Divided we stand, united we fall? Structure and struggles of contemporary German sociology

ABSTRACT

This contribution presents an analysis of the structure and conflictual dynamics of contemporary German sociology which has recently separated into two professional societies. Using geometric data analysis, we present an empirical construction of the power/knowledge structure of the field, its paradigmatic plurality, and the various forms of sociological practices involved.

KEYWORDS:

• German sociology
• scientific fields
• geometric data analysis
• class-specific analysis
• prosopography

1. Introduction

In self-descriptions of sociology, the history of the discipline is often portrayed as one in which paradigmatic disputes and methodological confrontations were the prime determinants of the field. This means, however, that issues of power are largely neglected. In this contribution, we take a unique opportunity to reveal the role played by scientific knowledge and power in our discipline by analyzing the current state and transformations of German sociology. For over a century, German sociology, which gave rise to many theoretical and methodological controversies that influenced sociology on a global scale, had been organized within one common institutional context, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS, German Sociological Association). Yet, in 2017, ever-present internal and external tensions became manifest on an organizational level. Social scientists established the Akademie für Soziologie (AS, Academy of Sociology), founded to institutionally strengthen sociological practice associated with ‘analytical sociology’ (Andreß et al., 2016), i.e. to understand the discipline as Realwissenschaft (an empirical science) and follow the general principle of ‘(m)aking the world a better place to live by strict analytical reasoning and solid empirical research’ (AS, 2017b). To this day, this institutional differentiation has sparked numerous conflicting interpretations and assessments of what our discipline, its relations to other disciplines, and its role vis-à-vis politics and society is and should be, thus greatly influencing the public image of sociology (Wagner, 2019).

The current surging controversy over the state and future of German sociology has largely been perceived as a mere dispute between two diverging paradigmatic and methodological positions. In order to break with this prevailing perception, we will present a field-analytical analysis of the contemporary structure of German sociology and provide the international audience with an interpretation of the underlying material and symbolic structures and dynamics. For this purpose, we first reconstruct the historical path dependencies that preceded the recent developments and thus contextualize the ongoing process of organizational and cultural differentiation. Second, we present an objectified interpretation of the structure of the current field of German sociology on the basis of a prosopographic data collection (N = 1125) on German sociologists. Using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), we reconstruct the power/knowledge structure of the field of German sociology. We show the diversity of German sociology that forms a field, structured by both paradigmatic and power differences. This field is populated by a plethora of sociological research styles that combine different theories, methods, and research foci. In a second step, we use class-specific analysis (CSA) to further investigate the sociologists engaged in the AS to uncover the internal variation of practices within this emerging institutional subfield. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for a reflexive stance toward the current state of affairs of German and international sociology.

2. A brief history of German sociology

The history of German sociology has been primarily depicted as a development of fierce struggles, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century with disciplinary contentions that gave birth to this new discipline. In the mid-nineteenth century, there was a fierce Methodenstreit (method dispute) concerning the objectivity of social sciences. In this controversy, fought within the Verein für Socialpolitik (VfS, Association of Social Policy) in the early 1880s, Austrian economist Carl Menger who advocated abstract economic theory was facing Vfs founder and long-time chairman Gustav Schmoller who argued for social sciences as a historic and more political discipline.

Soon, this first dispute was recast as Werturteilsstreit (value judgement dispute) in which Schmoller’s position of social sciences essentially as a science serving the state was confronted by German economist Werner Sombart and sociologist and political economist Max Weber who pleaded for a nonpolitical social science, independent of state finance and interventions (Lichtblau, 2018).

As a consequence of these incommensurable positions, the DGS was founded in 1909 as a spin-off of the VfS. Its explicit goal was to detach itself from ideological values (Lepsius, 2012, p. 777). A similar picture has been drawn concerning the developments following World War II. In what is known as the Positivismusstreit (positivism dispute) (Adorno et al., 1976), theory-oriented and critical positions stood opposed to empirical-oriented, positivist positions. Time and again, this methodological front line reappeared. For example, in 1997, an autonomous working group for qualitative research was established within the DGS alongside the section Methods of Empirical Social Research that originally encompassed both quantitative and qualitative social research. When the working group turned into a full-blown section called Methods of Qualitative Social Research in 2003, the section Methods of Empirical Social Research effectively became a context of predominantly quantitative research.

In July 2017, these long-standing tensions acquired a new institutional form with the establishment of the Academy of Sociology (AS) as an alternative institutional representation for German sociologists.

The AS presents itself as a scientific association that sees ‘empirical analytical sociology’ (AS, 2017b) as the appropriate conceptual frame (AS, 2019) for sociological research.¹ Sociology should, its proponents contend, be conducted as a Realwissenschaft that aims to falsify ‘parsimoniously, comprehensible and precisely formulated’² theoretical statements, to use intersubjectively comprehensible, ‘reproducible’ (2017a) and ‘controlled’ (2017b) methods, and to ensure ‘far-reaching control of value judgments’ (2017b) during the research process. Overall, this scientific ethos, which is actively promoted towards ‘science organizations in Germany’³, is intended to enable empirical analytical sociologists to contribute to ‘well-founded’, ‘evidence-based’ social policies (AS, 2017a, 2017b, 2019).

In other words, the AS positions itself as an institutional, social, and cultural alternative, largely distancing itself from alternative paradigmatic approaches. In April 2018, the DGS responded with a position paper stating that the DGS ‘is the only scientific association for sociology in its complete plurality and scope’ (DGS, 2018). The debate evolved further on the DGS’s blog, in several issues of the Zeitschrift für theoretische Soziologie and in a public plenary discussion held at the University of Cologne on 6 March 2019. In this ongoing controversy, Hartmut Esser, one of the most prominent proponents of the AS (yet without an official function), advocated for the unity of sociology and presented an apparently conciliatory statement. In his view, linking ‘hermeneutic-understanding sociology and causal-explaining, analytical-empirical sociology’ had always been possible, as long as an ‘encompassing system of general criteria is shared (…). And if the universal framework is not shared, it becomes difficult.’ (Esser, 2018, p. 133, 149) In response, Hirschauer (2018), a prominent qualitative sociologist, spoke out against this all-encompassing framework and argued for sociology as a plural discipline. Remarkably, however, the two prominent opponents agreed that the situation had become so entrenched that integrability seemed no longer possible.

Overall, this ongoing debate is predominantly set in the context of epistemological, paradigmatic, and methodological positions. Structural and power-related aspects of the institutional differentiation of German sociology were only discussed in passing, most often when accusing the other side of following a hegemonic strategy aimed at monopolizing resources (for a detailed account, see Schmitz et al., 2019). Hence, although most often only mentioned as derogatory characterizations of the opposite side, institutional and material resources have in fact been addressed within the controversy. The relevance of the material dimension of this conflict became overtly obvious when the AS was accepted in 2019 by the most relevant agency for research funding in German sociology, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), as a second association representing the discipline. This allowed the AS to nominate candidates for the elections to the Fachkollegium 111 Sozialwissenschaften, the committee that evaluates research proposals on the basis of reviews, thereby allocating funding in social sciences.⁴ One of three candidates nominated by the AS was elected to the subcommittee 111–02 Empirical Social Research, compared to three of the proposed six candidates of the DGS, and one of the two candidates proposed by universities (DFG, 2019). Consequently, two years after its foundation, the AS has successfully established itself as an institutional player and competitor in the field.

In the current debate, the different (in most cases: interested) voices tend to intermingle normative assessments with everyday empirical assumptions about material and epistemic structures of the field. In addition, the dimension of power is often only taken into account when disqualifying other voices as abusing their power and using it against one’s own theoretical and methodological milieu. Thus, as in the historical depiction of the discipline, collectively and effectively a false image of German sociology as adequately described by two clearly sperated methodological groups (often called ‘qualis’ vs. ‘quantis’) is perpetuated and indeed deeply inscribed. This discursive impression of a two-tiered structure of German sociology, however, does not do justice to the actual relations and structures of the discipline. Therefore, we aim to draw a more refined and comprehensive picture of the current state of this scientific field by empirically reconstructing its multidimensional epistemic and material structure, thereby revealing the plurality of real existing styles of thinking and research in contemporary German sociology. This reconstruction will enable us to apply a reflexive stance towards the current state of affairs in German sociology.

3. Data

In order to shed light on the structure of the field of contemporary German sociology, we employ a strategy of empirical objectification. For this purpose, we compiled a prosopographic data set of 1,125 scientists engaged in sections or working groups of the DGS or within the newly founded AS. The information was gathered from publicly accessible web pages, CVs, and biographical directories.⁵ The actors surveyed were identified through membership lists of sections, if publicly available, through the signatory list of the call to found the AS, and by means of a web-based search for self-reported and third-party reported participation in events organized by the DGS, DGS sections, or AS. So as to cover the hierarchical structure of the field, we included professors, teaching staff, and researchers holding positions in various scientific organizations, sociologists with a PhD and doctoral students. An overview of all variables is given in the appendix (Table A1).

By looking at scientists’ web pages, we collected basic academic career information: highest academic title awarded, being an emeritus, year of birth, and sex. Further, we used the self-reported scientific profiles and inspected the researchers’ most prominent publications to capture the different theory, method, and research foci. Thus, we created three item sets that were reduced in an iterative abductive way to 52 theory indicators, 48 method indicators, and 61 research foci.

Data on sociologists’ academic achievements and academic and public visibility were gathered using the number of academic awards, the number of Google Scholar citations of the highest and tenth highest cited publication, number of mentions on Google News, ranging from not being mentioned at all to being mentioned more than 25 times within the first 30 search results, the existence of a Wikipedia page, the form of publishing (monograph or journal article), and the main language of publication (German or English). We collected data on the number of research stays abroad of at least three months.

Academic resources include the number of DFG-funded projects, the number of other sources of funding, and information about the actual sources (e.g. DFG, Volkswagen Foundation, or federal state), disciplines sociologists cooperated with in interdisciplinary DFG projects, the number of staff at the chair held, being or having been an editor of a journal, being or having been employed by an non-university research institute and the names of the institutes (e.g. Max Planck Institutes or Leibniz Institutes for Social Sciences).

In addition, information on institutional aspects was collected: holding or having held a chair for social research methods or for social theory, and being or having been a professor at a Fachhochschule.⁶ We also collected information on membership of the DGS: section membership and number of section memberships, being member of a section council, being a member of the DGS council, and being a member of the DGS steering committee. Being involved with the AS and being a member of the AS steering committee were recorded, too. An indicator for being a member of both associations was also defined. Further, current and past positions in academic institutions beyond the university were collected: being a member of the DFG Fachkollegium 111–01 Social theory or 111–02 Empirical social research or being a member of one of the highly prestigious scientific academies (such as Leopoldina or the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften). Finally, we surveyed being or having been employed at a university in a non-German-speaking country or working or having worked at an Austrian or Swiss university.

4. Empirical construction

4.1. The structure of the German field of sociologists

For the construction of the field, we used geometric data analysis, namely multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) (Benzécri, 1973; Blasius, 2001; Le Roux & Rouanet, 2004; Blasius, Lebaron, Le Roux, & Schmitz, 2019), which has been employed in numerous studies in the sociology of science (Bourdieu, 1988; Baier & Münch, 2013; Renisio, 2015; Rossier & Benz, 2021; Schmidt-Wellenburg, 2018, 2023; Schmidt-Wellenburg & Schmitz, 2022; Warczok & Beyer, 2021). In a second step, we apply class-specific MCA (CSA) (Le Roux & Rouanet, 2010, pp. 64–67; Lebaron & Bonnet, 2018; Rossier, 2019) to analyze and interpret the internal relations of the group of AS members in more detail and in the context of the overall space constructed by the MCA.⁷ An overview of active and passive variables is given in the appendix (see Table A1). Passive variables were used if the number of cases was small (N < 25 and in case of research foci N < 60), and where information on AS, DGS, and/or DGS section membership is concerned (the central phenomenon to be examined in the analysis). The space will be described using the first three axes that together account for over two-thirds (67%, see Table A2) of the variance in the data when using Benzécri’s correction (1979). Graph 1 shows the active categories for the two first dimensions of the field while Graph 2 shows the passive categories.

Graph 1. Space of German Sociology, MCA, Dimensions 1 & 2 (active categories).

Graph 2. Space of German Sociology, MCA, dimensions 1 & 2 (passive categories).

Dimension 1 (35.5% variance) distinguishes a plurality of ways of doing sociological research. Referring to the outer endpoints of this dimension, we label it ‘Sociological manifestations of Geisteswissenschaften: varieties of theories and qualitative research’ versus ‘Sociological manifestations of Naturwissenschaften: varieties of quantitative methodological individualism,’ extreme configurations marking the wide range of different possible sociological practices.

On the left-hand side,⁸ a number of different theories can be found: theories of materiality (T_Mat), actor-network theory (T_Ant), Foucauldian sociology (T_Fou), discourse theory (T_Dis), post-structuralism (T_Posts), phenomenology (T_Phn), Luhmannian systems theory (T_Lu), social constructivism (T_Cons), sociology of knowledge (T_Sok) and Schütz (T_Sch) as well as theories of differentiation (T_Diff), theories of society (T_ToS), and critical theory (T_Crit), Marxist theory (T_Mar), practice theory (T_Pra), and feminist theory (T_Fem). Passive categories (see Graph 2) on the left-hand side are sociological theories such as philosophical anthropology (T_Pha), pragmatism (T_Prg), Mannheim (T_Man), Simmel (T_Si), Elias (T_Eli), Goffman (T_Gof), and gender theories (T_gen).

Only five theoretical perspectives can be found on the right-hand side of dimension one, all situated above the abscissa: action theory (T_Act) and the model of sociological explanation⁹ (T_Mse) nearest to the top, rational choice (T_ Rat) and analytical sociology (T_Ana) as well as life course theory (T_Lifc) slightly lower down. Despite some differences, these theoretical perspectives share a methodologically individualist and (bounded) rationalist style of thinking. Similarly, the passive categories Gary Becker (T_Gbc) and game theory (T_Gam) can be found out to the right of axis 1 (see Graph 2).

We can see the following methods on the left-hand side: interpretative methods (M_Intp), visual methods (M_Vis), ethnography (M_Ethg) and discourse analysis (M_Dis), narrative analysis (M_Nar), grounded theory (M_Gro) and participatory observation (M_ParOb). As for passive categories (see Graph 2), we find hermeneutics (M_Her), ethnomethodology (M_Ethm), Mannheimian documentary method (M_Dom), and objective hermeneutics (M_OBH).

On the right-hand side, specific forms of quantitative empirical research can be found: panel analysis (M_Pan), fixed, random, and hybrid effects analysis (M_FRH), multilevel analysis (M_ML), event history analysis (M_Eve), experiment (M_Exp), simulation (M_Sim), logistic regression (M_LogR), and further toward the centroid, survey methodology (M_Sur) as well as process and register data (M_Prr). Additionally, the following passive methods and data types are shown here (see Graph 2): quantitative sequence analysis (M_Seqn), structural equation modeling (M_Sem), macro- and aggregate data (M_Mad) and classification analysis (M_Cla).

On the basis of these patterns, we are able to identify the main research foci: on the left, cultural sociology (F_Cult), media sociology (F_Mda), sociology of digitalization, quantification, and valuation (F_DigQv), and pure theoretical work (F_The). The passive categories (see Graph 2) are sociology of arts (F_Art), body, identity, and sports (F_Bodsp), knowledge (F_Kno), and societal diagnosis of our time (F_Dia).

On the right, we find the following: life course research (F_Lif), family (F_Fam), inequality (F_ Inq), work (F_Wrk), education (F_Edu), comparative macro sociology (F_MacCo), and social research in general (F_Sor). Passive foci (see Graph 2) indicate research on national populations or populations of nation states such as demography (F_Dem), stratification (F_Sst), children (F_Chi), discrimination (F_Disc), integration and cohesion (F_Itg), internationalization (F_Int), and welfare states (F_Wel).

These substantive patterns correspond to different publishing practices. On the left-hand side, we find the active categories of publishing mostly in the form of German (G++) books (B+), for instance, monographs (often dedicated to a specific theoretical perspective, societal diagnosis, or qualitative in-depth studies). On the opposite side, research outcomes are mostly (E+) or primarily (E++) published in English and in form of journal papers (P+).

As far as the financing of research is concerned, we see on the right-hand side actors being employed by non-university institutes (NOU), such as the following passively projected specific institutes (see Graph 2): Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsverläufe (LifBi, Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories), Leibnizinstitut für Sozialwissenschaften (GESIS, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) and other Leibniz Institutes (Leib), Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB, Institute for Employment Research), Deutsches Jugend Institut (DJI, German Youth Institute), Max Planck Institutes (MPI), the Mannheimer Zentrum für europäische Sozialforschung (MZES, Mannheim Center for European Social Research), or Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB, Berlin Social Science Center). This implies, for the left side, the predominance of basic university funding as a mode of employment.

Being funded by the most relevant third-party funding agency, the German Research Foundation (Fn_DFG) is located in the middle of the dimension (passive in Graph 2), making it the field’s typical third-party funding mode. Yet interdisciplinary cooperation in the context of DFG research projects can be found on both sides (all passive): plotted to the left are media studies (media), arts (arts), philosophy (phil), or language and literature studies (lanlit); and to the right law (jur), political sciences (poli), economics (econ), education (edu), and criminology (crim), psychology (psy) and medicine (med). Apart from funding by the DFG, alternative funding sources (passive in Graph 2) can be found on the right side of the axis, ranging from foundations such as the Hans Böckler Foundation (Fn_HBS) or the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Fn_BES), to business and interest associations seeking political influence (Fn_Asso), to various state institutions such as the German federal government (Fn_Fed), other countries’ governments (Fn_OCtry), the German Länder (Fn_Bland) and communities (Fn_Commu), as well as EU funding including the European Research Council (Fn_EURO), and the Swiss National Fund (FN_SNF), with being employed by a non-German speaking university (NGSUni) or a Swiss university (CHUni) close by on axis 1. Funding by non-university research associations can also be found here (Fn_NURA).

On the left, there are fewer additional sources of funding. Funding by the Austrian state (Fn_Aut_Fed) can be found here, a source to which many Austrian sociologists submit their research applications, given the limited opportunities for sociological projects with the fierce competition between the disciplines to receive funding from the Austrian Research Council (Fn_FWF) plotted to the right of the centroid. Again, to the left we find being employed by an Austrian university (AUTUni), and even further out, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Fn_AHS) which has a very specific funding profile: building on a global alumni network of excellence, it mainly funds individual research stays abroad and has no funding programs for traditional research projects. These differences correspond to memberships of institutionalized sociological associations: 23 of the 37 DGS sections are located more to the left of the centroid, (See Appendix 1, Graph A1), as opposed to only seven positioned in the middle and seven to the right. Being a member of two or more sections (2Sec, 3Sec, > = 4Sec, Graph 1) is located to the left, as is being a member of the steering committee for one or more election periods (1/2DGS_Sc, > = 3DGS_Sc, Graph 2).

There are no such close and diverse connections to the DGS on the right-hand side of axis 1, where not being a member of any section of the DGS (0sec) and being a member of DGS sections (passive, see Appendix 1, Graph A1) Model Building and Simulation (s_MoSi), Methods of Empirical Social Research (s_Msr), Family Sociology (s_Fam), Social Indicators (s_SozIn), Sociology of Medicine and Health (s_MeHe), or Social Inequality and Stratification (s_Inq) are plotted.

The various indicators for AS involvement are located the right-hand end of axis 1 (passive, see Graph 2): Having signed the open letter calling for the foundation of the AS (Su_AS_Fo), having signed the letter proposing alternative candidates to the official DGS list for the 2017 elections for the DFG council and steering committee (Su_Dfg_El), sitting on the steering committee of the AS (AS_Sc), or having attended the first AS Congress in Munich in 2018 (C_ASMuc), and thus being associated with the AS. In addition, being involved in both institutions at the same time, the AS and the DGS (both), is also plotted here.

At first glance, Dimension 1 seems merely to distinguish between two poles often presented in a simplified manner in current (and historical) debates. On the right-hand side, practicing sociology implies empirical research using specific methods that are based on certain forms of statistics (in particular, regression) and data sets on actors’ action and attitudes. The theoretical perspectives used view (human or national) individuals as (bounded) rational actors, action as outcomes of decisions, and macrostructures as aggregates of individual actions. The prime rationale here, one could say, is to make the social countable since standardization, quantification, and comparability of research objects prevail here. Research interests are closely connected to issues such as family, education, and occupation, and due to their quantified form, tangible for governance. Here, sociology’s contribution and relation to other fields are conceived as part of an empirical-analytical public sociology of experts.

On the left-hand side, we find theoretical and also critical perspectives as well as forms of qualitative research; the substantive interests are close to cultural sciences and the humanities such as investigating phenomena of religion or media (and, remarkably, digitalization and quantification, typically without using quantifying methods). Several scholars at this outer position of the field engage in theoretical/critical commentaries on the current state of society as public intellectuals. Yet, importantly, Dimension 1 clearly distinguishes between various research styles in sociology: habitualized, shared with like-minded colleagues, ways of conceptualizing, thinking, and seeing society, and of being drawn to and analyzing specific research objects (Mannheim, 1954, Fleck, 1979; Bourdieu, 2004, p. 65).

Moving from the right-hand side to the center, we see a field populated by different sociological manifestations of research practices in the tradition of Naturwissenschaften (natural sciences). We do find more theory-oriented versions associated with the method of sociological explanation and action theories, the more empirical life course theory/event history analysis, and those engaged in causal analysis. Further down, we have researchers following the rational action framework who engage in experiments or logistic regression in order to analyze decisions (educational, occupational, family-related, etc.) and those using simulations as a methodological framework alternative to empirical data. More to the left, we see more practically oriented and applied quantitative research using surveys and OLS, and even further to the left, increasingly quantitative researchers who tend not to name elaborated quantitative techniques or rationalist theories but rather certain fields of application such as work, inequality, or education.

Yet, if we move from the left-hand side to the center, we encounter a field alive with various sociological manifestations of research practices in the tradition of Geisteswissenschaften (humanities), where the idea of Geist manifests itself in two analytically distinguishable forms: first, as the mind of the theorist and, second, as the minds of research objects, the latter to be revealed by qualitative social researchers. Here, the empirical object studied is prioritized, leading to less standardization when compared to the opposite end of the methods spectrum. A vast variety of theoretical perspectives as well as several forms of qualitative research become apparent. These include forms of pure theoretical work, of pure empirical work, and combinations of the two. We find research styles that use qualitative methods with relatively strong methodological presuppositions and a theoretical underpinning, such as pragmatism and ethnomethodology, documentary analysis, and objective hermeneutics. Close by, we see theoretical approaches that shape the qualitative research methods used, such as discourse theories and discourse analysis, theories of materiality, actor-network theory, and relational sociology. Also, we see more structuralist approaches and methods that concentrate on underlying meaning patterns, for example, ethnomethodology or objective hermeneutics, and differ from more individualist approaches that focus on individuals’ interpretations, for instance, in the tradition of Schütz and Luckmann. Closer to the centroid, we see neoinstitutionalism focusing on the meso level of organizations and using case study methods. To the left and top we encounter, on the one hand, research drawing on sociology of knowledge, phenomenology, and more general interpretative methods and, on the other hand, research that is purely theoretical and promotes the bird’s eye view of grand theories of society.

The elective affinities of research styles leaning toward either a natural sciences or humanities tradition is further corroborated by divergence in interdisciplinarity, documented as cooperation with researchers from other disciplines in DFG-funded projects (passive, see Graph 2): economy (eco), psychology (psy), medicine (med) and criminal sciences (crim) can be found at the top right and media studies (media), philosophy (phil), history (his), religion (reli), humanities and cultural studies (humcu) at the top left. Computational disciplines (comp) are a relatively competitive subject located at the top in the center.

Thus, both sides of the field are populated by a series of very diverse styles of research, most of which tend to be located in a fairly average rather than an extreme position of the field. The picture becomes even more differentiated when we inspect the categories located in the center of the field, such as mixed method research, case studies, interpretative pattern analysis as well as boundary theories, gender and diversity, or sociology of evaluation. Notably, ultimately, several modern forms of quantification are also located toward the centroid and in a relatively balanced location: computational social sciences, geometric data analysis, quantitative text analysis, and network analysis. This pattern indicates a high compatibility with different research styles that promises innovation.

Dimension 2 (24.1%) expresses aspects of power and opposes dominant and dominated positions; we label it ‘Capital volume and symbolic capital.’ A first noteworthy aspect of Dimension 2 concerns academic titles: high up and close to the axis, we see being an emeritus (em), and then a bit further down and most frequent, holding a professorship (Prof.). Both these positions result from being appointed by a university for life and are absolutely key as institutional forms of power. Not having any such academic resources is symptomatic of early career steps such as doing one’s PhD (<Ph.D.) at the bottom or having obtained one’s PhD slightly above. Further, age (28- to 73-) also corresponds closely with the second axis, as the trajectory of the passive variable in Graph 2 shows, as does sex, also passive, with a notable difference between male (M) and female (F) sociologists (0.45 scaled deviations between the category points, cp. Le Roux & Rouanet, 2010, p. 59).

As far as academic resources are concerned, in the upper part, we see DFG funding for more than seven (> = 7dfg), five to six (5/6dfg), four (4dfg), three (3dfg), or two (2dfg) research projects, with the categories of the variable falling in line along the second axis, as the projection of the trajectory shows. Having secured funding for research projects from sources other than DFG is also located along the axis, albeit slightly to the right, with more than four different sources (> = 4Fn) being located highest and two sources second highest (2Fn). Regarding the manpower aspect of resources, high up we find employing six or more (> = 6emp) and five (5emp) research staff at one’s chair (passive, see Graph 2) with the further trajectory of the variable following the axis down to not having any staff at the chair at all. Also, being an editor (Ed) of a German and/or English journal is located high up. At the bottom of the second axis, we find modalities that account for not having many resources at one’s disposal: not having acquired DFG research funding (0dfg), nor funding from other sources (0FN). Being employed at non-university research institutes (NOU) is also plotted lower down on the second axis. This results from staff structure: a high percentage of graduates and PhDs (often in early career positions) in relation to the relatively small number of professors compared to at universities – which seems to apply in particular to federal and state government agencies such as statistical offices (FL_Inst) and the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LifBi). Also, being employed by a university of applied sciences (FH) is located at the bottom, thus expressing the comparatively low prestige such positions have in the field.

Further, the second axis depicts academic achievements and visibility: being in the top group of cited authors in Google Scholar (sch9) can be found high up with the trajectory (sch8 to sch0) running almost parallel to Dimension 2. Also on top, we see being mentioned on Google News more than 25 times within the first thirty search results (N > 25) or between 16 and 25 (N16-25) or four to nine (N4-9) with the trajectory again running along the dimension. Having a Wikipedia page (Wik) is also located on top. The characteristic of having received more than three scientific awards (P > 3) can be found to the upper right, one award (P1) lower down and toward the center, and no award (P0) is plotted at the bottom. Not being named in Google News (N0) and not having a Wikipedia page (nWik) are also located at the bottom. Further, publishing mostly German (G++) monographs (B++) or mostly English (E++) journal papers (P++) are both located at the bottom.

The difference in capital volume and its recognition as symbolic capital also manifests itself in institutional positions held. We see at the top and to the left the characteristic of being or having been member of the DFG Fachkollegium (passive, see Graph 2), that makes decisions concerning DFG funding, for two periods (2DFG_C) and just right of the axis for one period (1DFG_C). Also, the two chairs central to any university teaching sociology are located high on the second axis, but on either side: holding a chair for sociological methods (ChM) is plotted to the right of the second axis, and holding a chair for sociological theory (ChT) to the left and higher up. In addition, closer to the axis and running along it we have categories for the number of research stays abroad longer than three months (4Fs, 3Fs, 2Fs), indicating a certain degree of internationalization. Not having been abroad for a longer research stay (0Fs) is located at the bottom.

With regard to involvement in the German sociological association, we see the following: the categories of having served on the DGS council for four or five election periods (4/5DGS_Cc) or one to three periods (1/3DGS_Cc) high toward the top and to the left; further down and toward the centroid, membership in a section’s steering committee (SecC), and being member of four or more (> = 4Sec) and three sections (3Sec), with the trajectory running towards the centroid and not being a member of any section situated lowest and far out to the right (0Sec). Passively projected (see Graph 2) we find at the top to the left the characteristic of having been a member of the DGS steering committee once and twice (1/2DGS_Sc) or three times and more (> = 3DGS_Sc), and having served on either the council or the steering committee (DGS_ScCc).

When looking at the positions of the DGS sections (passive, see Appendix 1, Graph A1), we are able to identify certain sections in close proximity to the DGS institutional positions mentioned above: Cultural Sociology (s_Cult), Qualitative Social Research (s_Qual), Sociological Theory (s_SozTh), Sociology of Knowledge (s_Know), Social History and History of Ideas (s_HistId) as well as Religion (s_Rel) and Social Problems and Control (s_ProCo). Also high on the second dimension but to the right of the axis we have DGS sections such as Sociology of the Family (s_Fam), Methods of Empirical Social Research (s_Mesr), Model Building and Simulation (s_ModSi), Social Indicators (s_SozIn) and Medicine and Health (s_MeGu), all in closer proximity to the aforementioned institutional positions associated with the AS. Further down on the second axis, and hence less prestigious, sections such as Sociological Network Analysis (s_Netw) and Organizational Sociology (s_Org) can be found, and – located at the bottom – the section for Rural, Agrarian and Food Sociology (s_RurAF).

Dimension 2 also sheds further light on the differences between theories, methods, and research foci: high up and left of the axis, we see the category of engaging in theory of society (T_ToS), theoretical research in general (F_The) and classical theory such as Max Weber (T_Web), then to the right of the axis engaging in action theory (T_Act) and macro comparisons of societies (F_MacCo), and lower down and only slightly to the left of the axis, engaging with theory generally (T_Any). When we consider the passive categories here (see Graph 2), we see societal diagnosis (F_Dia) and social theory (T_STh) together with modern classics such as Habermas (T_Habm), all close to holding a chair in theory, on the upper left-side and in close proximity to the DGS and DFG institutional positions. On the lower part of the axis we have, again projected as passive (see Graph 2), research foci, methods, theories, and sections that have only recently secured a foothold in German sociology, such as the perspective of the sociology of conventions (T_Conv), the method of participatory research and citizen science (M_Ptry), quantitative text analysis (M_Qtx), and computational social sciences (M_CSS). At the bottom, we also encounter research programs that stress the importance of hands-on empirical research such as experiments (M_Exp), actor-network theory (T_Ant) or participant observation (M_ParOb), and, down to the right, those sociologists who do not mention any theoretical affiliation (T_None).

Overall, the second dimension expresses the capital volume and symbolic capital of the field. The active and passive variables clearly indicate how the level of power observed increases toward the top of axis 2: academic resources, particularly the number of DFG projects, the number of staff employed at specific chairs, the number of different none-DGF sources of funding acquired, as well as being cited more frequently, and having powerful and prestigious institutional positions. Further, the second axis can be interpreted as an axis of institutional age. First, high on the second axis we find, passively projected (see Graph 2), sociologists well advanced in their career, with younger age groups the further down we move. Second, age corresponds with institutional seniority in line with certain practices and, in particular, theories, methods, and research foci that are well established. Third, men are located higher on the second axis than women, which confirms the long-standing subordinate position of women in German sociology in terms of symbolic capital and capital volume (and hence institutional seniority).

Dimension 2 expresses a genuine dimension of power: the accumulation of resources and associated symbolic power (for example, the power to enforce general categories of how to view the social world sociologically). Therefore, at the top, we also see different well-established representatives of the general. The proponents of these meta-perspectives can use their symbolic power to achieve a theory effect, i.e. rendering an arbitrary theory ‘orthodox and dominant’ (see Bourdieu, 2018, p. 77).¹⁰

A look at the diagonals of the space allows a refined interpretation of the field’s structure. Diagonal 1 opposes the upper left to the lower right quadrant and expresses the institutional side of power. At the top left, power is connected to positions in the DGS and DFG that function as institutional symbolic power. To the left, we find involvement with many DGS sections and electoral positions such as section committees, DGS council, and DGS steering committee, as well as the DFG Fachkollegium. The number of sections a sociologist is affiliated to runs from top to bottom (with zero sections located on the right), thus indicating the extent of integration into the DGS. Further, in the upper left quadrant, sociological practice is primarily financed by basic funding by universities and DFG funding. In the lower right quadrant, funding stems from non-university institutes in the form of positions in research groups dedicated to a specific research task often defined in a political context.¹¹

In contrast, diagonal 2 opposes the upper right to the lower left quadrant. At the top right, there is a wide array of funding sources populated by, for example, various foundations, the European Union and the European Research Council, the German federal government, German Länder, and local government institutions. In the lower left quadrant, we see research financed by the basic infrastructure of universities and universities of applied sciences. From the third to the first quadrant, the variety of funding sources increases as does the number of funded projects (0dfg to 4dfg, 0Fn to > = 4Fn) and the number of academic awards (P1 to P > 3), with the passive category (see Graph 2) of membership in highly prestigious scientific academies (SciAc) located at the top right end. Thus, the diagonal expresses power ascribed as the result of scientists’ individual abilities and personal accomplishments: research funding, receiving academic awards, or being personally selected as a member of a scientific academy. AS-related categories, entailing less institutionalized and more individualized qualities, are strong on this diagonal, as the location of having signed the letter for founding the AS (As_Sc) at the top right shows.

When we focus on the upper area of the space, we see that both diagonals correspond to the symbolic power of research styles: on the upper left, we have theories of society (T_ToS) such as differentiation theory (T_Dif), constructivism (T_Cons), critical theory (T_Crit), and classics such as Weber (T_Web) and Marx (T_Mar), and on the upper right-hand side, action theory (T_Act), the model of sociological explanation (T_Mse) and analytical sociology (T_Ana), connected to societal macro comparisons (F_MacCo). Therefore, both are legitimate reference points in the contemporary field of German sociology which one imitates or distances oneself from. Remarkably, citations are situated in between, along the axis, and operate as the generally accepted currency linking these two opposing logics of power. According to our interpretation the resources underlying capital volume and their symbolic legitimacy are object of struggles, which manifests in different scientific cultures favoring and appreciating one or the other resource. Not least, the field also reflects the struggle for the more national versus international direction of scientific practice, with ‘international’ usually referring to US-American sociology.

Finally, we take a look at the third dimension of the field (see Graph OA1 and Graph OA2 of the online Appendix), which accounts for an additional 7.5% of the variance and distinguishes sociological research practices according to their scope along a dimension spanning from ‘Theoretical abstraction’ to ‘Empirical concreteness’. At the top of dimension 3, we find theoretical approaches with a general scope concentrating on the long range: theories of society (T_ToS) such as differentiation theory (T_Dif) and critical theory (T_Crit) as well as Luhmann’s systems theory (T_Lu) and political economy (T_Peco) in close proximity to holding a chair in social theory (ChT), theory as research foci (F_The) and the characteristic of not using any specific methods (M_None). At the bottom, we find no theories but a wide array of qualitative methods with a specific scope concentrating on the close range, such as biographical analysis (M_Bio) and interviews (M_Bioi), group interviews (M_Groi) and semi-guided interviews (M_Gui), narrative analysis and interviews (M_Nar), grounded theory (M_Gro), interpretative (M_Intp) and reconstructive methods (M_Rec). This fits in well with qualitative sociologists’ self-description of using a strong concept of empirical reality where object adequacy takes precedence over theory and methods. In this light, some members of the German qualitative research community with its strong empirical and realist orientation may have implicit epistemological parallels with the realism of some forms of quantitative research that they otherwise despise as naive positivism.

Further, dimension 3 differentiates between large temporal and spatial scopes at the top and small life-worlds and micro-realities at the bottom, i.e. temporally and spatially confined research settings and questions. In between, we find a middle range orientation that integrates theories and methods with neither a far-reaching abstract scope nor a strong interest in the minutiae of social life-worlds. Corresponding practices can be found in quantitative methodological individualism, which aims for middle range explanations and combines specific methods, for example, logistic (M_LogR) or OLS regression (M_Ols) and survey-based research (M_Sur) with specific theories, such as action theory (T_Act) and rational choice approaches (T_Rat). Holding a methods chair (ChM) can be found nearby and this is still the common form of institutionalization of this logic of research within universities. Another form of this middle range orientation is associated more closely with theoretical work, such as Foucault (T_Fou) and general discourse theory (T_Dis), field theory (T_Fld) or neoinstitutionalism (T_Neo), which is often connected to different (qualitative) methods, general interview research (M_Inv), and case studies (M_Cas) in order to provide middle range constructions.

In sum, whereas (German) sociology has been described as a bipartite structure, taking the three dimensions together, a much more detailed picture emerges: current German sociology consists of a plethora of research styles spread out in a multi-dimensional space associated with different positions of power, various theoretical perspectives, and diverse methodological orientations used to tackle numerous research interests. The newly founded Akademie für Soziologie, which is so central in the current heated debate, has been established in a field that is indeed populated by various forms of sociological practices. While the AS gathers itself under one (‘analytical’) banner and is often viewed by opposing positions of the field as representing a monolithic positivist quantitative orientation, we will now take a closer look at the ways the AS is associated with different forms of sociological practices by modeling the AS as a subspace within the field of German sociology.¹²

4.2. Structures and strategies in the subspace of the Akademie für Soziologie

Sociologists associated with the AS have so far been empirically characterized as part of the overall picture: they are associated with methodological individualism connected to (bounded) rational choice perspectives and specific quantitative methods using individualist data formats (albeit sometimes augmented by information on the individuals’ multilevel, spatial or network embeddings). Due to the focus on the overall space, AS members are still perceived as relatively uniform, a reductionist perception that echoes a widespread practice in contemporary discursive struggles. This depiction can be deconstructed if we construct the internal relations of this association’s agents and, thus, their differences and controversies as a relatively autonomous subspace. Yet it would be inadequate to think of the AS as a fully detached space, insofar as AS members are systematically influenced by and not categorically separated from the rest of German sociology.¹³ To do methodological justice to this analytical consideration, we will use CSA (Le Roux & Rouanet, 2010, pp. 64–65). This allows us to explore the subspace of a class of individuals within the main space of the MCA by constructing the axes of the subspace and the contributions of categories to these axes using the coordinates and modalities of individuals of the subpopulation in the overall space. Here, in contrast to a separate MCA, the distances in the total space play a role in the construction of the subspace. Therefore, it becomes possible to analyze the field of the AS as a subfield of the field of German sociology, i.e. with regard to their members’ inter-associational as well as extra-associational relations. We will discuss the first three axes of the subcloud, drawing on active categories and their contributions to these axes as well as on passive categories in order to understand this subspace in relation to the larger field.¹⁴

Graph 3. Subspace Academy of Sociology, CSA, Dimension 1 & 2 (active categories).

In contrast to the larger space, capital volume and symbolic capital are expressed by the first dimension (Graph 3 and Graph 4).¹⁵ On the left-hand side, we find academic resources along the axis such as having received funding for at least seven DFG projects (> = 7dfg), further towards the center five or six (5/6dfg), four (4dfg), three (3dfg), and two (2dfg) DFG projects. Having at least four (> = 4Fn), three (3Fn) or two (2Fn) other sources of funding also runs along the left side of the axis. In addition, publishing primarily papers (P+) and being a journal editor (Ed), academic achievements, such as ranking in the three highest groups for Google Scholar citations (sch9, sch8, and sch7) and being awarded more than three (P > 3) or three academic awards (P3). Positions that go hand in hand along with these prestigious distinctions are holding a professorship (Prof.) or having held a professorship (em), particularly a chair for empirical social research and methods (ChM), and having had four research stays abroad lasting at least three months (4Fs). Also situated here, but loading less, are associations with one section (1sec) or two sections (2sec) of the DGS. Connected to these modalities of power and institutional positions of agents are theories that represent individualist (bounded) rational action methodologies: action theory (T_Act), the model of sociological explanation (T_Mse), and analytical sociology sensu Hedström (T_Ana). Here, this relative attraction to theory in general (T_Any) goes hand in hand with an interest in pure theory (F_The) and in macro sociological comparisons (F_MacCo).

Less prestigious positions are located on the right-hand side: not holding a PhD (<Ph.D.), holding a PhD and working at a non-university research institute (NOU). Such positions are often associated with early career steps and hence with not being cited (sch0) or only very rarely (sch1) as well as mostly publishing papers as opposed to monographs (P++) and mainly in English (E++). Similarly, not having any academic resources (0dfg, 0Fn), achievements (P0, N0, nWik), or institutional positions (0Sec, 0Fs) depicts sociologists located here who are not associated with any theoretical perspective (T_None) but interested in general empirical social research (F_Sor) and the use of a ‘run-of-the-mill technique’ of logistic regression (M_LogR).

The second dimension differentiates between social theory and social research. At the top we find sociological theories such as the model of sociological explanation (T_Mse), analytical sociology (T_Ana), and (passively) game theory (T_Gam), and a bit further down and contributing less to this dimension rational choice theory (T_Rat); these are the various theoretical references of the subspace. This indicates a theoretical tension at the apex of this subspace between MSE and analytical sociology. Whereas the former is particularly interested in revising and thereby cognitivizing the actor model, the latter tends to discard strong assumptions concerning the actor and focuses more on aggregation mechanisms instead. Theory-driven techniques such as simulation (M_Sim) or, to a lesser degree, experiments (M_Exp) are also to be found to the top of the second dimension, together with traditional OLS regressions (M_Ols), which were or still are used by senior sociologists.

At the bottom, we see engagement with diverse empirical data formats (panel, register, and survey) and their statistical analysis: various generalized linear models, fixed, random, and hybrid effects (M_FRH), data sets such as multilevel data (M_ML), for instance, on countries or schools, temporal data in the form of panel analysis (M_Pan) or event history (M_Eve), and life course research (F_Lif), the latter being sparsely theoretically motivated by life course theory (T_Lifc). We also have research interests corresponding to pragmatic ad hoc individualism and stark empirical focus, mainly in the areas of work (F_Wrk), inequality (F_Inq), social change (F_Chg), education (F_Edu), family (F_Fam), and macro-sociological comparisons (F_MacCo). Here, practicing sociology means being extremely interested in the social as presented in data sets, akin to Goldthorpian population science, – which may well be labeled as a data-mediated ‘second-order empiricism.’ This research practice is very successful in raising funding as the high number of projects financed by DFG (4dfg) and other sources (> = 4Fn) indicates, and oriented toward an English-language audience (E+).

Axis 3 of the subspace distinguishes orthodoxy from heterodoxy in the AS (see Graphs OA3 and OA4 in online Appendix). At the top, we have engagement with the paradigmatic core ideas of an individualist methodology based on (bounded) rationality (T_Mse, T_Ana, T_Rat) and corresponding orthodox methods (M_FRH, M_Exp, M_Eve), and then lower down (and passive) the category of having signed the open letter at the 2017 DGS elections (Su_DGS_El, see Graph OA4) that initially started the spin-off. At the bottom, we see (Graph OA3) the characteristics of not engaging in theory (T_None) and working with process and register data (M_Prr) and quantitative methods not complying with the orthodoxy of generalized linear models, such as passive (Graph OA4) classification analysis (M_Cla) and, in particular, computational social sciences (M_CSS), promoted as the future of quantitative research in recent years and associated with young researchers.

Graph 4. Subspace Academy of Sociology, CSA, dimension 1 & 2 (passive categories).

It is noteworthy that computational social sciences is located far from the epistemological and methodological (especially individualist) orthodox pole of this subspace, yet it may fulfill an important function since it imports the most recent ‘digital’ and analytical techniques and data into the AS, whose members, to a considerable extent, have traditionally been the experts of the realm of quantitative data. Sociologists at this heterodox end have a stronger association with the overall field and with the DGS in particular, as the following categories show: having sat on the council for four or five periods (4/5DGS_Cc, Graph OA3), having been a member of the steering committee three or more times (> = 3DGS_Sc, Graph OA4), and engaging in the sections (Graph OA5) Social Indicators (s_SocIn), Medicine and Health (s_MedHe) or Sociological Network Analysis (s_Netw), and being a member of both associations (both, Graph OA4) are all located here. Involvement in the DFG is also strong: sitting on the committee (1DFG_C, 2DFG_C) or having many DFG-funded research projects. Moreover, a reasonable level of institutional and organizational power stems from holding chairs in empirical social research (ChM, Graph OA3) and having acquired plenty of research funding (> = 7dfg, 5/6gfd, > = 4Fn).

At the subspace’s heterodox pole we find a considerable amount of institutional and symbolic capital valued high in the overall space. Agents located here may well engage with the AS not for the sake of a substantive interest in analytical sociology but rather for strategic and social reasons: when working with quantitative methods in current German sociology, being a member of the AS seems at least highly advisable; not engaging in activities of the AS would imply the risks of losing one’s quantitative stakes in the face of the emerging interpretation that closely links quantitative methods with analytic sociology. Thus, a structural effect of the field may be operative here, one that generates considerable incentives to participate in the AS even though one may not share its official methodological thrust (which is, both upon closer inspection of the subfield and when related to the overall field of German sociology, also a theoretical thrust).

At the same time, agents located here have an important function for the AS as potential bridge builders, namely to provide the orthodoxy of the subfield with new questions, theories, and methods. This is particularly evident for data and methods in the context of computational social science, an emerging field that in fact comprises relations, processes, and structures. This comparatively new form of the quantified social has a closer paradigmatic commensurability to relational, processual, and structural theories and methodologies than traditional methodological individualism. Yet, for current CSS researchers, it may be difficult to escape from the field’s structural forces, which may operate as a subtle pressure to engage in the AS and arrange with its analytical orthodoxy, although relational and process theories may actually be more compatible.

Therefore, the perception of the AS as a homogeneous paradigm, operating primarily along a quantitative positivist logic is empirically false. There is no positive consensual definition, on what ‘analytic-empirical’sociology should actually be: mechanism-oriented analytical sociology in the sense of Hedström, population science in the tradition of Goldthorpe, action theory with a cognitivized actor model as developed by Esser or ‘rigorous’ sociology as proclaimed more recently by Raub et al. (2022), to name but a few variants. The loose similarity of these approaches may be described as family resemblance drawing on Wittgenstein (1968, p. 32; cp. Schmitz et al., 2019, p. 260). The demarcation from the ‘other‘ sociology, mainly identified with the DGS (a pattern that can be understood in Bourdieusian perspective as connected to research styles and practices of distinction), thus fulfills the crucial function of identity formation ex negativo (Schmitz & Schmidt-Wellenburg, 2023).

At the same time, however, it is a powerful perception, readily invoked by and in everyday sociological practice. Currently, the danger of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy arises: the in fact very different quantitative forms of sociology which are not methodologically in line with analytical sociology, may indeed become part of a single quantitative ‘camp’ and, as a result, the arbitrary distinction ‘analytical/quanti’ vs ‘quali/theory’ may be further inscribed in the field.

5. Discussion

Throughout its history, German sociology has been primarily depicted as being structured by paradigmatic tensions, most notoriously, perhaps, in the form of what is known as the Methodenstreit.¹⁶ These tensions have recently taken on a new institutionalized form with the founding of the AS as an ‘empiric-analytical’ alternative to the long-established DGS. However, then as now, interpretative schemes used by the observers tend to reduce this development to pure methodological and epistemological disputes between two purportedly clearly separable forms of sociological practice. In the current self-depiction of German sociology, these forms are largely identified with contingent yet powerful dichotomies such as ‘qualitative versus quantitative,’ ‘constructivism versus positivism,’ or ‘critical engagement versus consultative engagement.’ To remedy this persistent misconception, we have presented an empirical analysis of the field of German sociology, considering both its epistemic and its material dimensions, thereby revealing the interplay of both dimensions and demonstrating the vast plurality of sociological research styles that populate this field.

In light of our empirical reconstruction, the founding of the AS cannot be understood as a mere effect of a dispute over scientific ideals and it would be shortsighted to reduce the development to a wondrous recent upsurge of interest in analytical sociology. Rather, perhaps more than ever before, strategies of securing and controlling (economically) powerful positions (such as in the DFG committee, in editorial boards, or in departments) are constitutive for the current state of the field. Accordingly, widespread harsh criticisms leveled against the AS from institutionally established actors in the field of German sociology or, vice versa, from members of the AS against the DGS, imply somewhat worldly concerns of losing cherished sinecures. On the front stage, the two arbitrary groups argue about scientific substance but, ultimately, in doing so, they are competing for money and power, and thereby allocating resources to two contingent positions. Indeed, two dominant positions are particularly visible and vociferous in this powerful reenactment of epistemological and methodological antagonisms: sociology as a nomothetic, explanatory, and unitary project or as an interpretative, descriptive, and (seemingly) multi-paradigmatic endeavor.

However, reducing the paradigmatic diversity of contemporary German sociology to two clear-cut camps turns out to be an empirically false account of the field’s actual state comprising approaches such as discourse studies, actor-network theory, critical theories, gender studies, Bourdieusian sociology, mixed methods, social network analysis, or organizational studies. Yet such widespread but simplistic perceptions of our discipline represent a discursively viable strategy that successfully operates as an act of symbolic violence by subsuming the field’s diversity under an all-encompassing arbitrary antagonism of qualitative/theoretical sociology and a monolithic positivist quantitative sociology.

The vehemence with which the representatives of two (imagined and real) camps criticize each other may obscure the fact that they both resort to the same binary logic and thus can be said to be implicitly complicit in reproducing such a paradigmatic dichotomy. The resulting bipolar discursive structure systematically and successfully obscures the vast variety of research styles in contemporary German sociology. The powerful opponents that dominate the current discourse on German sociology’s self-reflection can be said to be effectively collaborating in the form of a latent division of labor of scientific domination, which turns the irreconcilability of two arbitrary positions into an all-decisive and dominating reality of the field. In contemporary German sociology, alternative styles of sociology are effectively delegitimized from both sides and run the risk of becoming heterodox. Sometimes, they are forced into one of the two camps and thereby coopted such as Bourdieusian sociology to ‘theory’ or computational social sciences to traditional analytical empirical sociology. The symbolic power of dichotomization comes to light in cases where the clear-cut attribution is disrupted, for instance, in case of sociologists that use quantitative methods for critical sociology, or those who use qualitative methods in the context of policy consulting and political intervention. Mixed methods research has a particularly precarious status (limited opportunities for funding, publication, and obtaining professorships) in Germany, given the extreme methodological polarization of qualitative and quantitative research.

Consequently, current German sociology has reorganized itself into two institutionally detached official and legitimate forms, which can be seen as a decisive advantage for some, namely those populating the paradigmatic extremes of the field.¹⁷ In a sense, this development may be interpreted as the outcome of differentiation processes observable in many disciplines once they experience a considerable increase in size and thematic orientations. At the same time, however, its manifestation as an institutional fission is a fundamental division, since many sociologists tend to be strongly oriented toward other disciplines, highly valuing interdisciplinarity, rather than to other research styles of their own discipline, apart from negative referencing, resulting in a decrease of intradisciplinarity. A key question is whether this differentiation is positive or negative for the discipline as a whole. In our view, this division will be detrimental for the discipline and its role in science and society if it prevents opportunities for exchange and discussion and becomes not so much a scientific division of labor but rather a division of the scientific work of domination.

Further research must assess how these recent developments in German sociology and its bifurcated discourse impact scientific practices; for example, we expect scientists to refrain from an illegitimate combination of different theories, methods, and research foci. Also, junior researchers’ career decisions, opportunities, and strategies must all be investigated; we expect they will have to decide increasingly early and categorically in favor of one of the two extreme forms. Another question is whether the polarization described will impact the internal structures of universities’ sociological departments, for instance, in such a way that departments can soon be clearly assigned to one of the two prevailing camps. The two artificial poles within the field that are distancing themselves from each other also influence the discipline’s relations and contributions to other fields, leading to two increasingly mutually exclusive forms of public sociology: a theoretical-critical and an empirical-analytical one.

While this difference has always existed, it is to be expected – in view of the now widespread mutual delegitimization of each other's contributions – that the reciprocal control of these two extreme forms will diminish. Initially, this may appear to be an advantage of specialization but, in the long run, it may well hamper the discipline’s performance, for example, by mostly providing an uncritical body of numbers or intellectually lectured Sunday speeches. Further research should also transcend the boundaries of the empirical case at hand: in fact, the situation of German sociology may well serve as a textbook case of a national sociological field’s internal refiguration in response to the transformation of science and society. Developments such as economization, bureaucratization, managerialism, or transnationalization (Heilbron, 2014; Sapiro et al., 2015; Slaughter & Cantwell, 2012) have caused external strains that affect the material and scientific structure of all national scientific fields. Consequently, future studies should also assess to what extent other national fields and disciplines experience and react in similar ways to such external compulsions and whether similar or alternative forms of latent division of labor can be observed in other countries. Finally, a crucial question is to what extent these developments within different national fields at large constitute the modern structure of the transnational field of sociology (and, ultimately, of science).

Engaging in this line of research will provide us with important insights into the conditions, constraints, and opportunities of sociological practice. Yet such an ambitious task is a collective challenge that can only be accomplished if it utilizes and embraces the paradigmatic and cultural diversity of sociological knowledge.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authora, upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg

Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg, is assistant professor for sociology at University of Potsdam. His main areas of interest are in transnationalization and European integration, political sociology of economic thought, field and discourse analysis, and relational sociology. His current research concerns the dynamics of academic fields with a focus on the disciplines of German sociology, German and French economics and European economic experts. His work has been published in Zeitschrift für Theoretische Soziologie, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, and Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales.

Andreas Schmitz

Andreas Schmitz, is full professor for sociology. His main areas of interest are relational theory and methodology, computational social sciences, mixed-methods, empirical sociology of culture, and the sociology of emotions. His current research concerns the analysis of digital spheres and the mobilization of techniques from computer studies. His work has been published in Quality and Quantity, The American Sociologist, The Sociological Review, Current Sociology, and Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales.

Notes

1 The recent movement of an ‘analytical sociology’ continues the program of methodological individualism with a rationalist orientation, but it is more open to structures and relations between actors and pays less attention to the actors and their actions. (see Hedström, 2005)

2 https://akademie-soziologie.de/die-akademie/ziele-und-aufgaben/

3 https://akademie-soziologie.de/die-akademie/positionen-und-ressourcen/

4 https://www.dfg.de/dfg_profil/gremien/fachkollegien/index.html

5 We would like to thank our students for their invaluable help with the data collection.

6 In German sociology, as in German academia in general, there are virtually no permanent positions available besides professorships, making them the main guarantee of a long-term engagement in sociology. This includes professorships at universities of applied sciences (FH, Fachhochschulen), where great importance is attached to the practical application of knowledge (e.g., consulting) and the teaching load is twice as high as for a university professor, reducing time available for research and publishing.

7 All calculations were done in SPAD 9.1.44.

8 For the MCA we discuss only active categories contributing more than one and a half times the mean of 0.38% to an axis and in the case of dichotomous variables only the positive category in text and graphs for a more comprehensive interpretation (see Table A1 in the Appendix). Passive categories are printed in italics in the text and the graphs for better readability.

9 This concept, developed by Hartmut Esser, is similar to Boudon’s model of action-based explanation.

10 The average position of women is indeed an unfavorable one in terms of symbolic capital and capital volume. However, as the field theory perspective teaches us, it is not a purely passive position of oppression; rather, being female has become a valuable asset in contemporary German sociology and women have a better chance of obtaining a professorship than men (see Lutter & Schröder, 2016). This benefit arises from the very fact of historically established domination of women in science: today, being oppressed can become a legitimate criterion, often overruling other paradigmatic criteria.

11 Both authors of the present article are located to the left and slightly above the centroid, thus indicating our moderate relevance in the field.

12 The technical online appendix reports statistical tests on the comparison between the AS group and the overall sample population.

13 At the time of conducting the study, of 197 sociologists involved with the AS, 118 were also involved with the DGS.

14 For all contributions of active categories to the first three axis of the CSA see online appendix table OA1. For the variances of the axes of the CSA see table A2.

15 The first axis of the CSA is almost orthogonal (88°) to the first axis of the MCA, but shows a similar alignment as the second axis of the MCA (39°), see online appendix table OA2.

16 This development reflects a distinction already known from philosophy, which has split into analytical philosophy and continental philosophy; and just as analytical philosophy increasingly took up classical questions of philosophy over time, we expect that analytical sociology will soon strive to appropriate methods, data types, and scientific issues that are today represented by the DGS. Specifically, this should very soon include statistical procedures formerly considered ‘merely exploratory,’ i.e., dimensionality reduction procedures. Also, bits and pieces of paradigms that are relatively close to the AS position in the field may well soon fall within the scope of the AS, not least elements of Bourdieusian theory (habitus, field) and methodology, as well as other relational approaches.

17 It should be pointed out that quite a few sociologists do not engage in positive or negative assessments, which may in part have to do with the fact that their strategies do not refer to the two paradigmatic poles of the field nor to its institutional dimension. For example, German organizational sociologists are strongly oriented toward European organizational studies rather than toward other branches of German sociology.

Appendix 1

Table A1. MCA, all variables, active and passive categories, N, contributions on axis 1, 2, 3 (categories that contribute less than one and a half times the mean of 0.38% to axis 1, 2, as well as 3 in italics, with an exception of negative contributions of dichotomous variables).

Variable	Category	N	Contribution in %
			axis 1	axis 2	axis 3
Highest academic title	<Ph.D.	191	0.0	4.5	1.0
	Ph.D.	378	0.0	1.8	0.7
	PD	47	0.1	0.0	0.3
	JProf	17	-	-	-
	AplProf.	17	-	-	-
	Prof.	475	0.0	6.6	0.1
Emeritus	em	80	0.0	2.3	1.2
	em_no	1045	0.0	0.2	0.1
Academic prizes	P0	893	0,0	0,6	0,0
	P1	131	0,0	0,7	0,3
	P2	42	0,1	0,6	0,0
	P3	28	0,3	0,6	0,1
	P > 3	31	0,3	0,9	0,2
Google Scholar citations	sch0	109	0,1	2,2	1,4
	sch1	107	0,1	2,0	0,4
	sch2	118	0,1	1,1	0,2
	sch3	113	0,0	0,5	0,2
	sch4	114	0,0	0,1	0,2
	sch5	111	0,1	0,0	0,2
	sch6	112	0,1	0,1	0,0
	sch7	114	0,1	1,1	0,1
	sch8	113	0,0	1,5	0,0
	sch9	114	0,1	4,4	0,2
Google news mentions	N0	486	0,0	1,7	0,0
	N1	185	0,0	0,2	0,2
	N2	97	0,0	0,1	0,0
	N3	71	0,0	0,0	0,0
	N4-9	145	0,0	0,7	0,1
	N10-15	43	0,0	0,4	0,0
	N16-25	49	0,0	1,1	0,1
	N > 25	49	0,0	1,5	0,5
Wikipedia page	Wik	249	0,2	6,9	1,1
	nWik	876	0,1	2,0	0,3
Form of publishing (foremost books, mostly books, books and papers, mostly papers, foremost papers)	B++	137	0,3	0,8	1,8
	B+	329	1,0	0,7	0,0
	P/B	299	0,0	0,0	0,1
	P+	251	1,1	0,1	0,2
	P++	109	0,4	1,0	0,0
Publishing language (foremost English, mostly English, English and German, mostly German, foremost German)	E++	81	0,7	0,5	0,2
	E+	135	1,4	0,0	0,0
	E/G	212	0,2	0,1	0,2
	G+	338	0,2	1,1	0,7
	G++	359	1,0	0,9	1,2
Number of research-stays abroad (3 months and more)	0Fs	670	0,0	1,3	0,0
	1Fs	264	0,1	0,2	0,0
	2Fs	111	0,0	0,7	0,0
	3Fs	47	0,0	0,9	0,3
	4Fs	33	0,0	1,3	0,0
Number of DFG research projects	0dfg	774	0,0	2,5	0,1
	1dfg	153	0,0	0,5	1,0
	2dfg	61	0,0	0,8	0,1
	3dfg	39	0,0	1,1	0,3
	4dfg	33	0,1	1,3	0,0
	5/6dfg	35	0,1	1,4	0,0
	>=7dfg	30	0,0	2,1	0,1
Number of non-DFG sources of research funding	0Fn	795	0,2	0,8	0,3
	1Fn	146	0,1	0,1	0,7
	2Fn	91	0,1	1,1	0,1
	3Fn	39	0,1	0,5	0,1
	>=4Fn	54	0,2	1,1	0,0
Editor of scientific journal	Ed	107	0,0	3,1	0,2
	n.Ed	1018	0,0	0,3	0,0
Employed by a non-university research institute	NOU	120	1,5	0,4	0,0
	n.NOU	1005	0,2	0,0	0,0
Chair in social theory	ChT	45	0,5	1,6	0,6
	nChT	1080	0,0	0,1	0,0
Chair in methods of social research	ChM	58	0,9	0,9	0,5
	nChM	1067	0,1	0,0	0,0
Number of DGS sections	0Sec	98	2,0	0,1	0,3
	1Sec	602	0,0	0,7	0,8
	2Sec	237	0,0	0,2	0,2
	3Sec	120	0,5	1,1	1,3
	>=4Sec	68	0,3	0,4	0,9
Member of DGS steering committee	SecC	190	0,5	0,4	1,5
	nSecC	935	0,1	0,1	0,3
Number of periods in DGS council	0DGS_Cc	1060	0,0	0,3	0,0
	1/3DGS_Cc	35	0,3	1,5	0,3
	4/5DGS_Cc	30	0,1	2,8	0,0
Theory: Analytical Sociology	T_Ana	38	1.3	0.1	0.0
	T_Ana-	1087	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Theory of Society	T_ToS	33	0.6	0.8	1.3
	T_ToS-	1092	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Bourdieu	T_Bou	80	0.3	0.1	1.0
	T_Bou-	1045	0.0	0.0	0.1
Theory: Social Constructivism	T_Cons	42	0.9	0.4	0.9
	T_Cons-	1083	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Luhmann	T_Lu	70	1.0	0.1	1.0
	T_Lu-	1055	0.1	0.0	0.1
Theory: Foucault	T_Fou	44	0.9	0.0	0.3
	T_Fou-	1081	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Poststructuralism	T_Posts	26	0.7	0.0	0.0
	T_Posts-	1099	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Weber	T_Web	46	0.4	0.8	0.9
	T_Web-	1079	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Marx	T_Mar	35	0.5	0.2	0.0
	T_Mar-	1090	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Critical Theory	T_Crit	35	0.5	0.3	0.3
	T_Crit-	1090	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Schütz	T_Sch	27	0.8	0.5	0.6
	T_Sch-	1098	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Phenomenology	T_Phn	34	0.8	0.0	0.0
	T_Phn-	1091	0.0	0.0	0.0
Thoery: Theories of Materiality	T_Mat	39	0.9	0.1	0.0
	T_Mat-	1086	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Theories of Relationality	T_Rel	25	0.3	0.0	0.5
	T_Rel-	1100	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Feminism	T_Fem	33	0.5	0.0	0.7
	T_Fem-	1092	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Action Theory	T_Act	84	1.3	0.9	0.0
	T_Act-	1041	0.1	0.1	0.0
Theory: Practice Theory	T_Pra	43	0.7	0.0	0.4
	T_Pra-	1082	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Field Theory	T_Fld	33	0.4	0.0	0.4
	T_Fld-	1092	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Neo-Institutionalism	T_Neo	31	0.1	0.0	0.0
	T_Neo-	1094	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Postcolonialism	T_Pcol	25	0.3	0.0	0.4
	T_Pcol-	1100	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Sociology of Knowledge	T_Sok	44	1.0	0.4	1.2
	T_Sok-	1081	0.0	0.0	0.1
Theory: Life-Course	T_Lifc	57	2.6	0.1	0.3
	T_Lifc-	1068	0.1	0.0	0.0
Theory: Rational Action Theory	T_Rat	116	4.0	0.2	0.0
	T_Rat-	1009	0.5	0.0	0.0
Theory: Modell of Sociological Explanation	T_Mse	26	0.6	0.3	0.0
	T_Mse-	1099	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Political Economy	T_Peco	27	0.1	0.0	0.6
	T_Peco-	1098	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Differentiation Theory	T_Dif	26	0.6	0.4	0.5
	T_Dif-	1099	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Discourse Theory	T_Dis	54	0.9	0.0	0.6
	T_Dis-	1071	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: Actor-Network Theory	T_Ant	39	0.7	0.1	0.0
	T_Ant-	1086	0.0	0.0	0.0
Theory: no theory	T_None	434	0.4	1.4	0.3
	T_Any	691	0.3	0.9	0.2
Methods: Logistic Regression	M_LogR	53	1.7	0.0	0.2
	M_LogR-	1072	0.1	0.0	0.0
Methods: Multi-Level Analysis	M_ML	44	1.8	0.1	0.4
	M_ML-	1081	0.1	0.0	0.0
Methods: Fixed/Random/Hybrid Effects	M_FRH	66	3.0	0.1	0.1
	M_FRH-	1059	0.2	0.0	0.0
Methods: Experiments	M_Exp	64	2.1	0.0	0.1
	M_Exp-	1061	0.1	0.0	0.0
Methods: Network Analysis	M_Net	68	0.2	0.0	0.1
	M_Net-	1057	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Case Studies	M_Cas	46	0.1	0.0	0.2
	M_Cas-	1079	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Historical Analysis	M_His	62	0.3	0.0	0.3
	M_His-	1063	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Grounded Theory	M_Gro	47	0.4	0.1	4.1
	M_Gro-	1078	0.0	0.0	0.2
Methods: Interpretative Methods	M_Intp	27	0.6	0.1	2.0
	M_Intp-	1098	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Ethnography	M_Ethg	87	1.2	0.0	2.5
	M_Ethg-	1038	0.1	0.0	0.2
Methods: Participant Observation	M ParOb	39	0.5	0.2	1.7
	M ParOb-	1086	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: Narrative Analysis/Interviews	M_Nar	46	0.4	0.1	4.4
	M_Nar-	1079	0.0	0.0	0.2
Methods: Biographical Analysis	M_Bio	29	0.2	0.1	2.9
	M_Bio-	1096	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: Biographical Interviews	M_Bioi	32	0.2	0.0	2.3
	M_Bioi-	1093	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: Group Interviews	M_Groi	34	0.2	0.1	1.9
	M_Groi-	1091	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: Qualitative Content Analysis	M_Qca	34	0.2	0.0	0.8
	M_Qca-	1091	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Interpretative Pattern Analysis	M_Ipat	25	0.1	0.0	0.8
	M_Ipat-	1100	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Visual Analysis	M_Vis	31	0.7	0.1	0.8
	M_Vis-	1094	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Expert Interviews	M_Exi	46	0.3	0.1	1.9
	M_Exi-	1079	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: Reconstructive Methods	M_Rec	41	0.4	0.1	3.1
	M_Rec-	1084	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: Mixed Methods	M_Mix	35	0.0	0.0	1.1
	M_Mix-	1090	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Document Analysis	M_Docs	28	0.4	0.0	1.1
	M_Docs-	1097	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Panel Analysis	M_Pan	179	6.3	0.0	0.4
	M_Pan-	946	1.2	0.0	0.1
Methods: Event History Analysis	M_Eve	32	2.0	0.1	0.4
	M_Eve-	1093	0.1	0.0	0.0
Methods: Process & Register Data	M_Prr	36	0.5	0.0	0.1
	M_Prr-	1089	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Descriptive Statistics	M_Dst	41	0.2	0.1	0.0
	M_Dst-	1084	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: General qualitative research	M_Gql	69	0.2	0.2	0.3
	M_Gql-	1056	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: OLS Regressions	M_Ols	43	0.3	0.1	0.1
	M_Ols-	1082	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Interview based research	M_Inv	68	0.1	0.0	0.2
	M_Inv-	1057	0.0	0.0	0.0
Methods: Survey based research	M_Sur	316	4.6	0.0	0.2
	M_Sur-	809	1.8	0.0	0.1
Methods: Simulation/Model Building	M_Sim	53	1.5	0.1	0.0
	M_Sim-	1072	0.1	0.0	0.0
Methods: Discourse Analysis	M_Dis	84	1.0	0.0	2.2
	M_Dis-	1041	0.1	0.0	0.2
Methods: Semi-/Guided Interviews	M_Gui	43	0.2	0.0	3.0
	M_Gui-	1082	0.0	0.0	0.1
Methods: no method	M_None	220	1.0	0.0	6.9
	M_Any	905	0.2	0.0	1.7
Research focus: work	F_Wrk	258	1.1	0.1	0.0
	F_Wrk-	867	0.3	0.0	0.0
Research focus: age	F_Age	88	0.3	0.0	0.0
	F_Age-	1037	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: wealth and inequality	F_Inq	249	1.4	0.1	1.1
	F_Inq-	876	0.4	0.0	0.3
Research focus: health care	F_HeaCa	142	0.1	0.0	0.1
	F_HeaCa-	983	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: social change	F_Chg	94	0.3	0.3	0.0
	F_Chg-	1031	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: technology and innovation	F_Tec	88	0.5	0.0	0.0
	F_Tec-	1037	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: economy	F_Eco	198	0.0	0.1	0.7
	F_Eco-	927	0.0	0.0	0.1
Research focus: transnationalism	F_Trn	73	0.3	0.1	1.3
	F_Trn-	1052	0.0	0.0	0.1
Research focus: science	F_Sci	124	0.2	0.0	0.0
	F_Sci-	1001	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: theory	F_The	114	1.2	1.7	1.7
	F_The-	1011	0.1	0.2	0.2
Research focus: organization	F_Org	131	0.2	0.0	0.0
	F_Org-	994	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: youth	F_You	76	0.0	0.1	0.4
	F_You-	1049	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: gender and diversity	F_GenDiv	191	0.1	0.0	0.8
	F_GenDiv-	934	0.0	0.0	0.2
Research focus: empirical social research	F_Sor	119	1.5	0.0	0.1
	F_Sor-	1006	0.2	0.0	0.0
Research focus: media	F_Mda	87	0.8	0.1	0.0
	F_Mda-	1038	0.1	0.0	0.0
Research focus: comparative macro sociology	F_MacCo	100	0.4	1.1	0.0
	F_MacCo-	1025	0.0	0.1	0.0
Research focus: Europe	F_Eur	93	0.0	0.4	0.1
	F_Eur-	1032	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: digitalization/quantification/valuation	F_DigQv	106	0.6	0.0	0.0
	F_DigQv-	1019	0.1	0.0	0.0
Research focus: religion	F_Rel	77	0.5	0.4	0.2
	F_Rel-	1048	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: family	F_Fam	157	1.4	0.2	0.5
	F_Fam-	968	0.2	0.0	0.1
Research focus: education	F_Edu	225	1.6	0.0	0.6
	F_Edu-	900	0.4	0.0	0.2
Research focus: culture	F_Cult	220	2.3	0.3	0.1
	F_Cult-	905	0.6	0.1	0.0
Research focus: politics	F_Pol	240	0.3	0.2	0.0
	F_Pol-	885	0.1	0.0	0.0
Research focus: space and architecture	F_SpaArc	63	0.1	0.0	0.3
	F_SpaArc-	1062	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: professions	F_Prof	79	0.0	0.0	0.7
	F_Prof-	1046	0.0	0.0	0.1
Research focus: life course	F_Lif	60	2.5	0.2	0.4
	F_Lif-	1065	0.1	0.0	0.0
Research focus: ecology and sustainability	F_Sus	68	0.0	0.0	0.1
	F_Sus-	1057	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: conflict and military	F_CftMi	62	0.3	0.0	0.1
	F_CftMi-	1063	0.0	0.0	0.0
Research focus: migration and ethnicity	F_MigEt	182	0.1	0.0	2.2
	F_MigEt-	943	0.0	0.0	0.4
age grouped	28-	41	-	-	-
	37-	53	-	-	-
	42-	46	-	-	-
	46-	42	-	-	-
	50-	54	-	-	-
	55-	37	-	-	-
	58-	53	-	-	-
	62-	52	-	-	-
	67-	47	-	-	-
	73-	52	-	-	-
	missing	648	-	-	-
sex	F	480	-	-	-
	M	645	-	-	-
Funding: DFG	Fn_DFG	437	-	-	-
Funding: Swiss national fund	Fn_SNF	27	-	-	-
Funding: Austrian science fund	Fn_FWF	10	-	-	-
Funding: Austrian federal government	Fn_Aut_Fed	6	-	-	-
Funding: German federal government	Fn_Fed	182	-	-	-
Funding: German Bundesländer	Fn_Bland	91	-	-	-
Funding: German academic exchange service	Fn_DAAD	28	-	-	-
Funding: non-university research institute	Fn_NURA	29	-	-	-
Funding: Thyssen foundation	Fn_THY	26	-	-	-
Funding: Hans Böckler Foundation	Fn_HBS	27	-	-	-
Funding: Bosch Foundation	Fn_BOS	6	-	-	-
Funding: Merkator Foundation	Fn_MER	5	-	-	-
Funding: Bertelsmann Foundation	Fn_BES	9	-	-	-
Funding: Volkswagen Foundation	Fn_VW	52	-	-	-
Funding: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation	Fn_AHS	5	-	-	-
Funding: political party foundations	Fn_PFoun	8	-	-	-
Funding: churches	Fn_Chur	18	-	-	-
Funding: other foundations	Fn_Foun	46	-	-	-
Funding: non-German governments	Fn_OCtry	26	-	-	-
Funding: European research council and institutions	Fn_EURO	64	-	-	-
Funding: local government	Fn_Commu	20	-	-	-
Funding: associations and federations	Fn_Asso	11	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): psychology	Psych	27	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): law	law	12	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): management	manag	7	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): economics	eco	29	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): political science	poli	48	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): studies of religion	reli	13	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): history	his	27	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): arts	arts	8	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): media studies	media	15	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): ethnology	ethno	14	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): educational sciences	edu	48	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): languages/literature	lanlit	11	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): philosophy	phil	8	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): computer sciences	comp	11	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): geography	geo	12	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): medicine	med	5	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): humanities/culture	humcu	8	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): sport	spo	6	-	-	-
Interdisciplinarity (DFG-project): criminology	crim	5	-	-	-
Number of staff employed at chair held	1/2 emp	27	-	-	-
	3 emp	31	-	-	-
	4 emp	46	-	-	-
	5 emp	32	-	-	-
	>=6emp	23	-	-	-
	mis emp	946	-	-	-
	no emp	20	-	-	-
Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences	Gesis	14	-	-	-
Berlin Social Science Center	WZB	17	-	-	-
Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories	LIfBi	5	-	-	-
Leibniz Institutes (other)	Leib	10	-	-	-
Max-Planck Institutes	MPI	12	-	-	-
Institute for Employment Research	IAB	10	-	-	-
Deutsches Jugendinstitut	DJI	9	-	-	-
Mannheim Center for European Social Research	MZES	5	-	-	-
Federal government and Länder research institutes	FL_Inst	38	-	-	-
Employed by a university of applied sciences	FH	88	-	-	-
DGS working group: Social History and History of Ideas	s_HistId	7	-	-	-
DGS section: Age and Society	s_AgeSo	38	-	-	-
DGS section: Science and Technology Studies	s_SciTec	46	-	-	-
DGS section: Economic Sociology	s_Econ	51	-	-	-
DGS section: Environmental Sociology	s_Envi	23	-	-	-
DGS section: Urban and Regional Sociology	s_CtyReg	39	-	-	-
DGS section: Social Theory	s_SocTh	69	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociological Network Analysis	s_Netw	34	-	-	-
DGS section: Body and Sports Sociology	s_BodySp	31	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Childhood	s_Child	15	-	-	-
DGS section: Educational Sociology	s_Edu	35	-	-	-
DGS section: Biographical Studies	s_Biog	36	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Development and Social Anthropology	s_DeveSa	30	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Europe	s_Euro	37	-	-	-
DGS section: Women and Gender Studies	s_WmnGe	24	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Youth	s_Yout	31	-	-	-
DGS section: Rural, Agricultural and Foods Sociology	s_RurAF	24	-	-	-
DGS section: Media and Communication Sociology	s_MedCo	30	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Medicine and Health	s_MedHe	32	-	-	-
DGS section: Methods of social Research	s_Mesr	66	-	-	-
DGS section: Migration and Ethnic Minorities	s_MigEt	54	-	-	-
DGS section: Model Building and Simulation	s_ModSi	53	-	-	-
DGS section: Political Sociology	s_Pol	58	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Professions	s_Prof	39	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Law	s_Law	31	-	-	-
DGS section: Social Indicators	s_SocIn	33	-	-	-
DGS section: Social Problems and Control	s_ProCo	37	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Religion	s_Rel	50	-	-	-
DGS section: Organizational Sociology	s_Org	48	-	-	-
DGS section: Social Policy	s_SocPo	59	-	-	-
DGS section: Cultural Sociology	s_Cult	70	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Work and Industry	s_Indu	70	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of Knowledge	s_Know	132	-	-	-
DGS section: Sociology of the Family	s_Fam	80	-	-	-
DGS section: Methods of Qualitative Social Research	s_Qual	77	-	-	-
DGS section: Social Inequality and Social Structure Analysis	s_InqSs	148	-	-	-
Number of periods in DGS steering committee	0DGS_Sc	1100	-	-	-
	1/2DGS_Sc	14	-	-	-
	>=3DGS_Sc	11	-	-	-
Subscribe open letter 2017 DGS elections	Su_DGS_El	85	-	-	-
Engaging with AS	AS	197	-	-	-
Member of AS steering committee	As_Sc	9	-	-	-
Subscribe call for founding AS	Su_AS_Fo	112	-	-	-
Participation AS conference Munich	C_AS_Muc	134	-	-	-
Member of DGS and AS	both	118	-	-	-
Number of periods DFG committee	0DFG_C	1103	-	-	-
	1DFG_C	12	-	-	-
	2DFG_C	10	-	-	-
Member of scientific academy	SciAc	22	-	-	-
Employed by non-German speaking university	NGSUni	47	-	-	-
Employed by Austrian university	AUTUni	35	-	-	-
Employed by Swiss university	CHUni	47	-	-	-
Theory: Social Theory	T_STh	16	-	-	-
Theory: Elias	T_Eli	22	-	-	-
Theory: Simmel	T_Si	23	-	-	-
Theory: Goffman	T_Gof	18	-	-	-
Theory: Durkheim	T_Dur	18	-	-	-
Theory: Network Theory	T_Net	20	-	-	-
Theory: Philosophical Anthropology	T_Pha	15	-	-	-
Theory: Habermas	T_Habm	14	-	-	-
Theory: Merton/Structural Functionalism	T_MerStrf	14	-	-	-
Theory: Giddens	T_Gid	15	-	-	-
Theory: Mannheim	T_Man	13	-	-	-
Theory: Theories of Intersectionality	T_Isec	19	-	-	-
Theory: Gender Theories	T_Gen	18	-	-	-
Theory: Pragmatism	T_Prg	22	-	-	-
Theory: Conflict Theory	T_Con	13	-	-	-
Theory: Garry Becker	T_Gbc	13	-	-	-
Theory: Symbolic Interactionism	T_Syi	17	-	-	-
Theory: Beck	T_Bec	23	-	-	-
Theory: Sociology of Conventions	T_Conv	15	-	-	-
Theory: Game Theory	T_Gam	21	-	-	-
Theory: Modernization Theory	T_Mdn	20	-	-	-
Theory: Organization Theory	T_Org	21	-	-	-
Theory: Boundary Theory	T_Boun	13	-	-	-
Methods: Objective Hermeneutics	M OBH	22	-	-	-
Methods: Computational Social Sciences	M_CSS	17	-	-	-
Methods: Ethnomethodology	M_Ethm	22	-	-	-
Methods: Quantitative Text Analysis	M_Qtx	13	-	-	-
Methods: Hermeneutics	M_Her	23	-	-	-
Methods: Field Studies	M_Fis	14	-	-	-
Methods: Documentary Method	M_Dom	11	-	-	-
Methods: Structural Equation Models	M_Sem	20	-	-	-
Methods: Geometric Data Analysis	M_Gda	24	-	-	-
Methods: Classification Analysis	M_Cla	21	-	-	-
Methods: General quantitative research	M_Gqn	10	-	-	-
Methods: Macro/Aggregate Data	M_Mad	13	-	-	-
Methods: Quantitative Sequence Analysis	M_Seqn	18	-	-	-
Methods: Participatory Research	M Ptry	16	-	-	-
Research focus: poverty	F_Poo	40	-	-	-
Research focus: city and housing	F_CitHo	55	-	-	-
Research focus: biography	F_Bio	47	-	-	-
Research focus: emotions	F_Emo	29	-	-	-
Research focus: social policy	F_Sop	56	-	-	-
Research focus: children	F_Chi	48	-	-	-
Research focus: social structure and stratification	F_Sst	57	-	-	-
Research focus: transformation	F_Tra	32	-	-	-
Research focus: right extremism and nationalism	F_RigNa	34	-	-	-
Research focus: law	F_Law	55	-	-	-
Research focus: societal diagnosis	F_Dia	25	-	-	-
Research focus: globalization	F_Glo	55	-	-	-
Research focus: regions	F_Reg	29	-	-	-
Research focus: body/sport/identity	F_Bodsp	58	-	-	-
Research focus: parenting/socialization	F_ParSo	31	-	-	-
Research focus: integration/cohesion	F_Itg	47	-	-	-
Research focus: knowledge	F_Kno	54	-	-	-
Research focus: history	F_His	48	-	-	-
Research focus: demography	F_Dem	41	-	-	-
Research focus: participation	F_Par	29	-	-	-
Research focus: evaluation	F_Eva	25	-	-	-
Research focus: crime	F_Cri	50	-	-	-
Research focus: discrimination	F_Disc	25	-	-	-
Research focus: development	F_Dev	27	-	-	-
Research focus: internationalization	F_Int	34	-	-	-
Research focus: art/literature/music	F_Art	34	-	-	-
Research focus: welfare state	F_Wel	43	-	-	-
Research focus: nation state	F_Nas	25	-	-	-
Research focus: norms and values	F_NVal	26	-	-	-
Research focus: democracy/civil movements	F_DeMo	39	-	-	-
Research focus: lifestyle and milieus	F_LifMi	25	-	-	-
Research focus: agriculture and foods	F_Agrfoo	28	-	-	-

Passive modalities possess no contributions.

Table A2. MCA and CSA, variances of axes.

Axis	Variance of axis (eigenvalue) MCA	% of explained variance MCA	Benzécri’s modified rates (%) MCA	Cumulated Benzécri’s modified rates (%) MCA	Variance of the axis (eigenvalue) CSA	% of explained variance CSA
1	0.050	3.7	35.5	35.5	0.073	5.5
2	0.043	3.1	24.1	59.6	0.066	5.0
3	0.028	2.0	7.5	67.0	0.057	4.4
4	0.025	1.9	5.7	72.8	0.046	3.5
5	0.023	1.7	4.1	76.9	0.040	3.0
6	0.021	1.5	3.0	79.9	0.040	3.0
7	0.020	1.4	2.4	82.3	0.038	2.8
8	0.019	1.4	2.0	84.2	0.034	2.6
9	0.018	1.3	1.6	85.9	0.033	2.5
10	0.017	1.3	1.4	87.3	0.031	2.4

Graph A1. Space of German Sociology, MCA, dimension 1 & 2, memberships in DGS sections, passive categories.