"Wir leben im Zeitalter der Vergleichung." Perspektiven einer Soziologie des Vergleichs

Abstract

Comparisons have become an omnipresent element of public communication. Universities are compared according to their scientific excellence, politicians with regard to their popularity, states according to their corruption, and employees with respect to their performance. But despite the ubiquity of comparisons, sociology has rarely made them a research issue on its own. This paper tries to outline a sociology of comparison by analyzing comparison as social phenomenon in its own right. The first two parts of this contribution contrast comparisons with lists, classifications, and analogies and situate them historically. The following three parts discuss the social significance of comparison by relying on studies from such diverse research areas as the sociology of classification, economic sociology, valuation studies, and globalization research. The paper concludes with some further remarks on the perspectives which the sociology of comparison can offer.