Anglophone sociology largely ignores or resists Luhmann’s theory.

Evidence

It is difficult to know in retrospect whether this early interest was driven by the novelty of Luhmann’s ideas, contrasting sharply as they did with the critical stance taken by the Frankfurt School and the more naturalistic approach to social inquiry adopted by many American sociologists, or whether it was inspired by an admiration for Luhmann’s apparent attempt to revive the nineteenth-century vision of a ‘grand theory’ of society. In any event, the years that followed saw a decline of interest in Anglo-Saxon countries, at least among sociologists. The result was that, in sharp contrast to, say, Habermas, Foucault or Bourdieu, only a fraction of his vast output was translated into English. Today, sociology, as it is taught and studied in English-speaking countries, appears either to ignore Luhmann entirely or is actively hostile to his theory. In both the UK and the US any reference to his works in the sociological literature is a rarity, and accounts of his theory are almost totally absent from the syllabuses and textbooks of academic undergraduate and postgraduate sociology courses. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 33

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why the reader is doing cross-theory work (Luhmann-via-Giddens) rather than finding Luhmann directly in the Anglophone canon — Giddens is the Anglo bridge to Luhmann.