Hegemony

The concept of the Ruling Classes (the Bourgeoisie) values being imposed upon the population is known as hegemony. This set of values, according to Marxist theory, is actually forced upon people and what they believe they are agreeing to as a result of their own beliefs is in reality in the interest of the ruling class. Basically an expression of Ideology A hegemony is a leader state that rules over the others indirectly, by inherent power, not military force. 

Middle Range Theory

Middle-range theory, developed by Robert K. Merton, is an approach to sociological theorizing aimed at integrating theory and empirical research. It is currently the de facto dominant approach to sociological theory construction, especially in the United States. Middle-range theory starts with an empirical phenomenon (as opposed to a broad abstract entity like the social system) and abstracts from it to create general statements that can be verified by data. This approach stands in contrast to the earlier "grand" theorizing of social theory, such as functionalism and many conflict theories. Raymond Boudon has argued that "middle-range theory" is the same concept that most other sciences simply call 'theory'. The analytical sociology movement has as its aim the unification of such theories into a coherent paradigm at a greater level of abstraction.

Sociological theory, if it is to advance significantly, must proceed on these interconnected planes: 1. by developing special theories from which to derive hypotheses that can be empirically investigated and 2. by evolving a progressively more general conceptual sche me that is adequate to consolidate groups of special theories.

— Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure

History

The midrange approach was developed by Robert Merton as a departure from the general social theorizing of Talcott Parsons. Merton agreed with Parsons that a narrow empiricism consisting entirely of simple statistical or observational regularities cannot arrive at successful theory. However, he found that Parsons' "formulations were remote from providing a problematic and a direction for theory-oriented empirical inquiry into the observable worlds of culture and society". He was thus directly opposed to the abstract theorizing of scholars who are engaged in the attempt to construct a total theoretical system covering all aspects of social life. With the introduction of the middle range theory program, he advocated that sociologists should concentrate on measurable aspects of social reality that can be studied as separate social phenomena, rather than attempting to explain the entire social world. He saw both the middle-range theory approach and middle-range theories themselves as temporary: when they matured, as natural sciences already had, the body of middle range theories would become a system of universal laws; but, until that time, social sciences should avoid trying to create a universal theory.

Merton's original foil in the construction was Talcott Parsons, whose action theory Merton classified as a "grand theory". (Parsons vehemently rejected this categorization.) Middle range theories are normally constructed by applying theory building techniques to empirical research, which produce generic propositions about the social world, which in turn can also be empirically tested. Examples of middle range theories are theories of reference groups, social mobility, normalization processes, role conflict and the formation of social norms. The middle-range approach has played a key role in turning sociology into an increasingly empirically-oriented discipline. This was also important in post-war thought.

In the post-war period, middle-range theory became the dominant approach to theory construction in all variable-based social sciences. Middle range theory has also been applied to the archaeological realm by Lewis R. Binford, and to financial theory by Harvard Business School Professor Robert C. Merton, Robert K. Merton's son.

In the recent decades, the analytical sociology program has emerged as an attempt synthesizing middle-range theories into a more coherent abstract framework (as Merton had hoped would eventually happen). Peter Hedstrom at Oxford is the scholar most associated with this approach, while Peter Bearman is its most prominent American advocate.