We consider comparisons as instruments for ordering the world. In contrast to mere lists or classification systems, the distinctive feature of comparisons is their capacity to establish relations between units and to bring them into an intelligible order. Comparing involves two steps. First, the objects to be compared are presumed to be similar in at least one respect (assumption of commensurability). Second, comparing requires criteria (tertia comparationis) that enable us to observe differences between the objects judged as comparable. Comparisons therefore imply that the units compared are of the same kind in some respect but distinct in another. Ranking law schools, for instance, requires that we first categorise them as institutions of higher education irrespective of their diversity. In addition, we need criteria and indicators in order to detect their differences.
Comparisons are a constitutive element of social order. Markets are based on a comparative evaluation of goods and market participants. Globalisation is triggered by comparative descriptions of formerly separate cultures and world regions. Social stratification is reproduced through communicative practices of social distinction, and even the status conflicts in pre-modern societies can be considered as reflecting comparisons. Today, we witness a proliferation of institutionalised comparisons based on standardised performance measures: rankings, ratings or testing procedures for the evaluation of consumer goods. The spread of public comparisons and of specialised organisations providing comparative data indicates that comparisons have become an increasingly important instrument for reducing complexity.
Although comparisons seem to be a "social form" (Georg Simmel) as fundamental as, for instance, cooperation, conflict or exchange, they have rarely been dealt with explicitly in the social sciences and humanities so far. There is no sufficiently elaborated theory of comparison. Within the present research endeavour, comparisons are taken as a basic social fact that has to be studied in its own right. The communication of comparisons establishes a social reality of its own with immediate social effects.
Comparisons are communicated if somebody interprets the behaviour of someone else as conveying a message and reacts in a way that may itself be interpreted as a message. This broad approach entails that the means by which messages are transmitted are not limited to written or spoken language. Besides verbal expressions, comparisons may also be communicated by numbers, visual images or in non-verbal ways, such as clothing, postures or facial expressions, status symbols or rituals.
The research project adopts a long-term historical perspective for "the operation called Vergleichen" ranging from the Middle Ages to contemporary world society. We ask how comparisons and their communicative manifestations changed over time and analyse which objectives comparisons are designed for and which social consequences they induce. While the Middle Ages are included in the study, the main focus is on the period from the 18th century until today. This long-term perspective will provide a deeper understanding of the reasons why comparisons in the early modern period did not gain the self-reinforcing dynamic they have attained in modern society, and it will contribute to a broader apprehension of when and why comparisons obtained the pervasiveness they have today. Contrasting different historical periods sheds light on the historicity of both the various modes in which comparisons are communicated and the forms in which they operate.
Globalisation is usually described as an intensification of the structural links resulting from an expansion of material exchanges and network ties across national borders (trade, diplomatic relations, international organisations and treaties). Less attention is paid to a second mechanism of globalisation that is based on relations generated by communicating comparisons. Worldwide comparisons are perhaps the most interesting case of "imagined" relations. Historical studies, for example, show that the mutual observation and comparison of distant countries, which started in the Middle Ages and has intensified since the 18th century, played a pivotal role in initiating globalisation processes. The comparative description of formerly separate cultures and regions intensified the awareness of being part of "the world as a whole" and led to perceiving one`s own social arrangements (religious practices, political order, family structures) as one possible option among others. Today, the proliferation of global performance measurements and evaluations, such as fstatistics, expert reports and rankings, underlines the pervasiveness and indispensability of comparisons. A case in point are the international statistics of the UN and the World Bank that compare, and sometimes rank, all states of the world by means of a wide range of indicators, thus creating an image of the world as an interrelated whole-as an emerging world society.
Communicating comparisons may have causal effects of its own and foster sociocultural change. In modern societies, comparisons have developed a dynamics that brings growing fields into their purview. Yet, the spread of public comparisons does not always remain unchallenged. Comparisons may be contested, criticised and even openly rejected. There are a number of social phenomena that can be interpreted along these lines: the postcolonial critique of modernisation, which confronts the Western claim of universalism with the assertion of insurmountable differences between the cultures or the rise of individualism emphasising the uniqueness of the individual and denying the legitimacy of comparisons etc. Such examples indicate that the spread of comparisons has not been a linear success story. It is rather marked by conflicts, discontinuities, backlashes and retrograde movements.
The research endeavour combines global history approaches with sociological world society theories and aims at developing a new historical sociology of the global that takes the significance of public comparisons systematically into account. We want to investigate how comparisons become global in scope, to what extent they contribute to the emergence of a "world society," and what consequences global comparisons have at the national or even local level.
