Sociological Theory and Methods
Online ISSN : 1881-6495
Print ISSN : 0913-1442
ISSN-L : 0913-1442
Volume 7, Issue 2
Displaying 1-9 of 9 articles from this issue
Special Section : Society and Choice
  • Kazuo SEIYAMA
    1992Volume 7Issue 2 Pages 2_1-2_23
    Published: November 01, 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
         Recently various attempts of explaining institutions or social order are commonplace among scholars in the side of rational choice theory. Yet, it is not clear what those attempts actually accomplished.
         First, the basic structure of explanation in rational choice theory has to be clarified. Among four types of concepts of “rationality”. i. e. rationality of preference, strong rationality, weak rationality, and creative rationality, only weak rationality can serve as the theoretically meaningful concept in rational choice theory. Rational choice theory explains individual's action by logically deriving it from his subjective preference and subjective knowledge, which may be called “primary theory”, about the situation which surrounds him. These preference and knowledge have to be inferred by theorists.
         Secondly, institutions and social order are conceptually distinguished from mere aggregates of actions. They are rather rooted in primary theories of actors. Knowledges are inept to be rationally explained.
         Hence, to the extent that institusions and social order are founded on the knowledges which are not rationally founded, rational choice theory fails to explain them.
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  • Gaku DOBA
    1992Volume 7Issue 2 Pages 2_25-2_43
    Published: November 01, 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
         As is commonly known, Talcott Parsons insisted that utilitarian social theories pretended to solve the Hobbesian problem of order by extending the concept of “rationality” tacitly. But, even though it is true, Parsons did not clarify what do they require in addition to the concept of “rationality” to solve the problem. In this paper, I try to identify it on a logical basis. Roughly speaking, there are two solutions, i. e.“constructivist solution” and “spontaneousness solution”, which utilitarian social theories are able to present. But at the bottom these solutions commonly have a crucial concept to solve the problem. that is: sympathetic imagination. I mean by this our dispositions to accept other's various behaviors as something to be able to give a new “meaning” or to start a new “game”. Because classical utilitarian social theories incorporated this concept of “sympathetic imagination” with the concept of “rationality” into their understandings of human beings, the Hobbesian problem of order was able to be a interesting problem for them.
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  • Justice and Discrimination
    Eriko NAGATA
    1992Volume 7Issue 2 Pages 2_45-2_60
    Published: November 01, 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
         The purpose of this paper is to make a formalization of justice and discrimination. Justice is made from each individual's perception of justice. And each perception is made from his/ her categorization of people in the society. People are categorizing each other and are perceiving that all two individuals in the same category must be treated equal. The justice is an aggregation of such perceptions. In other words, there exists a social choice mechanism of justice. Once, the justice is decided in the society, some people see the discrimination in that justice.
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  • Yoshinori TOMIYAMA
    1992Volume 7Issue 2 Pages 2_61-2_83
    Published: November 01, 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
         This paper treats with both the 1-q-type social matching problems and the social matching procedure problems under two-sided preference orderings. Keeping college admission institutions in mind, these problems are described as follows. The former is that “There are the set C of colleges and the set S of students. Each college has a quota q of students. Every college has a preference ordering over the set S and every student has a preference ordering over the set C, according to the willingness to match respectively. Given these preference orderings, how the colleges and the students should be matched under such the restriction that no student is matched to more than one college and no college is matched more than its quota of students?” The latter is that “The institutional arrangements by which the matching is accomplished are called the social matching procedures. What socially desirable properties they should have? Does such a procedure exist? If so, then what is it?” The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize some literatures about these two matching problems and to discuss theoretical, practical and empirical questions which are remaining unsolved.
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Articles
  • How Well Do They Apply to Peasant Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Japan ?
    Daishiro NOMIYA
    1992Volume 7Issue 2 Pages 2_85-2_104
    Published: November 01, 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
         The objective of this study is to explore the applicability of the structural theories developed in the area of social movements and collective action to a Japanese historical case. Three theories originated in Europe and America - breakdown theory, class conflict theory, and resource mobilization theory - offer competing explanations for the rise of peasant rebellion, as well as different pictures of peasants and agrarian societies. The purpose of this study is modest: to contribute to the establishment of an empirical foundation for the following inquiry. How well do these three theories apply to the rise of peasant rebellion in premodern Japan?
         A cross-regional study is performed using 2,045 cases of peasant uprising occurring during the period 1848-1877 across 631 counties in Japan. It employs multivariate regression analysis combined with the techniques of structural equations to examine the impact of structural factors on the occurrence of uprisings. The study shows that none of the three theories applies well to the experience of nineteenth-century Japan, suggesting differing compositions of social structural forces and their working in their formation of premodern popular protest between Japan and some European countries. A few possible routes are discussed for further investigation of the extent of the applicability and generalizability of the structural theories to the Japanese experience, and beyond.
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  • Masao NOBE
    1992Volume 7Issue 2 Pages 2_105-2_122
    Published: November 01, 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
         This study addresses two main areas. First, the study focuses on the effect the population size of migrants' community of orientation (the community in which they spent their teens) has on their present socio-economic status. Second, attention is given to the status which migrants have achieved in the social stratification of their residing city, as opposed to natives. To gather empirical evidence, a sample survey of women in four study areas of Canberra was conducted in 1986-1987. Three hundred and ninety-four women, under 56 years of age, who were married or in a de facto relationship were interviewed. Analysis of the data has revealed the following;
         (1) Migrants were not different from natives in their father's occupational status.
         (2) The larger migrants' community of orientation had been, the higher their socio-economic status (educational attainment, partner's occupational status, and family income). Migrants from rural areas or small urban communities were similar to natives in their educational attainment, occupational status, and family income. However, partner's occupational status of the former group was higher than that of the latter.
         (3) The population size of migrants' community of orientation had a direct effect on their educational attainment and their partner's occupational status, but had an indirect effect on their family income.
         (4) While migrants tended to have higher occupational status in Canberra, natives were inclined to have lower occupational status. This is explained by the fact that Canberra is a political city with few industries.
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