Professor
Stephen Leacock Building, Room 816
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T7
Tel.: 514-398-6846
Email: axel.vandenberg [at] mcgill.ca
Office hours: By appointment
Research Areas
Economic sociology; welfare states and labour markets; the relation between sociology and economics; contemporary sociological theory
Biography
(PhD, żŽÆŹÊÓÆ” University, 1985)
Professor, at żŽÆŹÊÓÆ” since 1984. He has taught at the University of Alberta (1982-1984) and been visiting research fellow at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (1988-1990 and 1991-1992) and the Amsterdam School of Social Science Research (1997-1998), visiting professor at the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies (2001), European Union Marie Curie Incoming International Fellow at SISWO/ Social Policy Research and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) (2004-2005), Visiting Professor at the Centre de lâĂ©conomie de la Sorbonne, Paris, (2009) and at the Department of Sociology of the Universitat AutĂČnoma de Barcelona (2012-2013).
Since the late 1980s Professor van den Berg has been involved in a series of collaborative research projects comparing labour market and social policies in Canada with those in the US and Europe. Most recently he co-directed two research projects with the late Professor Paul Bernard of the UniversitĂ© de MontrĂ©al, funded by the SSHRC and the MinistĂšre du dĂ©veloppement Ă©conomique, de lâinnovation et de lâexportation du QuĂ©bec (MDEIE), associated with a large International Collaborative Research Project funded by the European Commissionâs 7th Framework Program. These have produced a number of articles and a book, Combatting Poverty: Quebecâs Pursuit of a Distinctive Welfare State, written with a group of van den Bergâs and Bernardâs graduate students, published in 2017 by the University of Toronto Press.
Professor van den Bergâs recent work in sociological theory has dealt with the debates about the uses of rational choice theory in the social sciences, the uses and abuses of sociological grand theory and the relation between politics, values and social science. Together with Professor Hudson Meadwell (Political Science) he has edited Rationality and the Social Sciences (Transaction, 2004) and with Professor AndrĂ© Blais (Political Science, UniversitĂ© de MontrĂ©al) a special issue of Sociologie et sociĂ©tĂ©s entitled La thĂ©orie du choix rationnel contre les sciences sociales? Bilan des dĂ©bats contemporains (Vol.XXXIV, No. 1, Spring 2002). He has published a couple of articles criticizing Michael Burawoyâs call for a (politicized) âpublic sociologyâ. In his chapter, âIs Sociological Theory Too Grand for Social Mechanisms?â in Social Mechanisms, edited by Peter Hedström and Richard Swedberg, van den Berg aligns himself theoretically with the emerging school of âanalyticalâ sociologists. His earlier book on the Marxist theory of the state, The Immanent Utopia: From Marxism on the State to the State of Marxism, was re-published in 2003, with a new Introduction (Transaction).
Together with Professors David Pariser (Concordia University) and Anna Kindler (University of British Columbia) Professor van den Berg has done SSHRC-funded research on the differences in the criteria of aesthetic judgment applied to amateur and professional art in different cultures. The results of their multi-country, multi-generational comparative research project strongly suggest one should be sceptical about the universalist pretentions of the âmodernistâ aesthetic that is taken for granted and taught at Western institutions of art education.
Professor van den Berg continues to write on a range of topics in sociological theory, from debates about the value neutrality of (social) science to the implications of social constructionism for knowledge claims, to the ongoing confusions about the relation between âagencyâ and âstructure.â
Professor van den Berg is interested in supervising graduate work on topics in political economy, the welfare state, labour markets and industrial sociology, the sociology of the economy, and the problematic status of sociology as "science." He has worked with graduate students on wide range of topics, including the new Russian business class and liberal democracy; the movement to Canadianize sociology; physical attractiveness and earnings; the sociology of US Supreme Court decisions; implementation of the single-currency regime in the EU; press coverage of controversies about the environment; the 2008 financial crisis and bank bailouts; the sociology of road safety policy. Professor van den Berg teaches courses on contemporary sociological theory, sociology of the welfare state and economic sociology.
Selected Publications
Books
Equality versus Liberty?Ìę Radical and Reformist Theories of Capitalist Democracy. Amsterdam: Sociologisch Instituut van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1981.ÌęÌę
The Immanent Utopia: From Marxism on the State to the State of Marxism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Republished, with a new introduction, by Transaction Publishers, Brunswick, NJ, 2003.
The Sociology of Labour Markets: Efficiency, Equity, Security, Toronto: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1997. Axel van den Berg and Joseph Smucker, eds.
Labour market Regimes and Patterns of Flexibility: A Sweden-Canada Comparison, Lund: Arkiv. 1997. Axel van den Berg, Bengt FurÄker and Leif Johansson.
La thĂ©orie du choix rationnel contre les sciences sociales? Bilan des dĂ©bats contemporainsÌę, special theme issue of Sociologie et sociĂ©tĂ©s, Vol.XXXIV, No. 1, Spring 2002. Axel van den Berg and AndrĂ© Blais, eds.
The Social Sciences and Rationality: Promise, Limits and Problems, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004. Axel van den Berg and Hudson Meadwell, eds.
Managing Social Risks through Transitional Labour Markets: towards an enriched European Employment Strategy, Erik de Gier and Axel van den Berg, Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis/Transaction Publishers, 2006.
Combatting Poverty: Quebecâs Pursuit of a Distinctive Welfare State, Axel van den Berg, Charles Plante, Hicham RaĂŻq, Christine Proulx and Samuel Faustmann, University of Toronto Press, 2017.
Articles and Chapters
âCritical Theory: Is There Still Hope?,â American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 86, No. 3, Nov. 1980, pp. 449-78.Ìę
âHabermas and Modernity: A Critique of the Theory of Communicative Actionâ, Current Perspectives in Sociological Theory, Vol. 10, 1990, pp. 161-193.
âCreeping Embourgeoisement? Some Comments on the Marxist Discovery of the New Middle Class,â Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Volume 12, 1993, pp. 295-328.
âSweden: Still the Model?,â in Avi Gottlieb, Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, Burkhard StrĂŒmpel, eds., Socioeconomic Change and Individual Adaptation: Comparing East and West, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1994, pp. 159-192. Axel van den Berg and Ryszard Szulkin.
âExternal Flexibility in Sweden and Canada: A Three Industry Comparison,â Work, Employment and Society, Vol.9, No.4, 1995, pp. 689-718. Michael R. Smith, Anthony C. Masi, Axel van den Berg and Joseph Smucker.
âWhatever Happened to the Legitimation Crisis? Some Reflections on the Evolution of the QuĂ©bec Welfare State,â QuĂ©bec Studies, Vol. 19, 1995, (Fall-Winter), pp. 41-58.
âLiberalism Without Reason?,â Contemporary Sociology, Vol.25, No.1, January 1996, pp.19-25.
âInsecurity, Labour Relations, and Flexibility in Two Process Industries: A Canada/Sweden Comparison,â Canadian Journal of Sociology, Vol. 22 (1997): 31-64. Michael R. Smith, Anthony C. Masi, Axel van den Berg and Joseph Smucker.
âThe Mind of the Beholder: Some Provisional Doubts About the U-Curved Aesthetic Development Thesis,â Studies in Art Education, Vol. 38, Issue 3, Spring 1997: 158-178. David Pariser and Axel van den Berg.
âBeholder Beware: A Reply to Jessica Davis,â Studies in Art Education, Vol. 38, Issue 3, Spring 1997: 186-191. David Pariser and Axel van den Berg.
âTo Cut or Not to Cut: A Cross-National Comparison of Attitudes toward Wage Flexibility,â Work and Occupations, Vol. 25, No.1, February 1998: 49-73. Axel van den Berg, Anthony C. Masi, Michael R. Smith and Joseph Smucker.
Reprinted in Cornfield, Daniel B., Campbell, Karen E. and McCannon, Holly J., eds. 2001. Working in Restructured Workplaces: Challenges and New Directions for the Sociology of Work, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Ch. 18 (pp. 349-366).
âLabour Deployment within Plants in Canada and Sweden: A Three-Industry Comparison,â Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, vol. 53, no.3, Summer 1998: 430-457. Joseph Smucker, Axel van den Berg, Anthony C. Masi and Michael R. Smith.
âOut of Habit: Notes Toward a General Theory of Deliberate Action,â Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift, Vol. 25, No.3, October 1998: 429-463.
âIs Sociological Theory Too Grand for Social Mechanisms?â in Peter Hedström and Richard Swedberg, eds., Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 204-237.
âManufacturing Change: A Two-Country, Three-Industry Comparison,â Acta Sociologica, Vol. 43, No. 2 (June), 2000: 139-156. Axel van den Berg, Anthony C. Masi, Joseph Smucker and Michael Smith.
âTeaching Art Versus Teaching Taste: What Art Teachers Can Learn from Looking at a Cross-Cultural Evaluation of Childrenâs Art,â Poetics, 29, 2001, pp. 331-350. David Pariser and Axel van den Berg
âVisions of Eden: The Differential Effects of Skill on Adultsâ Judgements of Childrenâs Drawings: Two Cross-Cultural Studies,â Anna Kindler, David Pariser, Axel van den Berg and Wan-Chen Liu, Canadian Review of Art Education, 28 (2), 2001, pp. 35-63.
âCan Security Enhance Efficiency? Testing a Little-Noted Assumption of the Rehn-Meidner Model,âChapter 6 (pp. 101-116) in Henry Milner and Eskil Wadensjö, eds., Gösta Rehn, the Swedish Model and Labour Market Policies, International and National Perspectives, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.
âAesthetic Modernism, the First Among Equals? A Look At Aesthetic Value Systems in Cross-cultural, Age and Visual Arts Educated and Non-visual Arts Educated Judging Cohorts,âAnna Kindler, David Pariser, Axel van den Berg, Wan-Chen Liu and Belidson Dias, The International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol.8, No.2, 2002, pp. 135-152.
âA Cultural Perspective on Graphic Development: Aesthetic Assessment of Local and Foreign Drawings in Taiwan,â (in Chinese) Anna Kindler, Wan-Chen Liu, David Pariser and Axel van den Berg, Research in Arts Education, Vol. 5, May 2003, pp. 23-47.
âBlindfolded Visions: The Creeping Hegemony of Avant Garde Aesthetics,â Anna M. Kindler, David A. Pariser, Axel van den Berg, Wan Chen Liu and Belidson Dias, International Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 1, 2003, pp. 1541-1557.
âPolitics versus Markets: A Note on the Uses of Double Standards,â Chapter 9 (pp. 139-152) in Raymond Breton and Jeffrey Reitz, eds., Globalization and Society: Processes of Differentiation Examined, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
âPublic Choice, the Public Sector and the Market: The Sound of One Hand Clapping?â Chapter 2 (pp. 13-25) in Pauline Dibben, Geoffrey Wood and Ian Roper, eds., Contesting Public Sector Reforms: Critical Perspectives; International Debates, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004.
âResponses to Down-Sizing under Different Adjustment Regimes: A Two-Country Comparison,â Chapter 9 (pp. 155-186) in Job Insecurity, Union Involvement and Union Activism, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, Hans de Witte, ed., Axel van den Berg and Anthony C. Masi.
âConflict Theories in Political Sociology,â Chapter 3 (pp. 72-95) in Thomas Janoski, Robert Alford, Alexander M. Hicks and Mildred A. Schwartz, eds. The Handbook of Political Sociology: States, Civil Societies and Globalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, Axel van den Berg and Thomas Janoski.Ìę
âDrawing and Aesthetic Judgments Across Cultures: Diverse Pathways to Graphic Development,â Ch. 13 (pp. 293-317) in Constance Milbrath and Hanns M. Trautner, eds., 2007, Childrenâs Understanding and Production of Pictures, Drawing, and Art: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches, Göttingen: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers, David Pariser, Anna Kindler and Axel van den Berg.
âDoes Practice Make Perfect? Childrenâs and Adultsâ Constructions of Graphic Merit and Development: A Cross-Cultural Study,â David A. Pariser, Anna Kindler, Axel van den Berg, Belidson Diaz and Wan Chen Liu Visual Arts Research, Vol. 33, Issue 65, 2007, pp. 96-114.
âFrom Unemployment to Employment Insurance: Towards Transitional Labour Markets in Canada?â, Ch. 12 (pp. 307-341) in Ruud Muffels, ed., 2008. Flexibility and Work Security in Europe: Labour Markets in Transition, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, Axel van den Berg, Claus-Henning von Restorff, Daniel Parent and Anthony C. Masi.
ÌęâWhat Do Public Sociologists Do? A Critique of Burawoy,â Avi Goldberg and Axel van den Berg, Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2009, pp. 765-802.
âFlexicurity: What Can We Learn from the Scandinavian Experience?â, European Journal of Social Security, Vol. 11, No. 3, September 2009, pp. 245-270.
ÌęâResearch in Transitional Labour Markets: Implications for the European Employment Strategy,â Ch. 3 (pp. 63-106) in Ralph Rogowski, ed., 2009. The European Social Model and Transitional Labour Markets: Law and Policy, Ashgate, Axel van den Berg and Erik de Gier.
âAdolescent Preferences and Drawing Performance,â David Pariser, Anna Kindler and Axel van den Berg, Actes du colloque sur la recherche en enseignement des arts visuels, Anne-Marie Ămond, Alain Savoie, Francine Gagnon-Bourget and Pierre Gosselin, eds., 2010, pp. 69-80.
âPublic Sociology, Professional Sociology and Democracy,â Ch. 2, pp. 53-73, in Ariane Hanemaayer and Christopher J. Schneider, eds., Public Sociology and Ethics: Premise, Profession, Pedagogy, 2014, Vancouver: UBC Press.
âLes familles, inĂ©galement protĂ©gĂ©es par la redistributionâ, Chapter 4 (pp. 79-90) in Miriam Fahmy and Alain NoĂ«l, eds., Miser sur lâĂ©galitĂ©, 2014, Montreal: Fides, Axel van den Berg and Hicham RaĂŻq.
âLa lutte contre la pauvretĂ© au QuĂ©becÌę: Vers une social-dĂ©mocratie nordique?,â Ch. 15 (pp. 337-354) in StĂ©phane Paquin and Pier-Luc LĂ©vesque, eds., Social-dĂ©mocratie 2.0Ìę: Le QuĂ©bec comparĂ© aux pays scandinaves, 2014, MontrealÌę: Presses de lâUniversitĂ© de MontrĂ©al, Hicham RaĂŻq and Axel van den Berg.
âA Tale of Two Federalisms: Social Policy in Canada and the European Union,â Ch. 3 (pp. 103-132) in Arnaud Lechevalier and Jan Wielgohs, eds., Social Europe: A Dead End. What the Eurozone Crisis is Doing to Europeâs Social Dimension, 2015, Copenhagen, DJĂF Forlag, Axel van den Berg and Jason Jensen.
âA Canadian Immigration Model for Europe? Labour Market Uncertainty and Migration Policy in Canada, Germany and Spain,â Comparative Social Research, Vol 32, pp. 81-106, 2016, Guglielmo Meardi, Antonio MartĂŹn Artiles, and Axel van den Berg.
âOf Babies and Bath Water,â Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, Vol 55, No.2, pp. 319-321, 2018, .
âCutting Off the Branch on Which We Are Sitting? On Postpositivism, Value Neutrality, and the âBias Paradoxââ, Axel van den Berg and Tay Jeong, Society, Vol. 59, Issue 6 (December 2022), pp. 631-647.
âAdventures of a Chronic Meanderer,â Ch. 2 (pp. 49-77) in Stephen Harold Riggins and Neil McLaughlin, eds., Canadian Sociologists in the First Person, 2021, Montreal & Kingston: żŽÆŹÊÓÆ”-Queenâs University Press.
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Courses Taught
Undergraduate Courses:
SOCI-304 Sociology of the Welfare State
SOCI 470 Topics in Economis Sociology
Graduate Seminar:
SOCI 652 Current Sociological Theory