How sociological research agendas become self-reinforcing: ideological tautology and the problem pipeline

Abstract

Abstract

This article develops a sociology-of-knowledge account of how sociological research agendas are organised under contemporary institutional conditions. Working in the tradition running from Mannheim and Fleck to Bourdieu, it introduces the concept of ‘ideological tautology’ to describe recursive cycles in which theoretical premises shape problem selection, research design and interpretation, with the resulting findings reinforcing those same premises. Two further concepts – differential amplification and structured convergence – explain how diverse lines of inquiry become unevenly visible and cumulatively developed within modern research systems. The framework is developed through a theory-building argument, situated comparatively across the research systems of the US, Canada, the UK and the European Union and demonstrated in detail through the UK Research Excellence Framework, where each stage of the cycle can be traced in published evidence. The article argues that contemporary sociology is characterised less by paradigmatic domination than by coordinated pluralism: multiple theoretical perspectives persist, but shared institutional criteria of relevance, impact and legitimacy align research trajectories without requiring agreement about theory. It further argues that this alignment is subjective as well as institutional, as scholars come to experience a narrowed set of options as the free expression of their own curiosity.