Publications

Class and Social Honour. Lords, Knights, and Companions

Palgrave Macmillan

This book develops a theoretical approach to social stratification and applies it to the development of the official system of state honours in Britain. It examines both class and status, and sets out an innovative framework for understanding social status – an important but often ignored and misunderstood dimension of social stratification. It is shown that a system of peerages, knighthoods, and other state-based royal honours emerged from feudal patterns of political rule and became an unplanned framework of social integration in the UK that has, since the nineteenth century, decayed and been challenged by alternative criteria of status. 

The book explores the class basis of the rise and decay of royal honours and includes a review of contemporary attempts to reconstruct and renew a system of social honour that reflects contemporary relations of power and class in Britain.

Structure and Social Action. On Constituting and Constructing Social Worlds

Bingley, Emerald Publishing, 2022

It is often claimed that the disjunction or opposition between ‘action’ theories and ‘structural’ theories rests on a misunderstanding of what social structure is. A clear understanding of social structure dissolves this apparent opposition. It is argued that social structure is a real social fact but has no separate and substantive existence apart from the minds and actions of the individual and collective actors who produce and reproduce it.

It is argued that it is possible to distinguish between ‘figurational structures’ of interaction and the deeper ‘formational structures’. Social interaction occurs within specific social worlds to form an extensive interaction order. The pattern of interactions comprises a figurational structure that can be mapped and explored through the methods of social network analysis. A figurational structure can be partitioned into the deeper, emergent levels of a formational structure that comprises class relations, divisions of gender and ethnicity, and a range of other divisions. This book examines the use of the sociological imagination to identify and explore formational structures and suggests the formal, analytical methods that can support these explorations.

The two levels of structure are seen as the spheres of microsociology and macrosociology, respectively. These levels can be theorised in terms of processes of social integration and system integration. The use of the ideas presented in the book is illustrated through a brief case study of class relations in French political history from the Revolution to the Third Republic.

The Emerald Guide to Talcott Parsons

Bingley, Emerald Publishing, 2020

This book is an introductory guide to the work of Talcott Parsons, designed specifically for students and those new to his work. It offers a comprehensive guide to reading and understanding the development of Parsons' sociological ideas, placing them in the context of his life and his position in American sociology. Scott delves into crucial resources on Parsons, including a bibliography of key works and a guide to further reading. By equipping readers to understand Parsons, the author arms them to engage with Parsons' work for themselves and to come to their own, informed judgments about his contemporary relevance.

British Sociology. A History

London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

This Palgrave Pivot presents a comprehensive history of sociology in Britain, tracking the discipline's intellectual developments within the institutional and political context.

After tracing the early development of the subject as an intellectual field in empirical and idealist philosophy, evolutionism, socialism, and statistical investigations, Scott lays out the trajectory of sociology as an institutionalised discipline. British Sociology maps the spread of the subject from the first Sociology Department at LSE to cover the whole country. It considers the establishment of significant professional organisations and journals, and the impact of feminism and political change. Scott also reviews theoretical engagement with Marxism, interactionism, feminism, and post-structuralism and the development of the discipline through research studies of crime, race and ethnicity, community, stratification, health, sexuality, and work.

 Set against the backdrop of a changing political context that has seen the growth of neoliberalism and globalisation, and looking forward with the ongoing search for 'new directions,' this useful and original contribution will appeal to both academics and students across sociology, criminology, and the political sciences. 

The Emerald Guide to Max Weber

Bingley, Emerald Publishing, 2019

This primer is the first introductory guide to the work of Max Weber designed specifically for students and those new to his work, providing a readable, clear, comprehensive and authoritative overview. The book discusses Weber’s personal biography, placing him in the context of the development of the social sciences, covering his methodology as well as his work on religion, politics, economic history, music, and the development of capitalism.

All that the reader needs to gain a good grasp of Weber’s importance is contained in this book, which provides a firm foundation for the independent reading of Weber himself and for  pursuing the many discussions and interpretations of his ideas. The book will appeal to readers in sociology, politics, history, law, religion, and other areas of the social sciences to which Weber made a contribution.

The book includes a complete list of the best translations of Weber’s works into English, an extensive guide to further reading highlighting uses and applications of Weber’s ideas, and a brief overview of the German editions of his collected works.