Books by Richard Swedberg

The welfare state in postwar Western Europe has been extended and intensified in a spectacular manner. Today, "welfare" represents a complex mix of services covering health, education, welfare, the arts, leisure, and social security. Anton C. Zijderveld is of the opinion that Europe's vast, comprehensive welfare state is becoming leaner and meaner, heading down a more sober path toward decentralization and deregulation, which only, but not merely, secures order for its citizens and shields society's vulnerable. As the millennium approaches, Zijderveld believes Europe is experiencing a cultural renaissance and a socioeconomic and political reformation in which the market will flourish and civil society will prosper.The Waning of the Welfare State focuses on the transformation of the welfare state in Europe over a four-decade period. Zijderveld employs the democratic triangle theoretical model, in which democracy is viewed as a system in which state, market, and civil society are held in precious balance. If one component supersedes the other two, democracy is endangered. In its 1960s and 1970s heyday, the state took center stage at the expense of the market and civil society; social democracy was the prevailing ideology. In the 1980s the market triumphed, often at the expense of both the state and civil society; this was the decade of liberalism. Today, civil society prevails, albeit at risk of being injurious to state and market. Ideologically, this is the decade of conservatism.Zijderveld sees a future "Americanization" of European social policy producing a fortuitously balanced coalition of social democracy, liberalism, and conservatism; a place where safety and order, prosperity and economic participation, and social participation and meaningful interactions flourish equally. This transformation carries many risks. But it will, in the end, strengthen Europe's political, economic, and sociocultural stamina. If it also draws the Atlantic p

A practical guide to the art of theorizing in the social sciencesIn the social sciences today, students are taught theory by reading and analyzing the works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and other foundational figures of the discipline. What they rarely learn, however, is how to actually theorize. The Art of Social Theory is a practical guide to doing just that.In this one-of-a-kind user's manual for social theorists, Richard Swedberg explains how theorizing occurs in what he calls the context of discovery, a process in which the researcher gathers preliminary data and thinks creatively about it using tools such as metaphor, analogy, and typology. He guides readers through each step of the theorist's art, from observation and naming to concept formation and explanation. To theorize well, you also need a sound knowledge of existing social theory. Swedberg introduces readers to the most important theories and concepts, and discusses how to go about mastering them. If you can think, you can also learn to theorize. This book shows you how.Concise and accessible, The Art of Social Theory features helpful examples throughout, and also provides practical exercises that enable readers to learn through doing.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) has long been recognized as a major political and social thinker as well as historian, but his writings also contain a wealth of little-known insights into economic life and its connection to the rest of society. In Tocqueville's Political Economy, Richard Swedberg shows that Tocqueville had a highly original and suggestive approach to economics--one that still has much to teach us today. Through careful readings of Tocqueville's two major books and many of his other writings, Swedberg lays bare Tocqueville's ingenious way of thinking about major economic phenomena. At the center of Democracy in America, Tocqueville produced a magnificent analysis of the emerging entrepreneurial economy that he found during his 1831-32 visit to the United States. More than two decades later, in The Old Regime and the Revolution, Tocqueville made the complementary argument that it was France's blocked economy and society that led to the Revolution of 1789. In between the publication of these great works, Tocqueville also produced many lesser-known writings on such topics as property, consumption, and moral factors in economic life. When examined together, Swedberg argues, these books and other writings constitute an interesting alternative model of economic thinking, as well as a major contribution to political economy that deserves a place in contemporary discussions about the social effects of economics.

During the last decade of his life Max Weber tried to develop a way of analyzing economic phenomena, which he termed 'economic sociology'. This book offers a critical presentation and a study of this part of Weber's work. It shows how Weber laid a theoretical foundation for economic sociology and developed a series of evocative concepts.

In this, the twentieth volume in the Transaction series honoring distinguished social scientists of the twentieth century, the life and work of the eminent Swedish sociologist, Hans L

Argues that economists and sociologists have paid little attention to each other during most of the twentieth century: social problems have been analyzed as if they had no economic dimension and economic problems as if they had no social dimension. This book also describes how they came to challenge the separation between economics and sociology.

The last fifteen years have witnessed an explosion in the popularity, creativity, and productiveness of economic sociology, an approach that traces its roots back to Max Weber. This important new text offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of economic sociology. It also advances the field theoretically by highlighting, in one analysis, the crucial economic roles of both interests and social relations. Richard Swedberg describes the field's critical insights into economic life, giving particular attention to the effects of culture on economic phenomena and the ways that economic actions are embedded in social structures. He examines the full range of economic institutions and explicates the relationship of the economy to politics, law, culture, and gender. Swedberg notes that sociologists too often fail to properly emphasize the role that self-interested behavior plays in economic decisions, while economists frequently underestimate the importance of social relations. Thus, he argues that the next major task for economic sociology is to develop a theoretical and empirical understanding of how interests and social relations work in combination to affect economic action. Written by an author whose name is synonymous with economic sociology, this text constitutes a sorely needed advanced synthesis--and a blueprint for the future of this burgeoning field.