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Book Review: Advancing Strong Programmes

There can be little doubt that a great number of excellent contributions from British sociologists have helped to advance the discipline – both theoretically and empirically. But this is not the entire story, particularly not when looking at the more recent past. It only takes a Mertonian moment to realize that there are also some not-so-helpful side effects or unintended features of the newly gained access of the social sciences to power after the long dry spell of the Thatcher and Major years. It seems that the longer New Labour stays in power and the more the social sciences are attracted to their favourite constellation (be it for securing resources or simply for narcissistic purposes), the thicker the jargon gets. How thin some of the arguments have become one can easily detect by reading what has become truly fashionable, be it the latest treatises from Anthony Giddens or Zygmunt Bauman or other interventions from the ‘identity industry’. In such a situation it might be helpful to take a closer look at what is happening in other parts of the world. For this purpose, I will review two newly published essay collections by two prominent sociologists, Jeffrey C. Alexander (Yale) and