Toward a Historical Sociology of Social Problems

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a historical sociology of social problems based on a constructionist approach. This paper clarifies several points.

First, this paper takes up a study, the “Historical Sociology of Discourses on Mental Disorders,” written by Masahiro Sato in 2013; it is an excellent project which combines a constructionist “history of ideas” with comparative historical sociology developed by Theda Skocpol.

Second, this paper introduces Hiroyuki Hoshiro's three viewpoints on causal relationships: (a) a theory which explains why an event occurs; (b) a theory which integrates several theories; and (c) a theory which describes what an event or a state is. Constructionism concerning social problems is an approach that accounts for the emergence, nature, and maintenance of claim-making activities and discourse and is regarded as based on (c) or “thick descriptions.” This study, however, confirms that it does not fully reject causal relationships in a number of constructionist historical studies.

Third, based on a process-creating method proposed by Hoshiro, this paper attempts a comparative historical sociology on low birthrate measures in Japan since the 1990s. As a result, it shows that measures for employment and secure income are sufficient conditions for establishing the outcome that a measure is effective for increasing the birthrate.

Fourth, this paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of causal explanations suggested by the process-creating method and asserts that the natural history model of social problems, which focuses on the chains and changes of claim-making activities and discourse, is an effective process-tracing method when a such a method cannot fully specify the causal mechanisms of events.