Elster strongly argued that social scientific explanations had to be built on top of methodological individualism (the belief that only individuals, not larger entities like "organizations" or "societies", can actually do things) and microfoundations (explaining big societal changes in terms of individual actions). He criticized Marxists and other social scientists for believing in functionalism (the belief that institutions exist because of their effect on society)
There's a lot of really insightful and smart people under 55 working in all sorts of specialisms, but given high levels of specialisation and sheer volume of output it must be difficult to combine deep expertise and original thought with wider reach. Individuals seem to matter less/be less impactful nowadays than they used to be?
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