This paper explores the development of computational social science (CSS) in China via the model of contested field formation. This model highlights that Chinese CSS emerges amid tensions between institutionalization-driven structural forces and entrenched epistemological traditions, defying both the Western diffusion and the top-down dominance models. The model highlights that three external structural pressures fuel CSS's expansion in Chinese universities: the state's New Liberal Arts (xinwenke) policy, a central-government’s higher education reform that pushes humanities and social sciences toward interdisciplinary, digital, and now AI+ transformation; a graduate labor market crisis that renders CSS training a career credential for humanities and social sciences students; and growing platform data and computational infrastructure enabling innovative research designs. These pressures face two internal constraints: a faculty shortage hindering effective New Liberal Arts implementation on the one hand and, on the other, the epistemological pushback from indigenization-oriented and autonomous-knowledge-system discussions that pivot on whether CSS can generate signature Chinese concepts or merely import universalist categories.

This article examines the temporal structure of state-seeking nationalist mobilization in the modern world-system. Scholars of nationalism have long debated whether nationalism expands with modernization, declines after reaching a historical peak, recurs in successive waves, or remains contingent on specific political conjunctures. Yet these competing temporal assumptions are rarely examined systematically. This article introduces polynomial regression analysis as a post-positivist heuristic method for making such assumptions visible and comparable. Rather than treating polynomial regression as a device for mechanically confirming or falsifying theories, it uses it as a diagnostic tool that clarifies how different interpretations become plausible under different specifications of time, geography, and periodization. Using the State-Seeking Nationalist Movements dataset, which tracks mobilization by stateless nations from 1492 to 2013, the article compares linear, quadratic, and cubic specifications across historical and geographical scopes. The findings show that linear, arc-shaped, and cyclical interpretations each capture partial dimensions of the historical trajectory. In the Global North after 1800, state-seeking nationalism appears as a secular increase, postwar decline, and renewed wave depending on model specification. At the world-systemic level, however, the inclusion of the Global South shifts the timing and form of decline.

Green criminology, or the study of environmental (“green”) harms, crime, and injustice, has explored a wide range of issues over the past three decades. An important environmental issue that has received little attention is species extinction. To facilitate the discussion about harms against animals from species extinction, this article reviews relevant literature and frames the processes propelling species extinction from a political economic green criminological (PEG-C) perspective. The driving motivation of capitalism—profit making—leads to continually expanding raw material extraction and production that contributes to escalating forms of ecological destruction that drives species extinction. The contemporary extinction cycle is called the 6th wave of extinction. Researchers in the hard sciences note that this 6th extinction is being caused by human behavior, making it distinct from the five previous extinction periods. They also note that there is little hope that this extinction period can be easily remedied. Significant alterations in environmental policy and human behavior are required to save species from extinction.

Climate change is little studied or taught by Bangladeshi sociologists, even though it poses significant threats to social life in the country. To uncover the level of importance given to climate change issues in sociology departments at Bangladeshi universities, this study analyzes data from six public universities. The data include sociology curricula and interviews with a selected group of teacher-sociologists. This paper unearths several critical factors behind the marginal responses to global warming from mainstream sociology in Bangladesh. First, sociologists seek to separate the discipline from other sciences by focusing solely on ‘social’ structure and social-scientific explanations. Sociology curricula have avoided the global warming agenda because of its allegedly ‘natural scientific’ nature. Second, sociologists are found to have a propensity to suspect teleology in general and to emulate the indifference towards the future found in contemporary society. With myopic vision, sociologists in Bangladesh tend to address immediate social ills while maintaining a safe distance from climate threats, which they view only as a future concern. Furthermore, a lack of expertise among Bangladeshi sociologists impedes the development of climate change courses.

Over the past few decades, sociology has experienced significant thematic and structural changes due to the rapid advancement of technology, growing social inequality, and changing forms of mobility and governance. The period 2010–2024 offers a significant window, spanning post-2008 economic restructuring, platform capitalism, COVID-19, and shifts in digital data infrastructures. Using bibliometric data and transformer-based topic modeling analysis, this study examines authorship patterns, institutional concentration, and thematic developments in 101,005 sociology articles published between 2010 and 2024. Our findings reveal that the University of Oxford leads in publication output (910 papers), while Ethnic and Racial Studies is the most prolific journal (3,214 papers). Gender distribution among authors is nearly balanced (50.4% female, 49.6% male), though ethnicity analysis shows significant disparities with White, non-Latino researchers comprising 61% of authorship. BERTopic analysis identified ten major research topics, with social theory and financial critique emerging as the dominant theme (9,016 documents). Temporal analysis demonstrates declining prominence of traditional theoretical topics and growing interest in mental sociology and gender studies. By mapping these patterns, the study offers an empirical foundation for understanding how sociology responds to broader societal changes and contributes to debates on equity, disciplinary boundaries, and future research trajectories.