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FUNCTIONALISM AND NEOFUNCTIONALISM

Article  in  Journal of European Integration History · May 2017

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FUNCTIONALISM AND NEOFUNCTIONALISM: THE GENESIS OF EUROPE OR THE TROJAN HORSE IN THE
INTEGRATION PROCESS

Joshua Mebard-hill

Introduction

The first theoretical orientation of sociology was functionalism. In trying to legitimize the new
discipline of sociology, Auguste Comte, revived the analogies made by the Greeks and, closer to their
time, by Hobbes and Rousseau on society considered as a type of organism. In this way, Comte linked
sociology with the prestige of biological science. For functional theory, society is like a biological
organism that grows, and as a consequence, its parts can be examined with respect to the way in which
they operate (or function) to maintain the viability of the social body as it grows and develops.

Comte emphasized, there is a real correspondence between "the static analysis of the social
organism in Sociology, and that of the individual organism in Biology". On the other hand, Comte went
so far as to decompose the anatomical structure "into elements, tissues and organs" and "treat the
social organism as definitely composed of the families that are the true elements or cells, together with
the classes or castes that are its own tissues and, finally, the cities and communes that are its true
organs ". However, since these analogies were not developed systematically by Comte, his main
contribution was to give sociology its name and reintroduce organicist reasoning into the new science of
society.

It was Herbert Spencer who used the organic analogy to create an explicit form of functional
analysis. Based on the materials of his monumental work "The Principles of Biology" (1864-1867),
Spencer's Principles of Sociology (1874-1896) are replete with analogies between organisms and society,
as well as between ecological processes (variation, competition and selection) and social evolution
(which he saw as driven by war). Spencer did not see society as a real organism, but conceptualized
"supra-organic systems" (organization of organisms) as revealing certain similarities in their "principles
of agreement" for biological organisms. In this way, he introduced the concept of "functional
requirements" or "needs", creating functionalism.

For Spencer, there were three basic requirements of the supra-organic systems: (1) the need to
secure and distribute resources, (2) the need to produce substances that can be used, and (3) the need
to regulate, control and manage the activities of the system. Therefore, any model of social organization
reveals these three kinds of functional requirements, the objective of sociological analysis being to
empirically verify how these needs are met in social systems.
Relevant historical figures

Émile Durkheim postulated that sociological explanations should look separately for the efficient
cause [of a phenomenon] and the function that it fulfills, but, unlike Spencer, postulated a single
functional requirement: the need for social integration. For Durkheim, the sociological analysis would
consist in the evaluation of the causes of the phenomena and their consequences or functions to satisfy
the integration needs of the social structures.

Had it not been for the activities of the theoretically oriented anthropologists, functionalism
would probably have died with Durkheim, especially since the Spencer star had been overshadowed by
the First World War. As the traditional societies studied by the first anthropologists were in general
lacking written history, anthropologists faced the problem of explaining the existence of activities and
structures in these societies. The problem is particularly acute after the First World War, a period of
disappearance of evolutionism and diffusionism as explanatory tools. Functional analysis presents a new
alternative: Analyze structures, such as kinship or activities such as rituals in terms of their functions for
the maintenance of society. It was A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, who maintained the Durkheimian tradition,
emphasizing the importance of integration needs by analyzing how structures, especially kinship
systems, operate to meet such integration requirements.

On the contrary, Bronislaw Malinowski expanded the functional analysis in a more Spencerian
direction, emphasizing that there are different levels of the system (biological, social and cultural), each
with its own distinctive requirements. Expanding Spencer and anticipating Talcott Parsons, Malinowski
postulated four basic requirements at the social system level: (1) production and distribution, (2) social
control and regulation, (3) education and socialization, and (4) organization and integration.

Functionalism is, then, a theoretical perspective in sociology and social sciences in general,
which places special emphasis on the positive contributions made by any given social agreement (for
example, institutions, cultural values, norms, rites, etc.) for the current operability and the continued
reproduction of social and cultural patterns. It has largely been established as a theory that establishes a
broad analogy between societies and biological organisms, a tendency that is especially evident in the
work of the first functionalists such as the aforementioned Spencer and Durkheim. However, the
dependence on the organic analogy is already less evident in the work of social anthropologists, such as
the aforementioned Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, who relied selectively on Durkheim's work, being
silenced in the more recent forms of functionalism, which focus more frequently on the general theory
of systems and not simply on the analogy with biological organisms. Functionalists tended to use
analogical reasoning regularly coupled with objective analysis of society through the use of scientific
methods, linking theorization to one or another form of philosophical positivism.
 Theoretical leaders

Durkheim is the most influential antecedent of most contemporary variants of functionalism.

Durkheim used a functionalist method in several of his studies. For example, he analyzed the division of
labor in modern society and discovered that it worked under normal conditions to promote the
formation of a new type of social solidarity, which he called organic solidarity. His treatment of the
division of labor had a strong influence on the development of the Radcliffe-Brown variant of structural
functional analysis. In a similar sense, Durkheim analyzed the social function of deviant behavior that, in
his opinion, provided opportunities for clarification and expression of the collective moral conscience of
society through the execution of punishment rituals on deviant individuals. Finally, Durkheim said that
religion represents a system of beliefs and practices related to the sacred and that its main function was
to integrate the members of society into a moral community. This image of the integrative function of
religion and common values would usually have a strong influence on Parsons' functionalist theory.

These early functional perspectives were perfected during the post-World War II period and in
the process often significantly modified by later thinkers, such as Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton.
Both figures created schools of thought (Parsons at Harvard and Merton in Columbia), where each one
formed a new generation of sociologists. Each, in different ways, emphasized one or another form of
functionalism. As a result of his work and that of his students, functionalism became the dominant
theoretical point of view in the postwar period and, despite the challenges posed by other theoretical
perspectives, remained the main trend of thought until the middle of the 60. In works such as The Social
System, published in 1951, Parsons developed a great systematic theory of society centered on the four
functional problems of all social systems: adaptation to their environment, achievement of goals,
integration and maintenance of cultural patterns.

The systematic theory of Parsons placed special emphasis on the exchanges of social actions
that take place between the institutions that fulfill these functions (for example, the economy, the
government, the laws, education, religion, family, etc.) and the balance established between them,
while at the same time linking this perspective, albeit uncomfortably, to the theory of social action that
had begun to develop in his previous work, The Structure of Social Action, 1937. In his opinion, The
imbalance between the various institutions that perform important social functions is one of the main
ways to explain social change. Parsons also showed special interest in the relations between culture and
society and in the integrating role of common values in the creation of social consensus. These
emphases led to a theory of social evolution focused on the increase of social differentiation and the
historical development of the most abstract and universal cultural values in modern societies. This mark
of macro functionalism was adopted by followers of Parsons, such as Marion Levy, Robert N. Bellah and
Neil Smelser as well as their analytical schemes applied to the comparative study of societies and
cultures such as China and Japan. Others, such as Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, used functionalism
in the study of specific problems, such as social stratification, and argued that the functionalist method
is largely identical to the sociological analysis itself.

On the other hand, in his influential work, Theory and Social Structure (1949), Merton worked in
the direction of a "paradigm" of functional analysis more flexible with powerful empirical applications.
Merton devoted much effort to arguing against the idea of the universal functionality of certain social
agreements, such as religion or family. Instead, he advocated the idea of functional equivalence,
according to which different concrete social arrangements could be adapted and meet any necessary
social function. In this way, he was also more successful than Parsons in decoupling functional analysis
from its potentially conservative implications. Therefore, no form of organization focused on the needs
of society was privileged and new points of view were possible. In this same spirit, Merton also
emphasized both the positive functions and the negative dysfunctions of the different social
arrangements studied. Social institutions can have both positive and negative consequences for society
or a certain segment of society. He also emphasized the latent nature of many social functions and
dysfunctions, that is, their largely unknown and unintentional quality, linking this problem to their
previous interest in the unforeseen consequences inherent in any intentional social action. The
Mertonian brand of functionalism was linked to a strategy of theory and research that he called
"midrange" analysis, which avoided both Parsons' effort in the creation of large theoretical systems, and
the details of empirical research lacking any theoretical orientation. Merton's more flexible emphasis on
latent functions and dysfunctions allowed him and his students to participate in theoretical research
driven on topics such as bureaucracy, deviance, reference groups, public opinion, propaganda, and
others. As a result, Merton was a less important goal for those who were increasingly critical of
functionalist analyzes.

In addition to its importance as the origin of influential schools of twentieth-century social

theory, especially in the United States, functionalism, in particular, its Parsonian variety, has been an
important point of reference for the generalized criticism of conflict theorists; symbolic interactionists,
and others less persuaded by the functionalist claim. In the eyes of conflict theorists, such as Ralf
Dahrendorf, C. Wright Mills, Barrington Moore, and others, who often delved into As much as Parsons in
the theoretical Marxist legacy, as well as in Weber's theory of bureaucracy and political domination, the
Parsonian structural functionalism seemed to neglect the problems of power and political conflict, as
well as other forms of struggle between groups (eg, example, between social classes and racial and
ethnic groups). In his view, functionalism not only cannot or does not want to focus on explaining these
persistent social realities, but also had decidedly conservative political implications. In the 1960s, the
national liberation movements in former colonies, intergenerational conflicts, led by young people, the
Movement for Civil Rights, ethnic-nationalist currents among African-Americans, the women's
movement and, no less important, the Vietnam War, brought the problems of power, inequality and
conflict decisively to the public domain and the media. These changes emphasized functionalists in the
role of common values in the integration of society and the use of the imbalance concept to analyze the
changes that seemed to be out of contact with that explosive social reality. Parsons tried again to tackle
the problems of political power from a functionalist point of view of systems theory, through his
treatment (together with money) as a general means of communication in society. Neil Smelser, one of
the followers of Parsons, developed his Theory of Collective Behavior in 1962, while Merton's student
Lewis Coser in his 1956 work on the functions of social conflict had already picked up the analysis of the
conflict itself, from a functionalist perspective, inspired by the ideas of Georg Simmel. Despite these and
other efforts, after the 60s of the last century, the functionalist theory never regained its place as the
main theoretical point of view in sociology.
 Outstanding critics

Symbolic designers such as Herbert Blumer had long been critical of functionalism for other
reasons, and their criticism was complemented by other critical perspectives of authors such as Erving
Goffman, representing new forms of social analysis such as dramaturgy and social constructionism.
These microsociologists contemplated the functionalist image of society, its functional problems, its
emphasis on macrostructures and institutions and its focus on culture and common values, in general,
more as a reification of what is essentially a complex process of social interaction among human actors
who mutually orient actions, create and sustain what functionalists designate as "society" and "culture".

Other critics of functionalism worked with several different theoretical orientations, usually in
agreement with symbolic interactionists, although, at the same time, they also viewed the interactionist
critique as insufficiently not being broad and systematic enough to respond to the challenges posed by
the functionalist theory. For example, George Homans, in his 1964 presidential speech to the American
Sociological Association, called for "going back to man" and in his book, Social Behavior: His Elemental
Forms, published in 1961, he developed a social theory with empirical base and with roots in a variant of
the social conductismo, one that had by object the creation of general propositions and even
explanatory laws of the social conduct by means of the construction of the analysis of greater social
structures in a foundation of the psychology of the individual behavior. Others, such as Peter Berger and
Thomas Luckmann, tried to flank the structural functionalism of Parsons by offering, in the Social
Construction of Reality (1966), an alternative systematic theory that combines macro and micro analysis
of social action, interaction and structures. in a treatment of social reality as a socially constructed
phenomenon. His fusion of ideas drawn from Marx, Durkheim, Weber, phenomenology and the theory
of symbolic interaction attacked functionalism in its own field by offering what appeared to be an
integral theory of society and culture. In general, theorists who have emphasized the current social
construction of society have argued that functionalists omit any meaningful reference to the intentions
of people and that all functions of social calls can be better understood by reducing actions combined
and the constructions of the social actors.
 Conclusions

In recent decades, new efforts have been made to revive functionalism by a new wave of
"neofunctionalists" like Jeffrey Alexander, Niklas Luhmann, Jürgen Habermas and others, who have
injected powerful doses of conflict theory, systems theory, an emphasis evolutionist in social change and
a greater emphasis on the role of political power in society within the moribund body of functional
analysis. Alexander, remained attached to his neofunctionalism for the general development program of
a multidimensional theory of society able to find space for conflict and for consensus, also maintaining
the emphasis of early functionalism on the main historical processes such as social differentiation .
Luhmann progressively moved towards the fusion of functionalism with systems theory and
evolutionary perspectives, emphasizing during the process the role of power as well as that of trust in
society. Meanwhile, Habermas did not always come together with the neofunctionalists, his dual
emphasis on the functioning system and everyday life, as well as his evolutionary theory of social
communication with his utopian attempt to achieve consensus without restrictions in society, has much
in common with Parsons. It represents an attempt to combine aspects of the Parsonian legacy with
perspectives of linguistic analysis, phenomenological sociology, and political theory. It is interesting that
all neofunctionalists resort to one or the other element of Parsons' old structural functional theory (for
example, the theory of social systems, evolutionary analysis, large multidimensional theorizations, the
role of power as a generalized means or the role of common values in society). They have provided a
decisive boost, despite their considerable modification and replacement of part of their ideas.
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