Sociologie

Imprisonment rates are assumed to have risen in the west, and social ientists argue that this can be explained by a process of economic neo-liberalisation. In this paper, we develop an alternative explanation, focusing on the rise of a ‘new political culture’. Longitudinal cross-national analyses are performed to test the tenability of these theories. First, it is demonstrated that some countries have been witnessing a trend of incarceration, but that there is no overall trend. Second, economic explanations for variations in imprisonment rates prove to be untenable. Third, it is shown that a new-rightist demand for social order, which is not inspired by economic neo-liberalisation, provides a better explanation. This leads to the conclusion that high incarceration rates can be understood as being part of a right-authoritarian politico-cultural complex.

On the basis of panel data on university students, the article concludes that the strong negative relationship between the level of education and the probability of a right wing vote, which is often observed, is due not so much to the socialization effect of the university as to selection: young people with right wing attitudes are much less likely to attend university.

The labour market position of Turks in the Netherlands is more unfavourable than in Germany, even after correction for differences in the observed individual characteristics. The effect of factors like the (vocational) schooling system, discrimination and the integration policy is likely to be small or doubtful. The main possible explanations are: (1) the relatively severe job cuts in industry during the 1980s in the Netherlands, combined with the use of social security arrangements as exit routes; (2) the immigration policy pursued, which was more restrictive and selective in Germany than in the Netherlands; which resulted in (3) a different profile of the Turkish population in Germany, who are likely to be better equipped than Turks in the Netherlands to find employment.

‘The people in this neighbourhood interact in a pleasant way - agree or disagree?’ ‘Theft of cars - how often does this occur in your neighbourhood?’ For a respondent these questions might not be as clear as they seem to be at first sight. For what do you still consider part of your neighbourhood? You may have a different opinion on your direct environment from that which you hold about the area a few blocks away. And the area on which the researchers base their conclusions is many times larger again.

In two branches of Dutch sociology, problems of distancing appear: theory places the researcher at a distance from his research object, acquisition of data is taking place from a distance; the data as such appears to have a distant quality; social phenomena are measured at a distance from social reality; the analysis and interpretation are removed from the objects of research. This distancing leads to a globalising sociology, risking a loss of vision of the complexity, heterogeneity and changing nature of social reality. This article is a plea for narrowing the gap between the sociological researcher and social reality: for reactivating observing and listening in sociology; embarking not only on the testing of theory, but also on the development of new theory; encouraging and practising qualitative social research; practising tests of proximity in the shape of validity tests; discouraging the use of data collected by official agencies; and institutionalising sociological research on a national level as well as regional and local levels.

In two branches of Dutch sociology, problems of distancing appear: theory places the researcher at a distance from his research object, acquisition of data is taking place from a distance; the data as such appears to have a distant quality; social phenomena are measured at a distance from social reality; the analysis and interpretation are removed from the objects of research. This distancing leads to a globalising sociology, risking a loss of vision of the complexity, heterogeneity and changing nature of social reality. This article is a plea for narrowing the gap between the sociological researcher and social reality: for reactivating observing and listening in sociology; embarking not only on the testing of theory, but also on the development of new theory; encouraging and practising qualitative social research; practising tests of proximity in the shape of validity tests; discouraging the use of data collected by official agencies; and institutionalising sociological research on a national level as well as regional and local levels.