While there is no one definition of public sociology, the term has come to be widely associated with Burawoy's particular perspective of sociology.Elsewhere, Burawoy has articulated a vision of public sociology that is consonant with the pursuit of
democratic socialism. In
Critical Sociology, Burawoy writes: "We might say that critical engagement with real
utopias is today an integral part of the project of sociological socialism. It is a vision of socialism that places human society, or social humanity at its organizing center, a vision that was central to
Marx but that was too often lost before it was again picked up by Gramsci and Polanyi. If public sociology is to have a progressive impact it will have to hold itself continuously accountable to some such vision of democratic socialism."As
Mark D. Jacobs and
Amy Best write, "The mission of public sociology, in Michael Burawoy's formulation, is to strengthen the institutions of civil society against the encroachments of both state and market." Indeed, Burawoy maintains that, since the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty first, the political stance of sociology has drifted more
leftward, while the all encompassing influence of
neoliberalism has dragged the rest of world more
rightward. In the aftermath of
Reaganomics, the state and market have begun to work in collusion to propagate the ideals of market fundamentalism, replacing the state's role in redistributing resources and providing social welfare services, to one of creating economic opportunities for enterprise. In his view, this will have devastating consequences for civil society, the very subject of sociology itself, unless the discipline embraces his call to unashamedly engage with the world's diverse (and at-risk) publics to achieve some greater good, thus resisting the perverse allure of neoliberalism. One example of this can be seen in the vast increase in adjunct professors in universities and the impact that has had on the inability of professors to publish articles that would give them credence in the eyes of not only publics but also within the discipline itself. Even in the face of such adversity, many sociologists remain optimistic about the potential latent within sociology to develop an alternative paradigm to the market fundamentalism at the heart of Burawoy's critique. The sociological discipline is dynamic and ever changing, and has a long history of incorporating new theoretical and empirical insights into its analyses, often with the goal of empowering marginalized publics. Indeed, the sociology of work has evolved from processes of adaptation to the study of domination and
labor movements; the concepts of
stratification theory have shifted from the study of mobility within a hierarchy of occupational prestige, to the examination of changing structures of social and economic inequality along the axes of class, race and gender; the sociology of race has moved from theories of
assimilation, to those of
political economy, to the study of
racial formations; and social theory has allowed, and introduced, more radical interpretations of canonical figures such as
Max Weber,
Emile Durkheim, and
Karl Marx, and has incorporated "
subaltern" subfields, such as
feminism and
ethnic studies, which have had a significant impact on the discipline. Sociologists have not been alone in debating the public role of social science. Similar debates have occurred recently in the disciplines of
economics,
political science,
anthropology,
geography and
history, and various sub-disciplines, including
political ecology. In an effort to move these various disciplines "toward a more public social science",
Craig Calhoun, the President of the
Social Science Research Council, has encouraged sociologists and other social scientists to "ask better social science questions about what encourages
scientific innovation, what makes
knowledge useful, and how to pursue both these agendas, with attention to both immediate needs and long-term capacities. Calhoun has also entered the debate about public sociology, critically evaluating the project of public sociology while acknowledging its specific "promise", and arguing that "how sociology matters in the public sphere is vital to the future of the field". ==Future==