Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T02:53:05.468Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Continuous (Trans)formation

Producing Social Continuity and Social Change

from Part III (A) - Differentiation and Continuous (Trans)Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2023

Jack Donnelly
Affiliation:
University of Denver
Get access

Summary

In a world of pre-given substances (or static relations) change needs to be explained. In a processual world, though, change, not stasis, is the norm. Persistence therefore demands explanation. Living and social systems are far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium systems that, by taking in and creatively utilizing matter or energy, temporarily stave off the inexorable physical progression of entropy (movement towards greater disorder; decay). Social continuities no less than social transformations are socially produced. (A state, for example, can be kept in the far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium state of statehood only through extensive and complex processes of (re)production.) And both continuities and transformations arise from similar processes that operate continuously. The chapter illustrates what I call continuous (trans)formation with the case of the development of modern militaries and introduces both John Padgett and Walter Powell’s framing of transposition and re-functionality and William Sewell’s framing of eventful history.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Continuous (Trans)formation
  • Jack Donnelly, University of Denver
  • Book: Systems, Relations, and the Structures of International Societies
  • Online publication: 19 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355193.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Continuous (Trans)formation
  • Jack Donnelly, University of Denver
  • Book: Systems, Relations, and the Structures of International Societies
  • Online publication: 19 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355193.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Continuous (Trans)formation
  • Jack Donnelly, University of Denver
  • Book: Systems, Relations, and the Structures of International Societies
  • Online publication: 19 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355193.016
Available formats
×