Tom Burns
Biographic Data
| ID | 176089 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Burns |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Burns |
| SIGNATURE | BURNS T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1280-0104 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 125 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 536 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 121 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1953 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Stories of Hope
Bringing together a diverse range of educators and practitioners, this collection showcases real-world innovations that challenge the status quo and offer glimpses of a more humane and inspiring educational future. From rethinking systems and curriculum design to fostering imaginative collaboration and exploring the role of technology, the book highlights practical, hopeful interventions that are already making a difference.
Collective Writing
This paper is a summary of philosophy, theory, and practice arising from collective writing experiments conducted between 2016 and 2022 in the community associated with the Editors’ Collective and more than 20 scholarly journals. The main body of the paper summarises the community’s insights into the many faces of collective writing. Appendix 1 presents the workflow of the article’s development. Appendix 2 lists approximately 100 collectively wri…
Understanding Digital Inequality
The pandemic affected more than 1.5 billion students and youth, and the most vulnerable learners were hit hardest, making digital inequality in educational settings impossible to overlook. Given this reality, we, all educators, came together to find ways to understand and address some of these inequalities. As a product of this collaboration, we propose a methodological toolkit: a theoretical kaleidoscope to examine and critique the constitutive …
Designing Educational Futures
This commentary is a working out loud of what a liberatory education might entail that builds on partnership and co-creation. Proposed is the addition of collaboration as a central element to education, to break individuality and hierarchy – for collective, socially just action. The perquisites for this is openness – and the abandonment of the neoliberal competitive approach to education as well as the conscious development and use of Open EdTech…
Teaching in the Age of Covid-19—The New Normal
Teaching in the Age of Covid-19—1 Year Later
In March 2020 I published the 'emergency editorial' in Postdigital Science and Education and invited the community to 'explore all imaginable aspects of this large social experiment that the Covid-19 pandemic has lain down in front of us' (Jandri 2020a: 237). Articles immediately started pouring in; within weeks, the journal's contributions had been recognized by institutions such as the World Health Organization, the US National Library of Medic…
Sociological game theory
This article presents two sociological theories, alternatives to classical game theory. These social science-based game theories discussed here present reformulations of classical game theory in applied mathematics (CGT). These theories offer an important advance to classical game theory, thanks to the application of central concepts in sociology and social psychology, as well as the results of empirical analyses of individual and collective beha…
Basaglia's International Legacy
Franco Basaglia (1924-1980) was an Italian psychiatrist and activist who proposed the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals and pioneered new ideas about mental health and its treatment. Basaglia was also one of the principal proponents of Italy's 'Law 180', which effectively closed down large mental hospitals in Italy. His ideas and his disciples have had a decisive influence in the move away from institutional care in many parts of the world, pa…
Teaching in the Age of Covid-19
This article presents a collection of short testimonies and workspace photographs received between 18 March and 5 May in response to my Call for Testimonies reproduced in the next section. The testimonies are lined up in order of when they were received. Each section starts with the place and time of writing, followed by a brief author biography, their testimony, and one workspace photograph. In numbers, the collection consists of 81 textual test…
Revisiting World War I in contemporaneity
What is left of World War I a hundred years after the Armistice? Besides monuments and national holidays, texts are, in their various forms, among the remains of WWI. Together, they write what Samuel Hynes calls "the Myth of the War," a narrative of signification that gradually became what and how we know about the war. A look at the relationship contemporary recreations of WWI establish with this myth is important to understand our sense of hist…
Paradigm Shift in Game Theory
This article aims to present some of the initial work of developing a social science grounded game theory-as a clear alternative to classical game theory. Two distinct independent initiatives in Sociology are presented: One, a systems approach, social systems game theory (SGT), and the other, Erving Goffman's interactionist approach (IGT). These approaches are presented and contrasted with classical theory. They focus on the social rules, norms, …
Outreach in Community Mental Health Care
The last 50 years has witnessed a radical change in the care of the severely mentally ill as asylums have closed and care has moved to the community. Two developments have marked this transition. The first is the development of multidisciplinary community mental health teams (CMHTs). The second is an increasing reliance on outreach to engage and support the most seriously ill patients. This book is a guide for those, whatever their professional b…
Cultural sensitivity
This chapter concentrates on ethnicity and the complex relationship with both economic disadvantage and mental health access and outcomes when working in culturally diverse communities. The social processes that underlie cultural norms in behaviour and beliefs are discussed with examples of how mental health community services must be alert to unconscious and other forms of discrimination. Understanding each unique individual in the context of th…
Socio-economics
This article presents a social systems theoretical approach to the field of socio-economics. Drawing on actor-system dynamics, a social systems theory, developed in the 1970s, we report on how it has been applied to socio-economic questions and analyses in a series of reports and publications for the past 40+ years. Among the problems discussed are
Metapower
The concept of power is central to the sociological pursuit but is also of concern across the social sciences in general. While commonly conceptualized in terms of control or the capacity of agents to act, to overcome resistance, or to mobilize resources, a larger concern must be how expressions of power provide the structured mechanisms through which agentic expressions of power are enacted. This larger and expanded sense of the concept of power…
System Theories
In the most abstract sense, a system is a set of objects together with relationships among the objects. Such a definition implies that a system has properties, functions, and dynamics distinct from its constituent objects and relationships. A system‐theoretic approach is not unique to sociology. Many of the major system theorists have belonged to other disciplines, including mathematics, with conceptual and analytic challenges rather different fr…
Linking Group Theory to Social Science Game Theory
This article draws on earlier work in social system theorizing and analysis-in particular, the theory of social rule systems. On the basis of this foundational work, its aim is to systematically link theories of social groups and organizations, on the one hand, and social science game and interaction theory, on the other hand. Rule system theory has contributed to significant features of group theory and social science game theory. It is a cultur…
Defining continuity of care from the perspectives of mental health service users and professionals
BACKGROUND: Continuity of care (COC) is central to the organization and delivery of mental health services. Traditional definitions have excluded service users, and this lack of involvement has been linked to poor conceptual clarity surrounding the term. Consequently, very little is known about the differences and similarities in the conceptualization of COC by mental health service users and professionals. OBJECTIVE: To explore and compare menta…
Sustainable development
This article provides an overview and analysis of sustainable development from a sociological perspective. It is divided into three parts. The first presents selected relevant sociological research before there was ever a concept of 'sustainable development'. The selected focus is on work falling under the rubrics of environmental sociology as well as development sociology. The second part briefly discusses the context and process that led to con…
Islander innovation
Local economies and livelihoods, cultures, and sustainability around the world are being challenged by wide ranging social and environmental changes. Despite many negative impacts, these changes also bring opportunities to initiate and implement innovations. Island communities are experiencing the forefront of much such action, particularly since they are often highly local and localised societies. Yet in many cases, global changes are being impo…
Health interventions for people who are homeless
Evolving Focus on Human Agency in Contemporary Social Theory
The use of leverage in community mental health
BACKGROUND: Leverage is a particular type of treatment pressure that is used within community mental health services to increase patients' adherence to treatment. Because leverage involves practitioners making proposals that attempt to influence patients' behaviours and choices, the use of leverage raises ethical issues. AIM: To provide guidance that can assist practitioners in making judgements about whether it is ethically acceptable to use lev…
Involuntary outpatient treatment for mental health problems in Switzerland
BACKGROUND: In 2008, the Swiss Civil Code was amended. From 1 January 2013, each Swiss canton may propose specific provisions for involuntary outpatient treatment (community treatment orders (CTOs)) for individuals with mental disorders. AIM: This review catalogues the legal provisions of the various Swiss cantons for CTOs and outlines the differences between them. It sets this in the context of variations in clinical provisions between the canto…
Trust, Deals and Authority
Content Analysis in Communication Research
The Civilizing Process
Operationalising the capability approach for outcome measurement in mental health research
The Directions of Activity and Communication in a Departmental Executive Group
Evolutionary theory in sociology
After long neglect, evolutionary thinking is receiving new emphasis in the social sciences. Although evolutionary theories in biology are complex, changing, and often controversial, the basic concepts of variation, selection, and transmission potentially have powerful applications in sociology. In such uses, a crucial distinction must be made between developmental processes and evolutionary processes. Two main approaches characterize current evol…
Human Agency and the Evolutionary Dynamics of Culture
Agency has long been an important topic in sociological theory. Recently, sociologists have devoted attention to new models of cultural evolution drawn from a variety of disciplines. This paper examines the role of agency in evolutionary theory. We begin by distinguishing evolutionary theory from developmental theories that are usually identified with evolution in discussions of social theory. We then offer an approach to agency and to power grou…
The Reference of Conduct in Small Groups
Cultural Evolution
In this paper we outline a general evolutionary theory, which we suggest can provide a useful point of departure for the description and analysis of cultural and institutional dynamics. The paper defines culture and institutions as systems of social rules, produced and reproduced by human groups, and formulates the evolutionary dynamics of such rule systems. In the context of the resurgence of evolutionary thinking in the social sciences in the l…
The Structuring of International Economic Relations
The Structuring of International Economic Relations Get access T. Baumgartner, T. Baumgartner Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar T. R. Burns T. R. Burns Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Quarterly, Volume …
Friends, Enemies, and the Polite Fiction
opposite. It is clear that the situational facts did not determine in any simple sense the contrasting community structures which emerged. Rather, the situations set certain limits, but within these limits contrasting value-orientations influenced the development of two quite different community types. It would appear that solutions to problems of community settlement pattern and the type of concrete social action which ensues are set within a va…
Illness careers and continuity of care in mental health services
Relational Control
In this paper, we introduce a theoretical perspective based on the concept of relational control, the exercise of control over social relationships. The paper focuses on three of the principal ways human agents structure cooperation and conflict among persons and groups: through control of interaction and organizational opportunities, control of differential payoffs or outcomes of interaction, and control over cultural and ideological orientation…
Teaching in the Age of Covid-19
This article presents a collection of short testimonies and workspace photographs received between 18 March and 5 May in response to my Call for Testimonies reproduced in the next section. The testimonies are lined up in order of when they were received. Each section starts with the place and time of writing, followed by a brief author biography, their testimony, and one workspace photograph. In numbers, the collection consists of 81 textual test…
Complex Social Organization
This article conceptualizes and analyses a type of complex social organization consisting of heterogeneous organizing modes and social relationships, combining, for instance, relationships making up markets and hierarchies as well as various types of informal networks. Each mode is constituted and regulated on the basis of a system of social rules making up a particular normative order and operates in terms of its own particular rationality or so…
Meta-power and relational control in social life
The Evolution of Parliaments and Societies in Europe
This article argues that parliamentary institutions have increasing difficulty in addressing and dealing with the growing complexity, highly technical character and rapidity of many developments in modern societies. Deficits in representation, in knowledge and competence, and in engagement or commitment effectively erode the authority and status of parliamentary government. Major rule- and policy-making activities are being substantially displace…
Erving Goffman
The Prisoners' Dilemma Game as a System of Social Domination
This note draws on recent work of the authors concerned with social power and the structuring of social relationships (Buckley et al. 1973
Inflation
Inflation at a very high rate, or even at a moderate rate for a long period of time, is closely linked to socio-political breakdown. It is not surprising, therefore, that inflation is increasingly viewed in Western countries as a major, if not the major, challenge of the 1980's. This is particularly the case where, as now in so many countries, high inflation rates are associated with below capacity production and rather high unemployment rates, a…
Power and Control
Living in Towns
Sovereignty, Interests and Bureaucracy in the Modern State
Power, knowledge, and conflict in the shaping of commons governance. The case of EU Baltic fisheries
This article aims at contributing to governance conceptualization and its application to case study analyses. Two of the challenges which the theoretical and empirical work in the article addresses concern the facilitation of comparability of diverse governance cases and a specification of several key mechanisms of governance formation and reform. A proposed model of the architecture of governance systems – their major components and inter-linkag…
Challenge to Power
Unequal exchange and uneven development
Content Analysis in Communication Research
Friends, Enemies, and the Polite Fiction
opposite. It is clear that the situational facts did not determine in any simple sense the contrasting community structures which emerged. Rather, the situations set certain limits, but within these limits contrasting value-orientations influenced the development of two quite different community types. It would appear that solutions to problems of community settlement pattern and the type of concrete social action which ensues are set within a va…
The Directions of Activity and Communication in a Departmental Executive Group
Living in Towns
The Reference of Conduct in Small Groups
The Dock Worker
Social Structure and Personality in a City
The Idea of Structure in Sociology
The Forms of Conduct
This is a preliminary statement of a set of categories intended for the sociological analysis of conduct in diachronic terms. Conduct is held to be a continuous activity, broken down perceptually into acts. Social acts are analyzable according to the situation to which they refer and the way in which actors attempt to exert control over others. Four forms of social act are distinguished, differing according to their degree of obliquity from direc…
Des fins et des moyens dans la direction des entreprises. Politique intérieure et pathologie de l'organisation
Un individu est engagé dans une organisation de trois manières différentes : il participe à la réalisation de ses objectifs, prend part à une rivalité pour le pouvoir entre ses différentes subdivisions et s'efforce d'y faire carrière. L'étude concrète de quelques grandes entreprises montre que les trois systèmes sociaux définis par là peuvent s'influencer mutuellement de manière très diverse
Public Service and Private World
The Enterprise and Its Environment. A System Theory of Management Organisation
Journal Article The Enterprise and Its Environment. A System Theory of Management Organisation Get access The Enterprise and Its Environment. A System Theory of Management Organisation. By A. K. Rice. (London: Tavistock Publications, 1963. Pp. xiv + 364. 63s.) Tom Burns Tom Burns University of Edinburnh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 76, Issue 301, 1 March 1966, Pages 108–110,…
The study of consumer behaviour a sociological view
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Sociological Explanation
Social Theory and Economic Change
Social Theory and Economic Change
The revolt of the privileged
The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, Yale French Studies
The Management of Innovation
Journal Article T. Burns and G. M. Stalker. The Management of Innovation Get access The Management of Innovation. By T. Burns and G. M. Stalker. Social Science Paperbacks. (London: Tavistock, 1961 (paperback, 1966). Pp. xxii + 269. 35s.) C. Freeman C. Freeman Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 79, Issue 314, 1 June 1969, Pages 40…
Sociological Explanation
Having to give an inaugural lecture is a rather daunting affair though, I am sure, a salutary one. Luckily, there is always tradition to sustain one and to afford some guidance. There are, one finds, models, or types, of inaugural lectures. I cannot claim to be a connoisseur, but, judging from a small and heavily biased sample, they seem to fall into three groups. There are those, to begin with, which announce new departures for a subject, new ho…
Marxist Sociology in Action
Industrial Man
Melanesian Big Men and the Accumulation of Power1
Social Theory and Economic Change
On the Rationale of the Corporate System
What are the connotations of the phrase ‘The Corporate System’? In the minds of the other contributors to this volume they seem to be coterminous with those of J. K. Galbraith’s thesis of the two hundred or so giant corporations now said to dominate the private sector of American business and industry. By so doing, by increasing their control of markets and, eventually, of consumer behaviour, and by constraining governments to safeguard their int…
Sociology (74 works) · Political science (55 works) · Psychology (47 works) · Economics (34 works) · Law (30 works) · Computer Science (28 works) · Epistemology (27 works) · Medicine (27 works) · Social science (25 works) · Psychiatry (24 works)