ABSTRACT
This chapter traces changes in intellectual dominance within Germany mainstream sociology over time (1970-2019) by conducting different citation analyses of 1,280 contributions in two flagship journals, the Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie and the Zeitschrift für Soziologie. The main finding is that mainstream research in the 1970s was largely dominated by theorists such as Niklas Luhmann, while contemporary research has been heavily impacted by key thinkers such as Harmut Esser who joined the intellectual movement of “empirical analytical sociology.” This camp of scholars has important historical roots in the postwar Cologne School of Sociology initiated by René König, is equally joined by rational choice theorists, analytical sociologists, and survey researchers, rejects pluralism, and narrowly conceptualizes sociology as an empirically oriented science. The mainstream within German sociology is likely to increasingly adopt its research orientation and standards.
