International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS) Conference in Mannheim

Keynote speaker: Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University

Now in its seventh year, the Annual Meeting of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS) will convene at the historic Baroque palace that is home to the University of Mannheim in Germany. Mannheim is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhine and Neckar, with romantic Heidelberg and the renowned wine cultivating region of the Palatinate as its closest neighbors. Continuing the successful history of previous INAS conferences in Oxford, Turin, Barcelona, Paris, New York, and Stockholm, we are looking forward to a stimulating exchange of novel ideas and applications.

We are delighted to announce that Robert J. Sampson (Harvard) will give the keynote address of the conference.

Analytical sociology is an approach for understanding the social world. It is concerned with explaining societal phenomena such as social network structures, patterns of segregation, collectively shared and diffused cultural and/or political ideas or common ways of (inter-)acting in a society. It explains such phenomena not merely by relating them to other societal phenomena, but by detailing in clear and precise ways the mechanisms through which the phenomena were brought about. Parts of analytical sociology focus on action and interaction as the cogs and wheels of social processes, while others consider the dynamic social processes that these actions and interactions bring about.

Following the established format of the INAS conference, we invite abstracts for paper presentations using any qualitative or quantitative method that allows for the study of social mechanisms and the complex social dynamics they give rise to. We likewise welcome purely theoretical papers dealing with central aspects of the explanatory approach of analytical sociology.

Henning Hillmann, University of Mannheim
Clemens Kroneberg, University of Cologne