ABSTRACT
The study of unintended consequences in sociology is usually reckoned in relation to two frameworks: the unanticipated consequences of social action (following Merton), and the institutions as unintended consequences as social interaction. This chapter draws the evolution of the latter. This shows that this analytical framework beneficiates of a stronger dialogue with the classics than in the case of the first framework. But that, as in the case of the action stream, the interaction framework was also subjected to periods of inertia, although of a different type. In addition, this second stream also occurs as much more integrated and with visible lines of continuity between its two main periods of theoretical enhancement. This continuity notwithstanding, the linkage between the two episodes of boost as far as the possibilistic component is concerned, is not really there. The chapter presents several explanations as to why this might be the case. This argues that in both instances it was mainly the anti-deterministic-contingent variety of the possibilistic argument that was linked directly with the theory of the unintended. While the strongly possibilistic theory of the first boost (the vindication of dialectics) and the topology of opportunity argument from the second instance (the uncovering of mechanisms) were less openly linked with the unintended, but rather with other theories.
