Bio: (1941-) American sociologist. Randall Collins received his doctorate from the University of Berkeley and taught at several universities, the longest at the University of California at Riverside and the University of Pennsylvania. Collins is one of the most eminent representatives of the micro-sociological perspective in sociology. He presented the basics of his theory in the first book Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science (1972). In this book, Collins advocates for the development of generalized explanatory theories. By explanatory theories, he means theories that give deterministic predictions that can be confirmed or refuted. According to Collins, general theories would be those that can be applied to all areas of sociology.

Collins presents one such theory, based on the theories of Durkheim and Goffman. From Durkheim, he takes over the ritual theory of social solidarity, as well as the theory of the everyday life of individuals. Starting from Goffman's theoretical concept of "encounter", Collins concludes that situations are the ones that should be the basic unit of sociological analysis of micro-interactions. He believes that in different situations, in which people enter into direct personal contacts and go through the same emotional states together, "interaction rituals" are created. These interaction rituals create a sense of belonging to a group, and that leads to individual experiences that achieve a higher level of "emotional energy." Higher levels of emotional energy are manifested in a sense of satisfaction and trust in the members of the group. The more intense the interaction rituals, and the stronger the shared emotional connection between the participants, the more emotional energy an individual will feel. The emotional energy that an individual experiences during an interaction ritual are instilled in the individual's mind on a subconscious level in the form of symbols.

This symbol acquires the characteristics of the sacred, or sacral, and thus becomes a symbol that represents the whole group. Interaction rituals happen constantly during everyday life, in different situations. People tend to participate in interactional rituals that provide them with higher levels of emotional energy, while trying to avoid those in which they lose emotional energy. For an individual to receive emotional energy from an interaction ritual, that person must possess knowledge of shared symbols. However, these symbols must be experienced in person to provoke an emotional reaction. Collins calls the entire repertoire of symbols "cultural capital".

Between the micro level at which the interaction rituals take place and the macrostructure, there are the mediating middle levels that are made up of networks. The main networks are social stratification and organizations. When interactional rituals occur regularly, then they form chains of interactional rituals. In organizations, chains of interaction rituals are structured around dimensions of power and status. In rituals of power, those who have more power, achieve greater emotional energy, and therefore identify more with the symbols of the organization, compared to those who do not have power. A similar thing happens within the chains of status interaction rituals, where similar effects occur.

Within each organization, different coalitions are formed that fight for power and status, and individuals are constantly trying to improve their position within the coalition and the entire organization through interactional rituals. Rituals of power and status are what make the differences in power and status, within organizations, stable and lasting. The essence is that individuals can change their own position, but those differences in power and status remain constant at the level of the entire organization. Macro-structural changes occur when there is a gradual concentration of change in three types of micro-resources: the introduction of new means of communication and new activities in which symbols are created; the introduction of new "technologies" of emotion production; and the creation of new particular cultures due to dramatic, often conflicting events.

In the article "Situational Stratification: A Micro-Macro Theory of Inequality" (2000), Collins examines how interactive rituals of power and status create stratification layers. Although Collins accepts the fact that there are growing economic differences in the United States, he believes that this does not reflect an increase in hierarchical differences. Giving epistemological and methodological primacy to situations and rituals, in relation to the study of aggregate data in the form of statistics on the distribution of wealth, Collins claims that: "Nothing has reality unless it is manifested in a situation somewhere" He believes that differences in wealth are not reflected in everyday situations. Different classes earn, invest, and spend their money within their own situations and rituals. Status groups are losing their significance because everyday life has become less formalized, so the symbols and rituals that form the basis of status groups are becoming less and less recognizable. Power relations are not projected on an everyday level, because in meetings of representatives of different classes, a subordinate position (deference) is formally expressed less and less.

Main works

Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science (1972);

The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification (1979);

Weberian Sociological Theory (1986);

Theoretical Sociology (1988); 

The Discovery of Society (1992);

Sociological Insight: An Introduction to Non-Obvious Sociology, 2nd ed. (1992);

Four Sociological Traditions (1994);

The Sociology of Philosophies (1998);

Macro-History (1999);

„Situational Stratification: A Micro-Macro Theory of Inequality”, in Sociological Theory (2000);

Interaction Ritual Chains (2004);

Violence: A Microsociological Theory (2008);

Napoleon Never Slept (2015);

Charisma: Micro-sociology of Power and Influence (2020).