Should the ‘Dynamic Autonomy’ of Ideas Matter to Sociologists?: Max Weber on the Origin of Other-Worldly Salvation Religions and the Constitution of Groups in American Society Today

Journal of Classical Sociology

Volumn 1, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 291-327

  Kalberg, Stephen ^a  

^a BOSTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

American society; dynamic autonomy of ideas; Max Weber; sociological theory; tensions; theodicy; world view

Indexed keywords

EID: 84990342421     PISSN: 1468795X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X0100100301     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. Adams, John (1961) The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. (Orig. pub. 1918.)
2. Beisel, Nicola (1998) ‘Artists and Censorship’, American Journal of Sociology 103(3): 872-914.
3. Bellah, Robert N. (1970) ‘Religious Evolution’, in Beyond Belief. New York: Harper and Row.
4. Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton (1985) Habits of the Heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.
5. Brinton, Mary C. and Victor Nee (eds) (1998) The New Institutionalism in Sociology. New York: Russell Sage.
6. Brubaker, Rogers (1992) Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7. Cole, Robert A. (1989) Strategies for Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
8. Coleman, James (1989) ‘Rationality and Society’, Rationality and Society 1(1): 5-9.
9. Coleman, James (1990) Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
10. Collins, Randall (1986) Weberian Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11. Cook, Karen (ed.) (1990) The Limits of Rationality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
12. Elias, Norbert (1995) The Germans: Power Struggles and the Development of Habitus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, trans. Stephen Mennell and Eric Dunning; ed. Michael Schröter. Cambridge: Polity. (Orig. pub. 1989: Studien über die Deutschen, ed. Michael Schröter. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.)
13. Emirbayer, Mustafa (1997) ‘Manifesto for a Relational Sociology’, American Journal of Sociology 103(2): 281-317.
14. Evans, Peter, Theda Skocpol and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds) (1984) Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press.
15. Fligstein Neil (1990) The Transformation of Corporate Control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16. Friedman, Debra and Michael Hechter (1988) ‘The Contribution of Rational Choice Theory to Macrosociological Research’, Sociological Theory 6(2): 201-218.
17. Friedman, Debra and Michael Hechter (1990) ‘The Comparative Advantages of Rational Choice Theory’, in George Ritzer (ed.) Frontiers of Social Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
18. Gerth, H. H. (1946) ‘Introduction’, in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press.
19. Goffman, Erving (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Anchor.
20. Goffman, Erving (1967) Interaction Ritual. Garden City, NY: Anchor.
21. Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper Colophon.
22. Goldstein, Judith (1993) Ideas, Interests and American Trade Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
23. Granovetter, Mark (1973) ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78(4): 1360-1380.
24. Granovetter, Mark (1974) Getting a Job. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25. Granovetter, Mark (1983) ‘The Strength of Weak Ties Revisited’, in Randall Collins (ed.) Sociological Theory - 1983. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
26. Granovetter, Mark (1985) ‘Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness’, American Journal of Sociology 90(3): 481-510.
27. Greenfeld, Liah (1992) Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
28. Hall, John and Charles Lindholm (1999) Is America Breaking Apart? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
29. Hall, Peter A. (ed.) (1989) The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30. Hall, Peter A. (1993) ‘Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State’, Comparative Politics 23(3): 275-296.
31. Hartz, Louis (1991) The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harvest Hill HBJ. (Orig. pub. 1955.)
32. Hechter, Michael (1987) Principles of Group Solidarity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
33. Hofstadter, Richard (1955) Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. (Orig. pub. 1944.)
34. Jenkins, J. Craig (1992) ‘New Currents in Resource Mobilization Theory’, in Mabel Berezin (ed.) Annual Editions in Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
35. Kalberg, Stephen (1980) ‘Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History’, American Journal of Sociology 85(5): 1145-1179.
36. Kalberg, Stephen (1987) ‘West German and American Interaction Forms: One Level of Structured Misunderstanding’, Theory, Culture & Society 4(4): 603-618.
37. Kalberg, Stephen (1990) ‘The Rationalization of Action in Max Weber's Sociology of Religion’, Sociological Theory 8(1): 58-84.
38. Kalberg, Stephen (1994a) ‘Max Weber's Analysis of the Rise of Monotheism’, British Journal of Sociology 45(4): 563-584.
39. Kalberg, Stephen (1994b) Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
40. Kalberg, Stephen (1996) ‘On the Neglect of Weber's Protestant Ethic as a Theoretical Treatise: Demarcating the Parameters of Post-War American Sociological Theory’, Sociological Theory 14(1): 49-70.
41. Kalberg, Stephen (1997a) ‘Max Weber's Sociology: Research Strategies and Modes of Analysis’, in Charles Camic (ed.) Reclaiming the Argument of the Founders. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
42. Kalberg, Stephen (1997b) ‘Tocqueville and Weber on the Sociological Origins of Citizenship: The Political Culture of American Democracy’, Citizenship Studies 1(2): 199-222.
43. Kalberg, Stephen (2000) ‘Max Weber’, in George Ritzer (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists. Oxford: Blackwell.
44. Kalberg, Stephen (2001) ‘The Modern World as a Monolithic Iron Cage? Utilizing Max Weber to Define the Internal Dynamics of the American Political Culture Today’, Max Weber Studies 1(2): 178-195.
45. Kiser, Edgar and Michael Hechter (1991) ‘The Role of General Theory in Comparative-historical Sociology’, American Journal of Sociology 97(1): 1-30.
46. Konwitz, Milton R. and Gail Kennedy (1960) The American Pragmatists. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing.
47. Lipset, Seymour Martin (1979) The First New Nation. New York: Norton. (Orig. pub. 1963.)
48. Lynd, Robert S. (1967) Knowledge for What? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Orig. pub. 1939.)
49. Lynd, Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd (1956) Middletown. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. (Orig. pub. 1929.)
50. Marsden, Peter and Nan Lin (eds) (1982) Social Structure and Network Analysis. Beverly Hills: Sage.
51. Mead, Margaret (1965) And Keep Your Powder Dry. New York: William Morrow. (Orig. pub. 1942.)
52. Merton, Robert K. (1968) ‘Social Structure and Anomie’, in Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1957.)
53. Miller, Perry (1961) The New England Mind. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
54. Münch, Richard (1986) Die Kultur der Moderne, 2 vols. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
55. Orloff, Ann (1993) The Politics of Pensions. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
56. Parrington, Vernon L. (1954) The Colonial Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.
57. Parsons, Talcott (1963) ‘Introduction’, in Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, trans. Ephraim Fischoff. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
58. Parsons, Talcott (1966) Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
59. Parsons, Talcott (1971) The Evolution of Societies, ed. and with an introduction by Jackson Toby. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
60. Piven, Frances Fox and Richard Cloward (1979) Poor People's Movements. New York: Vintage.
61. Powell, Walter and Paul DiMaggio (eds) (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
62. Riesman, David (1961) The Lonely Crowd. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Orig. pub. 1950.)
63. Sabel, Charles F. (1991) ‘Moebius-Strip Organizations and Open Labor Markets’, in Pierre Bourdieu and James S. Coleman (eds) Social Theory for a Changing Society. Boulder, CO: Westview.
64. Salomon, Albert (1945) ‘German Sociology’, in Georges Gurvitch and Wilbert Moore (eds) Twentieth-Century Sociology. New York: Philosophical Library.
65. Schäfers, Bernhard (1981) Sozialstruktur und Wandel der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Stuttgart: Enke.
66. Schluchter, Wolfgang (1979) ‘The Paradox of Rationalization: On the Relation of Ethics and World’, in Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter (eds) Max Weber's Vision of History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
67. Schluchter, Wolfgang (1981) The Rise of Western Rationalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
68. Schluchter, Wolfgang (1996) Paradoxes of Modernity: Culture and Conduct in the Theory of Max Weber. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
69. Scott, Richard W. (1995) Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
70. Scott, Richard W. and John W. Meyer (1994) Institutional Environments and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
71. Skocpol, Theda (1979) States and Social Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
72. Skocpol, Theda (1993) Protecting Mothers and Soldiers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
73. Skocpol, Theda and Margaret Weir (1984) ‘State Structures and the Possibilities for Keynsesian Responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States’, in Peter Evans, Theda Skocpol and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds) Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press.
74. Smelser, Neil J. (1991) Social Paralysis and Social Change: British Education in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Russell Sage. (Orig. pub. 1958.)
75. Smith, Dorothy (1987) The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
76. Smith, Dorothy (1990) The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
77. Somers, Margaret P. (1999) ‘Citizenship in Eighteenth-Century England’, American Journal of Sociology 99(2): 432-465.
78. Sumner, William Graham (1906) Folkways. Boston, MA: Ginn.
79. Swidler, Ann (1986) ‘Culture in Action’, American Sociological Review 51(2): 273-286.
80. Tenbruck, F. H. (1980) ‘The Problem of Thematic Unity in the Works of Max Weber’, British Journal of Sociology 31(2): 313-351.
81. Tocqueville, Alexis de (1945) Democracy in America, 2 vols. New York: Vintage. (Orig. pub. 1835.)
82. Vaughan, Diane (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
83. Walker, Mack (1971) German Home Towns. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
84. Wallace, Ruth A. (ed.) (1989) Feminism and Sociological Theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
85. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1974) The Modern World-System. New York: Academic Press.
86. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1979) The Capitalist World-Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
87. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1980) The Modern World System II. New York: Academic Press.
88. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1984) The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements and the Civilizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
89. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1989) The Modern World System III. New York: Academic Press.
90. Warner, R. Stephen (1978) ‘Toward a Redefinition of Action Theory: Paying the Cognitive Element its Due’, American Journal of Sociology 83(6): 1317-1349.
91. Weber, Max (1927) General Economic History, trans. Frank H. Knight. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1923: Wirtschaftsgeschichte, ed. S. Hellman and M. Palyi, Munich: Duncker und Humblot.)
92. Weber, Max (1946a) ‘Religious Rejections of the World’, in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Zwischenbetrachtung’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr.)
93. Weber, Max (1946b) ‘The Social Psychology of the World Religions’, in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Einleitung’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr.)
94. Weber, Max (1946c) ‘Science as a Vocation’, in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Johannes Winckelmann. Tübingen: Mohr.)
95. Weber, Max (1949) ‘ “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy’, in Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (eds) The Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch. New York: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Die “Objectivität” sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Johannes Winckelmann. Tübingen: Mohr.)
96. Weber, Max (1951) The Religion of China, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth. New York: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Konfuzianismus und Taoismus’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr.)
97. Weber, Max (1952) Ancient Judaism, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and Don Martindale. New York: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Das Antike Judentum’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr.)
98. Weber, Max (1958) The Religion of India, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and Don Martindale. New York: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Hinduismus und Buddhismus’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr.)
99. Weber, Max (1968) Economy and Society, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. New York: Bedminster Press. (Orig. pub. 1921 [repr. 1976]: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, ed. Johannes Winckelmann. Tübingen: Mohr.)
100. Weber, Max (1972) ‘Antikritisches zum “Geist” des Kapitalismus’, in Johannes Winckelmann (ed.) Max Weber: Die protestantische Ethik II, Kritiken und Antikritiken. Hamburg: Siebenstern Verlag. (Orig. pub. 1910.)
101. Weber, Max (1985) ‘ “Churches” and “Sects” in North America: An Ecclesiastical Socio-Political Sketch’, trans. Colin Loader Sociological Theory 3(1): 7-13. (Orig. pub. 1906: ‘Kirchen und Sekten in Nordamerika’, Christliche Welt20(24-5): 558-62, 577-82.)
102. Weber, Max (2002a) ‘Prefatory Remarks’, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Stephen Kalberg. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury/Oxford: Blackwell. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Vorbemerkung’, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr.)
103. Weber, Max (2002b) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Stephen Kalberg. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury/Oxford: Blackwell. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: ‘Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr.)
104. Weber, Max (2002c) ‘The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism’ in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Stephen Kalberg (essay trans. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills). Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury/Oxford: Blackwell. (Orig. pub. 1920 [repr. 1972]: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr.)
105. Weir, Margaret (1989) ‘Ideas and Politics: The Acceptance of Keynesianism in Britain and the United States’, in Peter A. Hall (ed.) The Political Power of Economic Ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
106. Weir, Margaret (1992a) Politics and Jobs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
107. Weir, Margaret (1992b) ‘Ideas and Politics of Bounded Innovation’, in Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen and Frank Longstreth (eds) Structuring Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
108. Wellman, Barry (1983) ‘Network Analysis: Some Basic Principles’, in Randall Collins (ed.) Sociological Theory - 1983. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
109. White, Harrison (1992) Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
110. White, Morton (1957) Social Thought in America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. (Orig. pub. 1947.)
111. Ziegler, Nicholas (1997) Governing Ideas: Strategies for Innovation in France and Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.