Abstract
The book, which presents a synthesis of Korom’s work, is organized into two contextualizing and four empirical chapters, drawing from various publications spanning 2018 to 2020. The author draws on well-informed case studies and various methods to offer an insight into how the composition of the sociological elite relates to the (changing) organization of the discipline. The book addresses important issues for those who are interested in sociology and the history of the social sciences, the profile and careers of scientific elites, and the reasons why some scholars end up being more eminent than others. Although sociology lies at the core of the book, comparisons to other disciplines are offered, first and foremost economics. Korom’s empirical-based reflection brings many insights for corroborating or challenging previous scholarship. Perhaps the book’s numerous contributions would have deserved a deeper integration into a broader theory of elites. Nevertheless, the level of detail of the empirical work and its articulation with a very coherent purpose make this book an inspiring companion for anyone aiming at better understanding the driving forces behind scientific eminence.
Chapter 2 ‘Eminent scientists’ draws on the contextual conditions of a discipline in the making. Two aspects are emphasized: research and scientific publications have not always been dominant criteria for recruiting academic staff, and the world of sociological publication was at first limited to a few journals, such as the American Journal of Sociology (AJS), the American Sociological Review (ASR), Social Forces (SR) or l’Année sociologique. Despite an overall small number of publications, sociology was experiencing ‘global status competition between sociologists of their time’ (p. 18). Alongside the increase in the number of journals, the publication of textbooks, monographs, and edited volumes ultimately became the dominant source for scholars’ reputation, underlining the relational nature of recognition. Starting from early attempts to rank scientists, Korom describes the mechanisms by which disciplines turned to citations as a key metric of recognition. Not without noting limitations, Korom argues for identifying a sociological elite based on citations, while considering that sociology is not organized in ‘any coherent way’ (p. 31).
Chapter 3 ‘Sociology as an Academic Discipline’ aims to unveil the specificities of sociology. The focus is put on the institutionalization of sociology in US departments and the exponential growth of trained sociologists after WW2. What is called the ‘Golden age’ of sociology (1940–1970) was dominated by a few schools of thought, namely Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard, which consistently made up the elite in sociology during the period. These three schools, depicted as close-knit social networks ecosystems of plural knowledge, had a massive impact at the disciplinary-wide level. After 1970, hegemony gave way to acceptance of diversify and more intellectual pluralism. ‘National sociologies’ have developed, implying that ‘most studies are conducted within one society, intellectual products are distinguishable in terms of the national culture, and sociologists often confine professional contacts within national boundaries’ (p. 53). The end of the chapter is dedicated to compare sociology with economics. While the latter is highly consensual, hierarchical, and more prone to publish research in journals than in books, sociology is characterized by a lack of consensus of what is a ‘good’ sociology, the weakness of its core, and the diversity of its publication market.
Chapter 4 ‘Identifying the Elite’, delves into identifying the sociological elite as a ‘prestige elite’, thus through reputation and recognition and their relational dimensions. The approach is to ‘locate the ‘prestige elite’ by exploring the topmost stratum of citation distributions’ (p. 68). Three characteristics distinguish the few members of the prestige elite from the vast majority: high peer attention, enduring peer attention, and recognition within the wider academic community through the recipient of honors or memberships in different academies. The first study compares the number of references given to authors in the bibliographies in a corpus of ten textbooks, two handbooks, to encyclopedias and five top journals: ASR, AJS, SF, the British Journal of Sociology (BJS) and the European Journal of Sociology (EJS) (995 articles published in 1970 and 2010). The aggregation of weighted scores allows us to identify the top-ranked 50 sociologists of the years 1970 and 2010, with important variations according to the type of publication. The second study focuses on the width of the imprint scholars leave on the discipline. Analyzing 82,045 publications from 42 journals (20 stand for national sociology, 22 for subfields of sociology) between 1970 and 2010 through the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Korom distinguished three types of elites: ‘the core elite’ have achieved a global impact on the discipline, the ‘national elite’ have succeeded overcoming national boundaries and the ‘specialist elite’ have gained recognition across several subfields. The results of both studies are compared, and their validity is assessed by measuring correlations with prizes and memberships in academies.
Chapter 5 ‘Collective Biographies and Career Pathways’ compares the 1970 elite to the 2010 elite with a prosopography of, respectively, 43 and 46 sociological elites as identified through the first study of Chapter 4. Main findings are that the 2010 elite is less US-dominated and more Europeanized, as well as more mobile (in terms of the number of subsequent tenures), which mirrors major intradisciplinary developments. On the other hand, some characteristics have endured: about 95% of elites are male, upper-middle-class backgrounds are predominant (albeit around 20% of elites’ fathers affiliate with lower-class occupations), and 40% are supported by the Guggenheim Foundation. The chapter further inquiries into the specificities of the sociological elite by comparing with economics ‘Nobel’ recipients through professorial careers and networks from visiting fellowships and professorships. Empirical evidence corroborates the assumption that the more autonomy of a discipline and the more selection criteria appear to be standardized, the more buoyed the careers: institutionalized pathways to eminence appear to exist in economics, not in sociology. A key interpretation is the differing importance assigned to publication in top journals, which is a central precondition for promotion in top economics departments. Networks between home and visiting institution also reveal clear-cut distinction between economists and sociologists.
Chapter 6 ‘The Rise to and the Fall from Eminence’ inquiries eminence in sociology as a nested phenomenon through the case examples of Lipset’s and Bourdieu’s reception. A combination of automatic text and citation analyses shows sharp contrast between the two authors. Sociologists pay less attention to Lipset’s work today than 40 years ago. The reason, Korom says, depends on contextual factors: recipients from his theories have moved from the core to the periphery of the discipline, i.e., political sociology. Hence, ‘the fragmentation of sociology appears to inhibit a broad reception the democracy researcher Lipset [. . .] and prestige in such a niche area cannot alone provide scholar with an elite status’ (p. 152). Korom’s working hypothesis is that ‘in such a fragmented discipline as sociology thinkers only achieve eminence if their ideas spread widely and become recognized in quite diverse knowledge communities or academic tribes’ (p. 154). Bourdieu’s reception in the United States not only shows how much his work has become more cited by US sociologists but also that some main concepts, such as (cultural) capital, were flexible enough to be adapted by many specialties within sociology, therefore allowing Bourdieu to join the disciplinary elite.
Chapter 7 ‘Elites as Gatekeepers’ asks if sociological elites really are vested with power over their peers. A starting analysis of 6057 AJS and 7080 ASR referees, from which Korom retains the 1% most acknowledged individuals in the yearly ‘Acknowledgment to Referee’ from both journals, shows that the relative proportion of the most cited referees (with more than 1000 citing articles) is declining over time. The core of the chapter analyzes Robert K. Merton’s archives of 1460 recommendation letters. The relatively high success rate of candidates and the tendency of Merton to write favorable letters argue in favor of a gate-opener figure rather than a gatekeeper. Eventually, the fact that any elite could have the power to decide over appointments is driven by the relational nature of scientific activity: ‘even the most influential gatekeepers cannot conceal their decisions from peers with whom they must regularly interact and whose judgment they need to take into consideration’ (p. 196).
The concluding Chapter 8 ‘Making Sense of Prestige Elite’ highlights the core contribution of Korom’s work, namely, to provide empirical evidence that ‘eminence in sociology is not only nested in various countries but also in diverse specialties’ (p. 209). Korom promotes the existence of a discipline-elite nexus, which he defines as ‘the idea that the composition of the elite is firmly linked to the cognitive and institutional structure of the discipline [. . .]. It is one of the main findings of the present book that in the history of sociology such an interdependence can be found’ (p. 203). Therefore, one must understand eminence – best understood as a diffusion phenomenon across network communities – as bridging both national divides and appeal to a broad range of specialties in the discipline. Moreover, one must take account to major changes in sociology have been that of a decline of US-dominance, and a disciplinary fragmentation, following the key idea that ‘prestige in academia cannot be acquired, but is always granted by others’ (p. 214).