Creative Marginality

Mattei Dogan is Scientific Director at the National Centre of Scientific Research, Paris, and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. ROBERT PAHRE is Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Preface -- Introduction -- Scientific Innovation and Obsolescence -- Defining Innovation in the Social Sciences -- Patrimonies: Incremental Advance and the Distorting Effects of the “Star System” -- The Paradox of Density -- Does Citation Measure Innovation? -- Cemeteries for Books -- From Specialization and Fragmentation to Hybridization -- Specialization in the Social Sciences -- Hybridization: The Recombination of Fragments of the Social Sciences -- Fragmentation by Geographical Area versus Analytical Fragmentation -- The Crumbling Walls of the Formal Disciplines -- The Fate of the Formal Disciplines: From Coherence to Dispersion -- Why Interdisciplinarity is a False Notion -- The Interpenetration of Disciplines: The Processes of Hybridization -- The Diffusion of Concepts Across Disciplines -- Borrowing Methods -- The Impact of Technology -- The Cross-Disciplinary Repercussions of Findings -- The Influence of Theories -- Perspectives, Paradigms, and Praxis -- Hybridization of Academic Journals -- The Balance of Trade between Disciplines -- Gallery of Hybrids: Creative Marginals -- Three Ideal Types of Social Scientists -- Intellectual Migration Across Disciplines -- Crossroads: Four Illustrations -- Historical Sociology and Sociological History -- Junctions between the Social Sciences and Life Sciences -- International Political Economy: A Fusion of Several Subfields -- The Hesitant Exchange between Economics and Psychology -- Final Remarks: The New Kaleidoscope of Social Sciences