Writing and Publishing Theory

I did it. Okay. Um, welcome everybody.

Thanks again for coming. Um, our

panelists are almost all here. Um, so

that's great. And, um, yeah, what I

thought we would do is, um, I invited,

you know, a range of, um,

various cohort scholars to talk about

their experience of publishing theory.

Um I think um

I think most of us have uh had the

experience that maybe it's a little bit

harder to do that or a little little

less clear. So um uh a number of the

graduate students asked me if I could do

kind of a panel on this and so here we

are and um if my panelists um could um

just um talk for you know three four

minutes about their experience. Um I

know some of you have um published

theory, have been editors, also been

chairs of departments where those things

are evaluated. So just speak to your own

experiences. And um there's no

particular order here. Um maybe we'll

just go in the order of how I see you in

my Zoom room. Gil, do you mind going

first?

>> Uh you can hear me?

>> Yep.

>> Hey, Rebecca. Nice seeing you. Nice

seeing everybody else. Um I'll keep it

uh very short. So I guess um I'll say

first of all that I'm on the editorial

board of theory and social inquiry and

Monica is here as well. Um and and so

our our editorial board is represented

here. We are theory and social inquiry.

So you can

are indeed uh part of uh

repair to I would say and this

is it's not a model like a pure theory

paper a paper that um uh you know raises

aical question and then um passes

theories or or concepts as a you know

the main method of the paper is not our

model paper. It doesn't mean that we

don't publish those. I think there's a

several in the works. Um but in general

we kind of defined the the goal of the

journal the the the

model paper in a way that is very

similar to theory and society

>> that uh we believe we are the true

inheritors of uh you know we are all the

people who were kicked out of of the

editorial board of the society. uh that

journal in my opinion is going down the

drain but we still have theory and

social inquiry. Um and the modal paper

in both what theory in society used to

be and theory and social inquiry today

is a paper that is at one and the same

time asks an important theoretical

question but addresses it via you know

no less relevant no less substantial

part of the paper being empirical

research. So it's the combination of

theory and empirical research that that

is really kind of like a model paper. We

don't want just empirical papers. We

don't want just theory papers. We really

like the combination. Now a personal

point. Um

I don't think I've ever published a

paper that was simply theory actually.

Um I published quite a few papers in

theory and society in the past. I had a

great experience there. You know, I got

I got uh you know, like really very

useful reviews at the time, but it was

never a paper that was pure theory. And

um I I

in general I I find that trying to write

a paper and publish a paper that is pure

theory rather than theory as it is uh

sort of demonstrated in the body of

empirical material.

This pure theory is a lot harder. Um

it's not an exercise I would recommend

to the faint of heart. Um, in general, I

I I much prefer papers that I can see

the theory contributing to an empirical

case and and vice versa. Um, yeah. And

so that's that's kind of would be my my

take on this or my advice from my own

personal experience.

>> Liz, you happen to be next in my Zoom

room. Do you mind going next?

>> Sure. Okay, happy to go next. So, um I'm

Liz Clemens. Um I have done a lot of

editing over my career. So, I've um been

on boards at ASR, Contemporary

Sociology,

um among others, and then been an editor

or co-editor of um both studies in

political development and um for six

years at American Journal of Sociology

and I'm currently on the editorial board

of the annual review of sociology.

So I want to start with um

I guess a sense that yet again we are in

another moment of intense um

transformation and pressure on the

system of publishing. Um there was a

webinar for the editors of and editorial

boards of all the annual re reviews the

other day on the implications of AI. And

a very talented theoretical physicist uh

at MIT

gave the talk that he had asked his AI

to write for him.

um and it was stunningly competent, but

it I think also clarified

what is going to be important to focus

on going forward, which is really

thinking about the character of the sort

of theoretical advance and contribution

that can be made in an article form.

what was um uh gasp inducing was the

level of basic competence at organizing

existing knowledge with some

hallucinations in there. So what I

thought I'd do is offer a simple trio of

um the ways in which

I have found theoretical contributions

um to be made not only in work that I've

edited um some that I've written but a

lot that I've read um because whatever

changes about the publishing system

that's where we mere humans are going to

continue to have an advantage if we have

any advantage at all. So I want to make

a point about um sort of conceptual

contributions,

contributions in terms of establishing

a space or dimensions of variation

and then contributions in terms of going

from a theoretical claim to claims about

what to expect in terms of empirical

findings and evidence.

So one kind of important contribution is

at the level of um conceptual reconfigur

refiguring.

And I want to warn here that this isn't

simply an issue of coming up with a new

label. There's a lot of this in articles

that get submitted is, oh, I have a new

catchy phrase and I'm going to put it in

my title, in my abstract, and because

it's going to be cited by millions of

people, that's going to make my career.

A lot of this gets done, very little of

it makes career.

Instead, really focus on whether you can

make a case for some reconceptualization

or some renaming to make a difference.

Occasionally, and I think it's pretty

occasionally,

this can be done primarily at the level

of conceptual theoretical

distinction. And my example here is uh

you know an old piece by um JP Nettle uh

political sociologist

who um made the argument that rather

than thinking about states as a

particular kind of organization.

It was more productive to think about

stateness as a variation

a dimension of variation in the capacity

for some kind of collective actor to

exhibit a agency that was done primarily

as a conceptual um discussion and since

I'm talking about a piece published I

think in 1968 possibly 67 in 2026 it was

influential

um more commonly and this starts It's re

reinforcing some of Gil's points as

these arguments are made in dialogue

with empirical research. So here you can

start thinking about classics. You know

sort of Granavet are making an argument

that ties are not just ties. There are

strong and weak ties and they operate

differently.

um man um Michael man arguing that state

power is not just power but there's you

know despotic power um which is the sort

of off with their head uh kind of power

but also infrastructural power organized

through ties with organizations that are