Between Positivism and Relativism: Comparative Historical Sociology in the Structure of Current Social Sciences

In recent years, Russian sociology has turned its focus to the understanding of history on macro-social, regional and global scales. Specifically this can be observed in how the discussions and translations of crucial texts are structured in comparative historical sociology. The purpose of this paper is to look into the role of comparative historical sociology within the context of the development of modern social theories. The authors formulate and substantiate the thesis that comparative historical sociology provides social scientists with the most promising methodology for studying social change in the modern world. They consider the characteristics and ‘competitive advantages’ of comparative historical sociology in contrast with the two popular methodological frameworks: civilizational analysis and modernization theories. The paper explores the difficulties when it comes to studying social changes by examining the perspectives of both historical classics of sociology and contemporary thinkers. It provides a historical background on the growth of comparative historical sociology and questions recent endeavors to establish ‘non-Western sociologies’ in relation to the comparative historical method. The authors, on the basis of N. Smelser’s ideas, present their own model of the relationship between comparative historical sociology and its ‘competitors’ that are two extreme positions: radical positivism and radical relativism. The article’s conclusion presents ten theses and counter-theses about the past, present and future of comparative historical sociology.

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