NCJ Number
138186
Journal
American Journal of Economics and Sociology Dated: (1992) Pages: 68-70
Date Published
1992
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This book review of James Rule's "Theories of Civil Violence" examines the author's views of social science theories and their usefulness to the study of civil violence.
Abstract
Rule, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York, concludes that social scientists are too prone to accept or reject theories on the basis of their rhetorical appeal. Thus, he finds it hard to vouch for any real progress in the field other than the accumulation of data. By Rule's account, social science lies somewhere between natural science and literature or art. Like natural science, social science has what he calls a "theoretical yearning." This yearning is the search for explanatory forces to account for the presence or absence of a phenomenon in a set of important or interesting cases. Because Rule focuses on contrast sets, he finds some merit in most theories; according to Rule, each theory addresses itself to somewhat different questions and manifestations of civil violence. Rule believes that most theories of civil violence cannot be categorically rejected. He also says that the shifting of attention from one theory to another in response to changes in the intellectual, cultural, or political environment is the single greatest obstacle to the study of civil violence.