The emergence of sociology from political economy in the United States: 1890 to 1940

Abstract

Professional sociology in the U.S. began as a field area within economics, but gradually emerged as a separate discipline. Using new data on joint meetings and the separation of departments, I track interdisciplinary relations through three phases: sponsorship (1890-1905), collaboration (1905-1940), and disengagement (post-1940). In the early years, sociology was mostly a branch of economics departments. With the formation of the American Sociological Society, relations with economics began to be more characterized by professionally autonomous collaboration. The 1920s saw a large wave of sociology departments separating from economics. Still, joint annual meetings (including joint presidential addresses) remained the norm until 1940. Paradigmatic conflict between institutional and neoclassical economists was the major force that sustained the economics-sociology collaboration. As institutionalism faded from the scene in the late 1930s, so went interdisciplinary contact.

The Superiority of Economists

“…(Abbott 2001;Frank and Gabler 2006). This process has obscured the common heritage-the fact that history and moral philosophy gave birth to political economy back in the nineteenth century (see Haskell 1977;Ross 1991, for a US-focused discussion), while American sociology arose partly from within economics in the early part of the twentieth century (Young 2009).…”

Association, Service, Market: Higher Education in American Political Development

“…Academic faculty were organized into departments offering instruction in fields of study defined as disciplines. In this manner, political economy-a fluid intellectual domain comprising the study of economics, politics, and general social theory-was parsed into the tidier academic disciplines of economics, political science, and sociology (Young 2009). The rise of national scholarly associations defined by discipline was crucial to this evolution, simultaneously providing clear professional identities to aspiring scholars and organizing distinct labor markets for jobs in disciplinary departments.…”

La superioridad de los economistas

“…Segunda, en las ciencias sociales ha habido un rápido crecimiento demográfico desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, que ha provocado diferenciación interna e híper especialización (Abbott, 2001;Frank y Gabler, 2006). Este proceso ha oscurecido la herencia común -el hecho de que la historia y la filosofía moral dieron origen a la economía política en el siglo XIX (ver Haskell, 1977, y Ross, 1991, para un análisis centrado en Estados Unidos), mientras que la sociología estadounidense surgió en parte de la economía a comienzos del siglo XX (Young, 2009).…”