Michael Mann (sociologist)

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox academic Michael Mann FBA (born 1942) is a British-American emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)<ref name="CV">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and past honorary professor at the University of Cambridge.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mann holds dual British and United States citizenships.

Life and career

Mann was born in Manchester, UK. He attended a local primary school, and then Manchester Grammar School.<ref>John A. Hall, “Political Questions,” pp. 33-55, in John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder (eds.), The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 37.</ref>

Mann received a B.A. in modern history in 1963 and a D.Phil. in sociology in 1971 from the University of Oxford.<ref name="CV" />

Mann was lecturer in sociology at the University of Essex from 1971 to 1977. He then became reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, from 1977 to 1987. Mann has been a professor of sociology at UCLA since 1987.<ref name="CV" /> He has been PhD supervisor of Professor Azadeh KianTemplate:Citation needed

Awards and honours

Mann has been the recipient of many awards.<ref name ="CV" />

  • 1988 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award of the American Sociological Association, for The Sources of Social Power. Volume I (1986)
  • 1994 Gold Medal of the University of Helsinki
  • 2004 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Prize for the best book on politics published in Germany in 2003 for Incoherent Empire (2003)
  • 2006 American Sociological Association's Barrington Moore Award for The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (2005)
  • 2015 Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2015 Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy
  • 2016 Honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature from University College Dublin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Academic research

Mann's main work is The Sources of Social Power (four volumes).<ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. I: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986; Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power Vol. 3: Global Empires and Revolution, 1890–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012; Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power Vol. 4: Globalizations, 1945–2011. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.</ref> The first two volumes of The Sources of Social Power were published in 1986 and 1993. The last two volumes were published in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

He also published several works on the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These include Incoherent Empire (2003), in which he attacks the United States' 'War on Terror' as a clumsy experiment in neo-imperialism. <ref>Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire. London: Verso, 2003.</ref> Two of his works, Fascists (2004) and The Dark Side of Democracy (2005), focus on fascism and ethnic cleansing.<ref>; Michael Mann, Fascists. New York: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Michael Mann, The Dark-Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. New York: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.</ref>

His last work, On Wars, covers the experience of war around the world throughout history.<ref name="Michael Mann 2023">Michael Mann, On Wars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023.</ref>

Mann's work has been the subject of several critical assessments, including John Hall and Ralph Schroder's The Anatomy of Power: Social Theory of Michael Mann (2006) and Ralph Schroder's Global Powers: Michael Mann's Anatomy of 20th Century and Beyond (2016).<ref>John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder (eds.), The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Ralph Schroeder (ed.), Global Powers: Mann’s Anatomy of the Twentieth Century and Beyond. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.</ref>

Social theory

One of Mann's main ideas is his IEMP model, where IEMP stands for distinct ideological, economic, military, and political sources of power.<ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. I: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 22-32.</ref> The four components of the IEMP model are defined as follows:

  • Ideological power is seen as deriving from “the human need to find ultimate meaning in life, to share norms and values, and to participate in aesthetic and ritual practices with others.”
  • Economic power is grounded in “the human need to extract, transform, distribute, and consume the products of nature.”
  • Military power pertains to “the social organization of concentrated and lethal violence.”
  • Political power is “the centralized and territorial regulation of social life.”<ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power Vol. 3: Global Empires and Revolution, 1890–1945 New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 6-12.</ref>

In this model:

  • Counter to Marx, none of these sources of power is seen as determinative in the last instance.<ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. I: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 3-4.</ref> and
  • Counter to Weber, Mann treats military power as distinct from political power. For Mann, “modern states formally monopolize the means of military violence” but that does “not end the autonomy of military power organization.” <ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 44.</ref>

In his theory of the state, Mann defines the state with four attributes:

  1. "The state is a differentiated set of institutions and personnel
  2. embodying centrality, in the sense that political relations radiate to and from a center, to cover a
  3. territorially demarcated area over which it exercises
  4. some degree of authoritative, binding rule making, backed up by some organized physical force."<ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 55.</ref>

Mann also suggests that Weber confuses two conceptions of state strength, those related to:

  • “the distributive despotic power of state elites over civil society” and
  • the collective infrastructural power, that is “the institutional capacity of a state, despotic or not, to penetrate its territories and logistically implement decisions.”<ref>Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 58-59. Mann first introduced the distinction between despotic and infrastructural power in Michael Mann, “The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms, and Results,” Archives Européenes de Sociologie 25, 1984: 185-213. Mann provides an elaborate discussion of this distinction in Michael Mann, “Infrastructural Power Revisited,” Studies in Comparative International Development 43(3)(2008): 355–65.</ref>

Wars

Mann's (2023) On Wars is a work that focuses on military power and its main mechanism, war. It covers wars in Rome, imperial China, the Mongols, Japan, medieval and modern Europe, pre-Columbian and Latin America, the world wars, and recent American and Middle Eastern wars.<ref name="Michael Mann 2023"/>

Reception of Mann’s ideas

Mann has been called “one of the premier macro-historical sociologists”<ref>David Laitin, “Mann's Dark Side: Linking Democracy and Genocide,” pp. 328-40, in John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder (eds.), The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 328.</ref> and “the Max Weber of our time.”<ref>Randall Collins, https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300266818/on-wars/</ref>

Gianfranco Poggi questioned Mann's conceptual decision to treat military power as a distinct source of power and defended the classic distinction between economic, political and ideological power.<ref>Gianfranco Poggi, “Political Power Un-manned: A Defence of the Holy Trinity from Mann's Military Attack,” pp. 135-49, in John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder (eds.), The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.</ref>

David D. Laitin challenged two thesis in Mann's The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing: (1) that democracy and murderous ethnic cleansing are systematically associated, and (2) that genocide as a modern form of state murder is worse than other forms of mass murder.<ref>David Laitin, “Mann's Dark Side: Linking Democracy and Genocide,” pp. 328-40, in John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder (eds.), The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.</ref>

A special issue of Studies in Comparative International Development focuses on Mann's concept of state infrastructural power.<ref>Michael Mann contribution to this issue is “Infrastructural Power Revisited.” Studies in Comparative International Development 43(3)(2008): 355–65.</ref>

Mann has responded at length to various critiques.<ref>Michael Mann, “The Sources of Social Power Revisited: A Response to Criticism,” pp. 343-96, in John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder (eds.), The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Michael Mann, “Preface to the new edition,” pp. vii-xxiv, in Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. I: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012; and Michael Mann, “Response to the critics,” pp. 281-322, in Ralph Schroeder (ed.), Global Powers: Mann’s Anatomy of the Twentieth Century and Beyond. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).</ref>

Selected publications

Resources on Mann and his research

See also

Notes

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References

  • Professor Michael Mann - UCLA Department of Sociology webpage
  • Power in the 21st Century: Conversations with John A. Hall. Polity, 2011.
  • Conversation with Michael Mann Template:Webarchive - UC Berkeley transcript and webcast of interview with Michael Mann regarding his recent publication, Incoherent Empire.
  • Nations and Nationalism: Debate on Mann's The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, with J. Breuilly, D. Cesarani, S. Malesevic, B. Neuberger and M. Mann (abstract).
  • {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }} - Review of Mann's The Dark Side of Democracy by T.K. Vogel in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 17 September 2005 Template:In lang

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