Explaining Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences

243 Pages·2019·2.878 MB·English

by  Berth Danermark, Mats Ekström, Jan Ch. Karlsson

Explaining SociEty
Fully revised, with an updated bibliography and new, relevant illustrative examples
based on work inspired by critical realism, this new edition of Explaining Society
constitutes an up-to-date resource connecting methodology, theory, and empirical
research. Including discussions of more recent scholarship in the field that connects
critical realism with interdisciplinary research, this second edition also clarifies
concepts – such as retroduction and retrodiction – so as to render them consistent
with developments within critical realism, which are covered in a new chapter.
An accessible account of the nature of society and social science, together with the
methods used to study and explain social phenomena, Explaining Society will appeal
to scholars of sociology, philosophy, and the social sciences more broadly.
Berth Danermark is Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at the Swedish Insti-
tute for Disability Research, School of Health Sciences, Örebro University. He
is the co-author of Interdisciplinarity and Wellbeing: A Critical Realist General Theory
of Interdisciplinarity and co-editor of The Experience of Hearing Loss: Journey Through
Aural Rehabilitation.
Mats Ekström is Professor in the Department of Journalism, Media and Com-
munication at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is the co-editor of
Talking Politics in Broadcast Media: Media Talk and Political Elections in Europe and
America and The Mediated Politics of Europe: A Comparative Study of Discourse.
Jan Ch. Karlsson is Professor of Organization in the Faculty of Business, Lan-
guages and Social Sciences at Østfold University College, Norway. He is the
author of Organizational Misbehaviour in the Workplace, the co-author of Methods
for Social Theory and Gender Segregation: Divisions of Work in Post-Industrial Welfare
States, and the co-editor of Commitment to Work and Job Satisfaction and Flexibility
and Stability in Working Life.
Routledge Studies in Critical Realism
Critical realism is a broad movement within philosophy and social science. It is a
movement that began in British philosophy and sociology following the founding
work of Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer and others. Critical realism emerged from
the desire to realise an adequate realist philosophy of science, social science, and
of critique. Against empiricism, positivism and various idealisms (interpretivism,
radical social constructionism), critical realism argues for the necessity of ontology.
The pursuit of ontology is the attempt to understand and say something about “the
things themselves” and not simply about our beliefs, experiences, or our current
knowledge and understanding of those things. Critical realism also argues against
the implicit ontology of the empiricists and idealists of events and regularities, re-
ducing reality to thought, language, belief, custom or experience. Instead, critical
realism advocates a structural realist and causal powers approach to natural and so-
cial ontology, with a focus on social relations and process of social transformation.
Important movements within critical realism include the morphogenetic ap-
proach developed by Margaret Archer; critical realist economics developed by
Tony Lawson; as well as dialectical critical realism (embracing being, becoming
and absence) and the philosophy of metaReality (emphasising priority of the
non-dual) developed by Roy Bhaskar.
For over 30 years, Routledge has been closely associated with critical realism
and, in particular, the work of Roy Bhaskar, publishing well over 50 works in, or
informed by, critical realism (in series including Critical Realism: Interventions; On-
tological Explorations; New Studies in Critical Realism and Education). These have
all now been brought together under one series dedicated solely to critical realism.
The Centre for Critical Realism is the advisory editorial board for the series.
If you would like to know more about the Centre for Critical Realism, or to
submit a book proposal, please visit www.centreforcriticalrealism.com.
Explaining Society
Critical Realism in the Social Sciences
Berth Danermark, Mats Ekström, and Jan Ch. Karlsson
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Studies-in-Critical-Realism-Routledge-Critical-Realism/book-series/
SE0518
Explaining SociEty
Critical Realism in the Social Sciences
Second Edition
Berth Danermark, Mats Ekström, and
Jan Ch. Karlsson
Second edition published in English 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Berth Danermark, Mats Ekström and Jan Ch. Karlsson
The right of Berth Danermark, Mats Ekström and Jan Ch. Karlsson
to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published in Swedish by Studentlitteratur AB 1997
First edition published in English by Routledge 2001
Second edition published in Swedish by Studentlitteratur AB 2003
Third edition published in Swedish by Studentlitteratur AB 2018
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Danermark, Berth, 1951– author. |
Ekstrèom, Mats, 1961– author.
Title: Explaining society: critical realism in the social sciences / Berth
Danermark, Mats Ekstrèom and Jan Ch. Karlsson.
Other titles: Att fèorklara samhèallet. English
Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY:
Routledge, 2019. |
Series: Routledge studies in critical realism | Translation of the author’s
book Att fèorklara samhèallet. | Includes bibliographical references and
index. | Translated from Swedish.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018051645 (print) | LCCN 2018055304 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781351017831 (ebk) | ISBN 9781351017824 (web pdf) |
ISBN 9781351017817 (epub) | ISBN 9781351017800 (mobi/kindle) |
ISBN 9781138497795 (hbk) | ISBN 9781138497818 (pbk)
Subjects: LCSH: Sociology—Methodology. | Social sciences—
Methodology. | Critical realism.
Classification: LCC HM585 (ebook) | LCC HM585 .E8513 2019 (print) |
DDC 301.01—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051645
ISBN: 978-1-138-49779-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-49781-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-01783-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Originally published as Danermark, Berth, Ekström, Mats,
and Karlsson, Jan Ch. (2018) Att förklara samhället (3rd ed.).
Studentlitteratur.
This translation by the authors is published by arrangement with
Studentlitteratur AB, Sweden.

contEntS
List of illustrations ix
Preface xi
1 Introduction 1
part i
introduction to critical realism 17
2 Science and reality 19
3 Conceptual abstraction and causality 37
part ii
Methodological implications 69
4 Social structures and human agency 71
5 Generalization, scientific inference, and models for
explanatory social science 96
6 Theory in the methodology of social science 135
7 Critical methodological pluralism – intensive and extensive
research design and interdisciplinarity 165
viii Contents
8 Social science and practice 197
9 Conclusion 215
Glossary 223
Index 227
liSt oF illuStrationS
Figures
3.1 Different types of social relations 41
4.1 Explanations in the fact and action paradigms 75
4.2 Explanations in the fact paradigm, the action paradigm, and
structuration theory 78
4.3 Social structure and agency according to the transformation
model of critical realism 80
4.4 Analytical cycles in the interplay between social structure and agency 82
4.5 Interaction as the crossroad of social structural conditioning
and social conditioning of agency 93
5.1 Two types of generalization 100
7.1 The process of interdisciplinary work 182
8.1 Analytical phases in a CAIMO configuration 203
tables
3.1 Conditions and social systems 55
3.2 Closure, openness, and social systems 55
3.3 Conditions and social systems in a new interpretation 63
3.4 Closure, openness, and social systems in a new interpretation 63
5.1 Four modes of inference 103
5.2 Individual events and general structures 110
5.3 Deduction, induction, abduction – the formal structures of inference 111
5.4 The stages in explanatory research based on critical realism 130