The sociology of development has not always focused on trying to address or ameliorate poverty. In this paper we cast the foundations for a problem-solving sociology of development by identifying three problem-solving traditions in the subdiscipline: the developmental states tradition, a new tradition focusing on collective action in pursuit of redistribution, and the coping strategies tradition. We show how the articles in this special issue on Solving Global Poverty take these traditions forward, and we call for a reorientation of the subfield to the task of addressing global poverty.
McDonnell et al. (Thu,) studied this question.