Barrington Moore Jr.
Born(1913-05-12)May 12, 1913
Washington D.C., U.S.
DiedOctober 16, 2005(2005-10-16) (aged 92)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
OccupationPolitical sociologist
Academic background
Alma materWilliams College
Yale University
Doctoral advisorAlbert Galloway Keller
Academic work
Doctoral studentsCharles Tilly, Theda Skocpol, John Mollenkopf, Jon Wiener

Barrington Moore Jr. (12 May 1913 – 16 October 2005)[1] was an American political sociologist, and the son of forester Barrington Moore.

He is well-known for his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966), a comparative study of modernization in Britain, France, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India.[2] The book puts forth a neo-Marxist argument that class structures and class alliances at particular points in time can account for the kinds of social revolutions that occurred and did not occur in those countries, putting some countries on a path to democracy, whereas others were put on a path to authoritarianism or communism.[3][4] He famously argued, "no bourgeois, no democracy," which emphasized the important role played by a large middle-class in accomplishing democratization and ensuring democratic stability.[5]

Early life, education and career

Moore was born in Washington D.C. in 1913.[2]

He studied Latin, Greek, and history at Williams College in Massachusetts. He also became interested in political science, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated in 1936.[2] In 1941, Moore obtained his Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University where he studied with Albert Galloway Keller.[6] He worked as a policy analyst at the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and at the Department of Justice.

Moore's academic career began in 1945 at the University of Chicago. In 1948 he went to Harvard University, joining the Russian Research Center in 1951. He was emerited in 1979.[2]

Moore's students at Harvard included comparative social scientists Theda Skocpol and Charles Tilly, urban sociologist John Mollenkopf,[7] as well as historian Jon Wiener.[8]

Personal life

While working at the OSS, Moore met his future wife, Elizabeth Ito, and Herbert Marcuse, who became a lifelong friend. Elizabeth died in 1992. They had no children.

Major works

Early in his academic career, Moore was a specialist on Russian politics and society, authoring his first book, Soviet Politics in 1950 and Terror and Progress, USSR in 1954.[2] In 1958 his book of six essays on methodology and theory, Political Power and Social Theory, attacked the methodological outlook of 1950s social science.

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Main article: Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Moore's groundbreaking work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966) was the cornerstone to what is now called comparative historical analysis in the social sciences.[9]

Moore's concern was the transformation of pre-industrial agrarian social relations into "modern" ones. He highlighted what he called "three routes to the modern world" - the liberal democratic, the fascist, and the communist - each deriving from the timing of industrialization and the social structure at the time of transition.

Moore challenged modernization theory by stressing that there was not one path to the modern world and that economic development did not always bring about democracy.[10]

He drew particular attention to the violence which preceded the development of democratic institutions.[11] Initially, Moore set out to study a large number of countries, but reduced his number of cases to eight.[11]

On tolerance

In 1965, Moore, Herbert Marcuse, and Robert Paul Wolff each authored an essay on the concept of tolerance and the three essays were collected in the book A Critique of Pure Tolerance. The title was a play on the title of Immanuel Kant's book Critique of Pure Reason. In the book Moore argues that academic research and society in general should adopt a strictly scientific and secular outlook and approach theories and conjectures with empirical verification.[12]

Works

Resources on Moore and his research

See also

References

  1. ^ Dennis Smith, "Obituary: Barrington Moore — Author of a daring sociological classic", The Independent, 17 November 2005, 59.
  2. ^ a b c d e Munck, Gerardo L.; Snyder, Richard (2007). Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 86–87. ISBN 978-0-8018-8464-1.
  3. ^ Skocpol, Theda (1973). "A Critical Review of Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy". Politics & Society. 4 (1): 1–34. doi:10.1177/003232927300400101. ISSN 0032-3292. S2CID 143910152.
  4. ^ Wiener, Jonathan M. (1975). "The Barrington Moore Thesis and Its Critics". Theory and Society. 2 (3): 301–330. doi:10.1007/BF00212740. ISSN 0304-2421. JSTOR 656776. S2CID 144204537.
  5. ^ "The Canon: The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World". Times Higher Education (THE). 2009-11-12. Retrieved 2020-02-29.
  6. ^ "Barrington Moore Jr., 92, Harvard sociologist". Harvard Gazette. Cambridge, Massachusetts. October 27, 2005.
  7. ^ Mollenkopf, John (1983). The Contested City. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. ix. ISBN 0691076596.
  8. ^ Wiener, Jonathan M. (1978). Social origins of the new South : Alabama, 1860-1885. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. xi. ISBN 9780807103975.
  9. ^ Gerschewski, Johannes (2021). "Explanations of Institutional Change: Reflecting on a "Missing Diagonal"". American Political Science Review. 115: 218–233. doi:10.1017/S0003055420000751. hdl:10419/228451. ISSN 0003-0554.
  10. ^ Jørgen Møller, State Formation, Regime Change, and Economic Development. London: Routledge Press, 2017, Ch. 6.
  11. ^ a b Munck, Gerardo L.; Snyder, Richard (2007). Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-8018-8464-1.
  12. ^ Moore, Barrington, Herbert Marcuse and Robert Paul Wolff, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965)
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