Stein Rokkan's Thick Comparisons

Abstract

Among Nordic social scientists during the postwar period. Stein Rokkan made the clearly most important contribution to comparative historical sociology. This article distinguishes three phases of his work: a phase of early experiences in the 1950s, followed by two mature phases in the 1960s and 1970s. In both these phases Rokkan wanted to explain the diversity of European political systems, but in the second mature phase he developed a much broader framework to analyse the economic, territorial and cultural contexts of Europe's political developments. The methodology of his conceptual maps and his model of Europe is discussed in some detail. It is argued that in his mature work. Rokkan increasingly departed both from variables-oriented sociology and mainstream positivist methodology. The notion of theory implied by his mature work corresponds best to the notion found among critics of variables-oriented sociology, and it converges with the notions of grounded theory and thick description as developed in interactionist schools of sociology.