Comparative Historical Sociology and the State: Problems of Method

Abstract

Historical sociology can be understood both as a specific sub-field of sociology and as providing general conceptual underpinnings of the discipline, to the extent that it provides an understanding of the specificity of the modern state and the perceived emergence of modernity within Europe. The association of modernity with Europe (and with a European history limited to the self-identified boundaries of the continent) is commonplace and pervasive within the social sciences and humanities. What such an understanding fails to take into consideration, however, are the connections between Europe and the rest of the world that constitute the broader context for the emergence of what is understood to be the modern world and its institutions, such as the state and market. In this article, I suggest that integral to this misunderstanding, and its reproduction over time, is the methodology of comparative historical sociology as represented by ideal types. In contrast, I argue for ‘connected sociologies’ as a more appropriate way to understand our shared past and its continuing impact upon the present. I examine these issues in the context of historical sociological understandings of nation-state formation.

Postcolonial sociology as a remedy for global diffusion theory

“…Second, postcolonial sociology overcomes Eurocentric unidirectionality by not assuming, a priori, that Europe is the birthplace of modern norms and institutions that then diffuse to the periphery. Rather, postcolonial analyses ‘provincialize Europe’ (Chakrabarty, 1989/2000a) and integrate the Global South with the Global North, thereby excavating the often-buried interconnections and interactive/relational dynamics that constitute the modern social world (Bhambra, 2007, 2014, 2016; Go, 2013, 2016; Magubane, 2005; Patel, 2006). Different from the social networks relational approaches in diffusion research, Bhambra (2014, p. 156) advocates for ‘a sociology of connections that takes seriously the histories of interconnection that have enabled the world to emerge as a global space.’ Similarly, Go (2016) argues that relationalism can help overcome the tendency to analytically and artificially bifurcate social relations.…”

“…In postcolonial arguments, the development of capitalist modernity is at its inception colonial, racial, and global. Where world polity and coercive theories speak of Western ‘nation-states,’ postcolonial sociology urges us to more accurately conceptualize them as imperial states with boundaries and tentacles that extend globally and a use of violence both in the national territory and the dominated territories across the world (Bhambra, 2016; Shilliam, 2013). In addition to this, building on a smaller body of scholarship within postcolonial sociology, such as Virdee (2019), I argue that it is critical that we also situate racialization and racism within the ongoing unfolding of capitalism and to examine the ways in which imperial states and colonies are racialized.…”

Beyond the Modern: Muslim Youth Imaginaries of Nation in Northern Nigeria

“…However, a further critique of late modern theories is their neglect of postcolonial and Global South perspectives. This article draws on postcolonial and poststructural writers to highlight sociology's historical Eurocentric biases, its neglect of the interdependencies of modernity with coloniality and its misrecognition of the complexities of nation in contexts of postcoloniality (Bhambra, 2007(Bhambra, , 2016Chatterjee, 1993Chatterjee, , 2003Go, 2013).…”

Colonial legacies, armed revolts and state violence: the Maoist movement in India

“…Violence has been an integral part of the nation-state discourse and practice, based on the premise that successful nation-states initially were imperial states that exercised power and control over populations in distant places. 2 The imperial/colonial states in the practice of violence are matched by their postcolonial counterparts in equal measure. Thus, among several legacies the postcolonial state in India inherited from British colonialism is the reciprocal violence between the state and its subjects.…”