High-leverage sociological concepts: an extension with two cases

The paper demonstrates the utility of the project to identify and deploy high-leverage sociological concepts that I recently advocated in these pages (Brint 2025). The paper takes up two of the high-leverage concepts identified in that paper: (1) interaction ritual chains, and (2) social closure mechanisms. The paper begins with a summary of my 2025 argument. The paper then discusses the two concepts using the framework advanced there. I show how the two fit the criteria I established for identifying high-leverage sociological concepts. I provide illustrations of how they have been deployed across a wide range of settings, subfields, and levels of analysis. I also suggest revisions in the existing conceptualizations and applications to improve their analytical and explanatory power, and I identify conditioning variables that influence their impact on social relations.