Piotr Sztompka

Believe it or not, the Yokohama World Congress of Sociology is my eleventh. I joined the ISA in 1970, at the Congress held at Varna, Bulgaria, the first ever in Eastern Europe. Now, 40 years later, I venture to glance backward and forward. As a theorist I always look for general trends, and I have spotted two: one beneficial, offering reason for rejoicing, and another pernicious, even dangerous. The ISA’s great achievement has been to reach...

Almost ten years ago at the ISA World Congress of Sociology at Brisbane 2002 I won the Presidency of ISA running on a very ‘politically incorrect’ slogan, ‘Excellence rather than balance’. Now the slogan seems relevant again, especially after the 2010 World Congress in Gothenburg and the sweeping victory of Michael Burawoy who again injected revolutionary fervor into the ISA: the claim of some ‘alternative’, ‘indigenous’...