Relational Sociology

Pierpaolo Donati is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bologna (Italy). Past-President of the Italian Sociological Association, he is known as the founder of ‘relational sociology’ or the ‘relational theory of society’, an independently developed form of critical realism. He has published more than 600 works (see: Building a Relational Theory of Society: A Sociological Journey, in M. Deflem ed., Sociologists in a Global Age. Biographical Perspectives, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007).

• Introduction: Prospects for a Relational Sociology Chapter 1. The Relational Paradigm; its implications for the understanding and organization of Society Chapter 2. Society as a Relation Chapter 3. Critical Realism as viewed by Relational Sociology Chapter 4. Observing and Thinking Relationally: the premises of the relational theory of society Chapter 5. Social Change in the light of Relational Sociology Chapter 6. Reflexivity after Modernity: From the viewpoint of Relational Sociology Chapter 7. Doing Sociology in the Age of Globalisation

'Pierpaolo Donati’s book is an ambitious attempt to formulate a social theory appropriate to our age, based on the primacy of what he terms social relations which, for Donati, are crucial in upholding the distinctiveness of humanity. This book is a call to arms, sounding the alarm about the unwelcome effects of many social theories that threaten to drive the human out of the social or else submerge the human within the social and so drown out its distinctive individuality.'-Barry Vaughn, National Economic and Social Council, in the Journal of Critical Realism, vol 11 iss 2 p.255-261