Political sociology of crisis in times of crisis: introducing the augmented discrepancy approach

Abstract

Sociology has evolved and developed as a “crisis science”. But although the concept of crisis is central to the history of sociology, there is no common notion of crisis in (political) sociology today. In this paper, we address the relationship between political sociology and crisis, explicate what a political sociology of crisis might look like and discuss possible characteristics of a genuine political-sociological approach to (political) crisis. Here, we propose the ‘augmented discrepancy approach’ as a heuristic framework for the empirical analysis and comparisons of (political) crises. This reflexive approach interprets political crises as resulting from a gap between (liberal, republican and social) democratic ideals, i.e. the self-understanding or legitimation narratives within society, and real-existing political practices. From this angle, a social constellation can convincingly be named a crisis, if the material conditions and practices constituting it (considerably) deviate from a certain understanding of democracy and if members of society perceive this deviation to matter to a relevant extent.