Global problems and disciplinary standards: what US sociology decides not to study

This article reports on and seeks to resolve a puzzle: a mismatch. On one side are seven interrelated global problems identified by international agencies and experts as among the most serious facing the world today. On the other side is the marked under-coverage of all of these issues over the past five years in four of US sociology’s leading journals: American Sociological Review ( ASR ), American Journal of Sociology ( AJS ), Social Forces ( SF ), and Social Problems ( SP ). While domestic orientation could explain a lower frequency of articles on global problems, it cannot by itself account for the scarcer appearance observed. Explaining that pattern requires attention to additional forms of closure: (1) closure of theoretical scope, that is, closure to questions requiring grand theory as opposed to middle- or micro-range analysis; (2) organizational/jurisdictional closure, that is, resistance to expansive problems that cut across subfields and even disciplines, as opposed to questions recognizably reviewable by specialists within organized subfields; and (3) epistemic/methodological closure, that is, closure to forms of causal reasoning that require narrative integration and judgment, as opposed to problems addressable by formal, linear, and ostensibly judgment-free methods.