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Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?

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DOI: 10.1515/sosys-2018-0001

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  Soziale Systeme 2018; 23(1–2): 3–14

Rudolf Stichweh*
Introduction: How to Conceive Global
Function Systems?
https://doi.org/10.1515/sosys-2018-0001

Abstract: The introduction summarizes the analytical perspectives used and the
conceptual structures introduced in the essays of this volume. On the basis of the
results of this synthesis it proposes four directions for further research: 1. The
identification of beginnings of functional differentiation in premodern societies
in different world regions. 2. The analysis of conceptual transfers and of the con-
tours of global categories that connect the regions of an emerging world society.
3. The historical-analytical tracing of the differentiation histories of the individual
function systems. How do they expand on the basis of the symbol complexes of
which they consist? 4. The study of the complexity of a functionally differenti-
ated world society: The multiplicity of function systems, the intensification of
interactions among them, the global problems behind the rise of new function
systems, the varieties within function systems and the variant structural cou-
plings between them.

The following collection of papers originates from a conference on “Variants of

Differentiation in the Regions of World Society” at the University of Lucerne in
2011. But only half of the papers published here had been presented at the original
conference. The others have been added over the years in preparing this volume.
It is still remarkable how small the part of sociological differentiation theory
is in studies on globalization and world society.1 One reason for this may be that
globalization theory has been conceived by many of its participants as a self-reli-
ant sociological paradigm, with conceptual and theoretical resources of its own
making that are not present in other fields of sociological research. This volume
opts for the opposite position, considering globalization and world society as a
relatively recent subject of study that is best explored by drawing on the resources
of classical sociological theory among which theories of social and societal differ-

1 Of course, there are some exceptions that look at the interrelation of differentiation theory
and globalization: Albert/Sigmund 2010, Pt. 8; Kessler 2012; Albert/Buzan/Zürn 2013; Holzer/
Kastner/Werron 2015.

*Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. Rudolf Stichweh, Forum Internationale Wissenschaft,

­University of Bonn, Heussallee 18–24, D-53113 Bonn; email: rstichweh@yahoo.de
4   Rudolf Stichweh

entiation might be particularly fruitful. And among the concepts in differentiation

theory it is the idea of functional differentiation to which we give special weight
in this volume.
Regarding functional differentiation, this form of differentiation often seems
to be seen as a kind of flexible social form that is made use of by global social rela-
tions. It is probably productive to invert the perspective once again and to postu-
late that functional differentiation is the major driving force that brings about the
incipient globality and, after some time, establishes the system of world society
that emerges as a social space that advances and accelerates further processes of
functional differentiation and the genesis of new function systems. How do the
essays of this volume deal with this core problem?
Boris Holzer, in his essay Varieties and Variations of Functional Differentiation,
agrees that globalization or world society is “a consequence of the emergence of
functional subsystems”. The theory of world society differs from classical mod-
ernization theory in that there is no expectation of global convergence or global
homogeneity in the theory of world society. Of course, there are these global func-
tion systems. They are everywhere. But they are not the same everywhere. In func-
tion systems alternatives and equivalent solutions in fulfilling functions become
visible, and on this basis structural varieties in function systems arise. Holzer
analyzes different ways of either accepting or refashioning interest payments in
non-Islamic or Islamic contexts as one variety in contemporary global Capitalism.
Another example is the difference between multi-party systems and one-party
systems in modern polities. In one-party political systems, alternatives cannot be
represented because there is no plurality of parties. Alternatives may then be gen-
erated in the implementation processes of quasi-ideological decisions formulated
on a very high level of generality, so that they require regional and local specifica-
tions.2 The distinction between founding ideology and (local, regional) practices
then substitutes for the multiplicity of perspectives represented by plural parties.
Both variants are learning strategies of political systems.
To this concept of structural varieties in function systems, Holzer adds the
idea of “variations of coupling and decoupling”. In his view “varieties” arise inde-
pendently from one another as autonomous reactions to functional demands in
function systems. “Variations”, on the other hand, arise through processes of
imitation, diffusion and adaptation. And they implement structural couplings
between function systems. Taxes, for example, are structural couplings between
polities and the economy; political constitutions realize a coupling between law
and the polity. If structural couplings differ between countries and regions, they

2 Cf. Ahlers (2014) on the Chinese case.

  Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?   5

bring about some of the variations to be observed in a world where the order of
function systems is clearly a ubiquitous global order. However, there are not only
structural couplings to other function systems, but other differentiation forms are
relevant, too. Holzer points to the fact that India as a social system has to invent
couplings between function systems and an unusually persistent system of caste
differentiation.
In her article Functions of Clientelism in Modern Politics, Isabel Kusche points
to another cause of varieties and variations in modern political systems. Citizens
or subjects of political systems are voters and they are observers (Stichweh 2021).
In other respects they can be seen as clients who expect to get certain services and
performances from political processes and from specific actors and parties in these
political processes. Clientelism has often been analyzed as a feature of premod-
ern and patrimonial polities, in which patrimonial political elites govern on the
basis of hierarchies of patron/client-links that organize the political space of pre-
modern states. Clientelism, understood as an option and as a structure, however,
never completely disappears. It seems to be a continuing part of the vocabulary
of motives from which modern polities consist, and in this way it diversifies the
functional differentiation of polities in contemporary world society. Parties can
either devise programs with which they try to attract voters. Alternatively, they
can recruit clients to whom they offer certain performances in exchange for votes
and other forms of political support. Of course, this is not the dominant logic of
modern polities. But it is always present and it is a factor of diversification.
In The Limits of Functional Differentiation under Populist Rule in Latin America
by Aldo Mascareño the focus is again on structures equivalent to clientelism.
Whereas premodern Europe was characterized by the combination of patrimoni-
alism (the sovereignty over territories exercised by landowning elites) and hier-
archical patron/client-relations, in Spanish Latin America there was a far-distant
European monarchy that used local strongmen (caudillos) to control territories
it did not have the resources to control itself. When republican nation-states
emerged in the former Spanish colonies after 1800, the traditional landowning
local elites were the driving forces behind the independence movements. And
they were still the most powerful local groups, mostly controlling the institutions
of modern statehood (parliaments, parties, bureaucracies) that arose in these
emerging nation states. The political inclusion of the low-status majority of the
population into these political systems was in many cases only formal and mar-
ginal.
At least since the beginning of the 20th century, the political inclusion of the
lower strata addressed these groups as “pueblo”. Mascareño understands this as
a populist pseudo-inclusion. Following Gino Germani he analyzes the classical
Latin American populism as a functional equivalent to European fascism. In both
6   Rudolf Stichweh

cases, individual inclusion was regularly absent, and therefore the institutions of
democracy – if they were maintained – were at best a mere formality. The populist
leader claims a total representation of the people as an undivided totality. From
this he derives an expansive understanding of the polity that postulates the right
to transgress on the territory of all the other function systems. Therefore, pop-
ulism and fascism always arise in a functionally differentiated society. But they do
not respect the autonomy of other function systems. Typically, the transgressions
on the territory of other function systems take the form of corruption. The power
of the political system is used to corrupt the decision mechanisms constitutive for
other function systems. And the decision mechanisms of the political system itself
are corrupted because political decisions are not aligned to the advancement of
the collective good. Instead, political power is used for personal advantage. The
semantics of “the people” is often just a shield behind which individual profit is
pursued by populist leaders. This results in the paradoxical situation that pop-
ulism is, on the one hand, a political regime with a transgressive understanding of
functional differentiation. In another respect, it is a constellation in a functionally
differentiated society, in which observers in the other function systems perceive
the state as being not more than a clique of politicians enriching themselves. Both
perspectives are in some respects true: There is a state that incessantly tries to
intervene into the domains of other function systems, and there is no state at all
one could depend on for fulfilling the core functions of a political system (welfare
and other collective infrastructures).3
Core concepts of the paper by Mascareño return in Nicolas Hayoz’ essay
“Modern Authoritarians” Coping with the Challenges of Modern Society. Again, it
is about “corruption” and there is a new term: “parasites of functional differen-
tiation”. Political systems in the post-Soviet space, especially in Russia itself, are
not one variety of a modern political system among others. They are a parasite,
that is, a system that feeds on the life forces of another system. And as parasites
they are based on corruption. This is at least the argument advanced in the essay
by Nicolas Hayoz. What is to be understood by corruption? The understanding
is almost the same as that formulated by Mascareño. Corruption arises when

3 In a remarkable dissertation on a business district in Lima, Peru (Emporio Comercial de

Gamarra), Jeannette Burch reports on interviews with local entrepreneurs who are specialized
on the production and sale of textiles (there are 40.000 enterprises in this district, most of them
very small). The owner of one enterprise, in this case a big one with international contacts, points
to the absence of an efficient state in Peru. That is the reason, why the enterprises try not to pay
any taxes. Instead, they build a small state of their own, internal to the enterprise. And this is a
state with rules of its own, which does not cheat on his members (“Entonces estamos hacienda
como un estado chiquito alli. … Casi estámos creando un nuevo estado pero con otras reglas o
sea, sin enganarles).” (Burch 2012, 93)
  Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?   7

there are linkages where no linkages should exist. If both, government parties
and opposition parties, are established by the same people – as is probably the
case in Russia – this is obviously a case of fake democracy. And it is a kind of
fake reality that tries to profit from the legitimacy of democratic systems based
on the distinction of government and opposition. The same is true for linkages
between function systems – e.  g. when politics and nepotism decide who owns
an enterprise – where no such linkages are supposed to exist in a functionally
differentiated society. And all these corrupt linkages are built by social forms that
Hayoz calls “secondary forms of differentiation”. They only exist on the basis of
the global existence and relevance of functional differentiation. And they try to
profit from functional differentiation. Hayoz cites oligarchs, power networks, clan
systems and corrupt networks as examples of these secondary forms of differen-
tiation.
In her essay The Logic of the Soviet Organisational Society Evelyn Moser looks
at the Soviet Union, which was arguably the most notable example of a major
state  – with a population of 287 million (1989 census; present-day Russia: 147
million) – that attempted to separate a societal system (or “societal community”
in Parsonian terms) from the functionally differentiated world society. Moser
describes the Soviet Union as an “Organizational Society”, making use of a theo-
retical concept that has first been proposed by Detlef Pollack (1990) and Nicholas
Hayoz (1997). An organizational society concentrates most of its communications
on formal organizations. In the Soviet case these defined the state as an organi-
zational system controlled by the Communist Party as core organization. Beside
the state there existed mass organizations and functionally specific organizations
(youth organizations, labor organizations, professional organizations), which
dominated most of the functionally specific sectors of societal communications in
the Soviet Union. In many societal sectors participation in the respective commu-
nicative domains was only possible if one was a member of the core organization
relevant for the domain. At the level of the Soviet Union as a total social system
this state realized a hierarchical form of functional differentiation, in which the
political system claimed to control all the other organizations of the functional
domains of the Soviet societal community. Of course, all the functional commu-
nication domains of the Soviet Union were connected with the function systems
of world society. But all communications and global links were to some extent
constrained by the twofold organizational control by the Soviet state/Soviet party
and the mass organizations of the relevant communicative domains.
In her essay Evelyn Moser focusses on the village and agricultural produc-
tion steered by the kolkhozy and sovkhozy as total organizations including most
functional aspects of village life. In looking at these seemingly powerful organi-
zations, one realizes that at the same time there was a kind of breakdown of the
8   Rudolf Stichweh

organizational model: an astonishing amount of agricultural output and income

(around 25 % of the production and up to 50 % of the income) was produced by
the individual peasants on the small strips of land they had to their individual
disposition. Similar phenomena were to be observed in other functional domains.
A significant part of Soviet novels and poems evaded the organizational controls
and were either published as samizdat (illegal, self-made copies) or in foreign
countries. On the one hand, this theory of organizational society documents
a very interesting variant of functional differentiation, but at the same time it
clearly emphasizes the dominance of functional world differentiation. As much
as I know, there is nearly no comparable research that applies the theory of organ-
ization society on the other socialist countries and on China.
Another study of agriculture in a post-Soviet social system is Uzbekistan – A
Region of World Society? Variants of Differentiation in Agricultural Resources Gov-
ernance by Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Kristof van Assche and Anastasiya Shtal-
tovna. Similar to the essay by Evelyn Moser, it is about the transformation from the
unitarian sovkhozes and kolkhozes of Soviet society to new organizational forms
for agriculture. In the case of Uzbekistan there is on the one hand an authoritarian
state that – as is characteristic of all authoritarian systems – does not easily toler-
ate the self-organized autonomy of the other function systems. On the other hand,
it seems that three new forms of agricultural production are emerging, interest-
ingly separated from one another along lines of functional differentiation: There
is “(a) (large-scale) state planned agriculture (i.  e. cotton and wheat), (b) (small
to medium scale) commercial agriculture (i.  e. rice, sunflowers, vegetables), as
well as (c) (small-scale) subsistence agriculture (i.  e. fruits and vegetables).” This
is an interesting mix of functional differentiation and hierarchy. The three forms
of agricultural production are linked to the polity (a), economic markets (b) and
households and families as a functional micro-world of its own (c). At the same
time a kind of hierarchy is created, institutionalizing a prevalence for political
imperatives. This might be read as a kind of paradigm for the relation of authori-
tarianism and functional differentiation (cf. Stichweh/Ahlers 2021).
The contribution by Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter on Regional Varia-
tions of and Regional Variations within Functional Differentiation  – The Middle
East and World Society presents one core thesis of this anthology, which is already
expressed in the title of the paper. It is more instructive to describe the variations
of functional differentiation as variations within functional differentiation. This
is a more adequate picture of world society. There are global function systems,
nearly always and everywhere relevant in some respects, and variations are sub-
sequently introduced into this structure.
The major variation identified by Albert and Stetter is well known from other
chapters. A state-centred authoritarianism is prevalent in the Middle East. Like
  Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?   9

any authoritarianism in 20th and 21st-century society this authoritarianism must

coexist with functional differentiation. As is characteristic of all political authori-
tarianisms, however, it usually fights against the autonomy and self-organization
of the other function systems. Authoritarianism has a social structure of its own,
which differs in relevant respects from the event-based, fluid social structures
that one expects in function systems and that are characteristic of democracies,
too. It is a more stubborn social structure, in a certain way repellent to movement
and change. Albert and Stetter adopt as their descriptive term for this social struc-
ture the idea of “Staatsklassen” (state classes) proposed by Hartmut Elsenhans.
A ‘state class’ seems to be an unelected stable social group that controls core
institutions of a political system. It combines this characteristic with control over
relevant economic resources (state-owned enterprises) and stabilizes its position
in society through clientelistic ties to other social groups.
There are two further peculiarities of the Middle Eastern variation Albert and
Stetter point to. First, in all Middle Eastern states there arise structural limita-
tions to the full inclusion of individuals in all function systems due to privileged
positions claimed by some social groups and denied to other social groups not in
comparable positions. The causes behind these privileges are politics, ethnicity
and religion. As a term for these inclusion restrictions the authors propose the
concept of “frozen crossings”. Second, these limitations are challenged by those
whose chances of inclusion are limited, and at the same time they are fervently
defended as their rightful positions by those who are privileged. These conflict
dynamics the authors call “hot contestations”. This seems to be a fruitful descrip-
tion of what is often to be observed in Middle Eastern states.
Niklas Luhmann’s Causality in the South was the first essay in the first issue
of the journal ‘Soziale Systeme’ in 1995. That means it was not written for the
collection published here. But the text seems to be a good complement to the
arguments of the other papers and has for this reason been translated into English
for this issue. The key question of Luhmann’s paper is how to understand and
explain differences between forms of modernity in different regions of the world.
The empirical focus is on the Italian Mezzogiorno as a region Luhmann knew
well from extended stays and work there. He rejects explanations based on differ-
ences of culture or mentalities as being tautological: As the prevalent concept of
culture encompasses everything from beliefs to artefacts there are no facts outside
of culture that could be explained by culture.
Luhmann’s alternative explanation prefers differences in the attribution or
localization of causality. If a society favors causal explanations that seek the
causes of success and failure in personalized social networks, it may continue and
repeat this causal understanding of the world even in a functionally differentiated
world society. The expectation that the probability of success always depends on
10   Rudolf Stichweh

personal networks may then simply be transferred to the function systems and
especially to the organizations in function systems as the most prominent car-
riers of modernity. The transfer of a causal schema of attribution to a new infra-
structure of society then explains the continuity of differences between regions
of world society (in this case the relative ‘backwardness’ of the Mezzogiorno).
Luhmann may be right, but one easily perceives that his explanation is an expla-
nation based on cultural differences and thus could be seen as tautological. The
different schemes for the attribution of causality are obviously cultural features
of a society  – and one might suppose that Luhmann’s explanation differs not
so much from the famous argument of Edward Banfield (1958) who also pointed
to a world interpretation that everywhere perceived the predominance of highly
personalized networks as the explanation for the particularison of social relations
in the Mezzogiorno.
The essay by Chih-Chieh Tang on Literatization vs. Civilization: A Preliminary
Comparison of the Development of Sport in China and the West with a Focus on
Violence differs from most papers in this collection in that he studies a case –
Chinese historical patterns of social differentiation and the development of sport
in China – that represents an emerging functionally differentiated society that is
not yet a part of a World Society. China emerges as a society that remains a largely
autonomous social system with very loose connections to Europe until the 17th/18th
centuries. Tang’s analysis only goes up to the 18th century. That is, he does not
analyze the interpenetration of Chinese and Western functional differentiation
that begins around this time. But his findings are remarkable. On the one hand he
examines the development of some sports in relation to the level of violence inher-
ent in them. There was a ball game played on horses, jiju, that had a certain simi-
larity to Polo. It was played in a violent way, which meant a considerable physical
risk to players. Then, there was cuju, similar to soccer, with numerous variants
over the centuries. A third sport is chuiwan, a refined ball sport with a certain
similarity to modern golf. In China, there is no precise equivalent to the European
semantics of ‘sport’, which has an early modern background (in pastimes of the
English nobility) and begins to consolidate in the 19th century as a concept that
refers exclusively to the strength and agility of the human body and the perfor-
mances a human body is able to achieve (cf. Stichweh 1990). The Chinese con-
cepts (yundong, yangsheng) are different. They do not point to strength and per-
formances but to the cultivation of life and to vitality. Furthermore, Tang shows a
historical drift that over time delegitimizes the violent sports and creates a prefer-
ence for civilized or cultivated sports (no violence, nearly no body contact).
Tang demonstrates that these developments run parallel to the changes
in Chinese social differentiation. The core transformation leads from a mendi
society based on a heritable aristocracy to a gentry society that he calls “the first
  Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?   11

post-aristocratic society in human history”. The leading social group is no longer

a nobility, but a stratum of Confucian literati. These earn their place through the
scholarly skills they demonstrate. And they have to support their position based
on education and civility by further qualities and possessions such as “furniture,
antiquities, paintings, participation in public charities, courtesanship as roman-
tic love and sport”. This is an elite that dominates a functionally differentiated
society characterized by increasingly differentiated sectors. Among these sectors
the sports are not autonomous but belong to a system of mass entertainment. It
is a society in which the literati observe the sports but do not practice the sports
themselves that are often entrusted to professional players.
The essay The Effects of Centre/Periphery-Differentiation and the Semantics
of Civilization, With an Example of Devolutional changes in Love Semantics in Late
19th and Early 20th Century Changes by Takemitsu Morikawa may be seen as a very
interesting complement to Tang’s contribution. It is about Japan as another East
Asian country of which it may be said that in its 17th/18th century development
it knew autonomous processes of functional differentiation independent of the
development of Europe, to which Japan was in this period only very loosely con-
nected. Morikawa highlights that these emergent processes of functional differen-
tiation in early modern Japan are chararacterized by the absence of a center that
integrates the subsystems of society. Rather, different status groupss can be iden-
tified that have their foci in political/administrative affairs, economic activities
and cultural concerns. There is also an extensive book production that, among
other effects, gives rise to an autonomous semantics of love and intimacy. This is
connected to the social structures of the “low city” in Tokyo, where an amusement
quarter arose in which social stratification was largely ignored.
Whereas Tang primarily analyzes Chinese developments before the 19th
century intensification of interrelations with Western societies, Morikawa’s focus
is on transformations in the Meiji-Taisho period (1868–1925) during which sub-
stantial changes in Japanese social structures were brought about by close con-
tacts with the Western world. These contacts became central to a Japanese society
described by leading Japanese intellectuals as a periphery oriented toward this
Western centre. This was accompanied by a guiding semantics that focused on
“civilization and enlightenment”. Institutions in Japan were thereby evaluated
in terms of whether they fulfilled the expectation to be on the side of civilization.
This semantics contrasts civilization and barbarity and it is based on a fusion of
ideas from Confucian texts with European ideas about moral reason. In doing so it
imports European understandings by linking them to autochthonous intellectual
traditions. The result is – as Morikawa interprets it – a restratification, retradi-
tionalization or remoralization of Japanese society. Among the consequences are
a return to a preference for arranged marriages in place of the Japanese version
12   Rudolf Stichweh

of the ideal of romantic love, which was fostered by the combination of popular
novels and the libertine social structures of the amusement quarter in the low city.
Another consequence is a discontinuance of the practice to expand families by the
adoption of individuals who were supposed to possess the qualifications needed
to continue a family business.4 Takemitsu Morikawa here presents a case study
that demonstrates how two societies (the Western world and Japan), character-
ized by incipient functional differentiation, were in the 19th and early 20th century
connected via centre/periphery-differences and an accompanying semantics of
civilization vs. barbarity. Both societal differentiation and semantics organize
sociocultural transfers that cooperate in the production of one functionally differ-
entiated world society where variations are then within functional differentiation.
The final text in the anthology, Adrian Hermann’s essay Distinguishing “Reli-
gion”. Variants of Differentiation and the Emergence of “Religion” as a Global Cat-
egory in Modern Asia, focusses its analysis on constitutive linguistic and cogni-
tive operations that bring about religion as one of the function systems of World
Society. The paper is primarily on some Asian countries (China, Japan, Burma, Sri
Lanka). What it convincingly demonstrates is that the genesis of global religion
is not the worldwide expansion or diffusion of a preexistent entity, e.  g. Euro-
pean religion. Rather, it is the constitution of a new entity based on selection and
reformation processes that include some traditions (beliefs and practices) and
exclude others. Hermann points out that three distinctions have to be renegoti-
ated constantly: the distinction between a ‘religion’ and another ‘religion’ (e.  g.
Christianity and Buddhism); the distinction between ‘religion’ and the non-reli-
gious spheres of society (science, polity, economy); and the very interesting dis-
tinction between ‘religion’ and seemingly related systems of beliefs and practices,
which are nonetheless classified as ‘superstition’ or ‘magic’ or in our days ‘esoter-
ics’. These renegotiation processes intensified after 1850, they are related to the
globalization processes of other function systems, e.  g. to international treaties
between countries or the question of the legitimacy of missionary activities. It has
to be added that these three boundary-defining processes (function system and
internal variants; function system and other function systems; function systems
and deviant practices that have been excluded) are going on every day in all the
function systems of world society.

4 This is a very interesting practice that probably never existed in Europe or America. The Euro-
pean/American equivalent probably were the managers who since the first half of the 19th century
started to enter family firms (Chandler 1977). And, of course, in Japan and Europe there always
was the possibility of marriage to someone who supposedly had the required competences.
  Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?   13

The essays in this volume are, I hope, an instructive beginning for research
on the functional differentiation of world society. There are some major directions
of research that become visible on the basis of these essays. I will mention four:
1 There is first the question of anticipations and beginnings of functional dif-
ferentiation in historical societies in all regions of the world. In studying the
societies and empires of the premodern world it will be a very important ques-
tion how early forms of functional differentiation looked like in these social
systems and how they differed from one another.
2 As became visible in some of the essays of this volume (especially Tang, Mori-
kawa, Hermann), in the early history of functional differentiation conceptual
transfers between world regions and finally the rise of global categories such
as ‘religion’ or ‘science’ or ‘sport’ were of central relevance (cf. Meyer 2017;
Stichweh 2016).
3 Based on the aspects named in points 1 and 2, one can begin to write the dif-
ferentiation histories of individual function systems: their regional origins;
the functional equivalents in other world regions; the links that arise between
regions; the expansion of function systems on the basis of the rhetorical and
causal efficiency of the symbol complexes of which they consist.
4 Based on the aspects analyzed in 1 to 3, one can begin to study the complex-
ity of a functionally differentiated world society; the multiplicity of function
systems and the ever more complex patterns of interaction between func-
tion systems; the evolution of societal problems and the interaction between
global problems and the transformation of the order of function systems; the
varieties within function systems (e.  g. the political bipolarity of democracy
and authoritarianism or the bipolarity of liberal economies and social market
economies) and the variations due to structural couplings of function systems
and their historical backgrounds and regional particularities.

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About the author

Prof. Dr. Rudolf Stichweh
Senior Professor of Sociology at ‘Forum Internationale Wissenschaft’ and ‘Bonn Center for
­Dependency and Slavery Studies’, Director Department ‘Comparative Research on Democracies’
at FIW, University of Bonn, Heussallee 18–24, D-53113 Bonn; email: rstichweh@yahoo.de

Rudolf Stichweh is a professor of sociology at the University of Bonn and University of Lucerne
(CH). He is the director of the ‘Department for Comparative Research on Democracies” at ‘Forum
Internationale Wissenschaft’ and a principal investigator at the “Bonn Center for Dependency
and Slavery Studies”. He is a member of the “Leopoldina. National Academy” (Halle) and the
“North-Rhine-Westphalian Academy of the Sciences and Arts” (Düsseldorf) and a Visiting
Scholar at the ‘Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte’, Berlin, Research Group ‘China
in the Global System of Science’. Research Fields: World Society; Democratic and Authoritarian
Political Regimes; History and Sociology of Science and Universities; Functional Differentiation
of Society; Inequality and Asymmetrical Dependency: Publications: Democratic and Author-
itarian Political Regimes in 21st Century World Society, Vol. 1, Transcript 2021; Inklusion und
Exklusion, Transcript 2016; Wissenschaft, Universität, Professionen, Transcript 2013 (Vol. 2,
2022); Der Fremde, Suhrkamp 2010.

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