Pure sociology
Encyclopedia
Like rational choice theory
Rational choice theory
Rational choice theory, also known as choice theory or rational action theory, is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior. It is the main theoretical paradigm in the currently-dominant school of microeconomics...

, conflict theory
Conflict theory
Conflict theories are perspectives in social science that emphasize the social, political or material inequality of a social group, that critique the broad socio-political system, or that otherwise detract from structural functionalism and ideological conservativism...

, or functionalism
Structural functionalism
Structural functionalism is a broad perspective in sociology and anthropology which sets out to interpret society as a structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions and institutions...

, pure sociology is a sociological paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...

 -- a strategy for explaining human behavior. Developed by Donald Black as an alternative to individualistic and social-psychological theories, pure sociology was initially used to explain variation in legal behavior
Legal behavior
In sociology, legal behavior refers to variations in the methods and degree of governmental social control of behavior.-Background:In 1976, theoretical sociologist Donald Black introduced a general sociological theory of law in his book The Behavior of Law. The theory exemplified Black's...

. Since then, Black and other pure sociologists have used the strategy to explain terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

, genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

, lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...

, and other forms of conflict management
Conflict management
Conflict management involves implementing strategies to limit the negative aspects of conflict and to increase the positive aspects of conflict at a level equal to or higher than where the conflict is taking place. Furthermore, the aim of conflict management is to enhance learning and group outcomes...

 as well as science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, and religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

.

Epistemology

Pure sociology explains social life with its social geometry
Social geometry
Social geometry is a theoretical strategy of sociological explanation, invented by sociologist Donald Black, which uses a multi-dimensional model to explain variations in the behavior of social life...

. Social life refers to any instance of human behavior—such as law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

, suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

, gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

, or art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 -- while the social geometry
Social geometry
Social geometry is a theoretical strategy of sociological explanation, invented by sociologist Donald Black, which uses a multi-dimensional model to explain variations in the behavior of social life...

 of a behavior, also called its social structure
Social structure
Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. The usage of the term "social structure" has changed over time and may reflect the various levels of analysis...

, refers to the social characteristics of those involved—such as their degree of past interaction or their level of wealth. To some extent this approach draws from aspects of earlier sociological
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 work, ranging from Durkheim's
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...

 emphasis on social explanations for individual behavior to later work in the variation of police (and other legal) behavior.

Differences

Virtually all sociology explains the behavior of people—whether groups or individuals—with some reference to their mental constructs (psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

) or the purposes of their action (teleology
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...

). But pure sociology reconceptualizes human behavior as social life—something that does not exist in the mind, is not explainable by the aims of actions, and is supraindividual. Pure sociology, then, can be distinguished from other sociological paradigms by what is absent from it: psychology, teleology, and even people as such. Pure sociology's focus on a unique social reality may sound Durkheimian, but Black views the approach as "more Durkheimian than Durkheim."

Explanations

In The Behavior of Law, published in 1976, Donald Black introduced the first example of pure sociology—a general theory of law, or governmental social control. This theory seeks to explain variation in law, and one aspect of legal variation
Legal behavior
In sociology, legal behavior refers to variations in the methods and degree of governmental social control of behavior.-Background:In 1976, theoretical sociologist Donald Black introduced a general sociological theory of law in his book The Behavior of Law. The theory exemplified Black's...

 is the amount of law attracted to a case of conflict. A conflict is a situation where one person has a grievance against another, such as where an assault has occurred or a contract has been broken, and the offended parties may or may not appeal to the police or to the civil courts to resolve it. Cases may attract law or not, then, and when they do attract law, there may be more or less of it. When the police make an arrest in an assault case, for instance, there is more law when there is merely a call to the police, and when someone is convicted and sentenced there is more law than when there is merely an arrest. The pure sociology of law explains this variation by identifying a number of sociological variables that are associated with variation in the quantity of law. These include various forms of social status (such as wealth, integration, culture, conventionality, organization, and respectability) as well as various forms of social distance (such as relational distance and cultural distance). These are aspects of the social structures of cases, then, and so cases where the disputants are both high in status have different social structures—and are handled differently—than cases involving low-status disputants. Whether the disputants are socially close to or distant from one another also determines the amount of law the case attracts. For example, one of the theory’s predictions is that within a society, law varies directly with relational distance. Relational distance refers to the amount and intensity of interaction between the parties, so the theory predicts that there is more law in conflicts between strangers than in those between intimates. This aspect of the theory explains numerous facts, such as why those who kill strangers are punished more severely than those who kill intimates and why women who are raped by strangers are more likely to report it to the police.

Since the publication of The Behavior of Law, Black and other pure sociologists have applied the theoretical strategy to numerous other subjects. Most notably, Black has developed a general theory of social control that goes beyond law to explain more generally the handling of all human conflicts. Most conflicts are handled without appealing to the legal system, and the theory thus explains not just law but avoidance
Conflict avoidance
Conflict avoidance is a method of dealing with conflict, which attempts to avoid directly confronting the issue at hand. Methods of doing this can include changing the subject, putting off a discussion until later, or simply not bringing up the subject of contention. Conflict avoidance can be used...

, gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

, therapy
Therapy
This is a list of types of therapy .* Adventure therapy* Animal-assisted therapy* Aquatic therapy* Aromatherapy* Art and dementia* Art therapy* Authentic Movement* Behavioral therapy* Bibliotherapy* Buteyko Method* Chemotherapy...

, feud
Feud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...

ing, and numerous other forms of non-governmental social control. In addition to extending the subject matter, this later work also extends the theory to focus not just on the social characteristics of the initial disputants in a conflict, but also of third parties (all those with knowledge of a conflict). For example, Mark Cooney examines how third party behavior shapes violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

. Whether and how third parties involve themselves in a conflict can determine not only the likelihood of violence, but also the form the violence takes. For example, social configurations characterized by close and distant group ties are conducive to feud-like behavior where violence occurs back and forth between groups over a long period of time. In this situation, third parties are members of groups, and they are relationally close to fellow group members but distant from others. When conflicts between groups occur, they thus support one side and oppose the other, and they may join in retaliatory violence against members of rival groups. Other social configurations are conducive to other forms of violence or even to peace. For example, where there are cross-cutting ties, such as where people are relationally close to members of other groups, third parties are more likely to promote peace.

Recently, Black has moved beyond the study of how conflicts are handled to examine the origin of conflict itself. Moral Time identifies the causes of clashes of right and wrong in human relationships. In doing so, this theory invokes a new explanatory concept—the idea of movement in social time -- and thus extends the pure sociological approach.

Black and others have also moved beyond conflict and social control to develop explanations of ideas, predation, welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...

, research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

, and other forms of social life. For example, Black’s theory of ideas explains the content of ideas with their social structures. Just as each conflict has a social structure that consists of the social characteristics of the disputants and third parties, every idea—every statement about reality—has a social structure consisting of the characteristics of the source, subject, and audience. For example, the subject of an idea may be intimate or distant from the source: People have ideas about family members and friends as well as strangers. The subject may also be high or low in social status: People have ideas about senators
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature or parliament. There have been many such bodies in history, since senate means the assembly of the eldest and wiser members of the society and ruling class...

 and businessmen
Businessperson
A businessperson is someone involved in a particular undertaking of activities for the purpose of generating revenue from a combination of human, financial, or physical capital. An entrepreneur is an example of a business person...

 as well as skid row
Skid row
A skid row or skid road is a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population. The term originally referred literally to a path along which working men skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest...

 vagrants. But ideas vary depending on their social structures. Black’s explanation of voluntarism and determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...

, for example, states that ideas about high status subjects are more likely to be voluntaristic (to invoke free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

). The theory would predict, then, that people would offer voluntaristic explanations of senators
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature or parliament. There have been many such bodies in history, since senate means the assembly of the eldest and wiser members of the society and ruling class...

 and businessmen
Businessperson
A businessperson is someone involved in a particular undertaking of activities for the purpose of generating revenue from a combination of human, financial, or physical capital. An entrepreneur is an example of a business person...

 and deterministic explanations of skid row
Skid row
A skid row or skid road is a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population. The term originally referred literally to a path along which working men skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest...

 vagrants.

Practitioners

A number of sociologists have used at least some elements of Black's theoretical strategy in their work, including Professors M.P. Baumgartner, Marian Borg, Bradley Campbell, Mark Cooney, Ellis Godard, Allan Horwitz, Scott Jacques, Marcus Kondkar, Jason Manning, Joseph Michalski, Calvin Morrill, Scott Phillips, Roberta Senechal de la Roche, and James Tucker.

Criticism

While prominent sociologists such as Randall Collins
Randall Collins
Randall Collins, Ph.D. is the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Advisory Editors Council of the Social Evolution & History Journal. He is considered to be one of the leading non-Marxist conflict theorists in the United...

, Karen A. Cerulo, David Sciulli, and Jonathan H. Turner
Jonathan H. Turner
Jonathan H. Turner is a professor of sociology at University of California, Riverside.After receiving his PhD from Cornell University in 1968, since the academic year 1969-1970 he has been at UCR. He has been Faculty Research Lecturer at UCR, and in the profession, he has been president of the...

 have praised aspects of pure sociology, the approach has also been criticized. Kam C. Wong criticizes pure sociology’s scientism, David F. Greenberg its use of covering-law explanations, and Thomas J. Scheff
Thomas J. Scheff
Thomas J. Scheff is Professor, Emeritus, Dept of Sociology, UCSB. His fields of study are the emotional/relational world, mental illness, restorative justice, and collective violence. He holds a BS from the University of Arizona in Physics , and a PhD in sociology from the University of California...

 its attempt at disciplinary purity. In a 2008 symposium, Douglas A. Marshall offers an extended critique of the system. Marshall argues that, contrary to Black’s stated goal of making sociology more scientific, his approach is actually antithetical to modern scientific values and practices—a theme reiterated by Stephen Turner
Stephen Park Turner
Stephen Park Turner was born in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in 1968 and then attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He received his undergraduate and his two masters degrees and his Ph.D. in sociology, with a dissertation on...

 in the same symposium.

Marshall's two-fold objections illustrate the extent to which critiques of Black's work miss the point entirely. First, Marshall charges that Black's reliance upon discredited covering-law and verificationist approaches to science, makes his model incapable of actually explaining the phenomena it addresses. (Marshall ignores that verificationism is critical to theoretical discovery but in no way precludes falsification - which Black indeed frequently invites.) Secondly, Marshall charges that the model is non-scientific, effectively immunized from disconfirmation by a profusion of sub-vectors, third parties, mediating variables, curvilinear functions, bidirectional asymmetry, and complementary varieties of social control, which collectively render the model untestable in practice. (Marshall ignores the ceteris parabus condition under which Black, Cooney, Tucker, other Pure Sociologists, and indeed all scientists operate. Each theoretical profusion is independently testable.)

Response to Criticism

Mark Cooney, Allan Horwitz, and Joseph Michalski have responded to some specific criticisms of pure sociology, while Donald Black, in "The Epistemology of Pure Sociology" as well as other writings, has responded generally to critics' claims and provided an extensive defense of the pure sociological approach.

Noting the ideological nature of many of the attacks, Black says that his theory is in fact "politically and morally neutral." But according to Black, it nonetheless attracts politicized hostility due to its unconventionality:


"My work is shocking not because it is politically incorrect
Politically incorrect
The phrase "politically incorrect" may refer to:* Someone or something which does not meet a standard of political correctness* Politically Incorrect, a late-night U.S. political talk show* Politically Incorrect, a German political blog...

, but because it is epistemologically incorrect. It violates conventional conceptions of social reality in general and legal and moral reality in particular. It therefore shocks -- epistemologically shocks -- many on whom it is inflicted. If I disturb your universe I may be worthy of contempt. I may appear to be your favorite political enemy, a conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 if you are radical
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...

, a radical
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...

 if you are conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

."


Black also discusses the aims of the approach. While it is unconventional sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, it is conventional science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, striving to provide simple
Simplicity
Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated...

, general, testable
Testability
Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and the practical feasibility of...

, valid, and original
Originality
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works by as being new or novel, and thus can be distinguished from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or derivative works....

 explanations of reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...

. And it is by these criteria alone, Black maintains, that it should be judged:


"If you wish to criticize my work, tell me you can predict and explain legal and related behavior better than I can. Tell me my work is not as testable as something else, tell me it is not as general as something else, tell me it is less elegant than something else, tell me that it has already been published, or just tell me it is wrong. Tell me something relevant to what I am trying to accomplish -- something scientific."

Further reading

Baumgartner, M.P.
  • 1978. “Law and social status in colonial New Haven.” Pages 153-178 in Research in Law and Sociology: An Annual Compilation of Research, Vol. 1, edited by Rita J. Simon. Greenwich: JAI Press.
  • 1984. “Social Control from Below.” Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 1: Fundamentals, edited by Donald Black. Orlando: Academic Press.
  • 1984. “Social Control in Suburbia.” In Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 2: Selected Problems, edited by Donald Black. Orlando: Academic Press.
  • 1985. “Law and the Middle Class: Evidence from a Suburban Town.” Law and Human Behavior 9(1):3-24.
  • 1987. “Utopian justice: the covert facilitation of white-collar crime.” Journal of Social Issues 43:61-69.
  • 1988. The Moral Order of a Suburb. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • 1992. “War and Peace in Early Childhood.” Pages 1–38 in Virginia Review of Sociology: Law and Conflict Management, edited by James Tucker. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press Inc.
  • 1992. “Violent networks: The origins and management of domestic conflict.” Pages 209-231 in Aggression and Violence: The Social Interactionist Perspective, edited by Richard B. Felson
    Richard Felson
    Richard Felson is a professor of Crime, Law, and Justice and Sociology at The Pennsylvania State University.He is also adjunct professor of Sociology State University of New York at Albany.-Aggression and Coercive Actions:...

     and James T. Tedeschi. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association.
  • 1993. “On the Overlegalized Conception of Modern Society.” Contemporary Sociology 22(3):336-337.
  • 1993. “The myth of discretion.” Pages 129-162 in The Uses of Discretion, edited by Keith Hawkins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • 1996. “A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb.” Contemporary Sociology 25(2):222-224.
  • 1998. “The Moral Voice of the Community.” Sociological Focus 31(2):??-??. (editor)
  • 1999. The Social Organization of Law. San Diego: Academic Press.
  • 1999. “Introduction.” Pages 1–8 in The Social Organization of Law, edited by M.P. Baumgartner. San Diego, Academic Press (second edition; first edition, 1973).
  • 2001. “The sociology of law in the United States.” The American Sociologist 32(Summer):99-113. Thematic Issue: The Sociology of Law, edited by A. Javier Trevino.
  • 2002. “‘The Behavior of Law’, or How to Socologize with a Hammer.” Contemporary Sociology 31(6):644-649.


Black, Donald
  • 1970. “Production of Crime Rates.” American Sociological Review
    American Sociological Review
    The American Sociological Review is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology, including new theoretical developments, results of research that advance the understanding of fundamental social processes, and methodological innovations. It is published by SAGE...

     35:733-748.
  • 1971. “The Social Organization of Arrest.” Stanford Law Review
    Stanford Law Review
    The Stanford Law Review is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president...

     23:1087-1111.
  • 1972. “The Boundaries of Legal Sociology.” Yale Law Journal
    Yale Law Journal
    The Yale Law Journal is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School...

     81:1086-1100.
  • 1973. “The Mobilization of Law.” Journal of Legal Studies 2:125-149.
  • 1973. “Introduction.” Pages 1–14 in The Social Organization of Law, edited by Donald Black and Maureen Mileski. New York: Academic Press.
  • 1976. The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.
  • 1979. “Common Sense in the Sociology of Law.” American Sociological Review 44(1):18-27.
  • 1979. “A Note on the Measurement of Law.” Informationsbrief für Rechtssoziologie, Sonderheft 2:92-106.
  • 1979. “A Strategy of Pure Sociology.” Pages 149-168 in Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology, edited by Scott G. McNall. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
  • 1980. The Manners and Customs of the Police. New York: Academic Press.
  • 1981. “The Relevance of Legal Anthropology.” Contemporary Sociology 10(1):43-46.
  • 1983. “Crime as Social Control.” American Sociological Review 48:34-45.
  • 1984. Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 1: Fundamentals. Orlando: Academic Press. (editor)
  • 1984. “Preface.” Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 1: Fundamentals, edited by Donald Black. Orlando: Academic Press.
  • 1984. “Social Control as a Dependent Variable.” In Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 1: Fundamentals, edited by Donald Black. Orlando: Academic Press. (editor)
  • 1984. Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 2: Selected Problems. Orlando: Academic Press. (editor)
  • 1984. “Preface.” Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 2: Selected Problems, edited by Donald Black. Orlando: Academic Press.
  • 1984. “Crime as Social Control.” Pages 1–27 in Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Volume 2: Selected Problems, edited by Donald Black. Orlando: Academic Press.
  • 1984. “Jurocracy in America.” The Tocqueville Review – La Revue Tocquevelle 6:273-281.
  • 1987. “Compensation and the Social Structure of Misfortune.” Law & Society Review
    Law & Society Review
    Law & Society Review is an academic journal in the field of law and society. It was established by the Law and Society Association in 1966 and published by Wiley-Blackwell. It has four issues per volume per year....

     21(4):563-584.
  • 1987. “A Note on the Sociology of Islamic Law.” Pages 47–62 in Perspectives on Islamic Law, Justice and Society, edited by Ravindra S. Khare. Working Papers, Number 3. Charlottesville: Center for Advanced Studies University of Virginia.
  • 1989. Sociological Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • 1990. “The Elementary Forms of Conflict Management.” In New Direction in the Study of Justice, Law, and Social Control, prepared by the School of Justice Studies, Arizona State University. New York: Plenum Press.
  • 1991. “Relative Justice.” Litigation 18:32-35.
  • 1992. “Social Control of the Self.” Pages 39–49 in Virginia Review of Sociology: Law and Conflict Management, edited by James Tucker. Greenwich: JAI Press Inc.
  • 1993. “La Mobilisation du Droit: Autobiographie d’un Concept: (The Mobilization of Law: Autobiography of a Concept”). Pages 376-378 in Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de Théorie et de Sociologie de Droit, under the direction of André-Jean Arnaud. Paris: Librairie, Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence.
  • 1995. “The Epistemology of Pure Sociology.” Law and Social Inquiry 20:829-870.\
  • 1997. “The Lawyerization of Legal Sociology.” Amici (Newsletter of the Sociology of Law Section, American Sociological Association) 5:4-7.
  • 1998. The Social Structure of Right and Wrong. San Diego: Academic Press.
  • 2000. “On the Origin of Morality.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 7:107-1191.
  • 2000. “The Purification of Sociology.” Contemporary Sociology 29(5):704-709.
  • 2000. “Dreams of Pure Sociology.” Sociological Theory 18(3):343-367.
  • 2002. “The Geometry of Law: An Interview with Donald Black”, by Aaron Bell. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30:101-129.
  • 2002. “Terrorism as Social Control. Part I: The Geometry of Destruction.” American Sociological Association Crime, Law, and Deviance Newsletter Spring:3-5.
  • 2002. “Terrorism as Social Control. Part II: The Geometry of Retaliation.” American Sociological Association Crime, Law, and Deviance Newsletter Summer:3-5.
  • 2002. “Pure Sociology and the Geometry of Discovery.” In Toward a New Science of Sociology: A Retrospective Evaluation of The Behavior of Law, by Allan V. Horwitz. Contemporary Sociology 31(6):668-674.
  • 2004. “The Geometry of Terrorism.” In “Theories of Terrorism,” symposium edited by Roberta Senechal de la Roche. Sociological Theory 22:14-25.
  • 2004. “Violent Structures.” Pages 145-158 in Violence: From Theory to Research, edited by Margaret A. Zahn, Henry H. Brownstein, and Shelly L. Jackson. Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Company.
  • 2004. “Terrorism as Social Control.” In Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Criminological Perspectives, edited by Mathieu Deflem. New York: Elsevier Ltd.
  • 2007. “Legal Relativity.” In the Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives, Volume 3, edited by David S. Clark. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • 2010. “How Law Behaves: An Interview with Donald Black,” by Mara Abramowitz. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 38:37-47.
  • 2010. The Behavior of Law (Special Edition). Bingley, England: Emerald.
  • 2011. Moral Time. New York: Oxford University Press.


Black, Donald and M.P. Baumgartner
  • 1983. “Toward a Theory of Third Party.” Pages 84–114 in Empirical Theories about Courts, edited by Keith O. Boyum and Lynn Mather. New York: Longman.
  • 1987. “On Self-Help In Modern Society.” Dialectical Anthropology 12:33-44. Also, pages 193-208 in The Manners and Customs of the Police, by Donald Black. New York: Academic Press.


Borg, Marian J.
  • 1992. “Conflict Management in the Modern World-System.” Sociological Forum 7(2):261-282.
  • 1998. “Vicarious Homicide Victimization and Support for Capital Punishment: A Test of Black's Theory of Law.” Criminology 36:537-567.
  • 2000. “Drug testing in organizations: applying Horwitz’s theory of the effectiveness of social control.” Deviant Behavior 21:123-154.


Borg, Marian J. and William P. Arnold III
  • 1997. “Social Monitoring as Social Control: The Case of Drug Testing in a Medical Workplace.” Sociological Forum 12(3):441-460.


Borg, Marian J. and Karen F. Parker
  • 2001. “Mobilizing Law in Urban Areas: The Social Structure of Homicide Clearance Rates.” Law and Society Review 35:435-466.


Campbell, Bradley

Cooney, Mark
  • 1986. “Behavioural Sociology of Law: A Defence.” The Modern Law Review 49(2):262-271.
  • 1989. “Legal Secrets: Equality and Efficiency in the Common Law.” American Journal of Sociology
    American Journal of Sociology
    The American Journal of Sociology was established in 1895 by Albion Small and is the oldest academic journal of sociology in the United States. The journal is attached to the University of Chicago's sociology department and it is published bimonthly by The University of Chicago Press. Its...

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    The Stanford Law Review is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president...

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    The American Sociological Review is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology, including new theoretical developments, results of research that advance the understanding of fundamental social processes, and methodological innovations. It is published by SAGE...

     62(2):316-338.
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Cooney, Mark and Scott Phillips
  • 2002. “Typologizing Violence: A Blackian Perspective.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 22(7/8):75-108


Geiger-Oneto, Stephanie and Scott Phillips
  • 2003. “Driving While Black: The Role of Race, Sex, and Social Status.” Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice 1(2):1-25.


Godard, Ellis
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    The American Journal of Sociology was established in 1895 by Albion Small and is the oldest academic journal of sociology in the United States. The journal is attached to the University of Chicago's sociology department and it is published bimonthly by The University of Chicago Press. Its...

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Hoffmann, Heath C.
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    Journal of Contemporary Ethnography is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of Sociology. The journal's editors are Kent Sandstorm and Marybeth Stalp...

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Horwitz, Allan V.
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Jacques, Scott, and Richard Wright
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Kan, Yee W. and Scott Phillips
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Kruttschnitt, Candace
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Kuan, Ping-Yin
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Lee, Catherine
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Manning, Jason
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Marshall, Douglas A.
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Michalski, Joseph H.
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    The Canadian Journal of Sociology publishes research and theory by social scientists on Canadian and world culture. The journal is hosted by the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta.- External links :*...

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Mileski, Maureen
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Morrill, Calvin
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Mullis, Jeffrey
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Peterson, Elicka S.
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Phillips, Scott
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    The American Sociological Review is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology, including new theoretical developments, results of research that advance the understanding of fundamental social processes, and methodological innovations. It is published by SAGE...

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Senechal de la Roche, Roberta
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Tucker, James and Susan Ross
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