This paper adds to a vital international tradition of discussing the history of sociological theory by empirically investigating its structure, dynamics, and relationships. Our primary contribution to this tradition is to bring to the conversation a greater level of comparative and historical scope, a more systematic quantitative methodology, and a degree of reflexivity and synthesis. To do so, we examine some 670 editions of sociological-theory books geared toward students, published in English, German, and French between 1950 and 2020. Our empirical analysis highlights patterns, trends, and relationships among the theorists featured in these books, the narratives and approaches that define their visions of sociological theory, and the characteristics of the authors who wrote them. Our findings reveal some key intellectual as well as sociological factors associated with the changing composition of the canon.

Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, this article presents a systematic comparison of differences in the institutional success of sociology in 25 European countries during the academic expansion from 1945 until the late 1960s. Combining context-sensitive national histories of sociology, concept formation, and formal analyses of necessary and sufficient conditions, the article searches for historical explanations for both successful and inhibited processes of the institutionalization of sociology. Concretely, it assesses the interplay of political regime types, the continuous presence of sociological prewar traditions, political Catholicism, and the effects of sociological communities in neighboring countries and how their various combinations are related to more or less well-established sociologies. The results can help explain adversary effects under democratic conditions as well as supportive factors under nondemocratic conditions.

If Latin America's public universities are considered part of the state, then it seems plausible to characterise them as similar to the state, i.e. as clientelistic. However, this plausible hypothesis has never been examined by the literature on twentieth-century Mexican social sciences. Just like clientelism, science patrons such as US philanthropic foundations have similarly been neglected. In this article I argue that, as an alternative to what the Rockefeller Foundation perceived as clientelism and amateurism at Latin American universities, it claimed to patronise liberal scholarship, practised according to formal rational criteria. While foundations have been frequently considered part of a US imperialistic drive towards cultural hegemony in Latin America, they were not unitary actors and frequently failed to predict the actual impact of their grants. In Mexico in the 1940s, the Rockefeller Foundation boosted the humanities, but missed the opportunity to support a local take on social science teaching and research.

The pragmatist theory of history, action, and sociality can be understood as the result of a specific interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which has nothing in common with teleological, reductionist, or social Darwinist evolutionary models. This historical claim will be developed in three steps. First, I will show why Darwin’s theory was so attractive to the classical pragmatists and how their conception of history was affected by their reading of Darwin. Second, I will illustrate how the pragmatist understanding of individual action was influenced by contemporary discussions in evolutionary theory, physiology, and psychology. Third, I will discuss pragmatism’s “cultural naturalism” (John Dewey), according to which a new, autonomous level of sociocultural change emerges as a result of the process of biological evolution. The reconstruction of pragmatist evolutionary thought not only aims to achieve a better historical understanding of pragmatism but also implies a systematic and theoretical claim. As will be argued in the last section of this paper, the timeliness and continuing relevance of pragmatism is largely due to the fact that it took shape in a transdisciplinary context and remained an “empirically responsible” theory (Erkki Kilpinen). Currently, various innovative developments within psychology, the cognitive sciences, neurophysiology, and ethology are connected with the core insights of pragmatism, thereby supporting the argument that pragmatism is still evolving.

This study analyses three recurrent themes in the presidential addresses read at the American Sociological Association (ASA) annual meetings, 1906–98. First, most ASA presidential addresses reflected a pride in democracy and equality – a spirit that positions America as leader of the world both socially and morally. The second theme was race conflict. ASA presidents frequently discussed the question of equal rights for ‘African-Americans’, suggesting that racial and social barriers encouraged social fragility and instability. Ensuing racial riots and protests were referred to as indications of such social problems, which American society (and sociology) failed either to recognise or to solve. Finally, ASA presidents were preoccupied with the theme of social change and its unpredictability in America. Based on this analysis, we argue that the constitutional premises of American democracy have allowed for both protests and the enlargement of political arenas and boundaries, and have systematically dissolved political issues and metamorphosed them into social issues.