TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen A1 - Hartmann, Eddie T1 - Violence JF - Oxford Bibliographies sociology Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0137 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Towards a sociological explanation of violence in conflicts of social orders JF - Berliner Journal für Soziologie = Journal de sociologie de Berlin N2 - The article argues that the uprisings during the Arab Spring as well as the riots in either the banlieues of French cities or in London have to be considered as violent conflicts that pose a serious threat to the social orders in which they emerge. These different kinds of social resistance have in common that they communicate more or less developed alternative conceptions of social orders that challenge what has been considered legitimate so far. Until now, sociology has neither successfully explained such kinds of conflicts nor the way they are triggered. Therefore, the article discusses crucial problems of a sociology of violence, i.e. violence as term and concept, theoretical and methodological deficits and, finally, assumptions about the role of violence in conflict-ridden processes of modernization and civilization in general. The article argues that a sociology of violence should concentrate on the nexus of social order and violence in order to explain how and why violent conflicts emerge in specific social contexts. Thus, a sociology of violence should take an effort to reconstruct the crucial social mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of emerging violence in processes of production and reproduction of social order. KW - Social order KW - Conflicts of social orders KW - Conceptions of social orders KW - Legitimization KW - Social relations KW - Relational sociology KW - Collective violence Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11609-013-0210-y SN - 0863-1808 SN - 1862-2593 VL - 23 IS - 1 SP - 91 EP - 113 PB - Springer CY - Wiesbaden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - The secret society of torturers BT - the social shaping of extremely violent behaviour JF - Internationale journal of conflict and violence N2 - The Secret Society of Torturers107How do normal people become able to torture others? In order to explain this puzzling social phenomenon, we have to take secrecy – the characteristic trait of modern torture – as the lynchpin of the analysis. Following Georg Simmel’s formal analysis of the “secret society”, the contribution reconstructs structural and cultural aspects of the secret society of torturers that generate social processes that allow its members to behave extremely violently, forcing individuals to turn into torturers. The contribution argues that the form of social behaviour that we call torture is socially shaped. It goes beyond social psychology to de-velop an explanation from the perspective of relational sociology Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0070-ijcv-2015130 SN - 1864–1385 VL - 9 IS - 1 SP - 106 EP - 120 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Soziale Schließung JF - Politische Soziologie : Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium Y1 - 2023 SN - 978-3-8487-4836-5 PB - Nomos CY - Baden-Baden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Social life as collective struggle BT - closure theory and the problem of solidarity JF - sozialpolitik.ch N2 - In recent years, all over the globe we have seen intensifying economic exploitation, political disenfranchisement, social marginalization and cultural repression in all kinds of political regimes, from liberal democratic to authoritarian and dictatorial. Although the strategies vary with regard to regime and context, in all of them we observe that while a growing number of social groups are speaking out and rising against them, a presumably much higher number of groups do not. In this article, I argue that all these processes can be conceived as aspects of ongoing closure struggles in social life. However, in order to understand why some social groups are able to fight against closure strategies while others are not, closure theory in its current state of elaboration is not of any help. While it operates with the term solidarization, it does not offer any explanation of how such acting in solidarity may become possible in closure struggles. The article is a mainly theoretical contribution of how to solve this problem. KW - social closure KW - struggle KW - solidarization KW - democracy Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.18753/2297-8224-174 SN - 2297-8224 IS - 1 PB - Universität CY - Freiburg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Social Closure JF - Oxford Bibliographies N2 - “Social closure” is one of the most basic terms and concepts in sociology. Basically, closure refers to processes of drawing boundaries, constructing identities, and building communities in order to monopolize scarce resources for one’s own group, thereby excluding others from using them. Society is not a homogenous entity but is instead internally structured and subdivided by processes of social closure. Some social formations, such as groups, organizations, or institutions, may be open to everybody, provided they are capable of participation, while access to most others is limited due to certain criteria that either allow people to become members or exclude them from membership. Therefore, social closure is a ubiquitous, everyday phenomenon that can be observed in almost every sphere and place in the social world. Members of societies experience closure from the very beginning of their social life. To be excluded from certain groups starts at school, where presumably homogenous classes begin to subdivide into distinct peer groups or sports teams. Here, exclusion may be rather arbitrary, but the experience of having a door slammed in one’s face proceeds in cases, where inclusion depends on formal rules or preconditions. Access to private schools follows explicit rules and depends on financial capacities; access to university depends on a certificate or diploma, eventually from certain schools only; membership in a highly prestigious club depends on economic and social capital and the respective social networks; and finally, in the case of migration, people will have to be eligible for citizenship and pass the thorny path of naturalization. However, it is not just the enormous plurality of forms that makes social closure crucial for sociology. Rather, the process of closure of social relations—of groups, organizations, institutions, and even national societies—is the fundamental process of both “communal” (Vergemeinschaftung) and “associative” relationships (Vergesellschaftung), and neither would be possible without social closure. In this broad and fundamental sense, social closure is not restricted to processes in national societies. It even allows for understanding crucial processes of the way the social world is organized at the regional or global level. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0084 PB - Oxford University CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Schließung, soziale JF - Max Weber-Handbuch : Leben - Werk - Wirkung Y1 - 2014 SN - 978-3-534-26348-6 SP - 122 EP - 124 PB - WBG CY - Darmstadt ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Reorganiszation and Stabilization BT - social mechanisms in ́Emile Durkheim’s professional ethics and civicMorals: a contribution to the explanation of social processes JF - Journal of classical sociology N2 - The consequences of economic globalization have created a new interest in ́EmileDurkheim’s conception of an institutional and moral reorganization of modernsociety that he developed in Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. Contrary toexisting attempts to explain these political processes towards democratization, thisarticle argues for a causal analysis of social change and concentrates on the socialmechanisms that trigger the reorganization process of modern society. Two thesesare entertained. The first thesis argues that the programme of an institutional andmoral reorganization of modern society can be reanalysed as a causal process ofdemocratization. This process takes two steps. While social mechanisms of reorgan-izationbring about the institutional and moral reorganization of modern society,social mechanisms of stabilizationguarantee the functioning of the emergingdemocratic system. Further, the second thesis argues that this kind of explanationcan be applied to Durkheim’s vision of a European confederation. The analysisreveals that his idea of a ‘post-national’ constellation refers to crucial problems ofthe recent debate regarding a democratic deficit in the European Union, and itshows that Durkheim’s contribution to both political sociology and historical-comparative research has been misconceived and prematurely repudiated. Y1 - 2004 UR - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/1468795X04046970 SN - 1468-795X SN - 1741-2897 VL - 4 IS - 3 SP - 311 EP - 336 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Opportunitätsstrukturen und Lebenschancen T1 - Opportunity structures and life-chances T1 - Structures d’opportunités et chances de vie JF - Berliner Journal für Soziologie N2 - Der Beitrag diskutiert Genese, Bedeutungsgehalt und theoretischen Kontext des Merton’schen Konzepts der Opportunitätsstruktur und des von ihm bei Weber entliehenen Konzepts der Lebenschancen. Die These lautet, dass beide Konzepte konflikttheoretisch interpretiert werden müssen, damit sie ihr volles analytisches und erklärendes Potenzial zur Analyse zentraler sozialer Konflikte entfalten können. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass beide Konzepte in ihrem Bedeutungsgehalt konvergieren, ein konflikttheoretisch inspiriertes Verständnis aber unterschiedliche theoretische Strategien erfordert. Während die Opportunitätsstrukturen jenseits des Merton’schen Verständnisses reinterpretiert werden müssen, um verstehen zu können, dass das Handeln sozialer Akteure die Optionen anderer beschränken kann, ist für die Lebenschancen ein Zurück zu Max Webers ursprünglicher Idee angezeigt, um der Bedeutung sozialer Schließung als sozialen Mechanismus einer Auseinandersetzung um knappe Güter nachgehen zu können N2 - The article discusses the development, meaning and theoretical context of both Robert Merton’s concept of “opportunity structure” and the concept of “life-chances” that he took up from Max Weber. In order to analyze crucial social conflicts, I argue that both concepts should follow along the lines of conflict theory. While they converge in terms of meaning, we need different theoretical strategies to make their analytical and explanatory power explicit. First, a reinterpretation of the concept of opportunity structure shows that social actors might reduce others’ access to options while realizing their own aims; second, life-chances should be put again in a Weberian perspective for two reasons. On the one hand Weber already conceptualizes them in the context of social struggles, on the other hand he shows that the mechanism of social closure helps to understand how people exclude others from life-chances by monopolizing resources. N2 - Cet article discute la genèse, la signification et le contexte théorique du concept mertonien de structure d’opportunités et du concept wébérien de chances de vie (Lebenschancen) dont il s’inspire. La thèse défendue ici est que ces deux concepts doivent être interprétés à la lumière de la théorie du conflit pour révéler tout leur potentiel analytique et explicatif pour l’analyse de conflits sociaux majeurs. Nous partons de l’idée que ces deux concepts, qui sont la plupart du temps utilisés de manière intuitive, ont une signification convergente et nécessitent une compréhension inspirée par la théorie du conflit mais différentes stratégies théoriques. Tandis qu’il faut réinterpréter les structures d’opportunités au-delà de leur acception mertonienne pour comprendre que l’action des acteurs sociaux peut limiter les options d’autres acteurs, il convient pour le concept de chances de vie de revenir à l’idée originelle de Max Weber pour mettre en évidence la signification de la clôture sociale comme un mécanisme social de lutte pour des biens rares. KW - Opportunitätsstruktur KW - Lebenschancen KW - Sozialstruktur KW - Konflikttheorie KW - Soziale Schließung KW - Opportunity structure KW - Life-chances KW - Social structure KW - Conflict theory KW - Social closure KW - Structure d’opportunités KW - Chances de vie KW - Structure sociale KW - Théorie du conflit KW - Clôture sociale Y1 - 2010 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11609-010-0135-7 SN - 1862-2593 SN - 0863-1808 VL - 20 IS - 3 SP - 401 EP - 420 PB - Springer CY - Wiesbaden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mackert, Jürgen T1 - Lebenschancen und die Dynamik sozialer Ungleichheit BT - Grundzüge eines schliessungstheoretischen Erklärungsansatzes JF - Soziale Ungleichheiten Y1 - 2010 SN - 978-3-03-777067-2 SP - 11 EP - 33 PB - Seismo CY - Zürich ER -