James Burk (Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University) specializes in Military Sociology, Political Sociology and Social Theory. His recent research examines patterns of race relations within the military through the prism of local justice theory. 

He has written or edited three books: Values in the Marketplace, a study about institutional reform of the stock market in response to the Great Depression; Morris Janowitz on Social Organization and Social Control, a contribution to the Heritage of Sociology Series of the University of Chicago Press, and The Adaptive Military, an assessment of how military organizations were affected by the end of the Cold War. He has also served as Editor of the journal, Armed Forces & Society, and was a Consulting Editor for the America Journal of Sociology. His articles have appeared in Armed Forces & Society, Citizenship Studies, Journal of Military Ethics, Political & Military Sociology, Political Science Quarterly, Social Forces, Sociological Inquiry, the Tocqueville Review, and elsewhere. 

Burk takes a broad view of sociology. His premise is that sociology is a discipline particularly concerned with the problem, what makes for and how do we maintain a good society. Sociologists argue strongly about what might count as a solution to this problem and about whether the problem is possible to solve. Some deny that there can be such a thing as a good society, and so they think the search for solutions is a wasted effort. He stands with those who think the problem is worth trying to solve, without committing to the idea that only one solution can be found. Much depends on the period, the institutions, and the people one studies. In brief, his research explores the frontier between sociology and ethics. 

He received the Morris Janowitz Award for career achievement from the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society and a Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University.  

Areas of interest:

• Military Sociology
• Political Sociology
• Social Theory