The assertion that systematic sociological analysis cannot explain specific occurrences and directions of change is critically examined. On the basis of analysis of the social and political structure of traditional centralized Empires and of the development of religions within them, it is argued that the institutionalization of any social system creates possibilities for specific and defined types of change, which develop not randomly but in specific directions to a large extent set by the very process of institutionalization.
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S. Ν. Eisenstadt (1964) studied this question.