Nico Stehr, Christian Fleck (Hrsg.)

Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) was a highly influential figure in the development of modern empirical methods in sociology and the social sciences. He laid many of the foundations for reliable social survey techniques and qualitative methods for understanding key aspects of contemporary society, such as voting studies, opinion polling, occupational and mass media research. Lazarsfeld’s pioneering work in what he termed “administrative research” provided the intellectual basis for much of market and business research.

The articles collected together in Paul F. Lazarsfeld: An Empirical Theory of Social Action make Lazarsfeld’s pioneering early work on youth and occupation available for the first time in English. They demonstrate the intellectual influences of Austro-marxism, academic psychology and the philosophy of the Vienna Circle, and their application to concrete issues of social concern. His development of an empirically grounded theory of social action was to produce many important insights into the analysis of social processes. His methodological approach was a key influence on both Robert K. Merton’s “theories of the middle-range”, and Barney Glaser’s development, with Anselm Strauss, of “grounded theory”.