SOC40810

Rather than a constant, stable structure, our social reality is in flux. Seemingly permanent fixtures of our social, demographic and political landscape fade, suddenly collapse and emerge within remarkably short periods of time. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Brexit and from the Arab Spring to the Syrian Refugee Crisis, social currents ebb and flow in seeming unpredictable ways. Rather than accept that our society evolves randomly, this module seeks to offer insight into the theory and logic of social change.

The study of social change within and between societies is a central concern in classical and contemporary sociology. This module critically examines some of the sociological theories and concepts that have been devised to analyse comparative social change. It focuses in particular on theories and concepts of state-society relations and on institutionalism as a perspective to better understand and explain social change across societies. It then critically applies these theories and concepts to a selection of historical and contemporary case-studies of countries, regions and social movements. The main aim of the case-studies is to illustrate some of the durable concepts, robust findings, internal differences and unresolved issues in the study of comparative social change.