Protests in China

Carrefour protest in Beijing

China has witnessed a visible increase over the past ten years in the number of protests, demonstrations, and riots over a variety of issues. Areas of social problems that have stimulated collective protests include factory conditions, non-payment of wages, factory closures, environmental problems (both large and small), and land and property takeovers by developers and the state.

It isn't surprising that social conditions in China have given rise to causes of protest. Rapid growth has stimulated large movements of people and migrant workers, development has created massive environmental problems for localities, and opportunities for development have created conflicts between developers and local people over land and property rights. Following the terrible earthquake in Sichuan and the collapse of many buildings and schools with tragic loss of life, there was a wave of angry protests by parents against corrupt building practices. So there are plenty of possible causes for protest in China today.

What is more surprising, though, is that the state has not been successful so far in muzzling protest, or in keeping news of local protests from reaching the international public.

YouTube provides a surprisingly wide window on protests in China and other parts of the world. It is worth viewing a sampling of clips from YouTube that surface when one searches for Chinese protest.  The following clips were collected in January 2009.  But here is a sobering fact: most of these clips have disappeared from YouTube with a message indicating that they violate "terms of use."  One is forced to speculate about the pressures that brought this about.

Unemployment for Chinese migrant workers



Labor protest in Shanghai



Shoe factory protest for back wages



Environmental protest in Xiamen



Protest about water pollution in Xiamen



Parents protesting children's death in Sichuan



Will the sociology of the future be able to use the contents of YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook as an important empirical indicator of social change in societies such as China, Malaysia, or Russia?  One thing is evident from this small experiment: YouTube is not an archive, and researchers are well advised to capture and document the items they want to study.

Protests in China

Carrefour protest in Beijing

China has witnessed a visible increase over the past ten years in the number of protests, demonstrations, and riots over a variety of issues. Areas of social problems that have stimulated collective protests include factory conditions, non-payment of wages, factory closures, environmental problems (both large and small), and land and property takeovers by developers and the state.

It isn't surprising that social conditions in China have given rise to causes of protest. Rapid growth has stimulated large movements of people and migrant workers, development has created massive environmental problems for localities, and opportunities for development have created conflicts between developers and local people over land and property rights. Following the terrible earthquake in Sichuan and the collapse of many buildings and schools with tragic loss of life, there was a wave of angry protests by parents against corrupt building practices. So there are plenty of possible causes for protest in China today.

What is more surprising, though, is that the state has not been successful so far in muzzling protest, or in keeping news of local protests from reaching the international public.

YouTube provides a surprisingly wide window on protests in China and other parts of the world. It is worth viewing a sampling of clips from YouTube that surface when one searches for Chinese protest.  The following clips were collected in January 2009.  But here is a sobering fact: most of these clips have disappeared from YouTube with a message indicating that they violate "terms of use."  One is forced to speculate about the pressures that brought this about.

Unemployment for Chinese migrant workers



Labor protest in Shanghai



Shoe factory protest for back wages



Environmental protest in Xiamen



Protest about water pollution in Xiamen



Parents protesting children's death in Sichuan



Will the sociology of the future be able to use the contents of YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook as an important empirical indicator of social change in societies such as China, Malaysia, or Russia?  One thing is evident from this small experiment: YouTube is not an archive, and researchers are well advised to capture and document the items they want to study.

Protests in China

Carrefour protest in Beijing

China has witnessed a visible increase over the past ten years in the number of protests, demonstrations, and riots over a variety of issues. Areas of social problems that have stimulated collective protests include factory conditions, non-payment of wages, factory closures, environmental problems (both large and small), and land and property takeovers by developers and the state.

It isn't surprising that social conditions in China have given rise to causes of protest. Rapid growth has stimulated large movements of people and migrant workers, development has created massive environmental problems for localities, and opportunities for development have created conflicts between developers and local people over land and property rights. Following the terrible earthquake in Sichuan and the collapse of many buildings and schools with tragic loss of life, there was a wave of angry protests by parents against corrupt building practices. So there are plenty of possible causes for protest in China today.

What is more surprising, though, is that the state has not been successful so far in muzzling protest, or in keeping news of local protests from reaching the international public.

YouTube provides a surprisingly wide window on protests in China and other parts of the world. It is worth viewing a sampling of clips from YouTube that surface when one searches for Chinese protest.  The following clips were collected in January 2009.  But here is a sobering fact: most of these clips have disappeared from YouTube with a message indicating that they violate "terms of use."  One is forced to speculate about the pressures that brought this about.

Unemployment for Chinese migrant workers



Labor protest in Shanghai



Shoe factory protest for back wages



Environmental protest in Xiamen



Protest about water pollution in Xiamen



Parents protesting children's death in Sichuan



Will the sociology of the future be able to use the contents of YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook as an important empirical indicator of social change in societies such as China, Malaysia, or Russia?  One thing is evident from this small experiment: YouTube is not an archive, and researchers are well advised to capture and document the items they want to study.

The finish line

Source: Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line

For quite a long time the United States had a global advantage in its educated population. No more. The US now ranks low among OECD nations for percentage of adults with a baccalaureate degree. And the increases in this percentage witnessed in the United States in the 1950s leveled off in the 1970s. These facts have major consequences -- both for quality of life in the United States for individual citizens and for the ability of the US to compete globally in a knowledge-based economy.

William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, and Michael McPherson have completed another important piece of research on the current social realities of higher education in the US with Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities. This research goes significantly beyond the prior important work Bowen and his collaborators have done. Here Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson have shifted focus from the issue of access (the core issue in Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education) to degree completion, and they have shifted from elite private colleges and universities to public universities -- flagships and regionals. The book is mostly concerned with first-time freshmen, but also provides valuable data on the educational careers of transfer students. (Chapter seven looks at transfer student outcomes in particular.)

The heart of their research here is the creation of a pair of large databases of students that permit tracking the outcomes of a large student population over time. They have collected data on several hundred thousand students who entered universities in 1999. One data set is the "flagship" database including records of over 120,000 students enrolled in 21 leading public universities. The second is the "state systems" database with over 60,000 students enrolled in 47 regional campuses in four states.  Here is how they describe the two databases:

The Flagships Database was assembled between September 2005 and August 2006. The core of the database is an institutional file that contains detailed demographic, academic, and financial aid data on essentially every student who entered one of 21 selective public universities in the fall of 1999 (although most universities excluded from their data students who began their studies on a part-time basis).1 The institutional file is linked with secondary data files provided by the College Board, ACT, the National Student Clearinghouse, and the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). Additionally, the home addresses of the students have been matched to their corresponding geographical codes (“geocodes”) and can be linked to census data down to the block level.

The State Systems Database, which covers a wider range of institutions in four states—Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia—was assembled between June 2006 and June 2008. This database, also on the 1999 entering cohort, includes institutional files from every public university in Maryland, North Carolina, and Ohio as well as every public and private college and university in Virginia.2 Additionally, we have data on every North Carolina student who was a high school senior in 1999. These files are linked with secondary data files provided by the College Board and the National Student Clearinghouse, and the students’ home addresses have been linked to their corresponding geocodes. (Appendix B, pp. 5-6)

(The authors and the publisher have posted a 150-page PDF document on the publisher's website providing extensive details on the data sets and chief quantitative results (link).)

A particularly important data source they employ is the National Student Clearinghouse (link), which permits tracking the same student from one institution to another. NSC now encompasses over 90% of undergraduates in the United States, so it serves as an existing national tracking system. It allows us to answer the important question, what happens to a student when he/she leaves a given institution?  Does she become a permanent dropout, or does she go on to graduate from another university?  Another large data source they employ is the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) of the 1992 high school class.

Using these databases they are able to probe for significant differences in outcomes based on SES, race/ethnicity, gender, parental education, and type of institution.  The outcomes they are particularly interested in are completion rates, time to degree, field of study, and grades. This represents a real breakthrough in empirical studies of higher education; no existing data source had the size needed to break out these sub-populations meaningfully.  The data permit the construction of a segmented national profile of college attendance and completion, and the data sets are large enough to allow for a significant degree of testing of causal hypotheses about differences across groups.

The logical structure of the questions posed in the research looks a lot like this:

• Are there significant differences across {demographic features -- e.g. ethnicity} with respect to {outcome feature -- e.g. completion rate}?
• how much of the observed variation can be explained by {readiness feature -- e.g. SAT/ACT score}?

Their approach to the second type of question is to control for the readiness feature(s) using a regression or other statistical technique and examine the residual differences in an adjusted data graph. Here is an example:

There are many striking findings in the research that speak to the profound effects of stratification on life prospects. Take bachelor's degree attainment broken out by family income (fig. 2.3a) and race/ethnicity (fig. 2.5). A young person from the bottom quartile of family income has an 11% chance of receiving a bachelor's degree, compared to a 52% chance for the person from the top quartile. There is also a major disparity between white and black young adults.  The data indicate strikingly different bachelor's degree attainment rates across race and gender: white males 29%, white females 36%, black males 10%, black females 21%. One way of reading these results is this: the cumulative disadvantages associated with poverty and race in the United States have permanent effects on the opportunities available to disadvantaged people later in life.  And our education system is not succeeding in erasing these disadvantages.  The research offered here can at least help to design institutions that are more successful in doing exactly that; and this is one of the key goals that Bowen and his colleagues have for the work:

We want to end this first chapter by reiterating that the purpose of the research reported in this book is not only to improve our understanding of patterns and relationships but also--as a high priority--to search for clues about ways to make America's colleges and universities more successful in moving entering students on to graduation. (19)

The finish line

Source: Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line

For quite a long time the United States had a global advantage in its educated population. No more. The US now ranks low among OECD nations for percentage of adults with a baccalaureate degree. And the increases in this percentage witnessed in the United States in the 1950s leveled off in the 1970s. These facts have major consequences -- both for quality of life in the United States for individual citizens and for the ability of the US to compete globally in a knowledge-based economy.

William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, and Michael McPherson have completed another important piece of research on the current social realities of higher education in the US with Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities. This research goes significantly beyond the prior important work Bowen and his collaborators have done. Here Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson have shifted focus from the issue of access (the core issue in Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education) to degree completion, and they have shifted from elite private colleges and universities to public universities -- flagships and regionals. The book is mostly concerned with first-time freshmen, but also provides valuable data on the educational careers of transfer students. (Chapter seven looks at transfer student outcomes in particular.)

The heart of their research here is the creation of a pair of large databases of students that permit tracking the outcomes of a large student population over time. They have collected data on several hundred thousand students who entered universities in 1999. One data set is the "flagship" database including records of over 120,000 students enrolled in 21 leading public universities. The second is the "state systems" database with over 60,000 students enrolled in 47 regional campuses in four states.  Here is how they describe the two databases:

The Flagships Database was assembled between September 2005 and August 2006. The core of the database is an institutional file that contains detailed demographic, academic, and financial aid data on essentially every student who entered one of 21 selective public universities in the fall of 1999 (although most universities excluded from their data students who began their studies on a part-time basis).1 The institutional file is linked with secondary data files provided by the College Board, ACT, the National Student Clearinghouse, and the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). Additionally, the home addresses of the students have been matched to their corresponding geographical codes (“geocodes”) and can be linked to census data down to the block level.

The State Systems Database, which covers a wider range of institutions in four states—Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia—was assembled between June 2006 and June 2008. This database, also on the 1999 entering cohort, includes institutional files from every public university in Maryland, North Carolina, and Ohio as well as every public and private college and university in Virginia.2 Additionally, we have data on every North Carolina student who was a high school senior in 1999. These files are linked with secondary data files provided by the College Board and the National Student Clearinghouse, and the students’ home addresses have been linked to their corresponding geocodes. (Appendix B, pp. 5-6)

(The authors and the publisher have posted a 150-page PDF document on the publisher's website providing extensive details on the data sets and chief quantitative results (link).)

A particularly important data source they employ is the National Student Clearinghouse (link), which permits tracking the same student from one institution to another. NSC now encompasses over 90% of undergraduates in the United States, so it serves as an existing national tracking system. It allows us to answer the important question, what happens to a student when he/she leaves a given institution?  Does she become a permanent dropout, or does she go on to graduate from another university?  Another large data source they employ is the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) of the 1992 high school class.

Using these databases they are able to probe for significant differences in outcomes based on SES, race/ethnicity, gender, parental education, and type of institution.  The outcomes they are particularly interested in are completion rates, time to degree, field of study, and grades. This represents a real breakthrough in empirical studies of higher education; no existing data source had the size needed to break out these sub-populations meaningfully.  The data permit the construction of a segmented national profile of college attendance and completion, and the data sets are large enough to allow for a significant degree of testing of causal hypotheses about differences across groups.

The logical structure of the questions posed in the research looks a lot like this:

• Are there significant differences across {demographic features -- e.g. ethnicity} with respect to {outcome feature -- e.g. completion rate}?
• how much of the observed variation can be explained by {readiness feature -- e.g. SAT/ACT score}?

Their approach to the second type of question is to control for the readiness feature(s) using a regression or other statistical technique and examine the residual differences in an adjusted data graph. Here is an example:

There are many striking findings in the research that speak to the profound effects of stratification on life prospects. Take bachelor's degree attainment broken out by family income (fig. 2.3a) and race/ethnicity (fig. 2.5). A young person from the bottom quartile of family income has an 11% chance of receiving a bachelor's degree, compared to a 52% chance for the person from the top quartile. There is also a major disparity between white and black young adults.  The data indicate strikingly different bachelor's degree attainment rates across race and gender: white males 29%, white females 36%, black males 10%, black females 21%. One way of reading these results is this: the cumulative disadvantages associated with poverty and race in the United States have permanent effects on the opportunities available to disadvantaged people later in life.  And our education system is not succeeding in erasing these disadvantages.  The research offered here can at least help to design institutions that are more successful in doing exactly that; and this is one of the key goals that Bowen and his colleagues have for the work:

We want to end this first chapter by reiterating that the purpose of the research reported in this book is not only to improve our understanding of patterns and relationships but also--as a high priority--to search for clues about ways to make America's colleges and universities more successful in moving entering students on to graduation. (19)

The finish line

Source: Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line

For quite a long time the United States had a global advantage in its educated population. No more. The US now ranks low among OECD nations for percentage of adults with a baccalaureate degree. And the increases in this percentage witnessed in the United States in the 1950s leveled off in the 1970s. These facts have major consequences -- both for quality of life in the United States for individual citizens and for the ability of the US to compete globally in a knowledge-based economy.

William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, and Michael McPherson have completed another important piece of research on the current social realities of higher education in the US with Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities. This research goes significantly beyond the prior important work Bowen and his collaborators have done. Here Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson have shifted focus from the issue of access (the core issue in Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education) to degree completion, and they have shifted from elite private colleges and universities to public universities -- flagships and regionals. The book is mostly concerned with first-time freshmen, but also provides valuable data on the educational careers of transfer students. (Chapter seven looks at transfer student outcomes in particular.)

The heart of their research here is the creation of a pair of large databases of students that permit tracking the outcomes of a large student population over time. They have collected data on several hundred thousand students who entered universities in 1999. One data set is the "flagship" database including records of over 120,000 students enrolled in 21 leading public universities. The second is the "state systems" database with over 60,000 students enrolled in 47 regional campuses in four states.  Here is how they describe the two databases:

The Flagships Database was assembled between September 2005 and August 2006. The core of the database is an institutional file that contains detailed demographic, academic, and financial aid data on essentially every student who entered one of 21 selective public universities in the fall of 1999 (although most universities excluded from their data students who began their studies on a part-time basis).1 The institutional file is linked with secondary data files provided by the College Board, ACT, the National Student Clearinghouse, and the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). Additionally, the home addresses of the students have been matched to their corresponding geographical codes (“geocodes”) and can be linked to census data down to the block level.

The State Systems Database, which covers a wider range of institutions in four states—Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia—was assembled between June 2006 and June 2008. This database, also on the 1999 entering cohort, includes institutional files from every public university in Maryland, North Carolina, and Ohio as well as every public and private college and university in Virginia.2 Additionally, we have data on every North Carolina student who was a high school senior in 1999. These files are linked with secondary data files provided by the College Board and the National Student Clearinghouse, and the students’ home addresses have been linked to their corresponding geocodes. (Appendix B, pp. 5-6)

(The authors and the publisher have posted a 150-page PDF document on the publisher's website providing extensive details on the data sets and chief quantitative results (link).)

A particularly important data source they employ is the National Student Clearinghouse (link), which permits tracking the same student from one institution to another. NSC now encompasses over 90% of undergraduates in the United States, so it serves as an existing national tracking system. It allows us to answer the important question, what happens to a student when he/she leaves a given institution?  Does she become a permanent dropout, or does she go on to graduate from another university?  Another large data source they employ is the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) of the 1992 high school class.

Using these databases they are able to probe for significant differences in outcomes based on SES, race/ethnicity, gender, parental education, and type of institution.  The outcomes they are particularly interested in are completion rates, time to degree, field of study, and grades. This represents a real breakthrough in empirical studies of higher education; no existing data source had the size needed to break out these sub-populations meaningfully.  The data permit the construction of a segmented national profile of college attendance and completion, and the data sets are large enough to allow for a significant degree of testing of causal hypotheses about differences across groups.

The logical structure of the questions posed in the research looks a lot like this:

• Are there significant differences across {demographic features -- e.g. ethnicity} with respect to {outcome feature -- e.g. completion rate}?
• how much of the observed variation can be explained by {readiness feature -- e.g. SAT/ACT score}?

Their approach to the second type of question is to control for the readiness feature(s) using a regression or other statistical technique and examine the residual differences in an adjusted data graph. Here is an example:

There are many striking findings in the research that speak to the profound effects of stratification on life prospects. Take bachelor's degree attainment broken out by family income (fig. 2.3a) and race/ethnicity (fig. 2.5). A young person from the bottom quartile of family income has an 11% chance of receiving a bachelor's degree, compared to a 52% chance for the person from the top quartile. There is also a major disparity between white and black young adults.  The data indicate strikingly different bachelor's degree attainment rates across race and gender: white males 29%, white females 36%, black males 10%, black females 21%. One way of reading these results is this: the cumulative disadvantages associated with poverty and race in the United States have permanent effects on the opportunities available to disadvantaged people later in life.  And our education system is not succeeding in erasing these disadvantages.  The research offered here can at least help to design institutions that are more successful in doing exactly that; and this is one of the key goals that Bowen and his colleagues have for the work:

We want to end this first chapter by reiterating that the purpose of the research reported in this book is not only to improve our understanding of patterns and relationships but also--as a high priority--to search for clues about ways to make America's colleges and universities more successful in moving entering students on to graduation. (19)

Repression in China

The Chinese government signaled a major escalation in its policy of repressing dissidents with this week's conviction of dissident intellectual Liu Xiaobo on charges of subversion (New York Times link).  Liu's eleven-year sentence on charges of subversion sends a chilling message to all Chinese citizens who might consider peaceful dissent about controversial issues.  Other dissidents have been punished in the past year, including environmental protesters, advocates for parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake, and internet activists.  But Liu is one of the first prominent activists to be charged with subversion.  Liu is a major advocate of Charter 08, and his conviction and sentencing represent a serious blow to the cause of political liberalization in China.  Regrettably, the regime of citizen rights of expression, association, and dissent has not yet been established in China.

What is Charter 08?  It is a citizen-based appeal for the creation of a secure system of laws and rights in China, and has been signed by several thousand Chinese citizens (New York Review of Books translation).  The central principles articulated in the Charter include:

• Freedom
• Human rights
• Equality
• Republicanism
• Democracy
• Constitutional rule

The specific points included in the Charter include:

1. A New Constitution
2. Separation of Powers
3. Legislative Democracy
4. An Independent Judiciary
5. Public Control of Public Servants
6. Guarantee of Human Rights
7. Election of Public Officials
8. Rural-Urban Equality
9. Freedom to Form Groups
10. Freedom to Assemble
11. Freedom of Expression
12. Freedom of Religion
13. Civic Education
14. Protection of Private Property
15. Financial and Tax Reform
16. Social Security
17. Protection of the Environment
18. A Federated Republic
19. Truth in Reconciliation

What is involved in advocating for "legality" and "individual rights" for China's future? Most basically, rights have to do with protection against repression and violence. These include freedom of association, freedom of action, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the right to security of property.  History makes it clear that these rights are actually fundamental to a decent society -- and that this is true for China's future as well. Moreover, each of these rights is a reply to the threat of violence and coercion.

Take the rights of expression and association.  When a group of people share an interest -- let's say, an interest in struggling against a company that is dumping toxic chemicals into a nearby river -- they can only actualize their collective interests if they are able to express their views and to call upon others to come together in voluntary associations to work against this environmental behavior. The situation in China today is harshly inconsistent with this ideal: citizens have to be extremely cautious about public expression of protest, and they are vulnerable to violent attack if they organize to pressure companies or local government to change their behavior.

The use of private security companies on behalf of companies, land developers, and other powerful interests in China is reasonably well documented. And these companies are largely unconstrained by legal institutions in their use of violence and gangs of thugs to intimidate and attack farmers, workers, or city dwellers. It's worth visiting some of the web sites that document some of this violence -- for example, this report about thugs attacking homeowners in Chaoyang. Similar reports can be unearthed in the context of rural conflicts over land development and conflicts between factory owners and migrant workers.

So this brings us to "legality." What is the most important feature of the rule of law? It is to preserve the simple, fundamental rights of citizens: rights of personal security, rights of property, rights of expression. What does it say to other people with grievances when private security guards are able to beat innocent demonstrators with impunity? What it says is simple -- the state will tolerate the use of force against you by powerful agents in society. And what this expresses is repression.

It is also true that the state itself is often the author of repression against its own citizens for actions that would be entirely legitimate within almost any definition of core individual right: blogging, speaking, attempting to organize migrant poor people. When the state uses its power to arrest and imprison people who speak, write, and organize -- it is profoundly contradicting the core rights that every citizen needs to have.

It should also be said that these legal rights cannot be separated from the idea of democracy. Democracy most fundamentally requires that people be able to advocate for the social policies that they prefer. Social outcomes should be the result of a process that permits all citizens to organize and express their interests and preferences -- that is the basic axiom of democracy. What this democratic value rules out is the idea that the state has a superior game plan -- one that cannot brook interference by the citizens -- and that it is legitimate for the state to repress and intimidate the citizens in their efforts to influence the state's choices. A legally, constitutionally entrenched set of individual civil and political rights takes the final authority of deciding the future direction of society out of the hands of the state.

Give the Chinese people democratic rights and they can make some real progress on China's social ills -- unsafe working conditions, abuse of peasants, confiscation of homeowners' property, the creation of new environmental disasters. Deprive them of democratic rights, and the power of the state and powerful private interests can create continuing social horrors -- famine, permanent exploitation of workers, environmental catastrophes, development projects that displace millions of people, and so on. The authoritarian state and the thugocracy of powerful private interests combine to repress the people.

(Here is a very interesting audio interview with Perry Link on the NYRB website about the context of Charter 08. Also of interest is a piece by Daniel Drezner (post) on Charter 08 on the ForeignPolicy blog.  See also this very extensive analysis of the Charter by Rebecca MacKinnon at Rconversation.)

Repression in China

The Chinese government signaled a major escalation in its policy of repressing dissidents with this week's conviction of dissident intellectual Liu Xiaobo on charges of subversion (New York Times link).  Liu's eleven-year sentence on charges of subversion sends a chilling message to all Chinese citizens who might consider peaceful dissent about controversial issues.  Other dissidents have been punished in the past year, including environmental protesters, advocates for parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake, and internet activists.  But Liu is one of the first prominent activists to be charged with subversion.  Liu is a major advocate of Charter 08, and his conviction and sentencing represent a serious blow to the cause of political liberalization in China.  Regrettably, the regime of citizen rights of expression, association, and dissent has not yet been established in China.

What is Charter 08?  It is a citizen-based appeal for the creation of a secure system of laws and rights in China, and has been signed by several thousand Chinese citizens (New York Review of Books translation).  The central principles articulated in the Charter include:

• Freedom
• Human rights
• Equality
• Republicanism
• Democracy
• Constitutional rule

The specific points included in the Charter include:

1. A New Constitution
2. Separation of Powers
3. Legislative Democracy
4. An Independent Judiciary
5. Public Control of Public Servants
6. Guarantee of Human Rights
7. Election of Public Officials
8. Rural-Urban Equality
9. Freedom to Form Groups
10. Freedom to Assemble
11. Freedom of Expression
12. Freedom of Religion
13. Civic Education
14. Protection of Private Property
15. Financial and Tax Reform
16. Social Security
17. Protection of the Environment
18. A Federated Republic
19. Truth in Reconciliation

What is involved in advocating for "legality" and "individual rights" for China's future? Most basically, rights have to do with protection against repression and violence. These include freedom of association, freedom of action, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the right to security of property.  History makes it clear that these rights are actually fundamental to a decent society -- and that this is true for China's future as well. Moreover, each of these rights is a reply to the threat of violence and coercion.

Take the rights of expression and association.  When a group of people share an interest -- let's say, an interest in struggling against a company that is dumping toxic chemicals into a nearby river -- they can only actualize their collective interests if they are able to express their views and to call upon others to come together in voluntary associations to work against this environmental behavior. The situation in China today is harshly inconsistent with this ideal: citizens have to be extremely cautious about public expression of protest, and they are vulnerable to violent attack if they organize to pressure companies or local government to change their behavior.

The use of private security companies on behalf of companies, land developers, and other powerful interests in China is reasonably well documented. And these companies are largely unconstrained by legal institutions in their use of violence and gangs of thugs to intimidate and attack farmers, workers, or city dwellers. It's worth visiting some of the web sites that document some of this violence -- for example, this report about thugs attacking homeowners in Chaoyang. Similar reports can be unearthed in the context of rural conflicts over land development and conflicts between factory owners and migrant workers.

So this brings us to "legality." What is the most important feature of the rule of law? It is to preserve the simple, fundamental rights of citizens: rights of personal security, rights of property, rights of expression. What does it say to other people with grievances when private security guards are able to beat innocent demonstrators with impunity? What it says is simple -- the state will tolerate the use of force against you by powerful agents in society. And what this expresses is repression.

It is also true that the state itself is often the author of repression against its own citizens for actions that would be entirely legitimate within almost any definition of core individual right: blogging, speaking, attempting to organize migrant poor people. When the state uses its power to arrest and imprison people who speak, write, and organize -- it is profoundly contradicting the core rights that every citizen needs to have.

It should also be said that these legal rights cannot be separated from the idea of democracy. Democracy most fundamentally requires that people be able to advocate for the social policies that they prefer. Social outcomes should be the result of a process that permits all citizens to organize and express their interests and preferences -- that is the basic axiom of democracy. What this democratic value rules out is the idea that the state has a superior game plan -- one that cannot brook interference by the citizens -- and that it is legitimate for the state to repress and intimidate the citizens in their efforts to influence the state's choices. A legally, constitutionally entrenched set of individual civil and political rights takes the final authority of deciding the future direction of society out of the hands of the state.

Give the Chinese people democratic rights and they can make some real progress on China's social ills -- unsafe working conditions, abuse of peasants, confiscation of homeowners' property, the creation of new environmental disasters. Deprive them of democratic rights, and the power of the state and powerful private interests can create continuing social horrors -- famine, permanent exploitation of workers, environmental catastrophes, development projects that displace millions of people, and so on. The authoritarian state and the thugocracy of powerful private interests combine to repress the people.

(Here is a very interesting audio interview with Perry Link on the NYRB website about the context of Charter 08. Also of interest is a piece by Daniel Drezner (post) on Charter 08 on the ForeignPolicy blog.  See also this very extensive analysis of the Charter by Rebecca MacKinnon at Rconversation.)

Repression in China

The Chinese government signaled a major escalation in its policy of repressing dissidents with this week's conviction of dissident intellectual Liu Xiaobo on charges of subversion (New York Times link).  Liu's eleven-year sentence on charges of subversion sends a chilling message to all Chinese citizens who might consider peaceful dissent about controversial issues.  Other dissidents have been punished in the past year, including environmental protesters, advocates for parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake, and internet activists.  But Liu is one of the first prominent activists to be charged with subversion.  Liu is a major advocate of Charter 08, and his conviction and sentencing represent a serious blow to the cause of political liberalization in China.  Regrettably, the regime of citizen rights of expression, association, and dissent has not yet been established in China.

What is Charter 08?  It is a citizen-based appeal for the creation of a secure system of laws and rights in China, and has been signed by several thousand Chinese citizens (New York Review of Books translation).  The central principles articulated in the Charter include:

• Freedom
• Human rights
• Equality
• Republicanism
• Democracy
• Constitutional rule

The specific points included in the Charter include:

1. A New Constitution
2. Separation of Powers
3. Legislative Democracy
4. An Independent Judiciary
5. Public Control of Public Servants
6. Guarantee of Human Rights
7. Election of Public Officials
8. Rural-Urban Equality
9. Freedom to Form Groups
10. Freedom to Assemble
11. Freedom of Expression
12. Freedom of Religion
13. Civic Education
14. Protection of Private Property
15. Financial and Tax Reform
16. Social Security
17. Protection of the Environment
18. A Federated Republic
19. Truth in Reconciliation

What is involved in advocating for "legality" and "individual rights" for China's future? Most basically, rights have to do with protection against repression and violence. These include freedom of association, freedom of action, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the right to security of property.  History makes it clear that these rights are actually fundamental to a decent society -- and that this is true for China's future as well. Moreover, each of these rights is a reply to the threat of violence and coercion.

Take the rights of expression and association.  When a group of people share an interest -- let's say, an interest in struggling against a company that is dumping toxic chemicals into a nearby river -- they can only actualize their collective interests if they are able to express their views and to call upon others to come together in voluntary associations to work against this environmental behavior. The situation in China today is harshly inconsistent with this ideal: citizens have to be extremely cautious about public expression of protest, and they are vulnerable to violent attack if they organize to pressure companies or local government to change their behavior.

The use of private security companies on behalf of companies, land developers, and other powerful interests in China is reasonably well documented. And these companies are largely unconstrained by legal institutions in their use of violence and gangs of thugs to intimidate and attack farmers, workers, or city dwellers. It's worth visiting some of the web sites that document some of this violence -- for example, this report about thugs attacking homeowners in Chaoyang. Similar reports can be unearthed in the context of rural conflicts over land development and conflicts between factory owners and migrant workers.

So this brings us to "legality." What is the most important feature of the rule of law? It is to preserve the simple, fundamental rights of citizens: rights of personal security, rights of property, rights of expression. What does it say to other people with grievances when private security guards are able to beat innocent demonstrators with impunity? What it says is simple -- the state will tolerate the use of force against you by powerful agents in society. And what this expresses is repression.

It is also true that the state itself is often the author of repression against its own citizens for actions that would be entirely legitimate within almost any definition of core individual right: blogging, speaking, attempting to organize migrant poor people. When the state uses its power to arrest and imprison people who speak, write, and organize -- it is profoundly contradicting the core rights that every citizen needs to have.

It should also be said that these legal rights cannot be separated from the idea of democracy. Democracy most fundamentally requires that people be able to advocate for the social policies that they prefer. Social outcomes should be the result of a process that permits all citizens to organize and express their interests and preferences -- that is the basic axiom of democracy. What this democratic value rules out is the idea that the state has a superior game plan -- one that cannot brook interference by the citizens -- and that it is legitimate for the state to repress and intimidate the citizens in their efforts to influence the state's choices. A legally, constitutionally entrenched set of individual civil and political rights takes the final authority of deciding the future direction of society out of the hands of the state.

Give the Chinese people democratic rights and they can make some real progress on China's social ills -- unsafe working conditions, abuse of peasants, confiscation of homeowners' property, the creation of new environmental disasters. Deprive them of democratic rights, and the power of the state and powerful private interests can create continuing social horrors -- famine, permanent exploitation of workers, environmental catastrophes, development projects that displace millions of people, and so on. The authoritarian state and the thugocracy of powerful private interests combine to repress the people.

(Here is a very interesting audio interview with Perry Link on the NYRB website about the context of Charter 08. Also of interest is a piece by Daniel Drezner (post) on Charter 08 on the ForeignPolicy blog.  See also this very extensive analysis of the Charter by Rebecca MacKinnon at Rconversation.)

What makes a sociological theory compelling?

In the humanities it is a given that assertions and arguments have a certain degree of rational force, but that ultimately, reasonable people may differ about virtually every serious claim. An interpretation of Ulysses, an argument for a principle of distributive justice, or an attribution of certain of Shakespeare's works to Christopher Marlowe -- each may be supported by "evidence" from texts and history, and those who disagree need to produce evidence of their own to rebut the thesis; but no one imagines there is such a thing as an irrefutable argument to a conclusion in literature, art history, or philosophy.  Conclusions are to some degree persuasive, well supported, or compelling; but they are never ineluctable or uniquely compatible with available evidence. There is no such thing as the final word, even on a well formulated question. (Naturally, a vague or ambiguous question can always be answered in multiple ways.)

In physics the situation appears to be different.  Physical theories are about a class of things with what we may assume are uniform characteristics throughout the range of this kind of thing (electrons, electromagnetic waves, neutrinos); and these things come together in ensembles to produce other kinds of physical phenomena.  So we often believe that physical theories are deductive systems that attribute a set of mathematical properties to more-or-less fundamental physical entities; and then we go on to derive descriptions of the behavior of things and ensembles made of these properties.  And the approximate truth of the physical theory can be assessed by the degree of success its deductive implications have for the world of observable ensembles of physical things.  So it seems that we can come to fairly definitive conclusions about various theories in the natural sciences: natural selection is the mechanism of species evolution; gravitational force is the cause of the elliptical shapes of planetary orbits; the velocity of light is a constant.  And we are confident in the truth of these statements because they play essential roles within deductive systems that are highly confirmed by experiment and experience.

So what about the empirical domains of sociology or history? Is it possible for careful empirical and theoretical research to provide final answers to well formulated questions in these fields? Is it possible to put together an argument in sociology on a particular question that is so rationally and empirically compelling that no further disagreement is possible?

There is a domain of factual-empirical questions in sociology where the answer is probably affirmative. What is the population of Detroit in 2000? What percentage of likely voters supported McCain in October 2008? What is the full unemployment rate among African-American young people in Ohio? When was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters recognized in Cleveland? There are recognized sources of data and generally accepted methods that would allow us to judge that a particular study definitively answers one or another of these questions. This isn't to make a claim of unrevisability; but it is to assert that some social inquiries have as much empirical decidability as, say, questions in descriptive ecology ("what is the range of the Helicinidae land snail in North America?") or planetary astronomy ("what is the most likely origin of the planetary body Pluto?").

But most major works in sociology do not have this characteristic. They do not primarily aim at establishing a limited set of sociological or demographic facts. Instead, they take on larger issues of conceptualization, explanation, interpretation, and theory formation. They make use of empirical and historical facts to assess or support their arguments. But it is virtually never possible to conclude, "given the available body of empirical and historical evidence, this theory is almost certainly true." Rather, we are more commonly in a position to say something like this: "Given the range of empirical, historical, and theoretical considerations offered in its support, theory T is a credible explanation of P."  And it remains for other scholars to either advance a more comprehensive or well-supported theory, or to undermine the evidence offered for T, or to provisionally accept T as being approximately correct.  Durkheim put forward a theory of suicide based on the theoretical construct of anomie (Suicide).  He argued that the rate of suicide demonstrated by a population is caused by the degree of anomie characteristic of that society; and he offered a few examples of how the theoretical construct of anomie might be operationalized in order to allow us to measure or compare different societies in these terms.  But his theory can be challenged from numerous directions: that it is monocausal, that it assumes that suicide is a homogeneous phenomenon across social settings, and even that it overstates the degree of consistency that exists between "high anomie" and "high suicide" social settings.

Take Michael Mann's analysis of fascism (Fascists). He considers a vast range of historical and sociological evidence in arriving at his analysis. His theory is richly grounded in empirical evidence. But numerous elements of his account reflect the researcher's best judgment about a question, rather than a conclusive factual argument. Take Mann's view that "materialist" and class-based theories of fascist movements are incorrect.  I doubt that his richly documented arguments to this conclusion make it rationally impossible to continue to find support for the materialist hypothesis. Or take his definition of fascism itself. It is a credible definition; but different researchers could certainly offer alternatives that would lead them to weigh the evidence differently and come to different conclusions. So even such simple questions as these lack determinate answers: What is fascism?  Why did fascist movements arise? Who were the typical fascist followers? There are credible answers to each of these questions, and this is exactly what we want from a sociological theory of fascism; but the answers that a given researcher puts forward are always contestable.

Or take Howard Kimeldorf's analysis of the different political trajectories of dock-workers' unions on the East and West Coasts (Reds or Rackets?: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront). Kimeldorf provides an explanatory hypothesis of the differences between the nature of these unions in the east and west in the United States, and he offers a rich volume of historical and factual material to fill in the case and support the hypothesis.  It is an admirable example of reasoning in comparative historical sociology.  Nonetheless, there is ample room for controversy.  Has he formulated the problem in the most perspicuous way?  Are the empirical findings unambiguous?  Are there perhaps other sources of data that would support a different conclusion?  It is reasonable to say that Kimeldorf makes a credible case for his conclusions; but there are other possible interpretations of the facts, and even other possible interpretations of the phenomena themselves.

These are both outstanding examples of sociological theory and analysis; so the point here isn't that there is some important defect in either of them.  Rather, the point is that there is a wide range of indeterminacy in each of these examples: in the way in which the problem is formulated, in the basic conceptual assumptions that the author makes, and in the types and interpretation of the data that the author provides.  Each provides a strong basis, in fact and in theory, for accepting the conclusions offered.  But each is contestable within the general framework of scientific rationality.  And this seems to suggest that for the difficult, complex problems that arise in sociology and history, there is no basis for imagining that there could be a final and rationally compulsory answer to questions like "Why fascism?" and "Why Red labor unions on the Pacific Coast?"  And perhaps it suggests something else as well: that the logic of scientific reasoning in the social sciences is as close to arguments in the humanities as it is to reasoning in the physical sciences.  It is perhaps an instance of "inference to the best explanation" rather than an example of hypothetico-deductive testing and confirmation.

What makes a sociological theory compelling?

In the humanities it is a given that assertions and arguments have a certain degree of rational force, but that ultimately, reasonable people may differ about virtually every serious claim. An interpretation of Ulysses, an argument for a principle of distributive justice, or an attribution of certain of Shakespeare's works to Christopher Marlowe -- each may be supported by "evidence" from texts and history, and those who disagree need to produce evidence of their own to rebut the thesis; but no one imagines there is such a thing as an irrefutable argument to a conclusion in literature, art history, or philosophy.  Conclusions are to some degree persuasive, well supported, or compelling; but they are never ineluctable or uniquely compatible with available evidence. There is no such thing as the final word, even on a well formulated question. (Naturally, a vague or ambiguous question can always be answered in multiple ways.)

In physics the situation appears to be different.  Physical theories are about a class of things with what we may assume are uniform characteristics throughout the range of this kind of thing (electrons, electromagnetic waves, neutrinos); and these things come together in ensembles to produce other kinds of physical phenomena.  So we often believe that physical theories are deductive systems that attribute a set of mathematical properties to more-or-less fundamental physical entities; and then we go on to derive descriptions of the behavior of things and ensembles made of these properties.  And the approximate truth of the physical theory can be assessed by the degree of success its deductive implications have for the world of observable ensembles of physical things.  So it seems that we can come to fairly definitive conclusions about various theories in the natural sciences: natural selection is the mechanism of species evolution; gravitational force is the cause of the elliptical shapes of planetary orbits; the velocity of light is a constant.  And we are confident in the truth of these statements because they play essential roles within deductive systems that are highly confirmed by experiment and experience.

So what about the empirical domains of sociology or history? Is it possible for careful empirical and theoretical research to provide final answers to well formulated questions in these fields? Is it possible to put together an argument in sociology on a particular question that is so rationally and empirically compelling that no further disagreement is possible?

There is a domain of factual-empirical questions in sociology where the answer is probably affirmative. What is the population of Detroit in 2000? What percentage of likely voters supported McCain in October 2008? What is the full unemployment rate among African-American young people in Ohio? When was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters recognized in Cleveland? There are recognized sources of data and generally accepted methods that would allow us to judge that a particular study definitively answers one or another of these questions. This isn't to make a claim of unrevisability; but it is to assert that some social inquiries have as much empirical decidability as, say, questions in descriptive ecology ("what is the range of the Helicinidae land snail in North America?") or planetary astronomy ("what is the most likely origin of the planetary body Pluto?").

But most major works in sociology do not have this characteristic. They do not primarily aim at establishing a limited set of sociological or demographic facts. Instead, they take on larger issues of conceptualization, explanation, interpretation, and theory formation. They make use of empirical and historical facts to assess or support their arguments. But it is virtually never possible to conclude, "given the available body of empirical and historical evidence, this theory is almost certainly true." Rather, we are more commonly in a position to say something like this: "Given the range of empirical, historical, and theoretical considerations offered in its support, theory T is a credible explanation of P."  And it remains for other scholars to either advance a more comprehensive or well-supported theory, or to undermine the evidence offered for T, or to provisionally accept T as being approximately correct.  Durkheim put forward a theory of suicide based on the theoretical construct of anomie (Suicide).  He argued that the rate of suicide demonstrated by a population is caused by the degree of anomie characteristic of that society; and he offered a few examples of how the theoretical construct of anomie might be operationalized in order to allow us to measure or compare different societies in these terms.  But his theory can be challenged from numerous directions: that it is monocausal, that it assumes that suicide is a homogeneous phenomenon across social settings, and even that it overstates the degree of consistency that exists between "high anomie" and "high suicide" social settings.

Take Michael Mann's analysis of fascism (Fascists). He considers a vast range of historical and sociological evidence in arriving at his analysis. His theory is richly grounded in empirical evidence. But numerous elements of his account reflect the researcher's best judgment about a question, rather than a conclusive factual argument. Take Mann's view that "materialist" and class-based theories of fascist movements are incorrect.  I doubt that his richly documented arguments to this conclusion make it rationally impossible to continue to find support for the materialist hypothesis. Or take his definition of fascism itself. It is a credible definition; but different researchers could certainly offer alternatives that would lead them to weigh the evidence differently and come to different conclusions. So even such simple questions as these lack determinate answers: What is fascism?  Why did fascist movements arise? Who were the typical fascist followers? There are credible answers to each of these questions, and this is exactly what we want from a sociological theory of fascism; but the answers that a given researcher puts forward are always contestable.

Or take Howard Kimeldorf's analysis of the different political trajectories of dock-workers' unions on the East and West Coasts (Reds or Rackets?: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront). Kimeldorf provides an explanatory hypothesis of the differences between the nature of these unions in the east and west in the United States, and he offers a rich volume of historical and factual material to fill in the case and support the hypothesis.  It is an admirable example of reasoning in comparative historical sociology.  Nonetheless, there is ample room for controversy.  Has he formulated the problem in the most perspicuous way?  Are the empirical findings unambiguous?  Are there perhaps other sources of data that would support a different conclusion?  It is reasonable to say that Kimeldorf makes a credible case for his conclusions; but there are other possible interpretations of the facts, and even other possible interpretations of the phenomena themselves.

These are both outstanding examples of sociological theory and analysis; so the point here isn't that there is some important defect in either of them.  Rather, the point is that there is a wide range of indeterminacy in each of these examples: in the way in which the problem is formulated, in the basic conceptual assumptions that the author makes, and in the types and interpretation of the data that the author provides.  Each provides a strong basis, in fact and in theory, for accepting the conclusions offered.  But each is contestable within the general framework of scientific rationality.  And this seems to suggest that for the difficult, complex problems that arise in sociology and history, there is no basis for imagining that there could be a final and rationally compulsory answer to questions like "Why fascism?" and "Why Red labor unions on the Pacific Coast?"  And perhaps it suggests something else as well: that the logic of scientific reasoning in the social sciences is as close to arguments in the humanities as it is to reasoning in the physical sciences.  It is perhaps an instance of "inference to the best explanation" rather than an example of hypothetico-deductive testing and confirmation.

What makes a sociological theory compelling?

In the humanities it is a given that assertions and arguments have a certain degree of rational force, but that ultimately, reasonable people may differ about virtually every serious claim. An interpretation of Ulysses, an argument for a principle of distributive justice, or an attribution of certain of Shakespeare's works to Christopher Marlowe -- each may be supported by "evidence" from texts and history, and those who disagree need to produce evidence of their own to rebut the thesis; but no one imagines there is such a thing as an irrefutable argument to a conclusion in literature, art history, or philosophy.  Conclusions are to some degree persuasive, well supported, or compelling; but they are never ineluctable or uniquely compatible with available evidence. There is no such thing as the final word, even on a well formulated question. (Naturally, a vague or ambiguous question can always be answered in multiple ways.)

In physics the situation appears to be different.  Physical theories are about a class of things with what we may assume are uniform characteristics throughout the range of this kind of thing (electrons, electromagnetic waves, neutrinos); and these things come together in ensembles to produce other kinds of physical phenomena.  So we often believe that physical theories are deductive systems that attribute a set of mathematical properties to more-or-less fundamental physical entities; and then we go on to derive descriptions of the behavior of things and ensembles made of these properties.  And the approximate truth of the physical theory can be assessed by the degree of success its deductive implications have for the world of observable ensembles of physical things.  So it seems that we can come to fairly definitive conclusions about various theories in the natural sciences: natural selection is the mechanism of species evolution; gravitational force is the cause of the elliptical shapes of planetary orbits; the velocity of light is a constant.  And we are confident in the truth of these statements because they play essential roles within deductive systems that are highly confirmed by experiment and experience.

So what about the empirical domains of sociology or history? Is it possible for careful empirical and theoretical research to provide final answers to well formulated questions in these fields? Is it possible to put together an argument in sociology on a particular question that is so rationally and empirically compelling that no further disagreement is possible?

There is a domain of factual-empirical questions in sociology where the answer is probably affirmative. What is the population of Detroit in 2000? What percentage of likely voters supported McCain in October 2008? What is the full unemployment rate among African-American young people in Ohio? When was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters recognized in Cleveland? There are recognized sources of data and generally accepted methods that would allow us to judge that a particular study definitively answers one or another of these questions. This isn't to make a claim of unrevisability; but it is to assert that some social inquiries have as much empirical decidability as, say, questions in descriptive ecology ("what is the range of the Helicinidae land snail in North America?") or planetary astronomy ("what is the most likely origin of the planetary body Pluto?").

But most major works in sociology do not have this characteristic. They do not primarily aim at establishing a limited set of sociological or demographic facts. Instead, they take on larger issues of conceptualization, explanation, interpretation, and theory formation. They make use of empirical and historical facts to assess or support their arguments. But it is virtually never possible to conclude, "given the available body of empirical and historical evidence, this theory is almost certainly true." Rather, we are more commonly in a position to say something like this: "Given the range of empirical, historical, and theoretical considerations offered in its support, theory T is a credible explanation of P."  And it remains for other scholars to either advance a more comprehensive or well-supported theory, or to undermine the evidence offered for T, or to provisionally accept T as being approximately correct.  Durkheim put forward a theory of suicide based on the theoretical construct of anomie (Suicide).  He argued that the rate of suicide demonstrated by a population is caused by the degree of anomie characteristic of that society; and he offered a few examples of how the theoretical construct of anomie might be operationalized in order to allow us to measure or compare different societies in these terms.  But his theory can be challenged from numerous directions: that it is monocausal, that it assumes that suicide is a homogeneous phenomenon across social settings, and even that it overstates the degree of consistency that exists between "high anomie" and "high suicide" social settings.

Take Michael Mann's analysis of fascism (Fascists). He considers a vast range of historical and sociological evidence in arriving at his analysis. His theory is richly grounded in empirical evidence. But numerous elements of his account reflect the researcher's best judgment about a question, rather than a conclusive factual argument. Take Mann's view that "materialist" and class-based theories of fascist movements are incorrect.  I doubt that his richly documented arguments to this conclusion make it rationally impossible to continue to find support for the materialist hypothesis. Or take his definition of fascism itself. It is a credible definition; but different researchers could certainly offer alternatives that would lead them to weigh the evidence differently and come to different conclusions. So even such simple questions as these lack determinate answers: What is fascism?  Why did fascist movements arise? Who were the typical fascist followers? There are credible answers to each of these questions, and this is exactly what we want from a sociological theory of fascism; but the answers that a given researcher puts forward are always contestable.

Or take Howard Kimeldorf's analysis of the different political trajectories of dock-workers' unions on the East and West Coasts (Reds or Rackets?: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront). Kimeldorf provides an explanatory hypothesis of the differences between the nature of these unions in the east and west in the United States, and he offers a rich volume of historical and factual material to fill in the case and support the hypothesis.  It is an admirable example of reasoning in comparative historical sociology.  Nonetheless, there is ample room for controversy.  Has he formulated the problem in the most perspicuous way?  Are the empirical findings unambiguous?  Are there perhaps other sources of data that would support a different conclusion?  It is reasonable to say that Kimeldorf makes a credible case for his conclusions; but there are other possible interpretations of the facts, and even other possible interpretations of the phenomena themselves.

These are both outstanding examples of sociological theory and analysis; so the point here isn't that there is some important defect in either of them.  Rather, the point is that there is a wide range of indeterminacy in each of these examples: in the way in which the problem is formulated, in the basic conceptual assumptions that the author makes, and in the types and interpretation of the data that the author provides.  Each provides a strong basis, in fact and in theory, for accepting the conclusions offered.  But each is contestable within the general framework of scientific rationality.  And this seems to suggest that for the difficult, complex problems that arise in sociology and history, there is no basis for imagining that there could be a final and rationally compulsory answer to questions like "Why fascism?" and "Why Red labor unions on the Pacific Coast?"  And perhaps it suggests something else as well: that the logic of scientific reasoning in the social sciences is as close to arguments in the humanities as it is to reasoning in the physical sciences.  It is perhaps an instance of "inference to the best explanation" rather than an example of hypothetico-deductive testing and confirmation.