions both the evidence and the theory, while other sceptics accept the evidence of warming but reject the anthropogenic thesis, arguing that ‘natural cycles’ of warming and cooling explain the changing climate. This particular theoretical dispute has practical and serious consequences. Is there a ‘climate emergency’ or not? Should we phase out fossil fuels more quickly? Do we give up on petrol and diesel cars and move rapidly to all-electric instead? At present, the scientists seem to be winning the argument against the president’s view.

See chapter 5, ‘The Environment’, for an extended discussion of climate change.

Just as in the natural sciences, sociologists need to devise abstract interpretations – theories – to explain the evidence they collect. If they are to formulate appropriate questions that focus their efforts, they also need to adopt a theoretical approach at the outset of their research. Yet sociological theorizing does not take place in an isolated academic ivory tower. This is clear from the questions posed by the discipline’s founders, which were tied to the major social and political issues of the day. Marx sought to explain the dynamics of the capitalist economy, the causes of poverty and growing social inequality. Durkheim’s studies investigated the character of industrial society and the future of religion, while Weber sought to explain the emergence of capitalism and the consequences of bureaucratic organizations for the individual. But are these still the central issues today?

Many sociologists think that the central issues are significantly different today. For example, what are the social, economic and political consequences of globalization? How, why and with what consequences are gender relations being transformed? What is the future for multicultural societies? Indeed, what is the future for human populations across the world in the light of climate change and global environmental problems? In order to address these matters, sociologists have been forced to re-evaluate the classical theories and, where these are found wanting, to develop novel theories of their own.

For newcomers to sociology, a historical perspective is vital. Not only does it help readers to understand how the discipline emerged and changed into its present shape, but it also encourages us all to avoid trying to reinvent the (theoretical) wheel when there is no need to do so. Critics of sociological theorizing – more than a few from within the discipline itself – complain that too many ‘new’ theories are really just ‘old’ theories dressed up in a new language. An appreciation of the development of sociological theory over time sensitizes us to this criticism.

The field of theory in sociology is quite complex because some theories are described as ‘sociological theories’, others as ‘social theories’. Is this just splitting hairs? In blunt terms, sociological theories seek to explain empirical findings and try to avoid the sociologist’s personal beliefs and political commitments interfering with their work. Social theories do not necessarily originate within sociology, often contain normative critiques of social and political arrangements, and argue that a politically neutral sociology is not possible. Bear this division in mind as you read through the chapter. As we will see, this basic distinction is not hard and fast, as some scholars move between the two types, devising sociological theories to understand and explain aspects of social life but also criticizing what they see as pernicious inequalities.

Coming to terms with the array of theories and perspectives in sociology is challenging. It would be much easier if we had one central theory around which all sociologists could work, and for a time, in the 1950s and 1960s, the structural functionalist approach of Talcott Parsons did come close. But the present period is marked by a diversity of theoretical approaches and perspectives, which makes the task of evaluating competing theories more difficult than once it was. Yet theoretical pluralism also brings vitality to sociological theory, arguably deepening our overall understanding of social life. And, while sociology today includes numerous ‘middle-range’ theories that try to explain a very specific aspect of social life (Merton 1957), there is still room for grand theories that try to explain social structures or the long-term development of human societies (Skinner 1990).

This chapter rounds off a block of three at the start of the book which provides a firm foundation for students approaching sociology. In chapter 1we explored what sociology adds to the sum total of scientific knowledge. Chapter 2presented some of the main research methods and techniques used by sociologists – the ‘tools of the trade’, as it were. And in this chapter we provide a concise account of the history and development of sociological theorizing since the nineteenth century. Of course, we cannot cover all of the important theorists in this short chapter, so, for example, Pierre Bourdieu and Manuel Castells are not discussed here. Their work is found in later chapters where it has been especially influential: Bourdieu’s ideas are covered in detail in chapter 16, ‘Education’, while those of Castells can be found in chapter 12, ‘Social Interaction and Daily Life’, and chapter 17, ‘Work and Employment’.

Our presentation is generally chronological, but not slavishly so. When we introduce Marx, inevitably the discussion stretches from the mid-nineteenth century to Marxist ideas of the twentieth century and beyond. The outline of feminist theories covers a similarly long time period. Our judgement is that this method produces a more coherent narrative, allowing readers to see more easily how and why theoretical perspectives developed in the ways they did.

In the next two sections we trace the emergence of sociological theory and the establishment of sociology through the work of those who are seen to have founded the major European traditions of inquiry in the discipline. We then explore two recurring theoretical dilemmas around which major theoretical debates turn, before ending the chapter with a look at the way that rapid and wide-ranging social changes since the 1970s have forced sociologists to devise new theoretical perspectives. Outhwaite (2015) makes a distinction between the ‘formal theories’, produced by the classical theorists and those working within their broad perspectives, and the ‘less formal’ or even ‘informal’ theories devised by many sociological theorists since the 1970s and 1980s.