Micro, Meso and Macro Levels of Social Analysis

Abstract

Micro, meso and macro are levels or scales that can and may be mobilised in social analysis. This paper aims to contribute to the reflection and discussion, in particular, of the use of the meso level in the apprehension of social reality, in its potential advantages and disadvantages. For this purpose, a document collection and selection was carried out. Furthermore, the authors’ experience in teaching and research in social sciences, especially in the area of Sociology, was also used. This analytical exercise allows concluding that the meso-social level is mobilised in some perspectives, focusing in a privileged way on the group or the organisation as a structure and intermediate process between the other two levels. As for implications, it may be asserted that the meso level only has heuristic capabilities in the interpretation of a particular social context if the other two levels are not neglected in the analysis.

Macro, Meso, and Micro Policies for Strengthening Entrepreneurship: Towards an Integrated Competitiveness Policy

“…These new policies of enhancing competitiveness often take on a character and political orientation at the basis of the level at which they aim to incorporate their intervention. In social sciences, the articulation of microeconomic, macroeconomic, and macro-social level constitutes a challenging issue (Serpa & Ferreira, 2019;Wiley, 1988). The meso-level analysis, which refers to the aggregations of one or more networks and organizations, is the conceptual connection between the micro-macro analytical levels (Dopfer, 2011).…”

Alienation on Social Media

“…The reflection carried out in this paper seeks to discuss the updating of a proposal on alienation --alienation, grounded in an acknowledgment of contingency and pluralism: there is no single ultimate source of alienation, and alienation may emerge through multiple combinations of diverse factors‖ (Silver, 2018, p. 85). Furthermore, it also seeks to establish an interconnection between the macro-, meso-and micro-social levels (Silver, 2018;Harvey, 2018;Serpa & Ferreira, 2019). Akoun (1990, p. 15) maintains that the concept of -Alienation‖ may have the more general meaning of -transformation of man's specific activity into a power that would be strange to him and which dominates him‖.…”

Discursive Institutionalism as Framework of Analysis for Multi-Vector Power Relations in Organizing Political Parties

“…Trends in political personalization (Calise, 2015;Dalton et al, 2003;Emanuele et al, 2015;Emanuele & Marino, 2016;Garzia, 2013;Meeks, 2017;Rahat & Hazan, 2013;Shin, 2017;Tan, 2006) in Intra-Party Democracy has shifted the political process from party institutions to interpersonal (Rahat & Hazan, 2013). This fact further opens up a more fluid, multi-space institutional discourse of political parties (Susewind, 2020), and requires a perspective that further explains micro-subjective relations that describe relations between actors (Serpa & Ferreira, 2019). This explanation at the micro-subjective level has not been accommodated by Intra-Party Democracy.…”