A Sociology of Modelling and the Politics of Empowerment

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Abstract
Sociology suffers from a myopic focus on change as fashioned by tests of strength between interests that are settled in favour of the most powerful. A contrary view is that more of the variation in institutional form may be accounted for by configurations of modelling than configurations of power. Yet modelling is structured: the periphery models the core more than the core models the periphery in the world system; subordinates model superordinates more than the reverse. Even so, in the political realm 'model mongering' is a more useful technique for the powerless than the powerful. Model mongers float a variety of models until they find one that catches opponents off balance through striking a resonant appeal to the sense of identity of a people. Because the model frames the terms of the debate, clever model mongering can deliver the weak a decisive advantage over the strong. In this sense, the article supplies a concrete analysis of why we should reject what Hindess calls a capacity-outcome model of how struggles are decided - an analysis that enables one to read off the likely outcome of struggles from a knowledge of the resources backing competing interests. A dialectics of modelling is one key to understanding the major institutional changes that sweep the modern world.

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