Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._3

the essential ingredients of love, except to connote its many variations as an attitude, an emotion, or a behavior. No one definition can capture all the dimensions of love, which can involve a wide range of elements such as romantic obsession, sexuality, caring, even irrationality. Indeed, some have argues: ‘‘There is no single, subjective meaning of love that everyone experiences in the same way’’ (Hendrick and Hendrick, 1992). Part of the difficulty is that individuals and their cultures define love very differently, depending on particular relationships and circumstances.

HISTORICAL CONCEPTIONS OF LOVE

Conceptions of love have varied not only from one culture to another, but also from one historical era to another (Murstein 1974; Hunt 1959). Prominent among these are courtly love, Romanticism, and Victorian-era love (Hendrick and Hendrick 1992), as well as the modern era of love (Seidman 1991). Various forms of courtly love appeared in the twelfth century. This marked the beginning of the transformation of love from a philosophical or theological ideal to a practical way of relating between men and women. Sexual desire and expression were seen as one of the goals of love, and the love relationship was seen as intense and passionate. This bond was not limited to one’s spouse, however. Marriage was seen as a more mundane and practical relationship. In contrast, courtly love was impractical, as the time commitment necessary to follow its elaborate rules and customs limited involvement to the wealthier or aristocratic classes. It often found its expression—some- times sexual, but often not—in the idealized devotion of a knight or nobleman to a lady of nobility, who symbolized the perfect partner. Men and women did not relate in the day-to-day interaction associated with more recent intimate relationships.

In the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, Romanticism replaced courtly love. In Romanticism it is possible to recognize the origins of some of our modern ideas about love: concern with similarities between partners, equality in the relationship, and the experience of the emotional side of love. This form furthered the courtly love ideal of sexual expression between partners as a worthy goal, with the added recognition that this fusion of emotion and sexuality could (and ideally should) occur with one’s spouse.

The Victorian era (approximately 1830–1900) brought great changes to the idea of romantic love. This is hardly surprising, as people of this time were also adjusting to the changes in work and community life brought about by the Industrial Revolution. In the shift from the home economy to paid labor, the status of women declined, and new myths and ideas about love and its expression emerged. The partnership-oriented focus of Romanticism all but disappeared. Women in the Victorian era were seen as weaker and less intelligent than men. Within marriage, this assumption defined women as mothers and helpers, not individuals who might have complementary interests and a rightful concern for equality within a relationship. Women were also seen as childlike and asexual during this time, and were thought to need their husband’s protection. This is an abrupt departure from earlier modes of loving, which acknowledged sexuality as an important aspect of the experience of love. In the Victorian era, sexual matters were not discussed between spouses.

In the modern era (1890–1960), the literature on love and marriage once again recognized the importance of an intimate bond between partners. Marital advice from this time shows a preoccupation with couples’ happiness and the security of the marital bond. During this period, romantic love and sexual compatibility were inseparable, and this sexualization of love (Seidman 1991) brought the perception of sexual expression in romantic relationships full circle. Sexual expression was no longer seen as a component of love (whether an idealized or neglected one) but the very basis of love itself.

Sexual impulses and romantic love are often directed at the same person, but they are not the same. People are known to pursue sexual encounters in the absence of any romantic feelings. Sexual impulses are derived from our biological heritage, and romantic love is a learned cultural pattern. The two bear a relationship to one another, however, in that romance often encompasses sexually motivated behavior plus a cluster of cultural expectations (Hatfield and Rapson 1993)

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

The range of psychological and social meanings attached to love would, therefore, appear to be limitless. However, we experience and express

love mostly according to the culture and subcultures in which we have formed our sentiments. The formation of these sentiments begins very early and evolves through the physical and emotional attachments that characterize the parentchild relationship. While idiosyncratic patterns exist, love scripts by and large reflect the influence of social conditioning. In short, love is largely a learned response.

Despite cultural differences, several aspects of love seem to be universal (Sternberg 1998). Everywhere love involves four ideals: the suitable partner, the emotional experience of loving, the mental experience or thought process of loving, and the actions deemed acceptable and expected between the lover and his or her partner. Although these components seem to be found in all societies, how they are defined is culturally specific. The suitable partner may be of the opposite or the same sex, younger or older than oneself (or the same age), and tall and thin or short and heavy. Similarly, thoughts about love may be pragmatic or passionate, and emotions may range from deeply affectionate to reserved and respectful. The potential combinations that add up to ‘‘love’’ vary widely, and might be unrecognizable to a person from another culture. For example, in some tribes in Africa there is a traditional system known as ‘‘sweethearting’’ in which young people choose partners based on emotional and physical attraction (Goode, 1963). Even within this system there is variation. Some tribes allow sweethearting to lead to marriage, while others permit their young people to take lovers by choice but maintain the practice of arranging marriages for girls when they are still children. In the Arab world, love may also take secondary importance to familial concerns in taking a spouse. Many unmarried adults in Arab countries report that love is their ideal basis for marriage. However, married adults report varying levels of emotional closeness with their spouse prior to marriage, including love, acquaintance, and kinship ties without either love or acquaintance.

Cultural norms are internalized and program us to fall in love with specific types of people, within certain social contexts, to the exclusion of others. However, love is not necessarily related to marriage. There is a saying, for example, that in the West one falls in love and then gets married, whereas in the East one marries and then falls in love. In some societies, arranged marriages were

and still are contracted. The emotional intensity a couple feel toward each other is given little or no consideration. Instead, emphasis is given to the sociopolitical implications of the marital alliance for the families and kinship groups involved.

In the United States, on the other hand, love is viewed as an important condition to marriage. We are generally suspicious of anyone who would marry for any other reason. We are not comfortable with the idea that in some cultures a man marries his mother’s brother’s daughter because that is the prescribed pattern. Even among our upper classes, where concern about protecting family resources leads to a greater emphasis on practical considerations in mate selection, couples are expected to espouse mutual love as the basis for their marriage, or else their motives become suspect. Revelation of marital alliances designed to preserve or enhance family wealth often receive a cynical response from the public at large.

Families recognize that courtship and mate selection merge not only two individuals but also two different kinship lines, which in turn may affect their socioeconomic and political stature. Consequently, families invest considerable energy and resources to control love (Goode 1959). Several mechanisms to accomplish this have been identified, including the direct control provided by (1) child marriages, in which betrothal may occur before puberty or even before the child is born; (2) defining the pool of eligibles, that is, delineating whom one can and cannot marry; (3) physical or social isolation to limit the probabilities of contact; and (4) various indirect controls such as moving to preferred residential neighborhoods, enrolling children in appropriate schools, joining select organizations, or attending certain churches. The latter mechanism is most characteristic of Western societies.

THE ROMANTIC LOVE COMPLEX

In American society a romantic love complex exists, and this complex posits love as a central prerequisite to marriage. The basic components of this complex are assimilated through the mass me- dia—through romantic stories in novels, magazines, television, and movies. In this way we are psychologically prepared to fall in love. The major

characteristics of romantic love include romantic democracy; that is, cultural differences between couples are minimized or ignored because ‘‘love and love alone’’ is sufficient. Indeed, it involves the notion that romantic love thrives on such differences. Romantic love also includes romantic intensity; that is, people are expected to fall in love instantly (to experience love at first sight) and deeply, with great emotional attachment. Finally, romantic love includes romantic monopoly in that once the ‘‘bolt from the blue’’ strikes, the couple presume exclusive emotional and social rights to each other, in perpetuity (Merrill 1959). A person experiencing the full thrust of this complex is, supposedly, consumed by constant thoughts about the beloved, a longing to spend all one’s time with that person, a sad pining in the beloved’s absence, and a feeling that life would not be worth living without him or her (Tennov 1980).

There is disagreement about the extent to which people adhere to the tenets of the romantic love complex and whether it actually influences mate selection. Sociologists have generally viewed it as a poor basis for the establishment of permanent unions, inasmuch as it involves an element of capricious choice based upon an unpredictable emotion. Moreover, romantic love is not completely rational. Part of its credo is that there is one and only one true love or ideal mate. Yet we know that people fall in and out of love several times in a lifetime.

People caught up in the romantic complex often idealize their partners. Some argue that this process of idealization, in which a distorted positive picture of the love partner is constructed, results from the blockage of sexual impulses by cultural prohibitions. If this were true, then one would expect a liberalization of our sexual mores to be accompanied by a decline in romanticism. However, this does not appear to have happened, at least in Western societies. What does happen is that the elements of the romantic love complex, including the idealized picture of the partner, are modified to fit the reality of that person that emerges through close and intimate interaction over time. Couples unable to make this accommodation are apt to suffer disillusionment, and their marriages may encounter persistent difficulties. For marriage to succeed, the overly romanticized notions and idealizations of romantic love must eventually be replaced by conjugal love, which is

based upon habits, common interests, mutual acceptance, and mature companionship derived from a shared history.

THE MASS MEDIA AND LOVE

The mass media undoubtedly encourages many romantic myths about love. This can be problematic for several reasons (Ellis 1985). Fictional lovers, whether in the movies or in novels, can magically go about their romantic business without the mundane everyday constraints faced by real people. Fictional portrayals of romantic love also tend to idealize the partners as beautiful, perfect people who are in the earliest passionate stages of love. It is assumed that this stage of love will last forever for the couple. In reality, few of us are unencumbered by family expectations or blessed with perfect beauty. Perhaps more damaging, the passionate stage of love shown on the silver screen tends to mature and deepen in real life into a more companionate form of love—which may then be taken as not being ‘‘real’’ love by those who subscribe to the romanticized media ideal.

Media portrayals of love and family life may also set up a template for behavior that is difficult or impossible for a couple to enact and sustain, while at the same time making them feel wrong somehow for failing to meet this expectation (Coontz 1992). Many intimate partners do not choose to follow the homemaker-breadwinner pattern in their relating. For some others who would like to be able to do so, this may be a financial impossibility. To make matters even more complicated, mass media presents other images of lifestyles that are at odds with the nuclear family image. Messages of consumerism and mass consumption in television shows and commercials encourage individuals to keep their choices open and to accept only the best. This message of individualism makes intimacy and commitment between romantic partners more difficult, as some may shy away from choosing a partner out of fear that something better may come along. Our kinship system does not provide a protective mechanism against this individualism. Because we trace kinship bilaterally through both the mother and the father, lineage concerns do not keep couples together (Farber 1964). As a result, marital status and presumed romantic exclusivity do not prevent

partners from being available as a potential mates to others.

GENDER AND LOVE

There appear to be gender differences with respect to love and loving. It is generally assumed that such differences reflect culturally defined sex roles. Women have been stereotypically portrayed as starry-eyed romantics, while men are viewed as exploitative realists. However, research shows that men fall in love more quickly than women do and with less deliberation, score higher on scales of romanticism, express stronger romantic attitudes, and suffer greater emotional stress when relationships are terminated. Compared to men, women are more apt to exhibit a companionate rather a passionate approach to love. The difference between the two centers around the element of emotional intensity. Companionate love ‘‘is a calm, steady, relaxed state; passionate love is an emotional roller coaster, with intense highs and lows’’ (Fehr 1995). Because women may have potentially more to lose from a social and an economic standpoint, they tend to be more prudent or discriminating in establishing and maintaining love relationships (Hochschild 1983). They are more apt to take into account practical considerations regarding mate selection. Hence, in comparison to men, women are more likely to terminate relationships and are able to disengage emotionally more easily when they break up (Rubin 1973).

Men and women also have different expectations of love (Cancian 1987). The common denominator among many of these differences seems to be communication styles and preferences. Women have an advantage in communicating emotionally, because traditional gender norms have allotted the jobs of nurturing and relationship maintenance to them. They also tend to have more emotionally close (but not sexually intimate) relationships than do men. This suggests that women have less difficulty with emotional vulnerability and communication. Women tend to want more intimacy through verbal communication from their partners. This can cause a host of problems, as men tend to express feelings of love actively rather than verbally.

Love is also experienced differently by men and women partly because of varying levels of

dependency. Although a large proportion of women now hold paid employment, economic dependence on men is still a factor in many wives’ and mothers’ experience. They are more likely to put their careers on hold to raise children than are men, to earn less than their spouses, and to relocate due to a spouse’s career needs. The critical link between gendered experience of love and financial concerns can be seen in socioeconomic class differences. Workingand middle-class men are less likely to identify strongly with their work than are men in the upper middle class. As a result, it is in the upper middle class that conflict between wives’ needs for intimacy and husbands’ desires for self-fulfillment and career achievement may be felt most acutely.

The gendered differences inimical to romantic love are found in communication as well (Gray 1992). Men and women have vastly different communication styles, and problems arising from miscommunication may lead to difficulties within a relationship. For a man to feel truly loved he must feel that he is needed. For a woman to feel loved she must feel understood and appreciated as well. These requirements stem from men’s desire to feel competent and women’s desire to feel socially and emotionally connected to others. When partners relate, however, they tend to speak to one another in ways that they would like to be spoken to themselves because they do not recognize these differing bases for feeling loved. Women tend to air their problems and difficulties with their partners in order to feel validated and understood. In response, men tend to offer solutions to women’s problems or to minimize these problems—offer- ing the vote of confidence in their partners’ competency that they would want in similar circumstances. These differences can potentially undermine feelings of love experienced by the partners (Gray 1993). A woman is left feeling that her partner does not truly listen or understand her when he offers solutions to her grievances, and she feels abandoned when he withdraws to consider his own problems in privacy. A man can feel blamed by his partner’s complaints and stunned by her negative reaction to his proposed solutions, and tends to feel hounded if she attempts to penetrate the silence he needs to work issues out for himself.

Social scientists have explored the sequences through which the dimensions of love relationships develop and have constructed numerous

theories, models, and typologies of love (Fehr 1995). They have also detected and described a number of styles of loving (Kemper 1988; Lee, 1988; Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986; Lasswell and Lasswell 1980). Love is said to begin typically with physical symptoms—palpitations of the heart, rapid breathing, sweating, and so on. At this stage the symptoms are essentially similar to those associated with other emotions such as fear. Next the person proceeds to label his arousal as a love response. This labeling process gains impetus from social pressures and cultural dictates, which prod one to define the experience as love and to follow its ritualistic patterns.

The optimum conditions for love to flourish require that the couple be equally involved in and committed to each other and the relationship. Where there is unequal involvement, the person with the strongest commitment may be vulnerable to exploitation. This is known as the principle of least interest, in which the partner with the least interest has the most control. Few relationships that are based on this principle can endure.

(SEE ALSO: Courtship; Interpersonal Attraction; Mate Selection, Theories)

REFERENCES

Cancian, Francesca M. 1987 Love in America: Gender and Self-Development. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Coontz, Stephanie 1992 The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books–HarperCollins.

Ellis, Albert 1985 ‘‘Romantic Love.’’ In John F. Crosby, ed., Reply to Myth: Perspectives on Intimacy. New York: Wiley. pp. 218–227.

Farber, Bernard 1964 Family: Organization and Interac-

tion. San Francisco: Chandler.

Fehr, Beverley 1995 ‘‘Love.’’ In David Levinson, ed.,

Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family, vol. 2. New York: Simon and Schuster–Macmillan.

——— 1963 World Revolution and Family Patterns. New York: Free Press.

Gray, John 1992 Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. New York: HarperCollins.

——— 1993 Men, Women and Relationships, rev. 2nd ed. Hillsboro, Oreg.: Beyond Words Publishing.

Hatfield, E., and Rapson, R. L. 1993 Love, Sex, and Intimacy: Their Psychology, Biology, and History. New York: HarperCollins.

Hendrick, Clyde, and Susan S. Hendrick 1986 ‘‘A Theory and Method of Love.’’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 50:392–402.

Hendrick, Susan S. and Clyde Hendrick 1992 Romantic Love. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

Hochschild, Arlie R. 1983 The Managed Heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hunt, Morton 1959 The Natural History of Love. New York: Knopf.

Kemper, Theodore 1988 ‘‘Love and Like and Love and

Love.’’ In David Franks, ed., The Sociology of Emotions. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.

Lasswell, Marcia, and Norman M. Lasswell 1980 Styles of Loving. New York: Doubleday.

Lee, J. A. 1988 ‘‘Love Styles.’’ In R. J. Sternberg and M. L. Barnes, eds., The Psychology of Love. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Merrill, Francis E. 1959 Courtship and Marriage. New

York: Holt-Dryden.

Murstein, Bernard 1. 1974 Love, Sex, and Marriage through the Ages. New York: Springer.

Rubin, Zick 1973 Loving and Liking. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Schwartz, Gary, Don Mertem, Fran Beham, and Allyne Rosenthal 1980 Love and Commitment. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.

Seidman, Steven 1991 Romantic Longings: Love in America, 1830–1980. New York and London: Routledge.

Sternberg, Robert J. 1998 Cupid’s Arrow: The Course of Love through Time. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tennov, Dorothy 1980 Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. New York: Stein and Day.

MACROSOCIOLOGY

The term ‘‘macro’’ denotes ‘‘large’’; thus macrosociology refers to the study of large-scale social phenomena. This covers a very broad range of topics that includes groups and collectivities of varying sizes, the major organizations and institutions of one or more societies, cross-sectional or historical studies of a single society, and both comparative and historical analyses of multiple societies. At the grandest level it may cover all human society and history.

Sociologists distinguish macrosociology from microsociology, which focuses on the social activities of individuals and small groups. The micromacro distinction forms one of the central dualisms characterizing divergent sociological perspectives. Seemingly polar opposites such as conflict-consen- sus, stability-change, structure-agency, subjectiveobjective, and materialist-idealist, as well as micromacro, provide a shorthand method for denoting differences in central assumptions, subjects, and models. As with many other oppositional concepts, however, the boundary between microsociology and macrosociology is not clearly distinguished, and at the margins there is much room for overlap.

Typically, micro-level studies examine individual thought, action, and interaction, often coinciding with social-psychological theories and models, whereas macro-level investigations target social structures and those forces that organize as well as divide individuals into political, social or religious organizations, ethnic populations, communities, and nation-states. Nevertheless, in defining these

terms there is major conceptual ambiguity that can be formulated as a question: Should the distinction be based on substantive criteria (specialty and subdisciplinary areas within sociology such as social change and development), theoretical criteria (e.g., functionalist, Marxist), metatheoretical criteria (type of paradigm, epistemology), or methodological criteria (type of research design and analysis techniques)? Since sociologists often use the terms ‘‘micro’’ and ‘‘macro’’ quite casually as convenient devices for categorizing broad areas of theory and research, each of these criteria can be found in the literature, and quite often they are seriously confounded.

A useful means of distinguishing between the two approaches is based on the concept of ‘‘units of analysis.’’ Macrosociology uses as its subjects structural-level units of analysis or cases that are larger than observations of individual action and interaction. Even here, however, there is ambiguity, since it is quite possible to make observations on smaller units (e.g., individuals) with the intention of analyzing (making inferences about) larger entities (e.g., groups, classes). Also, the issue of where to draw the line remains. Rather than attempting to draw any hard-and-fast line delineating macro-level from micro-level phenomena, it is helpful to conceptualize a continuum of the subject matter of sociology with ‘‘micro’’ and ‘‘macro’’ defining two end points and with societal-level phenomena clearly placed at the macro pole. George Ritzer, for example, describes one ‘‘level of social reality’’ as a micro-macro continuum moving from individual thought and action through

interaction, groups, organizations, and societies to culminate in world systems (Ritzer 1988, pp. 512–518).

Since the macro end of the continuum focuses on social structure, it is important to clarify the use of this term. In a review essay, Neil Smelser (1988, pp. 103–129) describes structure as patterned relationships that emerge from the interaction of individuals or groups over time and space. Institutions and identifiable collectivities are the outcomes of systematically related structures of activities. Structure is dually defined as located in collective actors and in their interaction. Thus social class is an example of social structure, as are the relationships between classes whose locus is the economy. The study of social class and the study of the economy are examples of macrosociology.

Other examples emerge from the macrosociological focus on large-scale structural arrangements and activities of a great number of individuals in large-scale geographical space over long periods of time. Thus macroscopic questions in sociology conventionally revolve around the largest social, spatial, and temporal processes, such as the rise and decline of civilizations; the origins and development of modern nation-states, social movements, and revolutions; and the origins and consequences of social, political, economic, and cultural transformations. Examples include the rise and spread of secular ideologies and religious belief systems, democratic transitions, and the nature and effects of large-scale institutions and organizations. Mac- ro-level analysis is usually embedded in structural and conflict theories, and in studies of societal dynamics and epochal transformations of cultures and social structures. Topics are located within numerous subfields of sociology, including but not limited to stratification and inequality, resource mobilization, political and economic sociology, world systems, human evolution, and ecology. They are equally likely to cross or link disciplinary boundaries to incorporate history, geography, political economy, and anthropology.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The concern with macro-level phenomena is as old as the discipline of sociology and arguably is the primary motivation for the creation of classical sociological theory and research. The men generally accorded honored places in the pantheon of

sociology’s founders, such as Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber (and additional historical figures such as Alexis de Tocqueville), all included macro-level phenomena among their dominant concerns. The traditions they established retain their definitive role for the central issues of sociology in general and macrosociology in particular.

The themes pursued by these and other classical theorists are found in subsequent theory and research. For example, the evolutionary perspectives on the development of human society advanced by early theorists have been modified, revised, and developed by contemporary evolutionary theorists such as Lenski (Lenski et al. 1995) and in the modern functionalist and neo-functionalist theories of Talcott Parsons (1966), Niklas Luhmann (1982), and Jeffrey Alexander (1998). Marx’s historical materialist explanation of the unfolding of capitalism has spawned numerous offspring, including dependency and world system theories (Amin 1976; Frank 1967; Wallerstein 1974), and studies of the rise of the modern state and class conflict by Moore (1966). Similarly, Weber’s comparative and historical studies of social stratification and the development of modern states are reflected in the works of Reinhard Bendix (1977; 1978), Theda Skocpol (1979) and Michael Mann (1986; 1993) Emile Durkheim’s analysis of the division of labor in modern societies as well as the sources of societal integration underlie all modernization theory and functional perspectives on race and ethnic relations, as well as most contemporary studies of occupational structures. Alexis de Tocqueville’s comparative study of democracy has remained an inspirational source for contemporary theories of democracy and social change. In short, the macrosociological problems defined early in the history of sociology remain major focuses of current sociological research.

Also located in these early works but often overlooked in subsequent interpretations is an issue that is the current central project of many social theorists: the links between macroand mi- cro-level phenomena. At least in the writings of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, to a greater or lesser degree, efforts are made to connect individual and structural level activities in some coherent fashion. For example, Marx is often considered the quintessential macrosociologist, providing the foundation for much current macrosociology. Yet as

Bertell Ollman (1976) and others point out, there is a distinct social psychology anchored in Marx’s concept of alienation that in turn motivates and is motivated by his macro-level modes of productive relations and class conflict. This concern with linkage has often been ignored or forgotten in the distinctive development of different schools of sociological thought. After years of separate development and sometimes acrimonious debate, efforts to conduct research and develop social theories that include both ends of the micro-macro continuum now constitute a major agenda for many sociologists.

THEMES IN MACROSOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY AND RESEARCH

Macrosociogical studies vary in both subject and theoretical orientation, but the two are closely related. For example, large-scale studies of single total societies or particular societal institutions often operate from a functionalist or systems perspective in which the effort is to understand how component parts fit together and serve larger social goals. On the other hand, studies of social change, either within a single society or across cultures, more often use one of the many variants of conflict—Marxist, neo-Marxist, and Weberian perspectives. They do so because such theories are better equipped to explain conflict and change than the relatively static models promoted by functionalism, and because functionalism no longer dominates sociology. These are broad generalizations, however, which invite counterexample.

Given the sweeping scope of macrosociology, it is not possible to provide comprehensive coverage of all the topics and theories subsumed under this approach. The next section will illustrate key concerns of macrosociologists by describing exemplary theory and research in some major areas of macrosociology.

Societal Evolutionary Change. The numerous approaches to the study of societal change illustrate the diversity of sociological perspectives. At the most sweeping level, evolutionary theories take all human history and society as their subject, but there are numerous variants to this approach. For example, evolutionary theory has gone hand in hand with functionalism, as in the later work of

Talcott Parsons on human societies (1966), which features the basic assumptions of evolutionary theory in terms of holism (the whole unit rather than its parts), universalism (natural and perpetual change), and unidirectionality (progressive and cumulative change). An idealist version of an evolutionary perspective can be found in Jurgen Habermas (1979), who uses an evolutionary model to explain the development of normative structures and forms of rationality. Alternatively, it has also taken a materialist form, as developed by anthropologists (Harris 1977) and a few sociologists (Lenski, 1966, Lenski et al. 1995), to explain inequality and uneven distribution of social resources. Another version of societal evolutionary change that deviates somewhat from the mainstream of progressive evolution are the cyclical dynamics of societal and cultural change proposed in works of Pitirim Sorokin (1962). Evolutionary analysis also was once popular in the fields of human ecology (Hawley 1971), modernization (Smelser 1964), and structural and cultural assimilation of different racial groups in modern society (Gordon 1964).

Currently, there are relatively few sociologists who operate on this scale or who find it useful for analyzing more confined periods of historical change. Nevertheless, contemporary theories of human evolution have been influential in providing comparative evidence for the material and normative bases of different forms of social organization and for describing the broadest patterns of societal change. These include the distribution of societal goods and services, enduring forms of inequality (e.g., patriarchy), and normative systems.

Modernization and Development. Sociologists often limit their study of change to the emergence of modern industrial society, either to trace the paths taken by mature industrialized societies to reach their current state of development or to investigate the problems of developing nations. Here, too, different approaches emerge from different theoretical perspectives.

Modernization theory, which until the 1960s dominated accounts of development and change, grew out of functionalism and evolutionary perspectives. In the version articulated by economist W. W. Rostow (1960), nonindustrial societies,

through diffusion and a natural developmental sequence, were expected to follow a series of stages previously traversed by fully industrialized nations to attain the significant characteristics of modern societies considered prerequisites for development. This process required breaking from traditional social norms and values to build institutions based on ‘‘modern’’ values such as universalism, rationalization, and achievement orientation.

Although today largely abandoned in favor of more historically and materially grounded theories, modernization theory was highly influential among both scholars and policy makers of the post–World War II era. In fact, it can be argued that the influence of modernization theory in part explains its repudiation, since students of and from emerging developing nations viewed it as an instrument of continued colonial domination and capitalist exploitation. Their search for tools to provide a better explanation for their disadvantaged and subordinate position in the international arena led to the adoption of Marxist-based models of dependency, underdevelopment, and world systems to replace modernization as the dominant approach to change and development within the modern era. As summarized by Peter Evans and John Stephens (1988, p. 740), these ‘‘approaches turned the modernization theorists’ emphasis on diffusion . . . on its head, arguing instead that ties to ‘core’ countries were a principal impediment to development.’’

In an influential early formulation, dependency theorist Andre Gunder Frank (1967) maintained that the experience of most nonindustrial nations is explained by the ‘‘development of underdevelopment.’’ In other words, the exploitation of peripheral Third World nations by capital in the core, developed world increased the economic, social, and political misery experienced by the majority populations of those Third World countries. Alliances between local and international elites actively worked to defend the status quo distribution of power and privilege at the expense of peasantand working-class majorities. Later versions refined the models of class conflict and competition or, as in the writings of Samir Amin (1976), elaborated the model of the relationships between center and periphery economies to show how underdevelopment grows out of the exploitive links between the two types of systems.

All versions contribute to a refutation of the trajectory of development described by modernization theory.

A more global approach to development issues was formulated by Immanuel Wallerstein (1974, 1980, 1988) and his followers. World system theory elaborates the Marxist model of economic domination into a system in which exploitation occurs worldwide. Wallerstein broadens the focus on class relations among and across nations to examine the development of an international division of labor in the capitalist world economy where core industrial nations exploit peripheral regions as sources of raw materials and labor. This approach has been both enormously influential and controversial, generating massive amounts of research on the model itself, particular spatial and historical portions of the world system, and particular subsectors and groups. A helpful overview that charts the intricacies of this perspective can be found in a text by Thomas Shannon (1989).

The emphasis on First World as well as Third World development found in world-system theory provides a bridge to a slightly different tradition that focuses on the emergence of the core industrial nations and their political systems. Much of this literature is concerned with development of modern political as well as economic systems. For example, while Barrington Moore’s study (1966) of the transformation of agrarian societies into modern industrial states remains firmly anchored in a Marxist emphasis on class relations and productive systems, it is also concerned with the political roles played by antagonistic classes and the political outcomes of their confrontation. Numerous other studies pursue a similar comparative perspective on the upheavals that accompanied the emergence of modern Western industrial nations (cf. Tilly et al. 1975).

One other type of study in this tradition deserves mention. These are studies of social and political change that occur within a particular society at various stages in the industrialization process. John Walton (1987) provides a convenient typology based on cross-classifying epochs and processes of industrialization. The resulting types range from protoindustrialization through deindustrialzation. Studies from early periods focus on the emergence of particular classes, on class

conflict, and on the influence of classes on the historical development of modern nations, as in E. P. Thompson’s and John Foster’s influential accounts of English class formation (Thompson 1963; Foster 1974), Ron Aminzade’s analysis of nine- teenth-century France (1984), and Herbert Gutman’s studies of American class culture and conflict (1966). Influential studies of transitions in later periods of industrial development examine the consolidation of control of the labor process (Burawoy 1979; Edwards 1979), deindustrialization (Bluestone and Harrison 1982), informalization of labor markets (Portes et al. 1989), and post-Fordist production systems (Mingione 1991).

Finally, while beyond the scope of this review, there are also other important traditions that have strong links to one or the other approaches described above. One of these is found in a vast literature on social movements that has many points of intersection with the work on comparative and historical social and political change discussed here. Another is work that applies the theories of dependency and uneven development to regional development problems internal to particular societies. Finally, there are structural and poststructural approaches to the development of major social institutions and forms of repression, as found in the complex but influential work of Michel Foucault (1979, 1980, 1985). While this last example could as easily be classified under studies of social institutions and processes, it is included here because of its focus on changes in historical times that have produced modern social forms.

State Formation and State Breakdown. The study of state formation and state breakdown has always been a central focus of macrosocial inquiry, especially in the area of comparative historical sociology. Studies of state formation examine the nature of state power and the processes by which it develops. While some sociologists have seen the state as emerging from internal dynamics of society, largely in terms of the interests and struggles of social classes, others have turned their attention to the external dynamics of society along with the market forces of the capitalist system. Tilly (1975, 1990) demonstrates that the modern states were created in the process of capital concentration and consolidated under the pressure of increased international military competition (war and preparation for war).

Michael Mann (1986, 1993) examines the nature of power in human societies by focusing on the interrelations of four principal sources of social power—economic, ideological, military, and political resources—and relates them to the rise of city-states, militaristic empires, modern nationstates, and nationalism. Another important theory on the relations between the state and society is Robert Wuthnow’s (1989) analysis of how conflicts between the state, elites, and cultural entrepreneurs caused the great ideological movements to challenge the status quo in the development of modern society.

Contemporary theory of revolution and state breakdown starts with Barrington Moore (1966) who proposed a model of agrarian class politics. Drawing upon both Marxian and Weberian theoretical perspectives, Skocpol’s (1979) breakthrough analysis introduced the state-centered theoretical paradigm of revolution in her case study of French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. Treating the state as an ‘‘autonomous entity,’’ Skocpol argues that the state has its own military and fiscal interests, and that under certain circumstances, state interests necessarily are in deep conflict with the interests of social classes. State breakdown occurs when the state experiences high levels of fiscal crisis induced by strain on resources from both internal elite conflicts and external military pressure. In Skocpol’s theory, the state thus becomes the central actor and the location of crisis in revolutionary situations.

This state-centered theme developed by Skocpol has been further expanded by Goldstone (1991), who uses a structural-demographic approach to indicate that the early modern boom in population led to strain on state resources associated with the taxation system and economic development. Goldstone argues that in a system tied to agricultural output, the agrarian state depends mainly on land taxes for revenue. As growing population places pressure on the agricultural economy, rising grain prices result in inflation that erodes state revenues, leads to higher taxes, and exacerbates elite conflict. Rising prices generate profits for some elites who are quick to take advantage of commercial opportunities, but hurts other elites who are slow to adjust and lag behind in social mobility. Revolution is the ultimate outcome of the state’s failure to meet its obligations.