Thomas J. Burns

 

AREAS OF INTEREST:

 

Comparative and Historical Development, Environment and Human Ecology, Sociology of Health, Social Theory, Statistics and Methods, Social Institutions (particularly Religion, Stratification, Military and Education Systems), Communication and Rhetoric, Culture and Social Change.

 

          Prof. Burns’s research is directed to developing a theoretical framework describing the outcomes, evolution and emergence of social institutions from a comparative and historical perspective, and testing and refining that framework through empirical analysis.  He examines outcomes of global and domestic institutional processes particularly in studies of the environment and health, and address questions of institutional evolution by tracing how organizational systems, such as religion, education and the military, develop in relation to one another in light of their comparative and historical contexts; in work on institutional emergence, he investigates ways in which macro-level institutional practices arise from individual cognitive processes and micro-level interactions.  Dr. Burns’s primary methodological approach is to analyze data sets containing macro- and/or individual-level indicators, using quantitative techniques such as structural equation and time series modeling; he complements this with qualitative work, including discourse analysis and the examination of historical archives. 

 

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

 

Burns, Thomas J., Edward L. Kick, and Byron Davis.  2003.  “Theorizing

and Rethinking Linkages between the Natural Environment and the Modern World-System:  Deforestation in the Late 20^th Century.”  Journal of World-Systems Research, 9(2):357-390.

 

Burns, Thomas J., Jeffrey D. Kentor, and Andrew K. Jorgenson.  2003.  “Trade

Dependence, Pollution and Infant Mortality in Less Developed Countries.”   In

Wilma A. Dunaway (ed.), Emerging Issues in the 21^st Century World-System,

Volume1, pp. 14-28.  Westport, CT and London, U.K.:  Praeger.

 

Burns, Thomas J., and Edward L. Kick.  2002  Sociological Perspectives and Approaches:  A Theory-Based Introduction to Sociology, 2e.  Boston:  Pearson.  {previous edition in 2000}.

 

Burns, Thomas J., and Terri LeMoyne.  2003. “Epistemology, Culture and Rhetoric:  Some Social Implications of Human Cognition.”  Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 22:71-97.

 

Jorgenson, Andrew K., and Thomas J. Burns.  2004.  “Globalization, the Environment, and Infant Mortality:  A Cross-National Study.”  Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, in press.