Morphogenesis Answers Its Critics

"Margaret S. Archer is responsible for important conceptual developments in critical realism and the structure-agent problem but her explanatory framework often opposes those of other influential theorists. In this book she provides a response to critics of her work in the form of a set of discussions of published articles"--

Margaret S. Archer was responsible for important conceptual developments in critical realism and the structure-agent problem, but her explanatory framework often opposed those of other influential theorists. In this book she provides a response to critics of her work in the form of a set of discussions of published articles.

Critical realism, as a toolkit of practical ideas, helps researchers to extend and clarify their analyses. It resolves problems arising from splits between different research approaches, builds on the strengths of different methods and overcomes their individual limitations. This original text draws on international examples of health and illness research across the life course, from small studies to large trials, to show how versatile critical realism can be in validating research and connecting it to policy and practice. To meet growing demand from students and researchers, this book is based on the course at UCL, first taught by Roy Bhaskar, the founder of critical realism.

Mechanisms are very much a part of social life. For example, we can see that inequality has tended to increase over time, and that cities can become segregated. But how do such mechanisms work? Analytical sociology is an influential approach to sociology which holds that explanations of social phenomena should focus on the social mechanisms that bring them about. This book evaluates the major features of this approach, focusing on the significance of the notion of mechanism. Leading scholars seek to answer a number of questions in order to explore all the relevant dimensions of mechanism-based explanations in social sciences. How do social mechanisms link together individual actions and social environments? What is the role of multi-agent modelling in the conceptualization of mechanisms? Does the notion of mechanism solve the problem of relevance in social sciences explanations?

"This book offers a hands-on introduction and teaching resource for students, users, and teachers of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA; Ragin, 1987, 2000, 2008b). Given its superior ability to model certain aspects of complexity, QCA has made inroads into virtually every social science discipline and beyond. Software solutions for QCA have also been developing at a fast pace. This book seeks to reduce the time and effort required when we first encounter the logic of not just a new method but also new software. It offers a genuinely simple, intuitive, and hands-on resource for implementing the state-of-the-art protocol of QCA using R, the most advanced software environment for QCA. Our book has an applied and practical focus"--

Explores the relationship between structure and agency through human reflexivity and the internal conversation.

In seventeenth-century France, land took on new importance for the practice of politics and rituals of court life. In her major new book, Chandra Mukerji highlights the connections between the two seemingly disparate activities of engineering and garden design. She shows how, at Versailles in particular, the royal park showcased French skills in using nature and art to design a distinctively French landscape and create a naturalized political territoriality. She challenges the association of state power with social and legal structures alone and demonstrates the importance for Louis XIV and his state of a controlled physical site, a demarcated French territory within the wider European geo-political continent.

This new textbook offers a succinct yet broad introduction to critical realism, an increasingly popular approach to the philosophy of science that provides a holistic alternative to both positivism and postmodernism. This text sets out the central concepts, arguments and understandings in critical realism and relates them to social scientific practice. In addition to answering the question 'what is critical realism?', the authors consider critical realism in light of two crucial themes in contemporary society – neoliberalism and climate change – which run as common threads throughout the chapters. While some introductions to the topic focus exclusively on the work of Roy Bhaskar – critical realism's best-known proponent – this text covers a much wider range of thinkers and social researchers, and also features Key Concept boxes and CR in Action boxes throughout to aid the reader through this complex yet rewarding subject. This text is the perfect entry point for all those studying critical realism for the first time, or for those seeking to re-familiarise themselves with this approach. Whether you're studying critical realism as part of a broader course on the philosophy of science or seeking to apply critical realist methods to a particular research project, this book is essential reading for the social sciences, humanities and beyond.