STRUCTURE OF THE CONTENTS FOR THE

PRESENTATION
 Section One: Origin, Contexts, and Historical Developments

 Section Two : Classical Figures

 Section Three: Contemporary Perspectives

 Section Four: Recent Developments in Sociological Theories

 Section Five: Linkages of the Assumptions of the Theories to Pragmatic

Applications/ Practices. Connection with Public Policies in Ethiopia /Frameworks
on Family/ Practices
Section One: Historical Background

Origin, Contexts and Development of

Sociological Theories
 WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND BY THEORY
IN SOCIAL SCIENCES?
 The term theory originate from the Greek word “theoria”- which
means a well focused mental outlook at something in order to grasp it
deeply.
 Is explanation about how and why events in the universe occurs
[ social not about individual out comes]
 Is a proposed relationship between two or more concepts.

Theories primarily address two fundamental issues:

1. How – explore and give possible descriptions

2. Why- address questions that have cause and effect relations, or

mechanisms involving explanations of ideas and human nature
 ELEMENTS OF THEORY
 Concept: a word stands for something.

 A subject to be defined

 Trying to communicate a uniform meaning to all involved

 Definition: refers to a system of terms informing investigators

of a phenomena denoted by the concept.

 Should be precise otherwise lead to the problem of vagueness

and ambiguity.
COMMON SENSE VS. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
What is Sociological imagination?
 Sociology is a scientific approach to understanding people in
society, institutions, structures and interactions thereof
 Everyone attempts to create some sort of theories to make sense of
what they experience in the world: common sense theories are less
systematized explanation
 Sociological theories are a useful in moving away from
commonsense understandings of society.
 The sociological imagination invites us to think beyond our own
subjective perceptions/common sense
 Sociological imagination is a specific way of thinking about the
world, characterized by a willingness to think beyond our own
experiences and to challenge commonsense or obvious explanations
of human society and human behavior (C.W. Mills 1970)
 SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
 Explain how and why human behave, interact and organize
themselves in a certain ways.
 Explain events by pulling inputs from different specializations.
 Moreover, tries to account on :

Why people walk in a certain way?

How did society emerged?

How religion came into existence?

Why people believe in religion?

 IMPORTANCE OF SOCIOLOGICAL
THEORIES
 To understand the social world around us

 To explain the relationship between concepts

 In general, sociological theories involve, a set of interrelated ideas

that allow for the systematization of the knowledge about the social
world

 Sociological knowledge helps to explain and predict the social

world.
 IDENTIFICATION OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT
 For an idea to be a sociological theory it must have

1. They must deal with central important social issues

Example, Comte’s rank of science
2. They must have stood the test of time

3. Big idea system: idea systems that deal with major social issues
and that are far reaching in scope
 example, capitalist system-Marx, rational world-Weber, a world of
moral integration-Durkheim

 Most sociologists write about: What they see, observe, experience &
perceive
 MAJOR TRADITIONS

 Sociological thought and ideas about society have categorized into two
sociological traditions: Classical traditions and contemporary sociological
theories

 The classical tradition: begins with the work of Comte and culminating with
Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge.

i. Consider to be foundational, exemplar

ii. Address a broad range of problems emerging traditions from Agriculture
and industry
iii. Focus on more general issues in a society
iv. They have got great scope and ambition

 Categorized as classic since their applications to wider issues and deal with
 CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES

 Contemporary Sociological Theories: Commence with Talcot

Parsons as a dominant intellectual force for Sociology

 More of active, technical and mechanical and focus on different

pictures.

 More systematized and have got structures

 PARADIGM
o A set of basic beliefs about the nature of the world and
things, but accepted simply via faith
o Worldview/perspective defining the nature of the
world
o Paradigms often concerned about three/four
interrelated questions:
1. Ontological question: the form and nature of reality
2. Epistemological question: the relationship between the
known and the researcher , defines the position of the
knower ( objective vs. subjective)
3. Methodological question: ways of knowing reality
4. Axiological question - place of values/ethics in while deal
with ontological and epistemological debates???
 Drawing upon the ideas of Thomas Kuhn, Ritzer offers the
following definition of paradigm:

Ritzer defined a paradigm as a fundamental image of the subject matter within

a science.

It serves to define:

• what should be studied

• what questions should be asked

• how they should be asked

• and what rules should be followed in interpreting the

answers obtained
The paradigm is the broadest unit of consensus within a science
and it serves to differentiate one scientific community
(or subcommunity) from another.

It subsumes, defines and interrelates:

• the exemplars,

• theories,

• methods and instruments

that exist within it.

 Kuhn’s Model of Scientific “Progress”

Paradigm I:
Normal
Science

Paradigm II:
Revolution Anomalies
Normal
Science

Crisis
 PARADIGM POSITIONS
Issues Positivism Post-positivism Critical theory Constructivism

Aim of inquiry Explanation : prediction & control Critique & Understanding &
emancipation reconstruction

Nature of Verified hypotheses Non-falsified Structural individual

knowledge established as facts hypotheses historical reconstructions
or laws that are probable insights coalescing
facts or laws around
consensus

Knowledge accretion-"building clocks" adding to historical more informed

accumulation "edifice’/structure of knowledge"; revisionism; and
generalizations & cause-effect generalization by sophisticated
linkages similarity reconstructions;
vicarious
experience
 CONT’D
Goodness or Conventional benchmarks of "rigor": Historical Trustworthiness
quality criteria internal and external validity, situations, action and authenticity
reliability, stimulus
and objectivity

Values excluded-influence denied included-formative

Ethics extrinsic; tilt toward deception intrinsic; moral tilt intrinsic; process
toward revelation tilt toward
revelation;
special problems

Voice "disinterested scientist" as informer of "transformative "passionate

decision makers, policy makers, and intellectual" as participant"
change agents advocate and as facilitator of
activist multi-voice
reconstruction

Training technical and technical; Re-socialization; qualitative and

quantitative; quantitative quantitative;
substantive theories and qualitative; history; values of altruism and
substantive theories
empowerment

Accommodation commensurable Incommensurable

Hegemony in control of publication, funding, seeking recognition and input
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHTS REGARDING
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
 Positivism: Those who claim that social world can be
studied by using the method of natural science.

 Reality is one but difficult to apprehend it. However can

be approached by one method /ontology/

 Epistemological base: researcher/ knower is observer i.e.

maintained objectivity
 KEY FEATURES OF POSITIVISM: EXAMPLE
 The search for universal truths or ideals be
abandoned in favor of a search for law–like
regularities.

 The only legitimate objects of investigation are

those subject to observation and verification

 Physical sciences are a model of certainty and

exactness which made their methods to be the
ultimate goal of all the disciplines
 Progress and social reform relied on an orientation
to facts
CONT’ED
 Constructivist: comprising of feminist and critical theories of
postmodern varieties

 There is no single reality to be discovered by the scientific

method/ multiple reality/

 Reality is what is perceived and experienced

 They are critical of knowledge, power and language as tools used

by dominant class in deciding what is to be perceived as truth and
real.

 Co created findings/ Epistemology/

 ORIGIN OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
 We cannot establish or trace the precise date when sociological
theory exactly began

 But it just assumed that modern social theory emerged during the
period of “The Great Transformation” i.e. 1750-1920

 People have been thinking about, and developing theories of,

social life since early in history

 Early Greek philosophers, middle age thinkers are cited as

influencing sociological theory

 However, none of the thinkers associated with those eras

CONT’ED
 It is only in the 1800s that we begin to find thinkers who
can be clearly identified as sociologists.

 These are the classical sociological thinkers [ 1800-

1900]

 Thus, we will not go back to the early historic times of

the Greeks or Romans or even to the Middle Ages./pre-
classical
 Backdrop to Classical Sociological Tradition

o Therewere clusters of social and intellectual

forces that shaped the ideas of classical
Sociological thinkers
 SOCIAL FORCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL THEORY

 Sociology and its theories were derived from settings and takes
the social setting as its basic subject matter including the
scenarios at:
 Family
 Political setting
 Economic
 religious

 Social conditions that were of utmost significance in the

development of sociological theories involve combinations of :
revolutions, political-economic shifts , Enlightenments and
conservative reactions / romanticism
 POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS

Was the most immediate factor in the rise of

sociological theorizing.
 The impact of these revolutions on many societies was
enormous.
Positive /Negative changes resulted.
 However, what attracted the attention of many early
theorists was the negative effects/ramifications of such
changes and rampantly prevailing sets of disorder in the
society than its positive outcomes
 The writers were disrupted by the resulting chaos and
disorder.
 They were united in a desire to restore order to society
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789:]-EXAMPLE

 French Revolution was one of the decisive moments in the development of

scientific theory of society separated from philosophy.
 The revolution overthrows the Feudal System. It has enormous
impacts on societies and many positive changes resulted
 There were, of course, opposing views (revolution and reform)
 Some of the extreme thinkers at this time wanted to return to the
peaceful and relatively orderly days of the Middle Age.
 But the most thinkers recognized that social change had made
such return impossible. Thus instead they sought to find new
base of order in societies.
 This interest in the issue of social order was one of the major
concerns of classical sociological theorists, especially Comte,
Durkheim, and Parsons.
 CONTINUED

It made three distinctive impacts on the way of understanding

society, history and politics:
1. Stressed on the reality of individual freedom and rights….

2. Undermined the foundations of the feudal society….

3. Challenged the foundation of philosophy in its inward looking and
introspective existence.
 CONTID
For Georg Hegel:

1. The French Revolution fundamentally challenged the way thought understood

reality and history. The understanding of history as fixed in its social and
political existence was replaced by the view that history changes from one
social form to another which manifested itself in distinct stages of
development.

2. Economy and politics became intimately related to history and society. Thus,
political functions became the focus of historical development.

3. The focus of philosophy on individual freedom and self-realization…. By

making the individual part of historical development, Hegel also made
individual experience the subject matter of historical and social analysis.
 CONT’ED
o Writers were particularly disturbed by the resulting chaos and
disorder, especially in France.

• They were united in the desire to restore order to society

1. Some wanted a return to the peaceful and relatively orderly days

of the Middle Ages.

Others recognized that social change had made such a return

impossible. Thus they sought instead to find new bases of order.

• This interest in the issue of social order was one of the major
concerns of classical sociological theorists, especially Comte and
Durkheim.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM

 Before the mid-19th c., industrial capitalism replaced agrarian economies and led to
the rapid developments in commerce, science and industry. And these required the
genius of Adam Smith to inaugurate the study of the political economy of
capitalism.

 The IR was many interrelated developments that :

 Culminated in transformation from agriculture to industrial system.
 Caused Rural – Urban Migration
 Brought technological improvement
 Economic bureaucracies
 Free marketplace
 CONT’ED
 However, within this system, a few profited greatly while the
majority worked long hours for low wages

 So, the Industrial Revolution, capitalism, and the reaction against

them all involved an enormous upheaval in Western society, an
upheaval( tromuli,disorder) that affected sociologists greatly

 Four major figures in the early history of sociological theory – Karl

Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Georg Simmel – were
preoccupied, as were many lesser thinkers, with these changes and
the problems they created for society as a whole
 THE RISE OF SOCIALISM

• One set of changes aimed at coping with the excesses of the

industrial system and capitalism can be combined under the
heading “socialism.”
• Although some sociologists favored socialism as a solution to
industrial problems, most were personally and intellectually
opposed to it.
• On the one side, Karl Marx was an active supporter of the
overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a
socialist system
• He criticized various aspects of capitalist society
• engaged in a variety of political activities that bring about the rise
of socialism.
CONT’ED
 Most of the early theorists, such as Weber and Durkheim, were
opposed to socialism (at least as it was envisioned by Marx).

 Although they recognized the problems within capitalist

society, they sought social reform within capitalist rather than
the social revolution argued for by Marx.

 They feared Socialism rather than they did capitalism

CONT’ED
 This fear played a far greater role in shaping sociological
theory than did Marx’s support of the socialist alternative to
capitalism.

 In fact, as we will see, in many cases sociological theory

developed in reaction against Marxian and, more generally,
socialist theory.
 FEMINISM
 There has always been a feminist perspective-wherever
women are subordinated.
 And, they have been subordinated almost always and
everywhere – they seem to have recognized and protested
that situation in some form.
 The massive mobilization for:
 Political right
 women’s suffrage
 Industrial and civic reform legislation

 All of this had an impact on the development of sociology,

in particular on the work of a number of women in or
associated with the field.
 CONT’ED
 However, feminist concerns were filtered into sociology only on the
margins, in the work of marginal male theorists or of the increasingly
marginalized female theorists.
 URBANIZATION

 The expansion of the cities produced a seemingly

endless list of urban problems – overcrowding,
pollution, noise, traffic, crime, prostitution and so
forth.
 It presented many difficulties for those who had to
adjust to urban life.
 The nature of urban life and its problems attracted the
attention of many early sociologists, especially Max
Weber and Georg Simmel.
 Sociology has much concern for the city in using it as
a laboratory to study urbanization and its problems .
RELIGIOUS CHANGE
 Many early sociologists came from religious backgrounds and
were actively, and in some cases professionally, involved in
religion.
 They brought to sociology the same objectives as they had in
their religious lives. They wished to improve people’s lives.
 For some (such as Comte), sociology was transformed into a
religion.
 For others, their sociological theories bore unmistakable
religious imprint. Durkhiem, M. Weber and Marx wrote about
religion.
GROWTH OF SCIENCE

 As sociological theory was being developed, there was

an increasing emphasis on science, not only in colleges
and universities but in society as a whole.
 Many Sociologists wanted to model sociology after the
successful physical and biological sciences
 INTELLECTUAL FORCES AND THE RISE OF
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

 Intellectual forces cannot be separated from the social forces

 The influence of Enlightenment and counter-enlightenment on

the development of sociological theory is paramount
ENLIGHTENMENT
 Was a period of intellectual development and change in
philosophical thought beginning in the 189th century
 It is a collective name for the thought of group of radical
thinkers in mid-18thc in France.
 It is also characterized by the rise of “Liberal Individualism” –
wich means freely reasoning, independent, autonomous human
individual-indvl is source of knowledge
 They emphasizes the individual’s possession of critical reason
and opposed traditional authority in society and dominance of
religion over knowledge
 Thus, enlightenment thinkers think that they have to use their
own critical reason to derive lasting truth/reality- than
assuming that reality/knowledge is God given
 Opposed existing authority in government and religion

 They proposed change and scientific revolution

 CONT’ED
As a whole the enlightenment thinkers were influenced by two
intellectual currents – seventeenth-century philosophy and science

A. Seventeenth-century philosophers’ emphasis was on producing

grand, general, and very abstract systems of ideas that made
rational sense.

B. Science: did make greater efforts to derive their ideas from the
real world and to test them there, empirical research on the
model of Newtonian science. Newtonian law
1st law: for any object movement there must be an external force/
Unbalanced force
2nd law: Any force can be measured by
Force = mass *acceleration
3rd law: For any Action there must be reaction.
CONT’ED
 It was a belief that people could comprehend and control the
universe by means of reason and empirical research.

 The view was that because the physical world was dominated
by natural laws, it was likely that the social world was, too.

 Their ideas conflicted with traditional religious bodies, the

political regimes, and the social system of feudalism.
/Inhibitive/

 Early sociology also maintained a faith in empiricism and

rational inquiry.
 CONSERVATIVE REACTION TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT : PROPOSITIONS

 Emphasis on, society and other large-scale phenomena,

 Society was the unit of analysis and produce individual.

 Give emphasis on the existing tradition(habit,ritual,trend)

community, sacred, community
 They think that there should be authority beyond individual; indvl is
considered as destruction of the world-normal system
 The individuals were seen as doing little more than filling roles,
positions, relationships and institutions within society
 The parts of society were seen as interrelated and interdependent.

 Change was seen as a threat.

 There was little desire to look for the negative effects of existing
social structures and social institutions.
 Small units, such as the family, also were seen as essential to
individuals and society.
 emphasis on the importance of non rational factors in social life.
 SYNOPSIS
 These propositions seen as the immediate intellectual basis of
the development of sociological theory in France.

 Thus, sociology in general and French sociology in particular,

has from the beginning been an uncomfortable mix of
Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment ideas.
 CENTERS TO THE ORIGIN OF
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
The French Sociology
 Claude Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

 Auguste Comte ( 1798-1857)

 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

 Generally, French sociology is a fairly coherent story of the

progression from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to the

conservative reaction and the increasingly important sociological ideas

of Saint-Simon, Comte, and Durkheim.

 GERMAN SOCIOLOGY
 German sociology was fragmented from the beginning between the
works of K. Marx, M. Weber and G. Simmel.
 BRITISH SOCIOLOGY
 British sociology shaped by three conflicting processes: political
economy, amelorism and evolutionary thoughts
 Ameliorism: a desire to solve social problems by reforming
individuals.
 British sociology was conservatively oriented, wanted to preserve
society ; it blames individuals for their failures
 Political Economy: derives from the operation of market as a
positive force and source of order, harmony as well as integration
in society. The task of the sociologist was to help the government
by collecting data and informing law making [not to criticize
society]
 Evolutionary thoughts: society was growing progressively better
and should be left alone.
 Social institutions adapted progressively and positively to their
social environments
 KEY FIGURES IN EARLY ITALIAN SOCIOLOGY

 Pareto(1848-1923): emphasized the role of non rational factors

such as human instincts

 Elite /cyclical/theory of social change: Social change occurs when

the elite begins to degenerate and is replaced by a new elite
derived from the non governing elite or higher elements of the
masses.

 Pareto’s theory played a central role in the development of

parsons’ theory and, more generally, in structural functionalism.
 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY
 Pragmatism, the Greek root word of which means ‘‘action,’’ grew out
of a turn-of-the-century reaction in American philosophy to
Enlightenment conceptions of science, human nature, and social
order.
 Generally, it has sought to reconcile incompatibilities between
philosophical idealism and realism.
 In the former, reality is conceived of as existing only in human
experience and subjectivity, and is given in the form of perceptions
and ideas.
 In the latter, reality is proposed as existing in the form of essences or
absolutes that are independent of human experience.
 The main ideas embodying the thrust of pragmatism are as follows.
Section Two: Seminal works of the
Key Classical Figures

Comte, Spencer, Marx, Weber,

Durkheim, & Simmel
AUGUSTE COMTE [1798-1857]
 3.1. AUGUST COMTE: POSITIVISM, ORDER AND PROGRESS

Biographical Sketch
 Born in Montpelier, France, on January 19, 1798. His parents were
middle class, and his father eventually rose to the position of official
local agent for the tax collector
 Comte was short (perhaps 5 feet, 2 inches), a bit cross-eyed, and very
insecure in social situations, especially ones involving women
 He was also alienated from society as a whole

 Comte married Caroline Massin 1825 to 1842, illegitimate child

whom Comte later called a “prostitute,”
 Endowed with a photographic memory he could recite backwards the
words of any page he had read but once
 Was sick but smart, and also attempted suicide

 Eccentric/odd, genius, and Utopian socialist [visions about future

imaginary society] –first generation scholars of having socialist ideas
 INTELLECTUAL ROOT
 Although a precocious student, Comte never received a college-
level degree
 In 1817 he became secretary and “adopted son” to Claude Henri
Saint- Simon
 They worked closely together for several years, and Comte
acknowledged his great debt to Saint-Simon.
 Comte later wrote of his relationship with Saint-Simon as
“catastrophic”
 He was raised in the aftermath of the French Revolution
(1789)
Wealthy, elitist upbringing
Witnessed and experienced poverty, disease, destruction,
social disorder
Concluded that “Order should be restored…” in society…
and should be a universal right of all individuals
 COMTE: INTRO …
Comte’s reputation rests on his dual achievements: establish a new
discipline, sociology, and advance a philosophical system called
positivism

The intellectual roots of the Sociology of Auguste Comte lay in three

traditions of progress, order and liberalism

1. The Tradition of Progress:

Comte was son of the Enlightenment period carrying on the tradition of
the philosophers of progress of the late 18th century and lived through
the changes that ravaged French society brought about by the
Revolution
 COMTE: INTRO …
Two prominent influences were Turgot and Condorcet who understood
progress as inevitable & unstoppable, & focused on science as the
force which put mankind into the future state of perfection

Comte took it upon himself to solve the perpetual conflict between

religion and science…and came to believe he was the ONLY
person smart enough to accomplish the feat. He formulated a
theory to demonstrate where society had been and where it was
going—The Law of Human Progress.

2. The Tradition of Order:

Traditionalists saw the Enlightenment & its effects on social relations

and organization as the work of the devil … and its names were
individualism, secularism and the notion of natural rights
 COMTE: INTRO …
Social order, hierarchy, moral community, spiritual power,
and the primacy of groups (i.e. collectivist orientation) –
these and other themes and concerns of the traditionalists
found their way into the sociology of Comte at least as
subject matters and orientations
3. The Tradition of Liberalism:

Comte’s belief in the beneficial effects of the division of labor

derives directly from the liberal tradition. He inherited the
liberal economists’ interest in the major creative functions
of entrepreneurs: he understood the entrepreneur as the true
pivot in the new industrial system [the positive society]
THE NATURE OF SOCIOLOGY
Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte:

Comte formulated (Positive Philosophy [1822]) his project

to develop a positive science …

This new science would be based on empirical

observations that would be used to generate and test
abstract laws of human organization …

Once these laws are discovered and formulated, they

should be used to direct the operation of society.
THE NATURE
One of the most fundamental laws of human organization
is the ‘Law of 3 Stages’ with each stage typified with a
particular kind of spirit …

Course on Positive Philosophy had its goal to unify all the

sciences, and establish a place for sociology among the
sciences …

It also established a program for the new science of society

with respect to theory, methods, substance and advocacy.
 THE NATURE
1. Nature of Sociological Theory:
Comte was, like all thinkers of the Enlightenment, impressed with
Newton's laws, and he felt that sociology could develop similar laws.
All phenomena are subject to invariable laws … identified in their
smallest possible numbers …

Sociology analyzes phenomena accurately & construct them by the

natural relations of succession & resemblance rather than by a
concern with causality

Goal of Theory: Articulate general/abstract laws about the operation of

the social universe … but, at the same time, amenable to translations
to particular contexts
THE NATURE
2. Basic Methodological Strategies:

Comte was also concerned with methodological question of how to

collect data in order to develop or test theories. But his discussion on
the methods was superficial. He highlighted 4 basic methods:

Observation:
This Empirical observation of social facts, statical & dynamical
properties
Here he draws upon Montesquieu's idea of considering social
phenomena as `things' or, as he phrased the matter, as `social facts'.
When viewing the social as a thing or fact, observations stay away from
biased moral judgment and, instead, focus on the statistical and
dynamical properties of social forces.
Sociology was, therefore, to be the science of social facts
 THE NATURE…
Experimentation:
 Comte did not have in mind laboratory experiments but, rather,
naturally occurring situations where a pathological force interrupts the
normal flow of events.
 Under these conditions, where the normal state of the social organism
is interrupted by a pathological condition, it becomes possible to see
how the more normal social processes reassert themselves in an effort
to manage the pathology
 Comte analogized to the physician, arguing that sociologists could do
much the same thing for the `body social'; for just as the physician can
learn about normal body functioning by observing disease, so the
sociologist could understand the normal functioning of society by
observing social pathologies
THE NATURE …
 Comparison:
Through comparisons, it becomes possible to see [1] what
is similar and dissimilar and what is present and absent
across various forms and [2] the fundamental properties
of the social world of humans

 Historical Analysis:
It is a variant of the comparative method … and it enables
to understand changes in a system … these would be
formulated into the laws of system organization
 THE NATURE
3. Substantive Sociology: Statics, Dynamics:

 Comte saw sociology as an extension of biology … it studies social

organization as a social whole [organic analogy] …
 He divided sociological analysis into social statics [study of
structure] and social dynamics [study of progress] …
 Social statics is the study of structures in terms of [1] how various
social units form larger units … and [2] how larger units operate to
sustain the ‘social body’ … functional analysis of sociology …
 Statics is, in essence, the analysis of functions of social parts to the
whole. The parts to be analyzed by sociology were not individuals
(these were to be the subject matter of biology), but the units
organizing individuals- family,..
 THE NATURE
Social dynamics is confined to the Law of Three Stages [ the law of
human knowledge]: the nature of ideas, structural forms and their
modes of integration change from
Theological metaphysical positive stages

 Theological Stage: all phenomena are created and influenced by gods

and supernatural forces
 Metaphysical stage: a transitional stage in which mysterious, abstract
forces (e.g., nature) replace supernatural forces as the powers that
explain the workings of the world.
 Positivistic stage: people search for invariant laws that govern all of
the phenomena of the world.
 In which stage of human development does ours society fall?
 CONTD

 Stages of human knowledge broadly provide two competing

explanations of phenomena: RELIGIOUS (or THEOLOGICAL) and
the SCIENTIFIC (or the POSITIVE)

 EACH of these two broad stages contain THREE SUBSTAGES that

serve to explain social evolution and the future of progress:

 The three substages of the THEOLOGICAL are:

A. Fetishism—objects, icons, idols, etc. as causation
 attributing causes of phenomena to inanimate objects or the will of nature
B. Polytheism—multiple gods as causation
 Phenomena are the result of many different deities
C. Monotheism—a singular deity as causation
 i.e. God wills all things to happen
 POSITIVE SUBSTAGES
 The three substages of the POSITIVE are:

A. Metaphysical—a major transitional phase

 Earthly
cause/effect relationships, not God, cause phenomena, but may be
unknown at present
B. Polyscientific (Comte’s present world)
 Multiplesciences explain phenomena within their realm and foster the
expansion of more sciences
C. Monoscientific
 Future unity of all sciences into one SUPERSCIENCE—the science of all
the sciences= SOCIOLOGY
 THE NATURE
The intellectual aspect or human mind/knowledge was the driving
force towards social progress . What does this implicate ???

 Division of labor, which results from increases in the size of

population and the material density of individuals, accounts for the
rate of progress

 Since science explained phenomena once reserved exclusively for

theology, science became the “new and improved” religion… [ new
religion]
THE NATURE …

4. Advocacy & Social Reconstruction:

Positivism contained a basic line of advocacy … science is

superior to any other system of thought for examining
the structure & dynamics of society...

Scientific knowledge about the laws of these dynamic

properties can provide the tools for reconstructing
society…
 THREE LEVELS OF SOCIETY

Comte distinguished three levels of society;

A. The individual (biological)

B. Family

C. Social combinations (cities) humanity itself is the

highest form

The social unit for sociology was moltly family

 COMTE’S VISION OF THE FUTURE
 Comte believed that positivism could both advance science (theory)
and change the ways people live their lives (practice).
 He elaborated a plan for his positivist society that included
important roles for bankers and industrialists, positivist priests,
merchants, manufacturers, and farmers.
 Comte also envisioned a positivist library- selected and suggested
a list of the books that must be read [100].
 He argued that reading other works would contaminate the minds
of the people
 He also planned to restructure the family to include a father,
mother, three children, and paternal grandparents
 Where is Comte’s stance: Ontology? Epistemology?

and Methodology? do for other key figures as well???

 CONTRIBUTIONS OF COMTE: SYNOPSIS
 Coined Sociology as a natural science of society… social eneg/stati
 Sets subject matter: social statics & dynamics…

 Envisages sociologies goal as: develop abstract general laws on the

forces that explain the operation of its subject matter and which are
assessed against empirical facts
 Marco- sociologist , functionalist, evolutionist

 Social structures tame individual egoism

 As a whole, Comte used his new “religion” of sociology to

“appoint” himself “pope” of the faith and eventually offered to rule
the world under the Comtean scheme… insanity, grandiosity, and
depression set into his mind
 Died of cancer in 1857 long before sociology became a mainstream
academic science—and without witnessing himself being credited
with the title, “the Father of Sociology”
 FEW OF THE WEAKNESSES OF COMTE'S
WORK
BY RITZER AND GOODMAN

 Comte's thought was distorted by his own experiences in life

 His plans for the future appear totalitarian and bizarre

 His empirical work is laughable, and his theoretical work far too
generalized

 He was out of touch with other thinkers of his times

 He made no original contributions to sociology

 His work is only marginally sociological

HERBERT SPENCER [1820-1903]: THE ADVENT
OF EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISM
 SPENCER’S LIFE
 Victorian biologist and philosopher, Herbert Spencer was born
April 27th, 1820, at the height of British industrialism

 He was educated at home in mathematics, natural science, history

and English, among some other languages.

 Born into a family of the British aristocracy

 Spencer was sickly in his youth, all eight of his other siblings dying
at a young age. His constitution remained weak throughout his life,
and he would later suffer from nervous breakdowns which he never
recovered from, and he wandered about London never in a complete
state of good health
 WORKS AND INFLUENCES
 Systemof Synthetic Philosophy (1862-93), which
brought together biology, psychology, sociology, and
ethics

 Spencer
was undoubtedly strongly influenced by both the
demographer Thomas Robert Malthus and the laissez-faire
economist Adam Smith

 Rejectedmany of Comte’s ideas concerning social reform

that was human induced

 To Spencer, “Nature determines EVERYTHING”

 INTRODUCTION
 His work attracted small followers today although popular in his
time, particularly in America
 Spencer's theory of society does represent an advance over Comtian
theory
 Like Comte, characterized himself as a positivist and derived his
concepts of structure and function from the field of biology
 Spencer was more interested in studying the progress of the external
world or objectivity, while Comte focused more on the subjective
nature of the progress of human conceptions
 There are important political differences between Spencer and
Comte.
 Government that gives freedom of individuals vs society led by the
high priests of positivistic religion.
 SPENCER: INTRO
Spencer defined sociology as the study of societal evolution and
believed that the ultimate goal of societal evolution is complete
harmony and happiness
 Spencer’s first and foremost concern was with evolutionary
changes in social structures

Spencer owes debt to a few predecessors in developing his

sociology:
(a) Theory of Population,

(b) Theory of Evolution, and

(c) Theory of Liberalism

 SPENCER: INTRO
Spencer also used the concepts of statics and dynamics

However, Spencer disagreed with Comte on the following:

1. Societies pass through 3 stages of unilineal

development;
2. Causality is less important than relations of affinity in
stating laws
SPENCER: INTRO …
His goal: was to develop a synthetic philosophy that
encompassed all domains of the universe… all other
principles relevant to a particular domain of the universe
– physical, chemical, biological, psychological,
sociological and ethical – could be deduced from these
first principles …

He believed that the same laws [with some necessary

refinements] could be used to understand every realm of
the universe.
 THE NATURE OF SOCIOLOGY
1. Spencer’s Methodological Work:

 Spencer realized that studying social phenomena was

inherently different from studying natural phenomena;
therefore, sociology could not simply imitate the methods
used by biologists
Spencer’s positivism was to rest on ‘social facts’ induced
from the data available pertaining to diverse
populations … and the analysis of super–organic bodies
was to be comparative

Spencer was committed to empirical research and

employed a comparative-historical methodology
 THE NATURE …
 For Spencer, both induction and deduction can facilitate the
formulation of general theoretical laws that apply first principles or
make them sufficiently concrete so as to explain the operative dynamics
of particular subject matter.
 If laws are to be truly general and universal, they must explain data
from a wide–range of specific cases.
 In his methodological works, Spencer addressed the sources of bias
inherent in humans studying humans … anticipated many of the
criticisms against the effort to develop general scientific laws in
sociology.
 Obstacle to objectivity- He agued that social phenomena unlike the natural
were not directly observed or measurable, they can not be easily studied and
measured with such precise and accurate instruments like thermometer scale
or microscope in a laboratory context.
 Social phenomena are not only different from natural phenomena, are far
more complex and difficult to study and sociology inevitably deals with a
wide range of highly dispersed details both in space and time.
 THE NATURE …

 He removed the burden of quantification from positivism and

introduced the possibility for induction

 The goal of positivism is to isolate the forces of the social

universe and seek to understand their relations to each other
[not necessarily stated in mathematical equations or in
quantitative terms].

 The goal of sociology is not to predict with greater precision;

but apply the basic forces of the universe to understand why
an event occurred in the social universe.
 THE NATURE …
Sources of Bias: Ethics in Science
Spencer argued that individuals were the source of moral law in a
given society, but that God ultimately determined good and evil

For Spencer, scientists need to be on their guard to protect their

enterprise from different sources of bias…

 Difficulties: objective… intellectual and subjective …

emotional….

 Biases: educational, patriotism, class, political and

theological… and if these sources of biases are overcome, then
 THE NATURE …
One should try to increase the following aspects of investigation:

 Relevance … the data collected in science should be directly

relevant to formulating or testing the laws of the social
universe….
 Objectivity … scientists should not hold a cherished hypothesis or
ideological commitment as necessarily true….
 Longitudinal Studies … it is important to collect data overtime to
understand processes of change….
 SUBSTANTIVE SOCIOLOGY
Social Organism & Societal Evolution

 Spencer's theory of evolutionary change is built upon three

basic principles: integration, differentiation, and definiteness
Spencer is famous for his organic analogy & functionalism … he
used functional analysis within his evolutionary approach where
he discussed development of societies …

Societal growth comes through two processes:

[1] through increase in population, and
[2] by the joining of previously unrelated units of groups … The
increase in size of units is accompanied by an increase in the
complexity of their structure …
 SUBSTANTIVE SOCIOLOGY
 Evolution was a universal process, which explains both the “earliest
changes which the universe at large is supposed to have undergone…
and those latest changes which we trace in society and the products of
social life.”
 The evolution of societies is but a special case of a universally
applicable natural law.
 Note that Spencer does not claim that social evolution “parallels” or
has “much in common with” organic evolution. Rather, he claims that
social evolution is an extension of organic evolutionary principles.
 The change from the homogenous to the heterogeneous as occurred in
the progress of civilization as a whole, as well as in the progress of
every nation; and it is still going on with increasing rapidity"
 SUBSTANTIVE …
The process of growth is a process of integration … Integration
necessitates a progressive differentiation of structures and
functions, if the societal unit is to remain viable.

Hence, a general scheme of social evolution of societies in terms of

their structural complexity – from relatively undifferentiated
states into differentiated states
[simple to compound to doubly compound to trebly compound].

For him, with growing differentiation comes growing

interdependence and integration [but vulnerable]…

Progress heterogeneity integration

definiteness adaptation/consensus/interdependence
 WHEN PUT TOGETHER, SPENCER’S
FOUR PROCESSES ARE AS SEEN BELOW
In his social evoutionism, spencer concerns himself with
four processes or major concepts
1. Growth -progress
2. Differentiation- heterogeneity
3. Integration- definiteness
4. Adaptation – Consensus/interdependence

 The movement through the four processes is also movement

(evolution) towards greater peace and harmony in human society.
This was spencer’s goal (hope). According to spencer, “all
change is progress
 SUBSTANTIVE …
Integration requires a system that controls the actions of the parts
and ensures their coordination – ‘regulatory system’ … hence,
Spencer’s second criteria of differentiating between societies –
the stringency and scope of internal regulation: militant and
industrial societies.

The type of internal regulation within societies brings about a

difference in social organization … and the type of regulation is
determined by the nature of relation with its significant
environment [whether it is peaceful or militant] …

Overall, an increase in size of the society results in increase in

structure, which in turn produces differences in power and roles of
the members. Different members or groups of members also start to
play different, specialized roles.
 SUBSTANTIVE …
Spencer suggested that the nature of evolution is rather
multilineal than unilineal … he did not believe that
societies develop irreversibly through predetermined
stages … rather they developed in response to their social
and natural environment.
Spencer uses his evolutionary theory to trace the movement
from simple to compounded societies and from militant to
industrial societies.

Society evolves from these processes of compounding and

re-compounding of social groups.
THE NATURE OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION: EXAMPLES

Societies move from simple structures to various

levels of compound structures.
 Simple: consists of separate families.
 Compound: consists of families organized into
clans.
 Doubly Compound: Clans are organized into
tribes.
 Trebly Compound: Tribes are further
organized into nations.
 SUBSTANTIVE
 Thus, society evolves from militant societies dominated by conflict
and a coercive regulative system to industrial societies characterized
by harmony and a sustaining system of decentralized rule.

Military to industrial society:

A. Military characterized by compulsory cooperation of
members

B. Industrial society characterized by voluntary cooperation

C. The final stage, resources may be used to perfect human character,

- ethical state
SUBSTANTIVE …………
 The forgone classifications has rooted in a hypothesis
that social structure is also affected by the relations a
society has to other societies
 Spencer thought the society that he was living in was a
"hybrid society," exhibiting traits of both military and
industrial societies. What about ours???? Is he pessimist
or optimist about a society ? [19815 -1850 and after
1850]
 Although he ultimately hoped society in general would
progress towards a state of industry, he recognized that
the regression to a militant state was possible
SUBSTANTIVE …
 Non--Interventionist Policy & the Survival of the Fittest

He argued against any collective action in the attempt to

shape the direction and rate of social progress …
Since the causes operating in society are complex with
possible unanticipated consequences, he urged us to let
things well enough alone …

The state should only protect the rights of individuals and

collectively protect them against outside enemies…
The best government is the least intervening government
 SUBSTANTIVE …
Everything shall be left for the free initiative of individuals
making contracts and agreements with one another,
pursuing their respective interests …

Thus, political he is libertarian and appears a bit against

social reform
 Hence, his definition of society as a system created by
individuals to fulfill individual interests.

 There are two conditions for a healthy society. First, there

must “…be few restrictions on men's liberties to make
agreements with one another, and there must, in the
second place, be an enforcement of the agreements which
 SPENCER'S FUNCTIONALISM
 Much of Spencer’s discussion of social institutions and their
changes is expressed in functional terms.
 To understand how an organization originated and developed, it is
requisite to understand the need subserved at the outset and
afterwards
 Spencer urges us to study the double aspect of an institution’s
evolutionary stage and of the functions they serve at that stage.
 He also proposed a system theory in which the parts are
interconnected through webs of networks [systems—physiological,
psychological, social, ecological—interact with one another.]
 SPENCER’S THEORY OF POPULATION AND
SOCIAL EVOLUTIONISM
 Similar to Malthus, Spencer argued that our fertility stimulates
greater activity because of the competition for resources. But this is
where the resemblance ends.
 Spencer goes on to posit that this competition would, in the long run,
produce smarter people as the more ingenious would survive and the
lesser intelligent people would die off. Over time this would lead to
a gradual rise in intelligence over time.
 Spencer was not a cruel, heartless, reactionary who enjoyed human
suffering. Rather, he was a man who saw societies as systems that
were in constant adjustment to their natural and social environments.
He viewed government action to take the edge off these necessary
adjustments as ultimately causing more human suffering.
 SPENCER ON THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
 Spencer claimed that knowledge was of two
kinds:

(1) knowledge gained by the individual, and

(2) knowledge gained by the race. He said that

intuition, or knowledge learned unconsciously,
was the inherited knowledge or experience of
the race.

 Healso believed that there is a basic and final

reality beyond our knowledge, which he called
the Unknowable.
 CRITICISMS
 Among Spencer's more outrageous ideas was the argument that
unfit societies should be permitted to die off, allowing for the
adaptive upgrading of the world as a whole

 Clearly, such ideas did not sit well with the reformism of the
ameliorists
KARL MARX [1818-1883]
AUTO BIOGRAPHY
 Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818. His father, a
lawyer, provided the family with a fairly typical middle-class
existence.

 In 1841 Marx received his doctorate in philosophy from the

University of Berlin, a school heavily influenced by Hegel.
 Also of great importance at this point was his meeting the man who
was to become his lifelong friend, benefactor, and collaborator—
Friedrich Engels

 His life was in exile as writings upset governments – example was

the Communist Manifesto of 1848
 MARX: INTRO …
It’s been said that K. Marx developed his doctrine under
the influence of 3 major intellectual currents..

1.German Idealism [esp. Hegelian version];

2. French Socialist Tradition; and

3. British Political Economy.

 MARX: INTRO …

Marx’s thought was influenced by 4 Ideas dominant in 18th c.

German thought:

 The Idea of Progress: ... mankind would progressively reach

greater heights, above all through further spread of science…

There were differences on the nature of change: whether it’s based

on peaceful, gradual and continuous change [Leibniz] or it’s based
on antagonistic cooperation [Kant].
 MARX: INTRO …
 The Idea of Alienation: Rousseau was among the chief early
theorist of alienation … he has a critical view of the fallen
conditions of mankind … man was naturally good until
corrupted by society …

German thinkers of the late 18th c. were interested not only in

criticizing the present conditions but also with the future state of
reintegration and positive synthesis between man and society.
 MARX: INTRO …
 The Idea of Perfectibility: A notion common for French and
British Enlightenments … Man has no divine soul, nor he’s an
object in nature … but he’s the capacity for self-improvement
through education and changes.

 The Idea of Totality [Holism] … central to Hegel’s philosophy…

2 dimensions of society: the vertical [series of necessary stages] &
the horizontal [structural unity based on its parts’ relationships]
have to be studied simultaneously.
 MARX’S OVERALL DOCTRINE

Marx’s Overall Doctrine:

Society comprised a moving balance of antithetical forces that generate

social change by their tensions and struggle …

His point of departure: his concern man’s material conditions …

Ideas aren’t prime movers of history, they’re reflection, direct or

sublimated, of the material interests that impel men in their dealings
with others.
 DOCTRINE …

Societies evolve from primitive to slave–owning to feudal to

capitalistic to socialist, and finally, to communist …

the distinctive attribute in the progress from primitive to slave–owning

is the origin of private ownership of means of production … & …
the division of society into classes: the haves and the have–nots.
 DOCTRINE …
The relationships between men are shaped by their relative
positions in regard to the means of production…

Division of society into classes gives rise to political, ethical,

philosophical, and religious views of the world [which express
the existing class relations & tend either to consolidate or
undermine it]…

“The ruling ideas of an epoch are the idea of the ruling class.”
 MARX’S THEMES & PERSPECTIVES
 Marx’s Notion of Alienation

History has a double aspect: it’s a history of increasing control of men over nature as
well as an increasing alienation of man …

Alienation has 4 aspects:

1. Workers are alienated from their productive activity/labor no longer satisfy their
needs & they don’t produce goods based on their ideas
2. Workers are alienated from the objects of those activities / The product of their
labor belongs not to the workers but to the capitalists.
3. Workers in capitalist society are alienated from their fellow workers/ coop­eration
is disrupted, and people, often strangers, are forced to work side by side for the
capitalist
4. 4. Workers in capitalist society are alienated from their own human potential/ they
are reduced in their work to functioning like machines.

There is a real contradiction between human nature, which is defined and

 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Marx’s Notion of Social Change

The issue of social change informs all Marx’s writings...

Men make their own history … in the process of (social) production...

In so doing, men create specific forms of social organization in tune

with specific modes of production … the relations men establish
with nature through their labor are reflected in their social
relationships.
 THEMES & CONCEPTS …
All class-based modes of production are characterized by social
inequality …

Resources are always unbalanced to wants … economic surplus is

appropriated by those who have attained dominance through their
ownership of the means of production …

Class antagonisms in each mode of production lead to the emergence

of classes whose interests couldn’t be asserted within the framework
of the old order … besides, the growth of productive forces reach
the limits imposed by previous production relations.
 DIALECTICS
 Marx adopted dialectic from Hegel. However, Marx was critical of
the way Hegel used the idea of dialectic= Idealist/abstract vs
realist.
 The basic idea of dialectic is the centrality of contradiction.

 Philosophies and indeed common sense treat contradictions as a

mistake, a dialectic philosophy believes that contradictions exist in
reality and that most appropriate way to understand reality is to
study the development of those contradictions.
 Marx believed that any study of reality must be attuned to the
contradictions within society and, indeed, he sees contradiction as
the motor of historical change.
 Unlike Hegel, Marx believed that these contradictions existed not
simply in our minds (i.e., in the way we understand the world), but
that they had a concrete material existence.
 At the heart of capitalism was the contradiction between the
 DIALECTIC…
 For Marx, such contradictions are not resolved by philosopher sitting
in an armchair, but by a life-and-death struggle that changes the
social world.
 This was a crucial transformation because it allowed Marx to move
the dialectic out of the realm of philosophy/ idea to the realm of
study of social relations grounded in the material world.
 It is this focus that makes Marxist work so relevant in sociology.

 The dialectic leads to an interest in the conflicts and contradictions

among various levels of social reality, rather than to the more
traditional sociological interest in the ways these various levels mesh
neatly in to a cohesive whole.
 DIALECTIC
Historical Perspective: Past – Present – Future
 Dialectician is interested not only in the relationships of social
phenomena in the contemporary world but also in the relationship of
those contemporary realties to both past and future social
phenomena.
 These have two distinct implications for a dialectical sociology.
 First, it means that dialectical sociologists are concerned with
studying the historical roots of contemporary world.
 Second, many dialectical thinkers are attuned to current social trends
in order to understand the possible future directions of society.
 This interest in future possibilities is one of the main reasons
dialectical sociology is inherently political.
 It is interested in encouraging practical activities that would bring
new possibilities into existence.
 It is their view that the sources of the future exist in the present.
 DIALECTIC….
Relational View/ Reciprocal
 The dialectic method of analysis does not see a simple, one-way, cause and
effect relationship among the various parts of the social world.
 For example, the increasing exploitation of the workers by the capitalists
may cause the workers to become increasingly dissatisfied and more
militant, but the increasing militancy of the proletariat may well cause the
capitalists to react by becoming even more exploitative in order to crush the
resistance of the workers.
 This does not mean that the dialectician never considers causal relationship
in the social word.
 It does mean that when dialectical thinkers talk about causality, they are
always attuned to reciprocal relationship among social factors as well as to
the dialectical totality of social life in which they are embodied.
 The focus is on the relationship between, with in and among various levels
of society/ social world. In addition, dialectician never concentrates on one
social unit in isolation from other social unit.
 THE DIALECTICAL METHOD

 Looks into the reciprocal relations among social factors within the
totality of social life, than a cause and effect relationship/ not in one
direction

 These relations include not only contemporary phenomena but also

the effects of history and to future social phenomena.

 Indeed, relationship between actors and structures is at the heart of

Marx's theory.

 large-scale structures help people fulfill themselves; on the other,

they represent a grave threat to humanity
 HUMAN NATURE

 The foundation of Marx’s theory is based on his ideas and beliefs on

the potential of human beings-species beings
 By this he meant the potential and power that are uniquely human
and that distinguishes us from other species.
 Marx believed that until the modern time people could not realize
their potential. In pre-industrial societies people were too busy or
too preoccupied trying to obtain or get the means of survival to
develop their higher capacities and opportunities.
 Although the industrial capitalist society system solved some of their
problems & constraints it is still an oppressive and exploitative
system to allow most individual to develop their human potential.
 Human nature is inter­twined with our specific social relations and our
institutional context.
 A contradiction exists between our human nature and work in the
capitalist system
 HUMAN NATURE
Our production reflects our purpose. Marx calls this process
where we create external objects out of our internal thoughts
objectification. It involves:
1. the objectification of our purpose
2. the establishment of an essential relation between human need
and the material objects of our need
3. the transformation of our human nature
 By objectifying our ideas and satisfying our needs, labor both
expresses our human nature and changes it.
 Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and
nature participate and in which man of his own accord (do
something without forced, asked, helped) starts, regulates and
controls the material reactions between himself and nature …. By
thus acting on the external world and change it, he at the same
time changes his own nature.
 COMMODITIES
 Marx's understanding of commodities (products of labor intended
for exchange) is central to understanding his ideas about the nature
of capitalism.

 Commodities that are produced to subsist and to satisfy the workers

needs have use value

 Use values of commodities are qualitatively different & tied to the

physical properties of a commodity.

 Under capitalism, where workers produce for owners and exchange

commodities for money, products have exchange value.

 It is often unclear where a commodity's value comes from, it takes

on an independent, external reality./fetishism of commodities.
 CONT’ED
 Fetishism of commodities obscures the real relationship between
commodities, value, and human labor

 In reality the value that originates from labor and the satisfaction of
needs are obscured

 Marx used the term reification to describe the process whereby

social structures become naturalized, absolute, independent of
human action, and unchangeable.

 obscures the underlying relationships within the capitalist system

and allows supposedly natural and objective social structures to
dominate people.
 CAPITAL, CAPITALISTS, AND PROLETARIAT
 Whereas workers are wholly dependent upon wages, capitalists are
dependent upon money invested to create more money

 Capital gears the circulation of commodities under capitalism

 In non-capitalist forms of exchange, commodities are traded for

money, which is then traded for another commodity (C1 - M - C2)

 Under capitalism, money is used to purchase a commodity, which

is then sold to create a greater amount of money (M1 - C - M2)
 EXPLOITATION
 Exploitation is a set of social relations on which capitalism is built

 exploitation is accomplished by the impersonal and "objective"

economic system

 Capitalists pay the workers less than the value that the workers
produce and keep the rest for themselves

 Surplus value: is a particular social relation and a form of

domination [ hidden through the operation of market ]
 CLASS CONFLICT

 Class: a group of people in similar situations with respect to their

control of the means of production

 A class truly exists and defined only when people become aware of
their conflict­ing relation to other classes

 when they become aware of the conflict, they become a true class, a
class for itself. Otherwise a class in it self ( a class unconscious about
its position in a social structure of capitalist mode of production )

 Proletarianization leads to a very small number of capitalists exploiting

a large number of poor proletarians subsisting on low wages. This
creates large number of poor workers
 CONT’ED
 Under capitalism, the forces of production lead to a set of
relations of production which pit the capitalist and the proletariat
against one another

 To change the exploitative relations of production, Marx felt

revolution was necessary.
 He proposed revolution starting from 1848 through his various
writings including the communist manifesto.
 CRITICISM
 Actual existing communism failed to fulfill its promise. Marx
proposal was hardly attained on the ground

 History has shown that workers have rarely been in the vanguard
of the revolutionary movements and changes

 Failed to adequately consider gender as factor or organizing

dimension, in the reproduction of labor and commodity
production.

 Focusing far too much on production, without giving enough

attention to the act of consumption, which left his analysis
incomplete

 Criticized for too much emphasis on class struggle

EMILE DURKHEIM [1858-1917]
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY: BRIEF
 Emile Durkheim was born on April 15, 1858, in Epinal, France.
 Father, Grandfather, and Great-Grandfather were all rabbis

 He rejected a traditional academic career in philosophy and sought

instead to acquire the scientific training needed to contribute to the
moral guidance of society.
 Although he was interested in scientific sociology, there was no field
of sociology at that time, so between 1882 and 1887 he taught
philosophy in a number of provincial schools in the Paris area.
 In 1893 he published his French doctoral thesis, The Division of Labor
in Society
 His major methodological statement, The Rules of Sociological
Method, appeared in 1895, followed (in 1897) by his empirical
application of those methods in the study Suicide.
 CONTD

 By 1896 he had become a full professor at Bordeaux.

 In1902 he was summoned to the famous French university

the Sorbonne, and in 1906 he was named professor of the
science of education, a title that was changed in 1913 to
professor of the science of education and sociology

 Hismost famous works, The Elementary Forms of Religious

Life, was published in 1912.

 Durkheim died on November 15, 1917, a celebrated figure

in French intellectual circles,
 MAJOR CONCERNS E D

 Concerned with topical questions such as: What is the glue

that holds the society together? What provides people with a
sense of belongingness?
 Concerned with social order and stability

 People are a product of their social environment; this

emphasize the priority of the social over the individual,
 Human potential is socially based, not biologically based

 Societies are built on social facts and can be studied

scientifically
 Rapid social change produces social strain
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Social Evolution and Social Solidarity [ change]

Societies move from traditional to modern social types …

Societal integration in modern society is enabled through
the integration of individuals pursuing complementary
and symbiotic specializations … which terminate the
traditional mechanisms of social constraints based on
uniformity and collective repression …
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
The Study of Suicide

Suicide – the most intimate and individual of acts and studied it

with the methodology of society … the two main motives of
Durkheim’s study of suicide: professional and moral

Professional … distinguishing sociology as a distinct field of

study by discovering the social laws of suicide… FROM
PSYCHOLOGY

Moral … suicide marks the pathological state of

contemporary society … remedies must be found.
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 The cause of suicidal aptitude of each society is in the
nature of the societies themselves …
 The specific modes by which society becomes the
chief determinant of suicide rates:
Egoistic suicide: very low integration;
Anomic suicide: very low regulation;
Altruistic suicide: very high integration;
Fatalistic suicide: very high regulation.
 Durkheim argues that two social facts, in particular, influence
suicide rates:
 Integration: the strength of attachment people feel to society

 Regulation: the degree of external constraint on people.

 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Personality

Society is sui generis… but it’s inseparable from man

and his mind, character and role … man and society
are fused… Man is not just the ego but social….
Man has a dual nature… an individual– the
physiological foundations and activities related to
it… and a social– the higher intellectual/moral
order…
Nonetheless, society precedes individual personality
[ priority of the social over the individual]
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
Dialectic relationship between man and society exists ….
Society makes its influence felt when it’s in action ... when
individuals who compose it act in common …

It’s only in society the individual is to be discovered…

The individual gets the best part of himself, his intellectual

and moral culture from society…
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 The Nature of Authority

True society and morality exist only when authority over

individual mind and behavior is clearly present…
authority refers to discipline … discipline is authority in
operation, and authority is inseparable from the texture
of society …

Only when traditions, codes, and roles coerce, direct, or

restrain man’s impulse can a society be said genuinely to
exist … only through constraint shall one know morality
in contrast to anomie, society in contrast to egoism.
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
Authority performs an important function in forming character
and personality… essentially character implies the capacity
for restraint/disciplined action …

Authority is plural: diverse spheres of kinship, local community,

professions, church, school, gild, and labor unions …
intermediates between the individual and political government

Several radical changes eroded the moral fabric of the modern

society and its various institutions
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Religio–Sacred Dichotomy

Religion and the category of the sacred explain the binding

character of social bonds… the origins of human thought and
culture… and … the very constitution of the human mind.

Religion gave birth to all that is essential in society … it holds

society together … Men owe to it not only a good part of the
substance of their knowledge, but also the frame of thought.
 RELIGION

Elementary and common elements of all religions: tendency to

divide the world into two realms: sacred and profane … and … an
organization of systems of beliefs and rites related to the sacred.

The sacred vs. the profane opposition constitutes the central

principles of his theory of religion … the sacred embodies gods,
spirits, natural things, beliefs … anything can have a sacred
character … if viewed by people as a consecrated thing.
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
Characteristics of the sacred and the profane

 The sacred is always separated and set apart from all other
objects – the profane

 The relationship between the sacred and the profane is governed

by the system of beliefs and practices, this is due to the capacity
of the profane to contaminate the sacred

 Sacred things are isolated and protected by positive and negative

interdictions
THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Sacred things are set apart from profane things and
are thought to be superior in dignity

 The sacred and profane represent a unifying

principle thereby provide society with a model of
opposition [e.g. good vs. evil, clean vs. dirty, holy vs.
defiled] &

 The passage from the profane to the sacred must be

accompanied by rites of initiation or transition
THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
Elementary form of Religion

Earliest religion is totemism, for it constitutes the

elements of religion in the most elementary form …
with the following attributes:
 All members of a totem group refer to themselves by
a tribal name (totem) which binds them as if they are
related by blood
 The totem requires them to recognize duties and
obligations towards each other that is equivalent to
the ones in blood relations,
THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Totemic interdictions govern relationship with the
totem and set it apart from profane things,

 Totemism is a tribal religion as it depicts the tribe as

descending from a mythical ancestor with associated
beliefs and practices, and

 Totemism has the tendency to extend outward from

the affairs of the group to include a system of ideas
representing the universe and human existence
(cosmology).
THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
A totem can be anything – animal, plant or
inanimate objects … totem is the name for a
sacred object …

It’s the emblem of a group … it stands for the

group like a badge … the attitude of awe and
reverence towards a totem is derived from its
ability to represent the group.

The sacredness of totem is also extended to the

group, its customs, traditions, social practices
and members..
 CHARACTERIZED RELIGION AS
FOLLOWS

 Condensed religion into 4 major functions:

1) Disciplinary: forcing or administrating discipline

2) Cohesive: bringing people together, a strong bond
3) Vitalizing: to make more lively or vigorous, vitalize,
boost spirit
4) Euphoric: a good feeling, happiness, confidence, well-
being
THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
 Theory of Knowledge:

What is the source of knowledge? For Durkheim, it is not

experience or categories of human thought existing a
priori…

It’s religion which is the source of intellectual categories …

the relation between society = religion = knowledge is
based on the following assumptions:

Religion is the first fundamental system of ideas that people

hold to classify and explain the external world; and
 THEMES & PERSPECTIVES …
The first conceptions (concepts) about the universe
are derived from religion ( knowledge)

Hence:

 Intellectual categories leading to complex systems of thought

derived their classificatory framework from the fact that individuals
tend to live in group and tend to group their ideas; and

 Intellectual
categories are originally derivatives of group categories
[Examples: space, time, force, totality, classification and cause].
SOCIAL FACTS
 Social facts are the social structures and cultural norms
and values that are external to, and coercive over,
individuals.
 Social facts are not attached to any particular individual;
nor are they reducible to individual consciousness.
 Thus, social facts can be studied empirically

 He identify types of social facts: material and

immaterial.
 Durkheim was most interested in studying the latter,
particularly morality, collective conscience, collective
representation, and social currents
NON MATERIAL SOCIAL FACTS
Morality:
 can be empirically studied
 intimately related to the social structure

 Society could certainly lose its moral force if the collective

interest of society became nothing but the sum of self-interests.
 Durkheim's great concern with morality was related to his
curious definition of freedom.
 If society does not limit us, we will become slaves to the
pursuit of more, individual gratification.
 Collective Conscience
 The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average
citizens of the same society forms a determinate system which
has its own life.

 Being "realized" through individual consciousness.

 Collective conscience refers to the general structure of shared

understandings, norms, and beliefs
 Collective Representations

 are more likely to be connected to material symbols such

as flags, icons, and pictures or connected to practices
such as rituals.

 They represent collective beliefs, norms, and values, and

they motivate us to conform to these collective claims.
 Social
Social currents can be viewed Currents
as sets of meanings that are shared by
the members of a collectivity, but explained inter-subjectively
[ through interactions]
 social facts "which do not represent themselves in the form of social
organization"
 "the great waves of enthusiasm, indigna­tion/anger, and pity/crime" that
are produced in public gatherings
 Although social currents are less concrete than other social facts, they
are nevertheless social facts because they cannot be reduced to the
individual
 Collective “moods,” or social currents, vary from one collectivity to
another
 THE DIVISION OF LABOR
 Division of labor examined how social order was maintained in
different types of societies.
 Durkheim discusses how modern society is held together by a
division of labor that makes individuals dependent upon one
another,
 Division of labor changes the way that individuals feel they are
part of society as a whole.
 Societies with little division of labor are unified through
mechanical solidarity;
 All people engage in similar tasks and have similar
responsibilities,
This helps to build a strong collective conscience.
 Modern society, however, is held together by organic solidarity
which weakens collective conscience, specilization of employmnet
holds people together
 CONT’ED
 Durkheim studied these different types of solidarity through laws.
 A society with mechanical solidarity is characterized by repressive
law,
 A society with organic solidarity is characterized by restitutive law.

 Anomie: Increasing division of labor can lead to rapid change in a

society. This can produce a state of confusion with regards to norms
and impersonality in social life. This leads to a state in which the
norms regulating behavior have been broken down.
 CULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL
 Although E.D focused much on the social, he did not dismiss the idea of the
individual

 E. D believed that in modern society the individual has become sacred, and
he called the modern form of collective conscience the cult of the
individual.

 According to Durkheim, humans are constituted by two beings or selves:

one is based on the isolated individuality of the body, and the other is based
on the social

 These two beings may be in a continual state of tension, and they are
connected in that individuality develops as society develops. Durkheim
argued that individuality has both positive and negative consequences.

 Egoism, or the selfish pursuit of individual interests,

 Moral individualism, the ability to sacrifice self-interest for the rights of all
 MORAL EDUCATION AND SOCIAL REFORM

 Durkheim believed that society is the source of morality;

therefore, he also believed that society could be reformed,
through moral education.
 According to Durkheim, morality is composed of three
elements: discipline, attachment, and autonomy.
Discipline constrains egoistic impulses;
 Attachment is the voluntary willingness to be committed
to groups;
 Autonomy is individual responsibility.

 Education provides children with these three moral tools

needed to function in society.
 Adults can also acquire these moral tools by joining
occupational associations
 DURKHEIM ON MORAL EDUCATION
 Believed that education served many functions:
1) To reinforce social solidarity
 Pledging allegiance: makes individuals feel part of a group and
therefore less likely to break rules
2) To maintain social roles
 School is a society in miniature: it has a similar hierarchy, rules,
expectations to the “outside world,” and trains people to fulfill
roles
3) To maintain division of labor
 School sorts students into skill groups, encouraging students to
take up employment in fields best suited to their abilities
 He was professionally employed to train teachers, so he
used his ability to shape France’s curriculum to spread the
instruction of sociology
 CRITICS
 E. D neglects the subjective interpretations that social actors may
have of a particular social phenomenon and the agency of
individuals in general to control social forces. He tends to
emphasize the objective nature social facts

 Durkheim's basic assumption about human nature—that people are

driven by their passion for gratification that can never be satisfied
—is not empirically substantiated in any of his work.

 Durkheim's understanding of the relationship between morality

and sociology has been critiqued as being conservative.

 Historical comparative methodology puts him at odds with

functionalists and positivists.. He suffered from criticism for being
MAX WEBER [1864-1920]
 AUTO BIOGRAPHY
 Max Weber was born in Erfurt, Germany, on April 21, 1864, from
a middle-class family.
 At age 18, Max Weber left home for a short time to attend the
University of Heidelberg.
 Weber left Heidelberg for military service in 1882 returned to take
courses at the University of Berlin in 1884 .
 Earned his Ph.D, started teaching at the University of Berlin in
1992
 1896 became professor of economics at Heidelberg.

 1904 and 1905, he published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism.
 Found the German Sociological Society in 1910.

 1920 at the time of his death, he published the “Economy and

Society” Max Weber was post positivism ,He wanted come with the
 WEBER: INTRO …
Weber’s works demonstrated the breadth and depth of his grasp of the
history and economics of modern Western societies … his
intellectual roots were twofold:

 German Historical School, &

 Marxist School of Economics

1. German Historical School: Wilhelm Windelband & Heinrich

Rickert ... The end of the 19th c. registered spectacular
developments in the natural sciences … this fact was frequently
attributed to the methodological soundness of the natural sciences
…
 WEBER: INTRO …
Methodological distinction between natural sciences and history began
to be emphasized and history was seen as largely speculative and
intuitive …

Historians and philosophers argued that the natural and social

phenomena are separate/distinct…

In the natural sciences, knowledge about causes/laws were to be found

in concrete reality… objective
 WEBER: INTRO …
In history, knowledge is about values and ethics – products of human
culture … the proper subject matters of the social sciences/history ,
norms of conduct, morality, purpose, motive and human values.

Regarding method, history and the natural sciences also differ…

natural sciences use methods that aim at identifying general laws
that explain events based on observation: deductive [nomothetic] …
history focuses on individual events in order to identify patterns:
inductive [ideography]
WEBER: INTRO …
Weber outlined the methodological foundations of the
social sciences:

 Search for laws is not possible in the social sciences;

 The subject matters of social and natural sciences have

different properties … these differences makes it
impossible to establish the natural science of society …
the subject matter of social sciences was made up of
individuals whose social action is based on values …
interpretive understanding of action is peculiar to social
sciences.
 VERSTEHEN
 Weber contended that understanding, or Verstehen, was the proper way
of studying social phenomena

 Verstehen strives to understand the meanings that human beings

attribute to their experiences, interactions, and actions.

 Derived from the interpretive practice known as hermeneutics

CONT’ED
 One common misconception about verstehen is that it is simply
the use of "intuition" by the researcher

 To him, verstehen involved doing systematic and rigorous

research rather than simply getting a "feeling" for a text or
social phenomenon

 social scientists, unlike natural scientists, must take into

account the meanings that actors attribute to their interactions
when considering causality
CONT’ED
 Weber construed verstehen as a methodical, systematic,
and rigorous form of inquiry that could be employed in
both macro- and micro-sociological analysis.

 Weber's formulation of causality stresses the great

variety of factors that may precipitate the emergence of
complex phenomena such as modern capitalism
 IDEAL TYPE

 A theoretical model constructed by means of a detailed

empirical study of a phenomenon

 Is an intellectual construct that a sociologist may use to study

historical realities by means of their similarities to, and
divergences from, the model.

 Next, the social scientist must look for the causes of the
deviations.
SOME TYPICAL REASONS FOR THESE
DIVERGENCES ARE:
 misinformation.

 Strategic errors,

 Logical fallacies

 Decisions made on the basis of emotion.

 Any irrationality in action

 Should be inductively and deductively derived

CONT’ED
 Ideal types also are not developed once and for all. Heuristic
devices / trial and error

 Not to mean that the concept being described is in any sense

the best of all possible worlds.
WEBER OFFERS SEVERAL VARIETIES OF IDEAL TYPES:

 Historical ideal types. These relate to

phenomena found in some particular historical
epoch
 General sociological ideal types. phenomena
that cut across a number of historical periods
and societies (for example, bureaucracy)
 Action ideal types action based on the
motivations of the actor
 Structural ideal types. These are forms taken
by the causes and consequences of social
 Values
 Values should be kept out of sociology

• Values and Teaching

 the need for teachers to control their personal values in the classroom
• Values and Research
 Facts and value should be separated, and this view could be
extended to the research world

 He often differentiated between existential knowledge of what is

and normative knowledge of what ought to be

 Values are to be restricted to the time before social research begins

 There is a gap between what Weber said and what he actually did.
 WEBER: INTRO …
 Overall, social science must develop a methodological tool that
encompasses both the general & individual aspects of historical
reality … through a procedure he referred to as the construction of
ideal types ….

II. Marxist School of Economics: The Contributions of Karl Marx …

Max Weber was also influenced greatly by Marx, especially in his
economic writings …
 WEBER: INTRO …
 Marx argued that theory could only be verified by its
ability to promote change and eliminate inequality…
Weber: the role of social theory is to search for
valid historical patterns and relationships, rather
than to change them;

 Weber thought Marx’s use of theoretical concepts has been

value-loaded and passionate… concepts in social sciences
should be neutral;
WEBER: INTRO …
 Weber saw Marx’s emphasis on the economic sphere as
too excessive and he stressed the role of the social and
cultural in history…
 Weber: in general terms, the major sphere of society are
equally dominant and important in society;

 For Weber, the location of power in society is not

exclusively related to ownership of means production as
it is for Marx … it is also related to status and party
affiliation.
 WEBER: THEMES &
PERSPECTIVES
1. Theory of Rationality

 Rationalization – the modern world has become dominated by

structures devoted to:
 Efficiency
 Calculability
 Predictability
 Technological Control
 It stress on the predominance of reason
 It uses calculation as strategy of thought and social action …

Individuals weigh up alternatives prior to action by evaluating means and

ends in order to increase the chance of success of a rationally chosen
objective; quantitative reasoning & rational guidance of social action in
WEBER: T. & P.
 It frees social action from all magical thought… it directs
thought and action to (a) adopt a practical orientation to
empirical reality… (b) widely use technical and procedural
reasoning as a way of controlling practical outcomes and
mastering of everyday life.

Rationalization: the process by which nature, society and

individual action are increasingly mastered by an orientation to
planning, technical procedures and rational action….
WEBER: T. & P.
Economic Rationalization [An Illustration]:

Weber distinguished between two types of acquisition as forms of

economic activity: forceful and peaceful… In forceful
acquisition, wealth is obtained by means of coercion… neither
efficient nor rational and ethical…

In peaceful acquisition, profit is pursued rationally through

peaceful and regulated exchange … action is adjusted to
calculations in terms of resources which creates a concern with
the efficacy of commercial activity …
WEBER: T. & P.
This concern developed into practical methods
which enabled economic actors to strike a
‘balance’ in exchange in place of earlier
techniques of calculation by means of estimates:
a generalized means of exchange in the form
money ….

This enabled precise forms of calculation in

economic transactions…
 Weber also argued that rationalization is a long-term historical
process that has transformed the modern world. Concerned with
regularities and patterns of action within civilizations.

 His typology of forms of rationality is central to this argument.

 Practical rationality: "every way of life that views and judges

worldly activity in relation to the individual's purely prag­matic
and egoistic interests“

Theoretical rationality involves a cognitive

effort to master reality through increasingly
abstract concepts rather than through action.
 CONT’ED
 Substantive rationality directly orders action into patterns
through clusters of values

 involves a choice of means to ends within the context of a

system of values

 One value system is no more (substantively) rational than

another.

 formal rationality, which involves means-ends calculation with

reference to "universally applied rules, laws, and regulations.“
CONT’ED
 He was most concerned with processes of formal
rationalization, especially as propelled by capitalism and
bureaucracy.

 Weber argued that rationalization has occurred in many

spheres, including the economy, law, religion, politics, the city,
and art
WEBER: T. & P.
2. Capitalism

The Protestant Ethic and General Economic History …

Weber’s contrast to Marx on the study of capitalism is
paramount:
 Marx’s study of capitalism was restricted to Western
societies (primarily England); Weber’s broader scope to
include Eastern societies, and drew on the comparative
study.
 Marx understood capitalism in terms of its underlying
productive forces; Weber understood capitalism as a
system of social action underlined by interconnections
among its spheres
 THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
 Weber's arguments regarding rationalization are
exemplified in his studies of religion and capitalism.

 To Weber, Calvinism as a rational, methodical system of

religious beliefs and practices was an important factor in
the emergence of modern capitalism in the Western world.

 The economic ethics of other religions, such as Hinduism

and Confucianism, inhibited the emergence of modern
capitalism in India and China.
WEBER: T. & P.
Factors in the Origin of Capitalism in the West …

 Economic Factors: the origin of capitalist economies was

made possible when landowners push peasants off the land
and began to convert holdings into sheep pastures… this
linked the agrarian economy of the country and the industry
of the town …

 Non–Economic Factors: non–economic factors play a bigger

role in Weber’s theory….
WEBER: T. & P.
Emergence of the System of Rationality… Rationality
initially took roots in commercial activities… book
keeping!!

Development of System of Law/Forms of Citizenship …

Commercial enterprises to flourish and be rational required
calculable and predictable administration of law which
was provided by the rational law …

Rise of the Rational State … a set of social institutions based

on rational law and expert officialdom … it is a type of
state which ensures equality before the law & liberty.
WEBER: T. & P.
Growth of the ‘Gain’ Spirit and a System of Ethics … Here,
Weber made a contrast of Western and Eastern societies
…

The ‘gain–spirit’ is based on the rationalization of the

conduct of everyday life in general and a rationalistic
economic ethics in particular… in the economic sector, it
refers to the system of conduct based on ethical norms
that govern commercial activity in terms of principles of
continuous saving and accumulation of capital as a duty
for the economic agents …
WEBER: T. & P.
3. Theory of Social Stratification

Weber’s theory of social stratification is based on various

social criteria: class, status, & party…

a. Weber’s Theory of Social Class … Marx: social class

in terms of the common relationship between a group
of individuals and means of production … there are
two classes in all class societies: those who own the
means of production, and those who do not own means
of production…
WEBER: T. & P.
Weber qualified Marx’s theory of social class…

 Market Situation…
 Class–Based Social Action… &

 Nature of Class Struggle

Social Class ≈ Market Situation … Weber wrote that one

way to define class is in terms of a common life–chance
that result from common market situation, derived from
the income obtained from selling property, skills or
services on the market …
WEBER: T. & P.
Social Class ≠ Class Interest … For Marx, individuals are
carriers of class interest … for Weber, the actions of
individuals are likely to vary according to their
occupation and the size of the group affected by the class
situation …

Social Class ≠ Class Struggle … for Weber, as people have

separate motives based on their specific structural
location, they are more likely to compete as autonomous
individuals in the market … besides, the separation of
management from ownership of capital undermined the
structural conditions supporting class struggle …
WEBER: T. & P.
b. Weber’s Theory of Status Group … For Weber, status refers
to every component of life chance that is determined by a
positive or negative social estimation of honor … hence,
status refers to individuals who share the same lifestyle,
habits of taste and the pursuit of social esteem … for Weber,
class and status as sources of social stratification: former is
related to the sphere of production and market and the later is
related to consumption ….

Status groups have the tendency to:

 Evaluate social worth and bestow honor / respect

WEBER: T. & P.
 Segregate themselves from other status groups,
 Uphold patterns of consumption and canon of taste &

 Monopolize status privileges

c. Weber’s Theory of Political Parties …

political parties are restricted to the realm of political
power and political order … the action of parties is
oriented towards the acquisition of power and the
influencing of the actions of others for political
purpose …
WEBER: T. & P.
4. Weber’s Methodological Works: Ideal-Type

Weber’s ideal–type is formed by selecting out general

concepts common to a phenomenon … it’s designed to
capture features of empirical reality by arriving at
analytical accentuation of certain aspects of the social
historical reality ….

It cannot be used to describe concrete historical reality …

the goal of an ideal type is to frame out the empirical
characteristics of reality while at the same time retaining
the focus on historical individual ….
 WEBER: T. & P.
Theory of Social Action [An Illustration] … For Weber, sociology must
concern itself with the comprehensive understanding and
interpretation of social action in an attempt to identify its course and
effects …
Weber, an action is social to the extent the actor attaches subjective
meaning to it and takes account of the behavior of others …. Based on
their degree of rationality and meaningfulness, there are four types of
action:
 Traditional Action … actor reacts automatically to habitual stimuli
which guide behavior … it is irrational … it lacks evaluation criteria
… hence it is marginally a social action …
WEBER: T. & P.
 Affectual Action … motivated by emotional tension for
love, revenge, hatred, etc … it is not oriented to a
specific goal or value but is an expression of an
emotional state of the actor … it is irrational and forgoes
inner evaluation … it is not social action ….

 Value–Rational Action … If action is based on a

straightforward orientation to an absolute value,
regardless of possible cost to oneself … there is
consideration of the efficacy of the means … it is one of
the two sociologically relevant social actions…
 WEBER: T. & P.

 Instrumental/Goal–Rational Action … ends, means and secondary

results are all rationally taken into account in action … it is social
action.

Theory of Legitimate Domination [An Illustration] … Weber

identified four ideal-types of legitimate domination

 Traditional domination: … customs /tradition …

 Charismatic domination: … affection and attraction …

 Rational–legal domination: … objective rules /regulations

WEBER: T. & P.
Theory of Bureaucracy [An Illustration] …. For Weber,
bureaucracy has a technical superiority over other forms
of social or work organization … it enables an
organization to discharge official business precisely with
as much speed as humanly possible … Such is enabled
based on the specific features of bureaucracy:

 Hierarchically organized based on the chain of

command,
 System of impersonal rules govern official and
interpersonal relationships,
WEBER: T. & P.
 The rights and duties of officials are explicitly
prescribed,
 Officials are hired on contract based salary system and
technical qualifications,
 There is a clear division of labor,

 Written documentation for future orientation and

decision making,
 Authority rests in the position rather than in the
individual,
 There is a clear separation of the private and the public
 CRITICS
 Some critics question the consistency and applicability of Weber's
method of verstehen.

 Others are puzzled by Weber's methodological individualism as it

is applied to macro-sociology.

 Failed to offer any alternatives to rationalization, capitalism, and

bureaucracy

 Many critics condemn Weber’s unfaltering pessimism about the

future of rationalization and bureaucracy
GEORG SIMMEL [1858-1918]
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY: A BRIEF

 Born in Berlin, He was micro- sociologist

 Wealthy family

 Popular in US, which is where his work was of great importance to the
birth of sociology
 His ideas weren’t welcomed by scholars in Germany

 Disliked his style of writing

 Simmel faced slow advancement in academic rank compared
to his great reputation as a speaker and a thinker because:
 He was of Jewish decent and was victimized by anti-Semitism [hostility
towards Jewish]
 His ideas attracted students and cultural elites but they were not
welcomed by senior scholars in Germany who favored heavy topics: the
book mentioned that they may have been jealous of Simmel…
AUTOBIOGRAPHY: A BRIEF

 Simmel thought that his work was misunderstood

and even went as far to say that it was his fate for
his work to be misunderstood
 His work mostly centered on the positive: a deeper insight
into the world and spirit
 Simmel was very active in cultural events in
Berlin; Cofounder of “German Society of
Sociology” with Weber and Teonnies
 Married to a woman named Gertrud who
published works herself on subjects such as
religion and sexuality
SOCIOLOGICAL INTRODUCTIONS
 Rejected “organic” theories of Comte and
Spencer

 Society is not an abstract creation

 Society is made of group interaction vs.

individual interaction
 Simmel tried to apply dialectical method,
but it is different from Marx.
 PRIMARY CONCERNS

 A micro sociologist / grounded symbolic interaction

 His approach often described as methodological
relationism- the principle that everything interacts in some
ways with everything else
 Sociology studies forms and types of social interaction

 Levels

1. Microscopic assumptions/ the psychological

components of social life

2. Sociological components of inter­personal relationships
3. Structure of, and changes in, the social and cultural
"spirit" of his times.
4. Metaphysical principles of life
 PROBLEM "AREAS" IN SOCIOLOGY
 “Pure" sociology- Psychological variables are
combined with forms of interactions
 Forms include subordination, superordination,
exchange, conflict, and sociability. Forms” can be
organizations, relationships, rules that impact and
govern the individuals of a society
 Types, such as "competitor" and "coquette," and
orientations to the world, such as "miser," "spendthrift,"
"stranger," and "adventurer."
 “General" - the social and cultural products of
humans
 Structure and history of societies and cultures.

 SIMMEL: INTRO …
Simmel’s sociology rejects both organicist theory of early sociologists
and the historical description of unique events in the tradition of
German Scholarship

Organicist view of social life stressed the fundamental continuity

between nature & society… methods of the natural sciences can be
used in the social sciences….

The school of historical school vigorously opposed the organicist view

of society

Simmel rejected both schools … he did not view society as a

thing/organism, nor as a convenient label to something that does not
SIMMEL: INTRO …
Sociology’s task: study sociation … the particular patterns
in which men associate & interact with one another … &
the forms these interactions take in different historical
periods & cultural settings

Sociology asks what happens to men & by what rules they

behave, not insofar as they unfold their individual
existences in their totalities, but insofar as they form
groups & are determined by their group existence
because of interaction …
SIMMEL: INTRO …
The positivist attempt of Comte to make sociology as a
master science of everything human is self-defeating;
science must study dimensions not a totality of a
phenomena.

Though all human behavior is behavior of individuals …

much of it can be explained in terms of one’s group
affiliation … & the constraints it imposes.

Though he considered the larger institutional structures a

legitimate field of sociological inquiry, he restricted his
study to ‘the interactions among the atoms of society’
SIMMEL: THEMES & PERSPECTIVES
1. Formal Sociology

Simmel’s sociology developed in reaction to German

idealist school that argued the impossibility of science of
society due to the uniqueness, novelty and irreversibility
of social and historical phenomenon …

Though historical events are unique, sociologists shall not

study the uniqueness of events but their underlying
uniformities – study the ways in which behaviors are
constrained due to one’s interactions with others in an
institutional setting …
 SIMMEL: T & P …

2. Social Types & Social Forms

 The characteristics of a social type are attributes of the social

structure …
 Simmel created “social types” which characterized different
individuals within a society
 Each type needs to be present in order for society to exist

 Examples of types include: “the stranger”, “the spendthrift”, “the

mediator”, “the adventurer”, “the renegade, and “the poor”

 Members of a social type may not maintain an integrated system of

interaction, but it is created by the collective attitude/expectations
which society as a whole adopts toward it … realized in interactive
relations …
SIMMEL: T & P …
 The Stranger [An Illustration]

The Stranger is a person with position within a particular

social group… this position is determined by the fact that he
does not belong to it from the beginning and that he may
leave again…

The Stranger has the following structural attributes: partial

involvement … insider & outsider… distant and near … no
prior or primordial attachments and/or commitments … etc
… due to this structural location, the Stranger is assigned
with peculiar roles in group life (a) confidant/intimat; and
(b) impartial evaluator or objective judge of matters…
SIMMEL: T & P …
 The Poor [An Illustration]

The Poor: social type created when society recognizes

poverty as a special status and assigns specific persons
requiring assistance to that category … it is not determined
by only the individual fate/conditions but also by the fact
that others attempt to correct this condition …

Upon accepting assistance, the poor become removed from

the expectations of their previous status and declassified
and their private trouble becomes a public issue … the
poor come to be evaluated by negative attributes…
SIMMEL: T & P …
3. Numbers in Social Life

Quantitative Aspects of Group Life: Simmel attempted to

identify the nature of relationship between group
process and structure, and the sheer number of the
participants … in order to do so he compared dyadic
and triadic groups …

In dyad:

 Each participant is confronted by only one other, not by a

collectivity… the group does not attain a supra–personal
life that creates among its members a sense of constraint…
SIMMEL: T & P …
 It depends on each of its elements – in its death
though not in its life … it requires the intense
participation and absorption of members in their
reciprocal relationship….
 It restricts the delegation of duties/responsibilities …
it makes each participant to be immediately/directly
responsible for collective action …

In triad, the apparently insignificant addition of one

brings major qualitative changes on the group
structure & quality of personal experience of
members
SIMMEL: T & P …
In a triad:

 An individual is confronted with the possibility of being

outvoted by a majority;
 We see in its simplest form whereby the group can
achieve dominance over its component members … it
provides a framework to constrain the individual
participants for collective purpose….

In its simplest form, the triad exhibits the sociological

drama that informs all social life: the dialectic of
freedom and constraint … of autonomy and
heteronomy …
SIMMEL: T & P …
Due to the addition of the third member, various group
processes become possible …

Simmel identified three of such processes:

 The Third member may play the role of a moderator

(Impartial judge);
 The Third member may play the role of an
opportunist (Opportunist);
 The Third member may play the role of an
propagator of conflict for one’s own advantage
(Divides and rule);
 SIMMEL: T & P …
Small Vs. Large Groups:

Small Groups:
 Members can interact directly with one another;

 Interaction among members tend to be intense … and

involvement in group life is greater;

 Members’ involvement in group life with the totality of

their personality (as whole human beings);
SIMMEL: T & P …
Large Groups:

 Interaction among members is mediated through

formal arrangements … these objective organs tend
to confront members with supra-personal power and
alien institution;
 In order to maintain themselves, large groups become
structurally differentiated with delegated tasks and
responsibilities;
 Members’ participation in group life tend to be
weaker … members tend to participate with only a
fragment of their personalities;
 SIMMEL: T & P …
4. Dialectical Method

Simmel's sociology is always informed by a dialectical

approach which emphasizes the dynamic
interconnectedness and conflict within the social units he
analyzed… he stressed the connections and the tensions
between the individual and society… individuals are
products of society and also links in the social process…

Social man is not partially social and partially individual …

his existence is shaped by a fundamental unity or synthesis
of two logically contradictory determinations … man is
both social link and being to himself ….
SIMMEL: T & P …
An entirely harmonious group cannot empirically
exist… it would not have life process… it would be
incapable of change and development … both conflict
and consensus are ingredients of social life …

He differentiated between social appearances and social

realities: conflict might have an appearance of being
wholly negative … but, it have latent positive aspects
… it could strengthen the existing relationship, or
establish new ones … it can be considered as a
creative, rather than a destructive force … conflict is
the very essence of social life … it is ineradicable.
 FASHION

 Illustrates his dialectical thinking

 fashion is a form of social relationship that allows those who wish to

conform to the demands of the group to do so

 On the other hand, fashion also provides the norm from which those
who wish to be individualistic can deviate.
 Fashion involves a historical process as well.

 Fashion is also dialectical in the sense that the success and spread of
any given fashion lead to its eventual failure,

 Unfashionable people engaging in an inverse form of imitation.

 SIMMEL: T & P …
5. Ambivalent View of Modern Culture

Modern history is a progressive liberation of the individual from

the bonds of excessive attachment and personal dependencies in
spite of the increasing domination of man by cultural products
of his own creation …

Cultural products assume a paradoxical nature: they are products

of humans but also attain an objective form constraining the
human actions, desires and needs …
SIMMEL: T & P …
After they are created, they become alienated from
their origin and purpose, develop their own logic of
development and needs (reification) …

Ambivalent view of progress: with progress comes

independence of the individual from bonds of
tradition and subjugation and perfectibility of man
… and with progress, the products of man attain their
own life which would threaten the very autonomy of
the creators (a cage of the future) …the perfection of
the objective culture will be achieved at the expense
of the deprivation of the individual …
 MORE-LIFE AND MORE-THAN-LIFE
 People possess a doubly transcendent capability

 First, because of their restless, creative capacities (more-life),

people are able to transcend (gobeyond,go above) themselves

 Second, this transcendent, creative ability makes it possible for

people to constantly produce sets of objects that transcend them.

 There is an inherent and inevitable contradiction between "more-

life" and "more-than-life"

 Social life "creates and sets free from itself something that is not
life but 'which has its own significance and follows its own law' "
SIMMEL: T & P …
6. Money Economy & Social Relations

The book Philosophy of Money is Simmel's contribution

to cultural sociology: the specification of the socio-
cultural implications of economic affairs … when
money economic become dominant, its features
become the images after which the society organizes
its affairs ….

For Simmel, money has the following features:

 It can be precisely divided and subdivided;
SIMMEL: T & P …
 It is an exact measurement of values … impersonal;
 It is subject to precise rules;

 It is rational; and

 It has become a generalized means of exchange … a

common denominator of values of commodities which
are qualitatively different.

In a society where money became a pervading link

between individuals, it shapes the wider social system
along its attributes of impersonality, calculation and
rationality …
SIMMEL: T & P …
It promotes rational calculation in human affairs based on
impersonal considerations related to a specific purpose at
hand … Such a process reduces the role for intimate
relations or aesthetics with which an individual has a
personal attachment …

Hence, for Simmel, money is more than just a generalized

means of exchange but represents the spirits of rationality,
impersonality and calculability …

Money is the embodiment of modernity and the system to

level qualitative differences.
EXCHANGE
 Exchange is the purest form of human interaction
 In all exchanges someone is giving up certain material or
value they have attained for something entirely different
 Value + Exchange = inseparable
 Value is determined by comparing it to an object that has
already been assessed with a value
 NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF THE MONEY ECONOMY

 Cynicism: every thing is reduced to a common denominator-

money. Produce the attitude that anything can be bought or sold in
the market.

 The increase in a blasé/superficial attitude: not worth getting

excited about things.

 Increasingly impersonal relations among people

 DISTANCE
 "The properties of forms and the meanings of things are a function
of the relative distance between individuals and other individuals
or things“ e.g The philosophy of money:
 the value of something is determined by its distance from the actor.

 It is not valuable if it is either too close and too easy to obtain or

too distant and too difficult to obtain.
Objects that are attainable, but only with great effort, are the most
valuable.
 money serves both to create distance from objects and to provide
the means to overcome it.
 The money value attached to objects in a modern economy places
them at a distance from us; we cannot obtain them without money
of our own
 SUPER-ORDINATION AND
SUBORDINATION

 The most important relationship that can exist is that of the

leader and the followers
 This relationship must be reciprocal
 Followers must be in a position to follow all rules set
forth by the leader
 Certain personal freedoms must always be afforded to
followers in order for the leader to be successful
 This relationship must be structured as a dyadic
affiliation, if a third member is introduced the structure is
immediately weakened
 SECRECY AND THE SECRET SOCIETY

 Secrecy, according to Simmel, is one of man’s greatest

achievements
 In order to form a relationship secrets must be shared amongst
members, but certain elements will always remain secret
 By exposing secrets to another, we place ourselves at risk of
betrayal
 Secret Society is a shared confidence in secrets communally
known
 As these societies increase in size greater awareness is placed
on hierarchy and rituals performed by members to show
allegiance
MASS CULTURE- “ METROPOLIS
AND MENTAL LIFE”
 Isn’t a concept but is reflected by his works
 Tension

1.Emotional Reserve- self- protected device to shield an

individual from urban life
 Maintain a certain emotional distance
2. Attachment to Personal Freedom- emotional indifference
individuals in a metropolitan area exhibit to one another
3. Extreme Individuality- metropolitan individual needs do
something drastic in order to attract social attention
 CRITICS

 Lack of systematic methodology or did not devised systemic

sociology on a par with Marx, Durkhiem or Weber

 Lack of focus, fragmentary character of his work

 Failure to show directions of change. Particularly, Marxists

criticize Simmel for not seeing a way out of the tragedy of culture
 CONTEMPORARY AND FUTURE RELEVANCE
 He wrote more than 200 articles and six books
that appears regularly on the reading list of sociology ,
 He influence the emergence of central concepts such as role,
interaction conflict and domination in the discipline of sociology
 The time has come to examine Simmel’s work – post modern
applications
 Macro- level Simmel paid little attention to social structure
 Showed society as a real entity, and not merely an abstraction.
 Forms do exist and are subject to systematic analysis
 Creation of social types are forms of interactions
 Superordinate/subordinate (employee/boss)
 Philosophy of money- economic system of exchange
Section Three: Contemporary
Sociological Perspectives
INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY
THEORIES
 The priod of contemporary cover from 1970’and 1980
INTRODUCTION
Classical sociological theory tried to explain the social in
terms of minimal consensus about values – developed
through socialization (… implying internalization &
social control…); reification of society: externality;
coercive; generality ….

The focus was on durable patterns & structures that

develop in social groups than the cultural content &
relations of social life … which became the
preoccupation of contemporary sociologists;
 INTRODUCTION
This preoccupation of social theory with the cultural is largely an
effect of the significant change in postmodern society with the
growth of cultural and symbolic consumption and their
production and reproduction;

Postmodern society has become a series of simulations whereby

everything is a representation of a representation of a
representation;

The explosion of the representational systems renders the notion

of the social obsolete;

There is little significant accumulation of theory within

traditions and that social theory is characterized by fashion &
fragmentation than continuous growth & accumulation …
 THE STRUCTURE OF CONTEMPORARY
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
Level of Analysis Macro Micro
SF SI
Conflict Phenomenology& RC
View of human Beings Predictable Creative
SF SI
Conflict & RC Phenomenology
Motivation for human Values Interests
social action
SF, SI & phenomenology Conflict and RC

Scientific Approach Deductive Inductive

SI, C and RC SI and phenomenology
Objective Explanation Description
SF, C and RC SI and Phenomenology
Theoretical Paradigm Image of Society
Functionalism (Macro A system of interrelated parts that is relatively stable
level) because of widespread agreement on what is morally
desirable; each part has particular function in society
as a whole. Societies are made up of specialized
structures (the family, religion, economy, politics,
education etc) and that each of these structures
performs a vital function in maintaining the whole.
Under normal conditions, they work together to
promote harmony and stability.
Social Conflict (Macro A system based on social inequality; each part of
level) society benefits some categories of people more than
others; social inequality leads to conflict which in
turn, leads to social change. Structure of society is
the result of competition for scarce resources. In
order to understand society it must be determined
who benefits from that pattern and how such persons
maintain their positions of power.
Social Action (Micro An ongoing process of social interaction in specific
level) settings based on symbolic communication;
individual perceptions of reality are variable and
changing. Everyday interaction is determined by the
way people interpret events and relationships.
Core Question
How is society integrated? What are the major parts of
society? How are these parts interrelated? What are the
consequences of each part for overall operation of
society?
How is society divided? What are the major patterns of
social inequality? How do some categories of people
try to protect their privileges? How do other categories
of people challenge the status quo?
How is society experienced? How do human beings
interact to create, maintain and change social patterns?
How do individuals try to shape the reality that others
perceive? How does individual behavior change from
one situation to another?
BASIC PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL
THEORY
What accounts for the fragmentation and incoherence
in social theory?

1. There is relatively little agreement as to what social

theory is or what it might achieve;
2. There is the persistence of classical dichotomies:
action vs. praxis; agency vs. structure; micro vs.
macro; individual vs. society;
3. There is the permanent and persistent conflict
between N. American social theory and European
social theory; and recently we have Latin
American sociology; Indian Sociology; Japanese
sociology;
MAJOR THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN
SOCIOLOGY
There are many prominent theoretical perspectives in sociology … with
their strengths and weaknesses:

Structural Functionalism: oldest in the family

In its original form, SF aims at explaining society or its units as collective-

adaptive means to meet human societal needs = evolutionary–
functionalism;

But it later developed to deal with the ways societies meet the social needs
= Structural Functionalism;

Hence, often referred to as structural functionalism because of its dual

focus on the structural forces that shape human behavior and the
 STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM
 Before the development of functionalism, social theory was
predominantly evolutionary resting on a combo of 2 aspects:
causality and selection – biological principles were adopted
in social and cultural studies

 “Through time, institutions or societies undergo evolutionary

selection in its goal of structural & functional adaptation”

 In1950s and 1960 Functionalism reigned as the dominant

theoretical perspective in sociology.
 SF [… CONT’D]
‘Early’ functionalists – e.g. Bronislaw Malinowski – assume that
most, if not all, social practices are functional and indispensable to
society;

And Modern SF draws primarily from the works of Emile Durkheim

… how societies maintain stability and internal cohesion and survive
through increasing adaptation;

As a whole, the most significant intellectual forerunners of

functionalism were Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile
Durkheim, And Max Weber.
SF [… CONT’D]
Social theory should delineate and understand the
functions of the elements of society … function is
the contributions made by an element to a larger
system of which it is a part towards its integration
and stability.

Radcliff-Brown: empirically founded … the focus of

SF was to understand society as a network of
statuses connected through social relations in role
expectations…. refused to take individuals as
theoretically significant but only as occupants of
social status.
SF [… CONT’D]
SF 3 elements:

1. Interrelatedness or interdependence of the system’s

parts….
2. The existence of a normal state of affairs … or a state
of equilibrium … made possible by value consensus;
and,
3. The homeostasis tendency of social system
SF [… CONT’D]
Inadequacies of early version of SF:

1. Inability to account for social change, for it focuses on social

order & equilibrium;
2. Failure to explain why some elements of society change a
function or how such changes occur;
3. The inadequacy of the scheme of biological analogy based on
ontological argument … there is no such a thing as social need
… society does not have needs as human beings …
4. Its tendency to be politically conservative, for it sees conflict and
change as harmful to society and individuals.
SF [… CONT’D]
New Trends in SF [During the 20th Century]:

SF became popularity among American sociologists in the

1940s and 50s … while European functionalists
originally focused on explaining the inner workings of
social order, American functionalists focused on
discovering the functions of human behavior and its
relations with the social structure.

Among the forerunners of SF in America was Talcott

Parsons
SF [… CONT’D]
For Parsons, society is a social system with 4 fundamental
functional imperatives:
 Adaptation [A]: the control and transformation of non-
social resources to meet the needs of the society &
members;
 Goal Attainment [G]: the mgt of concerted action by
the social units involved for collective purpose;
 Integration [I]: the adjustment of relations among the
units of the system, mgt of conflict, settle disputes to
maintain the system’s integrity;
 Latent-Pattern Maintenance [L]: the generation &
reproduction of long-term commitment to shared values
& identities.
 SOCIAL SYSTEM

 Parson’s described a system as a “complex unit of some kind with

boundaries, within which parts are connected, and within which
something takes place.
 The social system is an arrangement between parts and elements
that exist over time, even while some elements change.
 SOCIAL SYSTEM
 Parson’sgeneral assumptions:
Systems are made of order and the interdependence of
parts
The system, and all the sub-systems, strive for
equilibrium
Systems are generally static, or move in a deliberate
manner
A disruption in the normal flow of one subsystem can
cause a disturbance throughout the whole system.
Systems have boundaries, which may involve actual
physical space, or time and distance.
THE AGIL SCHEME AND ACTION
SYSTEMS
A Behavioral organism ( action G
Personality
Political

Economic

L I
Cultural social
Educational. Religion. Family
Legal
 SOCIAL ACTION THEORY
 Social Action Theory begins with a biological-
sociological conceptualization of the basic unit of
study as the “unit act”.
 An “act” involves the following:
An agent or actor
Must have an end or goal
Must be in a situation which differs from state of
affairs the action is oriented
There exists alternative meanings to the end
 SOCIAL ACTION THEORY
 An act is always a process in time.
 “End” implies a future reference or state that does
not exist yet.
 Actions consist of structures and processes by
which humans form meaningful intentions and
implement them.
 Social action is preformed by an actor either as an
individual or a group
SOCIAL ACTION THEORY
 Parsons theory had four steps:
Actors are motivated to action (education)
Actor must find the means to attain goal ($)
Actor must deal with hindering conditions
(crisis)
Actor must work within the social system
(rules)
 EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
 Parsons model of evolutionary theory:
Differentiation
 Many sub-systems
 Change in one affects many others

 New parts develop to take on those roles

Integration
 Inclusion
 Growing complexity demands larger supplies of people

 Mobilization and coordination are critical

Value Generalization
 Adaptation of value system
SF [… CONT’D]
The works of R. K. Merton represents a continuation
and/or modification of Parsonian SF: he identified 3
unsatisfactory postulates of SF:

 The functional unity or integration of a society;

 Universal functionalism – dysfunctional … manifest &
latent functions;
 Indispensability of social practices & processes – true for
the functional prerequisites; not necessarily true for the
particular social forms that meet those functions

He proceeded by asking “Functional for Whom?”

NEOFUNCTIONALISM
The 60s & 70s represented the decline of Parsonian SF;
some tried to appropriate strands of his contributions;
Neofunctionalism represents such an attempt …

It was able to partially answer to the critics of the 60s

… its main feature was its synthetic character….

NF built on the analyses of social systems as an

analytical( logical, reason) postulate of perfect
integration - distinguished from concrete social
systems – studied in terms of their tendencies rather
than fully-realized state.
 ROBERT MERTON
 Merton’s his best known theories and contributions
were:
Theories of Middle Range
 Roles sets, function, codification
Anomie Theory
 Condition of normalness
Manifest and Latent Functions
 Too much attention to intended and unintended consequences
Dysfunctions
 System disrupting consequences
NEO [… CONT’D]
In fact, Jeffrey Alexander saw Neofunctionalism as a
broad school rather than a specific method or system
capable of taking equilibrium as a reference-point rather
than reality … the ff central tendencies:

1. Multidimensionality … micro as well as macro

levels;
2. Introduce leftist tendencies and reject Parsons’
optimism about modernity;
3. Stress the implicit democratic thrust in SF analysis;
4. Incorporate a conflict orientation; and
5. Emphasize uncertainty & interactional creativity.
 CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
 It was more a kind of structural functionalism turned on its
head than a truly critical theory of society
 Is also rooted from Marxian theory and Simmel’s work on
social conflict
 In the 1950s and 1960s, it provided an alternative to structural
functionalism
 It laid the groundwork for theories more faithful to Marx’s
work
 Emphasize the social, political or material inequality of a
social group
 Critique the broad socio-political system

 Draw attention to power differentials

 THREE CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF
CONFLICT SOCIAL THEORY

A. Competition over scarce resources (money,

leisure, sexual partners, and so on) is at the
heart of all social relationships. Thus,
Competition [not consensus] is the main
feature of human relationship;
CONTD
B. Inequalities in power and reward are built into all social
structures. Thus, as a result of inequalities in power &
reward which are built into social structure … those who
benefit strive to see it maintained; no Socialist Utopia!

C. Change occurs due to conflict or clash between groups

representing competing interests [not adaptation] … change
is often abrupt & revolutionary [rather than evolutionary or
adaptive]. Hence, Conflict theory is better suited to study
and explain social change than SF
 COMPARISON B/N SF & CT
Dimensions Structural Functionalism Conflict Theory

Society in a state of moving equilibrium subjected to change

Focus orderliness of society Conflict and dissention

Elements Contribute to stability to change

Society held together by norms and values coercion /power of some

members by those at the top

That is why people argued that CT never succeeded in divorcing itself from its structural-
functional roots.
 THE WORK OF RALF DAHRENDORF
(1929-2009)

 Conflict theory as a reaction to structural functionalism is

best exemplified by the work of R. Dahrendorf
 Dahrendorf argued that society has two faces (conflict and
consensus).
 Consensus theorists should examine value integration in
society,
 Conflict theorists should examine conflicts of interest

 He recognized that society could not exist without both

conflict and consensus, which are prerequisites for each
other.
DAHRENDORF’S WORK ON CONFLICT
REVEALS TWO MAIN CONCERNS
1. In terms of theories of society, like most
conflict theorists, he emphasizes the primacy
of power or authority and as a result, the
inevitability of conflict and social change.

2. was also concerned with the conditions and

determinants of active or overt conflict.
 AUTHORITY:
 various positions within society have different amounts
of authority

 authority does not reside in individuals but in positions

 Dahrendorf was interested not only in the structure of

these positions but also in the conflict among them.

 Thestructural origin of such conflicts, he argued, must be

sought in the arrangement of social roles endowed
with expectations of domination or subjugation.
FOR DAHRENDORF IF AUTHORITY IS ATTACHED TO
POSITION,
 always implies both superordination and subordination

 People act according to the expectation of the position

 is not a generalized social phenomenon; those who are

subject to control, as well as permissible spheres of
control, are specified by society

 is legitimate, sanctions can be brought to bear against

those who do not comply

 is not a constant
 CONT’ED
 societyis composed of a number of units that he
called imperatively coordinated associations.

 anindividual can occupy a position of authority in

one and a subordinate position in another.

 two,and only two, conflict groups can be formed

within any association
 GROUPS, CONFLICT, AND CHANGE
 For Dahrendorf, the real agents of group conflict is the
existence many interest groups which arise from the
quasi group. i.e.

 Conflict group grow out of many interest groups and

interest group arise from quasi group

 Quasi group become interest groups when they are

mobilized into action and engage in conflict

 Interest
groups have a structure, a form of organization, a
program or goal, and a personnel of members.
 CONDITIONS TO ESTABLISH CONFLICT
GROUP
 technical conditions such as adequate personnel, political conditions
such as the overall political climate, and social conditions such as the
existence of communication links.

 The way people are recruited into the quasi group

 POWER-AUTHORITY, CONFLICT AND SOCIAL EXPLANATION

 Class Division as Power Division

 Dahrendorf argued that the distribution of power and authority is the
most crucial determinant of social structure

 he argues that conflict based on power and authority is an inherent

tendency in society

 He asks how power conflict should be conceptualized in modern more

complex societies
CONT’ED
 He step outside of the Marxist central conception and redefined
class conflict to be based on power and authority, not on
property as such.

 Basically, Dahrendorf follows the Weberian approach to define

power and authority.

 Power is the probability that one actor, within a social

relationship, will be in a position to carry out or impose his/her
own will despite resistance from the other party or actor in the
relationship.
CONT’ED
 Power is a personalized relation of force

 Authority is a different matter; it refers to a social power that is

attached to a social role or status

 It is a legitimate power which is defined and delimited with

boundaries either by social norms, traditions or legal codes. It
is backed by sanctions and rules of enforcement.
 CONT’ED
 According to Dahrendorf, it is the stable, recurrent patterns of
institutional or organizational authority which systematically gives
rise to social conflict in what Dahrendorf calls imperatively
coordinated associations.

 In other words, there can be no relations of authority and conflict

where there are no patterned relationships between individuals and
groups

 Accordingly, imperatively coordinated associations describes

groups and institutions which have authority structure such as
business firms, religious institutions, industrial enterprises,
government agencies, political parties, labor unions or family.
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH
DAHRENDORF’S CONFLICT THEORY
1. Potentially, there could be a very large number of
classes, interest groups and lines of conflict in a
particular society

2. several lines of conflict exist within a society

 It is realistic to conceive of authority and conflict as
complex in modern societies
 It leaves a serious question mark about social change
DAHRENDORF’S RESPONSE TO
THE PROBLEMS
 conflict might be latent, or mobilized or overt.

 Manifest and overt conflict only occurs between the two

parties, subordinates and those who occupy the power.
CONFLICT THEORY AND THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

 Education structures inequality in many ways.

1. wealthier families spend much more money on their
children’s school preparation
2. children from higher class families are more likely to
have a home environment that provides the intellectual
skills they need to do well in school.
3. School quality varies by neighborhood socioeconomic
status
4. employment requirements reflect the efforts of the
bourgeoisie
5. educational system teaches people to properly
subordinate
 MODES OF CONFLICT
 Warfare and revolutions: take place phases due to the
rocky collations among a variety of social classes

 Strikes: When workers feel they have been treated

unfairly, they go on strike to regain their right to power

 Domination: Different groups will struggle in conflict

over what they think is right, what the norms are, and their
ideologies
 THE MAJOR CRITICISMS OF
CONFLICT THEORY
 It has been attacked for ignoring order and stability

 Has also been criticized for being ideologically radical

 Suffers from many of the same inadequacies as structural

functionalism

 Has little to offer to our understanding of individual thought

and action.
Varieties of Neo-Marxian Theories
 AMBIGUITIES ON ECONOMIC DETERMINISM

o Although Marx did see the economic sector as preeminent, he has not
taken a deterministic position,

o Dialectics involves the continual feedback and mutual interaction

among the various sectors of society ( opposing determinism)

o Hence the criticisms on economic determinism began to fade in

importance
 HEGELIAN MARXISM
o One group of Marxists returned to the Hegelian roots of Marx’s theory
in search of a subjective orientation to complement the strength of the
early Marxist’s at the objective, material level

o Sought to restore the dialectic between the subjective and the objective
aspects of social life

o Their interest in subjective factors laid the basis for the later
development of critical theory
 GEORG LUKÀCS
o Emphasized the subjective side of Marxian theory

o Lukàcs major contribution to Marxian theory lies in his two major

ideas—reification and class consciousness

Reification
o Was not totally rejecting the work of the economic Marxists on

reification, but simply seeking to broaden and extend their ideas

o Commenced with the Marxian concept of commodities

 CONT’ED
o People in their interaction with nature in capitalist society
produce various products, or commodities

o However, people tend to lose sight of the fact that they

produce these commodities and give them their value

o Value comes to be seen as produced by a market that is

independent of the actors/ The fetishism of commodities/

o The fetishism of commodities was the basis for Lukàcs’s

concept of reification
 CONT’ED
o However, he noted that there is a crucial difference between
the fetishism of commodities and reification in the
extensiveness of the two concepts

o Whereas the former is restricted to the economic institution,

the later is applied by Lukàcs to all aspects of society—the
state, the law, and the economic sector

o People come to believe that social structures have a life of

their own, and, as a result, they do come to have an objective
character.
 CLASS AND FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS

o Class consciousness refers to the belief systems shared

by those who occupy the same class position within
society,

o In Lukàcs’s work, there is a clear link between objective

economic position, class consciousness, and the real,
psychological thoughts of men about their lives

o Classes in capitalism generally do not have a clear sense

of their true class interests.
CONT’ED

o The ability to achieve class consciousness is peculiar

to capitalist societies,

o In pre-capitalist societies, a variety of factors

prevented the development of class
consciousness. For one thing, the state,
independent of the economy, affected social
strata; for another, status (prestige)
consciousness tended to mask class (economic)
consciousness
CONT’ED
o The structural position of the proletariat within
capitalism gives it the unique ability to achieve class
consciousness.

o Lukàcs refused to see the proletariat as simply driven

by external forces but viewed it instead as an active
creator of its own fate

o When the struggle reaches this point, the proletariat is

capable of the action that can overthrow the capitalist
system
 ANTONIO GRAMSCI: HEGEMONY

o Played a key role in the transition from economic determinism to more

reflexive modern Marxian propositions

o Critical of Marxists who are deterministic, fatalistic and mechanistic

o Thus, the masses had to act in order to bring about a social revolution

o But to act, the mass had to become conscious of their situation and
nature of the system in which they lived

o Although Gramsci recognized the importance of structural factors,

especially the economy, he did not believe that these structural factors
led the mass to revolt.
 CONT’ED

o The masses needed to develop a revolutionary ideology, but

they could not do so on their own\

o Gramsci operated with a rather elitist conception in which

ideas were generated by intellectuals and then extended to
the masses and put into practice by them

o The masses could not become self-conscious on their own;

they needed the help of social elites

o once the masses had been influenced by these ideas, they

would take the actions that lead to social revolution.
HEGEMONY
o Gramsci’s central concept, and one that reflects his
Hegelianism, is hegemony.

o According to Gramsci, the essential ingredient of the most

modern philosophy of praxis (the linking of thought and
action) is the historical-philosophical concept of hegemony.

o Hegemony is defined by Gramsci as cultural leadership

exercised by the ruling class.
CONT’ED
o In an analysis of capitalism, Gramsci wanted to know how
some intellectuals, working on behalf of the capitalists
achieved cultural leadership and the assent of the masses

The concept of hegemony help us:

1. to understand domination within capitalism
2. to orient Gramsci’s thoughts on revolution

So, through revolution, it is not enough to gain control of the

economy and the state apparatus; it is also necessary to gain
cultural leadership over the rest of society.
 CRITICAL THEORY
 Criticaltheory represents an examination and critique of modern
society & culture drawing from knowledge across the social
sciences & humanities.

 Ithas its roots in conflict theory: society is best understood as a

complex system based on competition and conflict… the
competition for resources are reflected in structural inequalities
in broader social systems & organizations.
CRITICAL [… CONT’D]
Critical Theory & the Legacy of Marxism:

Marxism reflects the dialectical manifestations

(ambiguities) of modernity: its emancipatory &
exploitative features.

Marxism … remains critical of and fights against

representations of modernity … but appreciate it as the
most revolutionary stage in history.

Critique (as is science) remained the central aspects of

Marxism inherited from Kant, Hegel, Young Hegelians
…
CRITICAL [… CONT’D]
Marxism aims to understand modern society based on
the application of dialectical method … historical
materialism …

In critical theory, the dialectical method developed

beyond Marxism’s critique of political economy …
the process of social formation needs to be studied
not only in narrow economic terms but also with the
functioning of the state and democratization.
CRITICAL [… CONT’D]
Critical theory is a philosophical reception of, reflection
on, and elaboration of Marx’s concept critique of
political economy in the context of the traumatic events
between 1914 & 1989.

Frankfurt School critical theorists:

Herbert Marcuse,
Theodor Adorno,
Max Horkheimer,
Walter Benjamin, and
Jürgen Habermas
 CRITICAL [… CONT’D]
Max Horkheimer: Critical theory is a social theory oriented toward
critiquing & changing society [and culture], in contrast to
traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it.

He wanted to distinguish it as a radical, emancipatory form

of Marxian theory, critiquing the model of science put forward
by logical positivism.

Basically, critical theory aims at:

 The totality of society in its historical specificity; and

 Improving understanding of society by integrating all the major social

sciences.
MAJOR CRITIQUES OF SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE
 Critical theory is composed largely of criticisms of various aspects of
social and intellectual life, but its ultimate goal is to reveal more
accurately the nature of society
1. Criticisms of Marxian Theory
 Critical theory takes as its starting point a critique of Marxian theories.

 The critical theorists are most disturbed by the economic determinists

—the mechanistic, or mechanical
 The critical theorists do not say that economic determinists were
wrong in focusing on the economic realm but that they should have
been concerned with other aspects of social life as well.
 The critical school seeks to rectify this imbalance by focusing its
attention on the cultural realm
 2. CRITICISMS OF POSITIVISM

 Critical theorists also focus on the philosophical underpinnings of

scientific inquiry, especially positivism
 Positivism is depicted as accepting the idea that a single scientific
method is applicable to all fields of study. It takes the physical
sciences as the standard of certainty and exactness for all disciplines.
 Positivism is opposed by the critical school on various grounds
 positivism tends to reify the social world and see it as a natural process.
 positivism loses sight of the actors reducing them to passive entities
determined by “natural forces.” It leads the actor and the social scientist to
passivity
 Positivism is assailed for being content to judge the adequacy of means
toward given ends and for not making a similar judgment about ends.
 positivism is inherently conservative, incapable of challenging the existing
system.
3. CRITICISMS OF SOCIOLOGY
 Sociology is attacked for its “scientism,” that is, for making the
scientific method an end in itself.
 In addition, sociology is accused of accepting the status quo. The
critical school maintains that sociology does not seriously criticize
society or seek to transcend the contemporary social structure.
 Sociology, the critical school contends, has surrendered its obligation
to help people oppressed by contemporary society.
 Members of this school are critical of sociologists’ focus on society as
a whole rather than on individuals in society; sociologists are accused
of ignoring the interaction of the individual and society.
 Although most sociological perspectives are not guilty of ignoring this
interaction, this view is a cornerstone of the critical school’s attacks on
sociology
 Because they ignore the individual, sociologists are seen as being
unable to say anything meaningful about political changes that could
lead to a “just and humane society”
 4. CRITIQUE OF MODERN SOCIETY
 Most of the critical school’s work is aimed at a critique of
modern society and a variety of its components
 Despite the seeming rationality of modern life, the critical
school views the modern world as rife with irrationality :
labeled as the “irrationality of rationality” or, more
specifically, the irrationality of formal rationality.
 It is irrational that the rational world is destructive of
individuals and their needs and abilities, that peace is
maintained through a constant threat of war, and that despite
the existence of sufficient means, people remain
impoverished, repressed, exploited, and unable to fulfill
themselves.
 5. CRITIQUE OF CULTURE
 The critical theorists level significant criticisms at what they call the
“culture industry”, the rationalized, bureaucratized structures (for
example, the television networks) that control modern culture
 The culture industry, producing what is conventionally called “mass
culture,” is defined as the “administered . . . Non-spontaneous,
reified, phony culture rather than the real thing”
 Two things worry the critical thinkers most about this industry.

 First, they are concerned about its falseness. They think of it as a

prepackaged set of ideas mass-produced and disseminated to the
masses by the media.
 Second, the critical theorists are disturbed by its pacifying,
repressive, and stupefying effect on people
CONTD
 The critical school is also interested in and critical of what it calls the
“knowledge industry,” which refers to entities concerned with
knowledge production (for example, universities and research
institutes) that have become autonomous structures in our society

 Their autonomy has allowed them to extend themselves beyond their

original mandate. They have become oppressive structures interested
in expanding their influence throughout society.
MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS OF CRITICAL SCHOOL
 Subjectivity: the great contribution of the critical school has been its
effort to reorient Marxian theory in a subjective direction. The school
made a strong contribution to our understanding of the subjective
elements of social life at both the individual and the cultural levels
[ e.g. focus on culture. knowledge, rationality and ideology]
 Dialectics: a focus on the social totality. “No partial aspect of social
life and no isolated phenomenon may be comprehended unless it is
related to the historical whole, to the social structure conceived as a
global entity- focus on economic analysis does not give us holistic
image
 LIMITATIONS OF CT
 Critical theory has been accused of being largely ahistorical
 Eccentricity and lack of institutional stability
 Generally has ignored the economy
 Inconsistency of central tenets.
 Emphasis on deconstruction rather than construction of a coherent
theoretical paradigm/model for a concerted political action. For this
reason, critical theory has demonstrated little to offer to sociological
theory
 Critical theorists are despair and hopelessness about the future. They
see the problems of the modern world not as specific to capitalism
but as endemic to a rationalized world. They see the future, in
Weberian terms, as an “iron cage” of increasingly rational structures
from which hope for escape lessens all the time.
 Critical theorists have tended to argue that the working class has
disappeared as a revolutionary force, a position decidedly in
MICRO-SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
 INTRODUCTION
 Coined by Herbert Blumer.
 is derived from American pragmatism
 emphasize on micro-scale social interaction
 The majority of interactionist research uses
qualitative research
 people act toward things based on the meaning
those things have for them; and, these meanings are
derived from social interaction and modified
through interaction and interpretation.
 Major Historical Roots

• The two most significant intellectual roots of Mead’s work in

particular, and of symbolic interactionism in general, are the
philosophy of pragmatism and psychological behaviorism.
Pragmatism and Symbolic Interaction
•

• There are four main tenets of pragmatism.

• First, true reality does not exist "out there" in the
real world; it "is actively created as we act in and
toward the world.
• Second, people remember and base their knowledge
of the world on what has been useful to them and
are likely to alter what no longer "works."
 CONT’ED
• Third, people define the social and physical
"objects" they encounter in the world according to
their use for them.
• Fourth, if we want to understand actors, we must
base that understanding on what people actually do.
• Three of these ideas are critical to symbolic
interactionism: (1) the focus on the interaction
between the actor and the world; (2) a view of both
the actor and the world as dynamic processes and
not static structures;
CONT’ED
 and (3) the actor's ability to interpret the social world. Thus, to
Mead and symbolic interactionists, consciousness is not
separated from action and interaction, but is an integral part of
both.
Social Philosophy (Behaviorism)


 Mead was a very important figure in 20th

century social philosophy.
 One of his most influential ideas was the emergence
of mind and self from the communication processes
between organisms, discussed in Mind, Self and
Society, also known as social behaviorism.
 CONT’ED
 Human activity is, in a pragmatic sense, the criterion
of truth, and through human activity meaning is
made.

 Jointactivity, including communicative activity, is

the means through which our sense of self is
constituted.

 The essence of Mead's social behaviorism is that

mind is not a substance located in some transcendent
realm, nor is it merely a series of events that takes
 CONT’ED
 This approach opposed traditional view of the mind
as separate from the body

 The emergence of mind is contingent upon

interaction between the human organism and its
social environment;

 it is through participation in the social act of

communication that the individual realizes their
potential for significantly symbolic behavior, that is,
thought.
 CONT’ED
 For
Mead, mind arises out of the social act of
communication.

 Histheory of “mind, self, and society” is, in effect,

a philosophy of the act from the standpoint of a
social process involving the interaction of many
individuals, just as his theory of knowledge and
value is a philosophy of the act from the standpoint
of the experiencing individual in interaction with
an environment.
 CONT’ED
 Action is very important to his social theory and,
according to Mead, actions also occur within a
communicative process. The initial phase of an
act constitutes a gesture.
 A gesture is a preparatory movement that enables
other individuals to become aware of the
intentions of the given organism.
 For communication to take place, each organism
must have knowledge of how the other individual
will respond to his own ongoing act.
 Here the gestures are significant symbols.
 THE MIND AS THE INDIVIDUAL IMPORTATION OF
THE SOCIAL PROCESS/ THE "I" AND THE "ME."
 The "Me" is the social self and the "I" is the
response to the "Me."

 In other words, the "I" is the response of an

individual to the attitudes of others, while the "me"
is the organized set of attitudes of others which an
individual assumes.

 The"I" is self as subject; the "me" is self as object.

The "I" is the knower; the "me" is the known.
CONT’ED
 The mind, or stream of thought, is the self-
reflective movements of the interaction
between the "I" and the "me".

 For Mead the thinking process is the

internalized dialogue between the "I" and the
"me".
 PLAY AND GAME AND THE GENERALIZED OTHER

 Mead theorized that human beings begin their

understanding of the social world through "play" and
"game".

 "Play" comes first in the child's development. The

child takes different roles he/she observes in "adult"
society, and plays them out to gain an understanding
of the different social roles.

 Asa result of such play, the child learns to become

both subject and object and begins to become able to
 CONT’ED
 At the game stage, a person develops a self in the full
sense of the term,
 The child must take the role of everyone else involved in
the game.
 these roles must have a definite relationship to one
another.
 organization begins and definite personalities start to
emerge
 Children begin to become able to function in organized
groups and most importantly, to determine what they will
do within a specific group.
 Mead calls this the child's first encounter with "the
generalized other"
CONT’ED
 "The generalized other" can be understood as
understanding the given activity and the actors
place within the activity from the perspective of
all the others engaged in the activity.
 HERBERT BLUMER’S SYMBOLIC INTERACTONISM:
BASIC PREMISES AND APPROACH

o Coined the term "symbolic interactionism,“

o Set out three basic premises of the perspective:

1. "Human beings act toward things on the basis of

the meanings they ascribe to those things";
2. "The meaning of such things is derived from the
social interaction that one has with others and the
society"; and,
3. "These meanings are handled in, and modified
through, an interpretative process
 CONT’ED

o Blumer, following Mead, claimed that people

interact with each other by interpret[ing] or
'defin[ing]' each other's actions instead of merely
reacting to each other's actions.
o Individuals’ 'response' is not made directly to the

actions of one another but instead is based on the

meaning which they attach to such actions.
o Thus, human interaction is mediated by the use of

symbols and signification, by interpretation, or by

ascertaining the meaning of one another's actions
(Blumer, 1962).
 ERVING GOFFMAN AS A SOCIOLOGIST

o Influenced by G. H. Mead and H. Blumer

o His greatest contribution to social theory is his

formulation of symbolic interaction as

dramaturgical perspective in his 1956 book The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
o The context we have to judge is not society at

large, but the specific context.

o Goffman suggests that life is a sort of theater, but

there is a wider context lying beyond the face-to-

face symbolic interaction.
 DRAMATURGY: THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY
LIFE

 He believed that when an individual comes in

contact with other people, that individual will
attempt to control or guide the impression that
others might make of him by changing or fixing
his or her setting, appearance and manner

 At the same time, the person that the individual is

interacting with is trying, in his own ways, to form
and obtain information about the individual.
 CONT’ED
o Goffman saw a connection between the kinds of acts that people put
on in their daily life and theatrical performances.

o In social interaction, like in theatrical performance, there is

a front region where the “actors” (individuals) are on stage
in front of the audiences.
o This is how the self emerges
o There is a back region or stage which can also be
considered as a hidden or private place where the
individual can be themselves and get rid of their role or
identity in society.
 CRITICISMS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

o The mainstream of symbolic interactionism has

too readily given up on conventional scientific
techniques.

o Many others have criticized the vagueness of

essential Meadian concepts such as mind, “Self”,
“I”, and the “Me”.

o Ignore large-scale social structures

THEORIES OF ACTION & PRAXIS
To sustain social life, members of society must be able to
act, interact and understand of what they do … but
what makes this an intellectual challenge is the
normative grounds and implications of human conduct.

Before 20th century: utilitarian philosophy was dominant

theoretical position …

“Actors behave so as to satisfy their wants and/or

minimize their loses or discomfort … there were
unintended consequences of these self-serving
conducts….” self-regard
 ETHNOMETHODLOGY
 Ethno = people; Method = method; ology = study
 The study of ordinary members of society in the everyday
situations in which they find themselves and the ways in which
they use commonsense knowledge, procedures, and considerations
to gain an understanding of, navigate in, and act on those situations
 Ethnomethodology’s interest is in how ordinary people make sense
of their social world
 People are viewed as rational, but they use “practical reasoning”,
not formal logic, in accomplishing their everyday lives.
 Garfinkel wanted ethnomethological researchers to focus on the
production and accountability of order, and especially on the
methods that individuals utilize to maintain order and normality.
 ETHNOMETHODLOGY
 Ordinary society reveals how individuals work hard to maintain
consistency, order, and meaning in their lives

 Garfinkel sought to understand the methods people use to make sense

of their world – emphasized language (verbal description) as the tool
in which this is done

 Ethnomethodology treats the objectivity of social facts as the

accomplishment of members –as a product of members’
methodological activities.
 ACCOUNTS AND ACCOUNTING
 Accounts – ways in which actors explain specific situations

 Accounts are social creations and constructs built from past

interactions

 In analyzing accounts, ethnomethodologists adopt a stance of

ethnomethodological indifference i.e. do not judge the nature/contents
of the accounts but analyze them in terms of usage in practical action

 Accounting is the process by which people offer accounts in order to

make sense of the world

 Ethnomethodologists devote a lot of attention to analyzing people’s

accounts, as well as to the ways in which accounts are offered and
accepted (or rejected) by others
 APPLYING ETHNOMETHOLDOGY
 Ethnomethodologists are interested in exploring the normal
situations of interactions to uncover taken-for-granted rules

 These could take place in casual, non-institutionalized settings such

as the home

 Usually include open-ended or in-depth interviews, participant

observation, videotaping, documentary, and ethnomethodological
experiments, often called breaching experiments
 STUDIES OF INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS

 Early ethnomethodological studies carried out by Garfinkel and

other associates took place in casual, non-institutionalized
settings like home

 Later, there was a move toward studying everyday practices in a

wide variety of institutional settings—courtrooms, medical
settings, and police departments

 The goal of such studies aimed at understanding of the way

people perform their official tasks and, in the process, constitute
the institution in which the tasks take place.
 CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
 Examines how conversation is organized/systematized
 A large part of communication is not what is said, but what
is not said
 Nonverbal communication is of extreme importance

 When is it appropriate to laugh/expression of amusement ?

Boo? Applaud?
 Everyone uses anticipatory knowledge gained from
previous interactions during verbal discourse
 Honest communication cannot exist until the undertones of
discourse are fully exposed
 BASIC WORKING PRINCIPLES OF
CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
 First, conversation analysis requires the collection and analysis
of highly detailed data on conversations
 This data includes not only words but also “the hesitations, cut-
offs, restarts, silences, breathing noises, throat clearings, etc…
 Second, a conversation must be presumed to be an orderly
accomplishment
 Third, interaction in general and conversation in particular have
stable, orderly properties that are the achievements of the actors
involved.
 Fourth, the fundamental framework of conversation is sequential
organization.
 Finally, the course of conversational interaction is managed on a
turn-by-turn or local basis.
 RELEVANCE
 The greatest contribution of ethnomethodology is on conversation
analysis - the description and explanation of everyday talk. It
reveals the many rules participants use and rely on while
interacting with others.

 Garfinkel’s Agnes study illustrates how gender identities are

socially produced and not biological

 All societies use degradation techniques to control behavior. It is

also true that nearly all social groups and organizations have such
disciplinary reviews in place to punish those stray from the
excepted norm.
 CRITICISMS
 Many contemporary sociologists believe that the scope of analysis
used in ethnomethodology is too narrow

 Questioned Garfinkel’s assertion that interaction and verbal accounts

are the same process, he believes that humans see, sense, and feel
much that they cannot communicate in words

 Despite his acknowledgement of an ‘enormous standardization’ in

social conduct, Garfinkel insisted on studying every practice
empirically with no means for conceptual generalization, which
precludes insights into recurrent forms of conduct.

 The way people construct meanings does not only depend on what is
happening in a local context but on their placement and experiences
in the wider world
 RATIONAL & EXCHANGE THEORIES

Rational Choice and Social Exchange Theories:

RC &SE theories are simplistic interpretation of Weber’s program

to appreciate social action as initiated based on the calculative
nature of actors ….

RC&SE theories attempt to understand individual actors as acting

[or interacting] in a way that is best for themselves, given their
objectives, resources & circumstances… as they understand
them.
 RATIONAL [… CONT’D]
Rational Choice Theory:

Roots of modern rational choice theory could be traced to the

Enlightenment tradition, utilitarian tradition [and/or classical
economics], Weber’s social action and Marx’s praxis

Basic Assumptions [at least three of them]:

 Methodological Individualism: Individuals ultimately take

actions … & individually-situated action causes macro social
outcomes….
 RATIONAL [… CONT’D]
 Optimality(‘ejig michu codition’) Individual & social actions
are optimally chosen across actor’s opportunities, i.e., with
greater chance of achievements….
 Self-regard: Individual & social actions are entirely concerned
with the actors/participant’s own welfare….
 Thus, actors are seen as being purposive, or as having
intentionality. They are also seen as having preferences (or
values, utilities).
 Of course, action is undertaken to achieve objectives that
are consistent with an actor’s preference hierarchy
 RATIONAL [… CONT’D]
A modal rational choice theory tries to link micro level
empirical events with certain institutional mechanisms
through 4 generic types of causal formulations:

 Macro (system) level relationships;

 Macro (system) level to micro (individual) level
relationship;
 Micro (individual) level relationship;

 Micro (individual) level to macro level relationship

 THEREFORE RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
 Explain social behavior via the aggregated actions of rational or
purposive actors

 The actors are rational in the sense that, given a set of values and
beliefs, they calculate the relative cost and benefit of alternative
actions and from these calculations make a choice that maximizes
their expected utility.

 It also assumes that the range of alternatives open to actors is

constrained by the environment or by institutions within which
they make their decisions.

 Actors also possess complete information about their values and

the various courses of action through which they can pursue them.
 RATIONAL [… CONT’D]
Limitations of Rational Choice Theory:

It gives preeminence to rational aspect of behavior and

economic orientations of actors to the neglect of normative
… affectual grounds for action.

Is the above inadequacy of RCT, reductionism or

determinism?
 EXCHANGE THEORY
Exchange Theory:
Exchange theory is rooted in Behaviorism & RCT.
Or Economics

1. Behaviorism:

Behavioral psychology is concerned with the relationship between

the effects of actor’s behavior on the environment & its impact on
the actor’s later behavior … operant conditioning – the learning
process by which behavior is modified by its consequence.
 EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
Of great interest to behaviorists are rewards (reinforcements)
and costs (punishments).

Rewards are defined by their abilities to strengthen/reinforce

behaviors while costs reduce the likelihood of the occurrence
of behavior

So, behaviorism, in general, and the idea of rewards and costs,

in particular, had a great impact on early exchange theory
EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
2. Rational Choice Theory:

The focus of rational choice theory is on actors. Actors are

seen as purposive, or as having intent at the center of
their activities.

In other words, actors have ends or goals towards which

their actions are directed. Actors have also preferences
(or values, interests).
 EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
Exchange Theory of George Homans:

George Homans developed an exchange theory of everyday behavior

grounded itself in the propositions of behavioral psychology.

The heart of this exchange theory lies in a set of fundamental

propositions. Homans was a psychological reductionist …

Although Homans made the case for psychological principles, he did

not think of individuals as isolated
 EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
He attempted to explain social behavior with psychology principles
(behavioral psychology).

Basic behaviorist propositions could explain all social interactions.

These propositions underline the importance of concepts such as
response generalization, stimulus discrimination, reward,
punishment, cost and profit to the understanding of everyday
behavior.
 EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
Major Propositions:

 The Success Proportion: For all actions taken by persons, the

more often a particular action of a person is rewarded, the more
likely the person is to perform that action.
 EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
 The Stimulus Proposition: If in the past the occurrence of a
particular stimulus, or set of stimuli, has been the occasion on
which a person’s action has been rewarded, then the more similar
the present stimuli are to the past ones, the more likely the person is
to perform the action, or some similar action.

 The Value Proposition: The more valuable to a person is the result

of his action, the more likely he is to perform that action.

 The Deprivation-Satiation Proposition: The more often in recent

past a person received a particular reward, the less valuable any
further unit of that rewards become for him.
EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
 The Aggression-Approval Proposition:

 Proposition A: When a person’s action does not receive the

reward he expected, or receives punishment he did not
expect, he will be angry; he becomes more likely to perform
aggressive behavior, and the result of such behavior becomes
more valuable to him.

 Proportion B: When a person’s action receives the rewards

he expected, especially a greater rewards than he expected,
or does not receive punishment he expected, he will be
pleased; he becomes more likely to perform approving
behavior; and the results of such behavior become more
valuable to him.
EXCHANGE [… CONT’D]
 The Rationality Proposition:
In choosing between alternative actions, a person will
choose that one for which, as perceived by him at the
time, the values (‘V’) of the result, multiplied by the
probability (‘P’) of getting the result, is the greater.

Action= VxP
 SOME PROBLEMS WITH SOCIAL
EXCHANGE THEORY

1. Explains human interaction to a purely

rational/economic process

2. Contextualizes relationships in a linear

structure

3. Essentially reductionist in approach

 STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism is a theoretical perspective that assume social
actions are determined by their social environment …

Structures are conceptualized in the absence of pure or perfect

observations of events and objects.

The history of structuralism within social theory began with the

works of Spencer (structural and functional differentiation) and
Durkheim (social facts).
 STRUCTURALISM [… CONT’D]
Structuralism developed further based on the works of Radcliff-
Brown; but taken up significantly by Claude Levi-Strauss

Structure isn’t synonymous with empirical structure of a particular

reality… it’s built based on certain universal and innate rules that
all societies share.

Structuralism is generative, and lacks individual determination …

hence capable of application across different cultural and historical
settings due to its capacity to allow exceptions to its rules.
 STRUCTURALISM [… CONT’D]
For most structuralists: the empirical structure of society and social
practices are surface manifestations of fundamental processes … he
was influenced by structural linguists, such as Saussure, who
suggested speech is but a surface manifestation of more
fundamental processes of language systems

For some like Roman Jacobson: “mental thought underlying language

occurs in terms of binary contrasts.”

Levi-Strauss: underlying mental reality of binary oppositions as

organized, or mediated, by a series of ‘innate codes’ or rules that
can be used to generate many different social forms which are its
individuated manifestations: language, art, myths, etc.
STRUCTURALISM [… CONT’D]
For sociologists, structuralism implies :

Observed phenomena can be analyzed as a series of

component units of specified type;
The units are related to each other in some specified way;
Relationships among units are connected in such a way
that a characteristic pattern becomes apparent, and this
pattern must be understood as a totality;
These patterns of relationships are relatively stable and
enduring overtime
INTEGRATIVE SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES :EXAMPLES
 Beginning in the 1980s, there was renewed interest in the
micro-macro linkage.

 Despite the early integrationist tendencies of the classical

theorists, much of 20th-century theory was either micro-
extremist or macro-extremist in its orientation

 There are two strands of work on micro-macro integration

1. The first involves attempting to integrate various micro and
macro theories, such as combining structural functionalism
and symbolic interactionism
2. The second involves creating theory that effectively
combines the two levels of analysis
 GEORGE RITZER INTEGRATIVE PARADIGM
 He attempted to construct an Integrated Sociological Paradigm built
upon two distinctions:
A. Between micro and macro levels, and
B. Between the objective and subjective dimensions

 These dimensions are not conceptualized / constructed as

dichotomies, but rather as continuums

 Ritzer stated that these dimensions

i. Cannot be analyzed separately,
ii. Rather dialectically related,
iii. With no particular dimension necessarily privileged over any
other
 The Microscopic - Macroscopic Continuum

World
Interaction Organizations Systems

Microscopic Macroscopic

Individual Groups Societies

thought
and
action
 The Objective - Subjective Continuum

Mixed types,
combining in varying
degrees objective and
subjective elements;
examples include
the state, family,
work world, religion.

Objective Subjective

Actors, action, Social construction

interaction, of reality, norms,
bureaucratic values, and so
structures, law, forth.
and so forth.
 Ritzer Integrative Sociological Theory

MACROSCOPIC

I. Macro-objective II. Macro-subjective

Examples: society, law, Examples: culture,

bureaucracy, architecture, norms, and values.
technology, and language.

OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE

III. Micro-objective IV. Micro-subjective

Examples: patterns of Examples: the various

behaviour, action, facets of the social
and interaction. construction of reality.

MICROSCOPIC
 JEFFREY ALEXANDER: MULTIDIMENSIONAL SOCIOLOGY

 He used an integrative approach that very much resembles

Ritzer.
 Rather than micro-macro, Alexander uses problems of
order, which can be either individual or collective.
 Rather than subjective-objective, Alexander uses problems
of action, which range from materialist (instrumental,
rational) to idealist (normative, affective).
 Unlike Ritzer, Alexander privileges the macro over the
micro. Alexander sees micro-level theory as unable to
adequately handle collective/ macro-level phenomena
 More specifically, Alexander's sympathies lay with
collective/normative-level-oriented theory. Only this form of
theory can sufficiently deal with macro-level phenomena
 ALEXANDER'S INTEGRATIVE MODEL

Order
Collective

material Norms
structures

Instrumentalist Normative
Action
Materialist Idealist

Rational action vulnerary

Agency

Individual
MICRO-TO-MACRO MODEL: JAMES COLEMAN
 He attempted to apply micro-level rational-choice theory to
macro-level phenomena
 Using Max Weber's (1864-1920) Protestant Ethic thesis,
Coleman built a model explicating his integrative model.
 To Coleman, these various levels of analysis were related
causally, and thus did not take into account feedback among
the various levels
 Overall his integrative approach was unsatisfactory as it
provides insufficient insight into macro-micro connection
 Allen Liska has tried to improve upon this model by giving
more attention to the macro-to-micro linkage and to
relationships among macro-level phenomena, though the
relationships are still causal.
MICRO FOUNDATIONS OF MACROSOCIOLOGY RANDALL COLLINS

 Collionsnamed his integrative approach radical

microsociology

 Itfocuses on interaction ritual chains, that, when linked

together, produce large scale, macro-level phenomena

 Hoping to centralize the role of human action and interaction

in theory, Collins rejects the idea that macro-level
phenomena can act and affect actors

 Instead an individual, engages in order for action to occur .

NORBERT ELIAS'S FIGURATIONAL
SOCIOLOGY
 Norbert Elias contributed significantly to an integrative sociology
 Elias developed the notion of figuration to avoid analytically
dichotomizing levels of analysis
 Figurations are social processes that interweave people in
relationships, creating interrelationships
 Figurations are not static, coercive macro-structures, but rather are
conceptualized as relatively fluid processes of inter-relationships
among individuals that create shifting relations of power and
interdependence.
 Elias makes relationships between people central, particularly
relations of interdependence, in contradistinction to individualistic and
atomistic approaches.
 EXAMPLE OF FIGURATIONS: THE HISTORY OF MANNERS

 Elias demonstrates his integrative approach in his best-known work,

The Civilizing Process, which has two volumes, The History of
Manners and Power and Civility.
 This work deals with the expansion of civility, or manners, across
society. More abstractly, it relates changes in the structure of society
to changes in the structure of behavior.
 The History of Manners deals primarily with the diffusion of
manners (micro), while Power and Civility deals primarily with the
changes in society that brought rise to the diffusion of manners
(macro).
 Central to Elias's work are the changing levels of interdependence
among people. This was the result of increases in differentiation in
society from competition.
 Increased differentiation leads to increased interdependence, which
in turn leads to an increase in consideration for other people.
 CONTD
 Such changes were diffused throughout society by the creation of
certain types of figurations.
 According to Elias, these figurations made it possible for a king to
emerge, and it was in the king's court, populated by nobles, from
which the habits and rules of the day emanated.
 Because nobles had long dependency chains, Elias believed they
needed to be particularly sensitive to others.
 The king's increasing power, particularly through taxation and the
monopolization of the means of violence, also encouraged sensitivity
among nobles.
 Thus the civilizing process is tied to the "reorganization of the social
fabric" through competition and interdependence.
 These macro level changes made possible a set of relationships that
produced wide-scale changes in micro-level patterns of behavior
throughout society, beginning in the king's court with his nobles
 AGENCY STRUCTURE PERSPECTIVES
 The agency-structure perspective is the European alternative to the
micro-macro perspective in America

 Agency generally refers to micro-level, individual human actors, but

it can also refer to collectivities of that act

 Structure usually refers to large-scale social structures, but it can also

refer to micro structures, such as those involved in human interaction
 ANTHONY GIDDENS: STRUCTURATION THEORY

Giddens’ Structuration theory attempts to transcend two conceptual

dualisms that troubled social theory:
 The division between the conscious subject and social collectivities
(subject vs. object dualism); and
 The division between agency (praxis) and collective forms of social
life (agency vs. structure dualism)
 Structure refers to factors that help determine our experiences
through the establishment of expected ways of behaving.
 In contrast, the concept of ‘agency’ reminds us that individuals do
not simply act out predetermined roles but ‘interpret’ those roles in
a way unique to them.
 STRUCTURATION CTD
Structuration theory begins with the observation that anything
that happens in social life is generated through enacted forms
of conduct

Giddens’ originality lie on his integration of praxis with social

systems and structural patterns … all locally situated
practices contribute to the production and reproduction of
systemic relations and structural patterns.
CTD…
The term system refers to patterns of relations in groups
… system reproduction generally proceeds through
enduring cycles of reproduced relations in which
recurrent practices constitute links of systems ….

The term structure refers to group’s substantive

properties … reproduction of structure is made
possible through the application of procedures in
social conduct or practice … structured practices.
STRUCTURED PRACTICES INVOLVE 4 ELEMENTS:

1. Procedural rules [how the practice is

performed];
2. Moral rules of appropriate enactment;
3. Material [allocative] resources; and
4. Resources of authority.

In performing structured practices, actors rarely

notice the structural elements of their conduct:
they are seen but unnoticed … through praxis,
social systems are reproduced.
STRUCTURATION CTD
Giddens theory of the acting subject postulates three
levels of subjectivity:

 Discursive consciousness … subjective theories of

action – concerning the level of reasoning and
existential meaning formation by the actor

 Practical consciousness … tacit awareness of

routine forms of conduct – concerning taken-for-
granted habitual practices.
[… CONT’D]
 Unconscious level of subjectivity … .actor’s primordial,
unconscious need for familiarity & practical mastery of
stable [structured] features of their social world
(security).

As a result, structured practices gets reproduced as the

alternative is anxiety-provoking anomie, due to lack of
sense of security.
[… CONT’D]
Limitation of Giddens’ Structuration Theory

He perceived that social change is brought forth

through the unconscious need for routine rather than
a search for more rational accommodation or
adjustment;

Hence, he conception of social change lacks

normative grounding within social praxis
 PIERRE BOURDIEU'S HABITUS AND FIELD
 Habitus is the mental structure through which people deal with the
social world. It is a set of internalized schemes through which the
world is perceived, understood, appreciated, and evaluated.
 A habitus is acquired as the result of the long-term occupation of a
position in the social world. The habitus operates as a structure,
 Bourdieu argues that the habitus both produces and is produced by the
social world
 People internalize external structures, and they externalize things they
have internalized through practices
 A field is a network of social relations among the objective positions
within it. It is not a set of interactions or intersubjective ties among
individuals.
 The field is a type of competitive marketplace in which economic,
cultural, social, and symbolic power are used.
JURGEN HABERMAS'S :COLONIZATION OF THE LIFE-WORLD
 The life-world is an internal perspective on society conceived from the
perspective of the acting subject
 The system involves an external perspective that views society from
the observer's perspective
 The system includes structures such as the family, the judiciary, the
state, and the economy. As these structures evolve, they become more
distanced from the life-world, progressively differentiated, and
increasingly complex
 But they also gain greater capacity to steer the life-world by exerting
external control over communicative action
 Habermas argues that the both the system and the life-world are
becoming increasingly rationalized. The rationalization of the life-
world involves growth in the rationality of communicative action.. The
rationalization of the system involves the coordination of activities by
monetarization and bureaucratization.
 AGENCY-STRUCTURE AND MICRO-MACRO LINKAGES: POINTS OF
DEPARTURE
 One of the key differences between micro-macro and agency-structure
theory is their respective images of the actor

 Micro-macro theory tends to have a behaviorist orientation, whereas

agency-structure theory places an emphasis on conscious, creative
actions of actors

 A second major difference is that micro-macro theory tends to depict

issues in static, hierarchical, and ahistorical terms, whereas agency-
structure theory is more firmly embedded in historical, dynamic
framework
TRANSITIONS FROM MODERNITY TO POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORIES

 Most classical sociologists were engaged in an analysis and critique of

modern society

 For Marx, modernity was defined by the capitalist economy

 To Weber, the defining problem of the modern world was the

expansion of formal rationality

 In Durkheim's view, organic solidarity and the weakening of the

collective consciousness defined modernity

 Simmel, while sometimes seen as a postmodernist, investigated

modernity in the city and in the money economy
 THE JUGGERNAUT OF MODERNITY: ANTHONY GIDDENS
 Anthony Giddens has described the modern world as a juggernaut,
that is, as an engine of enormous power which can be directed to some
extent, but which also threatens to run out of control.
 The juggernaut is a runaway world with great increases over prior
systems in the pace, scope, and profoundness of change
 Giddens defines modernity in terms of four basic institutions

A. Capitalism: characterized by commodity production, private

ownership of capital, wage labor, and a class system derived from
these characteristics
B .Industrialism : the use of inanimate power sources and machinery to
produce goods, that affects transportation, communication, and
everyday life
C. Surveillance : the supervision of the activities of subject populations
in the political sphere
D. Control of the means of violence by the state
 CTND
 Modernity is given dynamism by three processes:
1. Time and space distanciation : the tendency for modern
relationships to be increasingly distant
2. Disembedding : the lifting out of social relations from local
contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite
spans of time-space.
3. Reflexivity : constant reexamination of social practices of modern
society and reformations in the light of incoming information

 Giddens argues that the reflexivity of modernity extends to the core

of the self and becomes a reflexive project of identity formation
 THE RISK SOCIETY: ULRICH BECK
 According to Ulrich Beck, we no longer live in an industrial society;
rather we are moving toward a risk society
 Risk society is a form of reflexive modernity in which the central
issue is how risks can be prevented, minimized, or channeled
 The risks are being produced by the sources of wealth in modern
society
 Industry, for example, produces a wide range of hazardous
consequences that reach across time and space
 Beck also argues that science has become a protector of a global
contamination of people and nature
 He suggests that subgroups, such as large companies, are more likely
than the governments to lead the way when coping with risks
RITZER

 There are four dimensions of formal rationality

1. Efficiency: the search for the best means to the end

2. Predictability means a world of no surprise

3. Emphasize on quantity, usually large quantities, rather than quality

4. Reliance on non-human technology rather than human qualities

 Ritzer argues that the fast-food restaurant brings formal rationality
to new heights. The prevalence of McDonaldization indicates that
we still live in a modern world
 Ritzer also observed the rise of new means of consumption, such as
shopping malls and superstores, since the end of World War II
 He defined the means of consumption as entities that make it
possible for people to acquire goods and services and for the same
people to be controlled and exploited as consumers. The new means
of consumption are modern because they are highly rationalized
 MODERNITY AND THE HOLOCAUST: ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
 Bauman considers the Holocaust to be the paradigm of modern
bureaucratic rationality
 The perpetrators of the Holocaust employed rationality as one of
their major tools
 Bauman suggests that the Holocaust was the product of modernity,
not a result of a breakdown of modernity
 Without modernity and rationality, the Holocaust would be
unthinkable. Mass extermination required a highly rationalized and
bureaucratized operation
 Bauman suggests that bureaucracies, while not inherently cruel, are
likely to be used for inhuman purposes. There is continuity between
the rationality employed in the Holocaust and the rationalization of
the fast-food industry today
 Bauman believes that the conditions that created the Holocaust have
not really changed and that only strong morality and pluralistic
political forces can prevent a recurrence
MODERNITY'S UNFINISHED PROJECT: JURGEN HABERMAS

 Habermas believes that social systems have grown increasingly

complex, differentiated, integrated, and characterized by instrumental
reason
 At the same time, the life-world has witnessed increasing
differentiation and condensation, secularization, and the
institutionalization of norms of reflexivity and criticism
 A rational society would be one in which both the system and the
life-world were permitted to rationalize following their own logics.
 However, in the modern world, the system has come to dominate the
life-world
 Habermas thinks that solutions to many of the problems in the
modern world could be devised if the life-world had a better ability to
steer the system.
 Habermas is critical of the postmodernists for rejecting modernity.
 INFORMATIONALISM AND THE NETWORK SOCIETY
MANUEL CASTELLS

 Castells examines the emergence of a new society, culture,

and economy in the light of the revolution in information
technology
 This revolution has led to a fundamental restructuring of
the capitalist system
 Accompanying the rise of the new global information
economy is the emergence of a new organizational form
called the network enterprise, which is characterized by
flexible production, new management systems,
organizations based on a horizontal rather than a vertical
model, and the intertwining of large corporations in
strategic alliances.
 CONTD

 As a result, the nature of work is being transformed

 Castells asserts that the larger society is being reorganized into

networks that are capable of unlimited expansion and able to
innovate without disrupting the system

 Castells suggests that individuals and collectivities whose identities

are threatened by this new order actively oppose this new network
society

 Castells also believes that the rise of the network society means that
the state is losing power vis-à-vis global capital markets
 GLOBALIZATION AS AN INDICATOR OF MODERNITY: REFLECTIONS
FROM SEVERAL AUTHORS
 Douglas Kellner states that the key to understanding globalization is
theorizing it as, at once, a product of technological revolution and
the global restructuring of capital.
 Giddens emphasizes the role of the West and the United States in
globalization. He recognizes that globalization has both undermined
local cultures and served to revive them
 Beck defines globalism as the view that the world is dominated by
economics and that we are witnessing the emergence of the
hegemony of the capitalist world market and the neo-liberal ideology
that underpins it.
 Beck sees greater merit in the idea of globality, in which closed
spaces like nation-states are becoming increasingly illusory because
of the growing influence of transnational actors. Beck refers to the
rise of globality as a second modernity characterized by
denationalization
CONTD
 Bauman sees mobility as the most powerful aspect of globalization.
He argues that the winners in the "space war" are those who are
able to move freely around the globe. The losers not only lack
mobility but are also confined to territories denuded of meaning.
 Ritzer argues that there is an elective affinity between globalization
and nothing. He defines "nothing" as centrally conceived and
controlled forms devoid of most distinctive content. It is easier to
export empty forms throughout the globe than it is to export forms
that are loaded with content. We are witnessing the global
proliferation of generic, dehumanized, and disenchanted forms.
 Arjun Appadurai discusses global flows and the disjunctures
among them. He uses the suffix -scape to connote the idea that
these processes have fluid, irregular, variable shapes. For example,
ethnoscapes are mobile groups and individuals that play an
important role in shifting the world. He also describes
technoscapes, financescapes, mediascapes, and ideoscapes
 POST MODERN SOCIAL THEORIES

 Modernism: 1890s~about 1945

 Postmodernism: after WWII, after 1968
 Modern and postmodern are vague and have been
applied to different aspects.
 Modernism and postmodernism are usually used to
refer the technological advancements and new
modes of thinking. (Is a theory or not)
 “Modernist thinking is about search of an abstract
truth of life; postmodernist thinkers believe that
there is no universal truth, abstract or otherwise.”
Postmodernist believe the power from hyper-reality
and they get highly influenced by mass media.
 DEFINITIONS
 Postmodernity: refers to a historical epoch that generally is seen
as following the modern era,
 Postmodernism to cultural products (in art, movies, architecture,
and so on) that differ from modern cultural products
 Postmodern social theory to a way of thinking that is distinct from
modern social theory.

Thus, the postmodern encompasses a new historical epoch, new

cultural products, and a new type of theorizing about the social
world.
 THE INTERPLAY OF FOUR MAJOR
CHANGES:
1. An expansive stage in global capitalism

2. The weakening of centralized state power

3. The patterning of life by an increasingly powerful

and penetrative technology that controls
production and promotes consumerism

4. The development of liberationist social

movements
 SOME COMPARISONS
Modern:
Linear progress in history
Boundaries, social class, race
and gender
Formality, emphasis on
authoritarian perspectives
Scientific rationality, unified
theory of progress
Essentialism, seeking “real”
essences
Grand narrative
Prescription
Normative
Postmodern:
“Historicity”, historicization, socio-
cultural locatedness of moments in
history
Critical study of class, race, and
gender; uses other perspectives
Intertextuality, self-reflexivity,
montage, pastiche
Signs, image, reproductive social
order
Local accounts
Description
Generative, Geneaological,
Archaeological
 FEATURES OF POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORIES
 Postmodernism, is committed to modes of thinking and
representation which emphasize fragmentations,
discontinuities and incommensurable aspects of a given
object, from intellectual systems to architecture

 theboundaries between `high' and `low' culture tend to be

broken down, for example, motion pictures, jazz, and rock
music . According to many theorists, postmodernist cultural
movements, which often overlap with new political
tendencies and social movements in contemporary society,
are particularly associated with the increasing importance of
new class fractions, for example, ‘expressive professions’
within the service class
 CONTD

 Postmodernity (involves):
i. the end of an overarching belief in scientific rationality
and a unitary theory of progress,
ii. the replacement of empiricist theories of representation
and truth,
iii. increased emphasis on the importance of the unconscious,
on free-floating signs and images, and a plurality of
viewpoints …
iv. a shift from a `productive' to a ‘reproductive’ social order,
in which simulations and models -- and more generally,
signs -- increasingly constitute the world,
Overall, the distinction between the appearance and the ‘real’
is lost
 POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORIES
AND SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
 Inrejecting grand narratives, postmodernists are rejecting
most of what we usually think of as sociological theory.
However, they stood the test of time and discuss various
social issues.

 Push sociological theory in some new and unforeseen

directions

 Postmodernism is untestable, unsystematic, overly

abstract, relativistic, pessimistic, and without vision.
 LEVELS OF SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

In sociology, there are 4 successive levels of inquiry:

Micro-Sociology:
Involves the analysis of the person and personal interaction
… assumes a version of social psychology concerned
with the study of the person as oriented to the external,
social world… focuses on the study of small groups that
typically but not always involve face-to-face interaction
…

Involves human beings directly studying other human

beings…
 [
LEVELS … CONT’D]
Features of micro-sociological inquiry:
 The sociological mode of analysis is not different
at the micro-sociological level than it is at higher
levels of social organizations;
 Regularities of behavior cannot be understood or
explained without reference to the sociological
dimension; and
 The psychological, inter-subjective, and
institutional levels must incorporate affective and
other non-rational ingredients.
 [
LEVELS … CONT’D]
Meso-Sociology:
Middle/intermediate … referring to sub-structural
phenomena such as formal groups, organizations, social
movements, and some aspects of institutions which lie
between interacting individuals & larger societal
structures…

Meritorious, for meso-level structures constitute the

primary basis for organizing interactions and affective
linkages of individuals’ daily lives … individuals
connect with larger society via these intermediate
associations … and they are more real.
 [
LEVELS … CONT’D]
Macro-Sociology:
Societal … focuses on broader features of society &
examine large scale social forces & structures…

Takes a version of the nation-state as the framing context

for their intellectual enterprises …

Currently, it has been questioned both as an empirical

reality and as a core organizing construct in the social
sciences [diversity, differentiation and integration]….
 [
LEVELS … CONT’D]
Global-Sociology:
Multi-societal [or International] sociology… focuses on the
structures & forces that govern the global community & the
relations among nations… the least developed area of sociology.

 Issues???
Specialization,
differentiation &
interdependence;
Internationalization of social problems;
Dynamics of international stratification;
Globalization of culture; and
Development of international community.
Section Four: Recent Developments
in sociological theories
SYNOPSIS OF THE FEATURES OF THEORIES
 There are several theoretical approaches in sociology
 The classical theories associated with individuals : Comte, Spencer,
Durkheim, Weber, Marx, etc
 Schools of though developed through contributions of individuals: SF, C,
RC, SI, EM,
 Combinations and mixtures of these former approaches: common during
1960 though 1980s,
 More recently, influenced by variety of global developments: feminism,
postmodernism, cultural studies, ethnic and multicultural approaches,
queer theory, with emerging subject areas like technology, science,
sexuality and media

Each of these contributes to the totalities of explaining and understanding a

society and social phenomena
 SAMPLE THEMTAIC ISSUE

 Patriarchal structures , inequalities , feminism

 Race, ethnicity, minorities,
 Identity, recognition, differences , community
 Oppression, class structures,
 Individual and society, agency – structure
 Globalization, imperialism, world systems,
development , change , economy, culture
 New technologies, communications
 Rationality, Mcdonaldization
 Society , nature, ecology, environment
 APPROACHES/STRATEGIES
 Conflict, critical
 Consensus and order

 Historical and institutional

 Micro sociology

 Macro sociology

 Feminist

 Postmodern

 Cultural

 Quantitative and qualitative[ pragmatism]

Sociologists need to move forward and backward to observe and

theorize about the social changes and developments in the society
 TRENDS IN RECENT SOCIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
1. Construction of general tools for use in empirical
analysis
 Building analytical tools, concepts/explanatory
propositions , interpretative guidelines – applicable in the
empirical analysis/research

 The attempt of this approach was to retreat from abstract

epistemological and ontological researches

 HE, this developments are threatened by being abstract,

distanced from substantive issues, and showed a tendency
towards self-referential
TRENDS ….
2. Synthesis
of multiple theoretical approaches
 Comprehensive synthesis of divergent theoretical
perspectives

 Search for all unifying theory, and integrative

approaches

 Although unified on synthesis programs , but

varies much on substantive issues / also
terminological overlaps e.g. Agency /structure,
Ma/Mi
 TRENDS …
3. Refinement of Theoretical Research Programs
Attempts to uncover the macro-theories more in
oversimplified manners
4. Dialogue among the theories
5. Reconstructions of current theoretical approaches

6. Engagement with the past theoretical ideas

7. Diagnosis of contemporary social conditions

8. Dissolution of contemporary sociological theories

 PROSPECTS FOR SOCIAL THEORY

 Primarily, there is an assumption that sociology as a

discipline aims at social critique [not criticism] based on
knowledge generated through critical understanding

 Hence, the gap which has been central to conventional

positivism between facts and values has to be bridged;
 PROSPECTS [… CONT’D]
The experience of the rich tradition of symbolic interaction and
rational-choice theories indicate that social theory thrive or
survives best when it is engaged with empirical research and/or
public issues

Along this line, in the 20th century, social theory typically

flourished in some practical engagements with specific policy
issues or political and social problems

1. The nature of poverty;

2. The nature of citizenship and human rights in societies

undergoing profound changes under the forces of globalization
 PROSPECTS [… CONT’D]
3. The questions related to environmentalism and pollution …
the development of risk society with its features of de-
traditionalization, globalization and amplification of risks.

In general, social theory in the 21st centuries would thrive to the

extent that it addresses the major moral issues which revolve
around technology, the environment/climate and human
body … hence the sociology of science, environmental
sociology, the sociology of the body
 PROSPECTS [… CONT’D]
Whether social theory can make a contribution to the public
domain through moral and social analysis will depend
ultimately on a number of material social forces

(a) Continuity of the academia

(b) Possibility of the intellectual as a social role
(c) Nature of publishing &
(d) Role of the state in supporting academic activity
 Section Five: Linkages of the
Sociological Theories to Policy
contexts

The Pragmatic Reflections in Ethiopia

 WHAT IS SOCIAL POLICY?
 A policy is a plan of action adopted or perceived by
- an individual,
- government,
- political party,
- organizations etc.

 Policies are guidelines/frameworks that facilitate a decision

making process by government organs

 Social policy: “A collective strategy that prevents

and addresses social problems”
 SOCIAL POLICIES INVOLVE

 Guidelines that support a decision making process

 Methods of explaining the people’s action
 Boundaries that define the relationships and obligations of
government to citizens
 Processes that produce programs, services or interventions
 Response to societal needs and political pressures
 Corrections of inequalities to improve the conditions of
disadvantaged people
POLICIES IN THEIR VARIOUS MODES OF
EXISTENCE
 Regulations
 Laws

 Decrees

 Proclamations

 Executive orders

 Court decisions

 Implementation plans

 National plans

 Amendments to laws and regulations

 Local plans

 Budgets

Sociological Theories and the underlying theories influence all

these modes of policy existences
 IDEOLOGIES UNDERLINING THE POLICIES
 The political ideology of the government determines the basis of its
public policy directives.

Some of the ideologies that influenced governments’ ideology were:

Liberalism
 liberalism opts for anarchistic support for absolute freedom of
individuals and “zero” government intervention
 liberalism attaches a paramount importance to the individual’s
rights
 liberal state is the state in which the individual has strong objection
to, and substantial right against, the interference of state
IDEOLOGIES UNDERLINING THE POLICIES
 In liberalism political ideology the central values and principles are
liberty and freedom of individuals. Moreover, equality of
opportunities.

Conservatism
 Promoting the autonomy of the individuals have been strongly
represented by conservative political groupings

 Privatization of state assets is a major plank of neo-conservative

policy

Socialism
 three major values in French Revolution that stands at the heart of
socialism are liberty, equality and fraternity
 IDEOLOGIES UNDERPINNING POLICIES
 The political ideology of socialism believes that
 Communal and mutual life; Less individual competition; Equality of
utilization;
 Planned and command system of economy; Government role in the life of
citizens is high (high government intervention);
 Inequality is injustice, even though no absolute equality; Uniformity is
encouraged; Interaction is based on collectivism; Distribution of resource is
undertaken by government; and Market competition imperfect

Social democracy
associated with industrial development and the process of class alliances, class
representation, and their impacts on industrial development in capitalist
states.
 IDEOLOGIES UNDERLINING THE POLICIES
Communism
 A community’s asset are held in common ownership rather than in
(an unequal distribution of ) private property
Fascism
o Fascist doctrines are based on the differentiation of human beings

based on some social and physical characteristics such as ethnicity,

religion, skin color, mode of living and their bodily state of being,
such as health
 the central values and principles in fascism are:
 Discrimination based on differences: race, religion, ethnicity;
 Ethnic cleansing;
 Serving only certain group;
 Never tolerate any difference; and
 Dominance of certain group over others even cleansing
PRINCIPLES AND VALUES OF SOCIAL POLICY
Solidarity
 A firm and persistent determination to commit oneself to the
common good
 Solidarity can be difficult to distinguish from 'altruism‘

 central problem of solidarity is that it is often exclusive - confined

to a special group.
Justice
 Justice is a philosophical and political concept referring to “fair
treatment” of individuals or groups in wider social, economic and
legal affairs
 the concept of ”justice” for governments pertaining to different
political ideology revolves around defining “the proper role of
governments”.
 CONTD
 For some, welfare policy and programs are, regarded as unfair
system
Rights
 Right is a legal and political concept referring entitlements

 Rights to welfare can be general (applying to everyone) or

particular (applying only to specific people
Freedom
 Freedom is enviably related to political ideologies

 A person must be free from restraint, to do something.

 Freedom involves three major components: psychological, negative

freedom and positive freedom.
 REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRACY
 It thinks of a govt. that works for the benefit of a class (the
majority)
 Revolutionary democracy stands for the democracy of the
oppressed class
 In the Ethiopian case RD considers both class and ethnicity

 Hence, in the Ethiopian context RD stands for the members of the

society such as farmers, proletarians, oppressed nations and
nationalities, women, the lower investor and revolutionary
intellectuals
 On the other hand, RD fights against higher bourgeois, oppressive
ethnic forces etc
 Hence, most Ethiopian social policies are guided with
revolutionary developmentalism
 PURPOSES OF POLICIES
 Stability or Change
 Privilege or Equal treatment

 Equality versus Inequality

 The individual or the environment? The Focus for change

 Uniformity or diversity
 SAMPLE EXAMPLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES &
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Comte:
 Cometian idea of positive science as the reconstructive and
adoptive tool in society

 This
shares much with policy advocacy and creation of
knowledge among the implementing actors

 Thus, it minimizes the gap between theory and policy

practice

 What are the ways in which the positive science of Comte

helps actors to advocate social policies???????
CONTD
Spencer:
 The principles of non-intervention : there are debates regarding the
involvement of the state in the welfare of the individuals:
1. Individual welfare ( support)
2. Ideologies that support welfare

 Laisser-faire principle, neo-liberal thinking and Spencarianism,

Argue for or against, this assumption???? Consider policies on social

policies on begging, drug addictions, alcoholics etc
CONTD
 Durkheim on moral education in a society suicide rates,
anomie, and the laws ( restitutive vs repressive laws).

 Weber on rationalization: assessments of the extent

which policies connect appropriate means with best
ends/ goals i.e. goals setting, strategies and achievements
of programs etc, cost implictaions
 FUNCTIONALISM: DIVERSE APPLICATIONS
 Sociological perspectives on health emphasize that it is
vital to understand the social in order to fully understand
health and illness
o Parsons’ Sick Role Theory explores the rights and
responsibilities of being sick so as to ensure the
functioning of society.
 Rights
 Time off to get better

 Excused responsibility for being sick

 Responsibilities

 Must comply with doctor

 Must do as much as possible to return to health

 Interdependence of parts/institutions and structural functions
with the coordination, latter integration of the policies and
sectorial levels

 Macro- focus of structural functionalism, and the visions/objectives

of the policies

 R.K Merton policies to control deviant behaviors in a community, -

furnishing institutional means- cultural goals
 FEMINISM
 Subordination of women in society

 Varieties of feminist theories and enforcement of gender policies and

packages of development in a society

 International agreements, constitution, laws and action platforms

 CONFLICT, NEO-MARXIAN AND CRITICAL
THEORIES
o Impositions on the haves and have not in the society. what are the
ways in which the subjugated, subordinated and least advantageous
should receive policy focus? Affirmative action?????

o Power, authority, and scarceness of other resources in policy contexts:

formations and implementations ?????
 GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL POLICY MAKING

 Therewas systemic denial and reorientation of the

nature and role of social policy by International
Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the 1980s and 1990s

 The dominance of a neo-liberal market

fundamentalist doctrine emphasizing deregulation,
liberalization and privatization of social and basic
services
 Influencing African social policies through
structural adjustments
BECK’S RISK SOCIETY AND SOCIAL
POLICY

 Warns on the importance of policies that dictate

environmental safety
LINKAGES OF SOCIOLOGICAL
THEORIES ON FAMILY AND
MARRIAGE
Implications
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
This theory examines the relationship between the family and
the larger society.
When functionalists study the family, they look at how the
parts work together to fulfill the functions or tasks
necessary for the family’s survival.
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Structural-functional theorists talk about
instrumental and expressive roles of the family.
 Instrumental roles are those that are carried out
traditionally by the husband—i.e., the breadwinner.
 Expressive roles are typically carried out by the mom
—things like nurturing the children.
 These kinds of roles provide functions for the family
and for society at large.
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
According to many functionalists, there are two kinds of
family functions:
 Manifest functions are recognized things that are supposed to
happen and are intended to organize family life.
 Latent functions are those things that happen by accident and
may not be immediately obvious.
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Structural-functional perspective also recognizes that the
family affects and is affected by other social institutions
that are interrelated to the family, such as school,
government, work, etc.
 THE CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
Conflict theory has been useful in identifying some of the
inequalities within and across families and promoting
structures and values that are less oppressive.
Conflict theory sees family problems as problems
stemming from the larger society rather than from
individual shortcomings.
It looks at structures in society and how those structures
support people in society unequally.
THE CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
Social Class and Power
 For conflict theorists, families perpetuate social
stratification. High-income families have greater
wealth and power that they can pass on to the next
generation.
 Conflict theorists see society not as cooperative, but
as a system of inequality in which different groups are
vying for resources.
 Conflict theory specifically brings to light the plight
of the poor in society.
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES
Feminist theories examine how gender roles—
expectations about how men and women should
behave—shape relations between the sexes in
institutions such as policies, the economy, religion,
education, and the family.
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES
At the core of feminist perspective is the issue of gender
inequality, both at home and in the workplace.
The emphasis for feminists is social change.
THE ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Ecological theory examines how a family influences and
is influenced by its environment.
The Ecological Perspective
This theory looks at how systems are
interrelated:
microsystem—inteconnected behaviors,
roles, and relationships that influence the
child’s daily life
mesosystem—relationships among
different settings
The Ecological Perspective
exosystem—settings or events that the
child does not experience directly but that
can affect development
macrosystem—the wider society and
culture that encompasses the other
systems
All four of these embedded systems
can help or hinder a child’s
development and a family’s
functioning.
THE FAMILY DEVELOPMENT
PERSPECTIVE
Family development theory examines changes
that families experience over their lifespans.
This is the only perspective that emerged out of a
specific interest in families and still focuses
exclusively on the family.
The family life cycle consists of transitions that a
family makes as it moves through a series of
stages and events.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTION PERSPECTIVE
Symbolic interaction theory looks at the everyday
behavior of individuals. These theorists examine
how our ideas, beliefs, and attitudes shape our daily
lives as well as those of our families.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTION PERSPECTIVE
According to symbolic interaction perspective,
each family member plays an important role and
plays more than one role in the family.
 For example, a man may be a husband, a provider, a father, a
brother etc…
 Roles require different behaviors both within and outside the
family, and people modify and adjust their roles as they
interact with other role players.
THE SOCIAL EXCHANGE PERSPECTIVE

The fundamental principle of social exchange theory is

that people seek, through their interactions with others,
to maximize their rewards and to minimize their costs.
When a relationship bears more costs than benefits for a
person, the person is more likely to end the relationship.
THE SOCIAL EXCHANGE PERSPECTIVE
We “exchange” many different kinds of
resources, including tangible and intangible
objects such as energy, money, material goods,
social status, etc…
Some of our cost-reward decisions are conscious
and some are not.
Especially when we decide on long-term
relationships like marriage, we try to “make
the best deal” as far as what our significant
other can provide.
FAMILY SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

Family systems theory views the family as a functioning

unit that solves problems, makes decisions, and achieves
collective goals.
FAMILY SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
Emphasis is on how the members interact within the family
system, how they communicate, how family patterns
evolve, and how individual personalities affect family
members.
Family systems theory analyzes how implicit or explicit
rules hold families together.
Evaluation and Assessments
 PAPER WORKS: RUBRICS
 Individual papers:
Article/ chapter of book review
Search and locate a sociological article or chapter of a book which
combines both theory and empirical aspects
Carry out an assessment of its ontological, epistemological and
methodological insights , with in 5-6 pages
 Outline

Title, general theoretical introduction and the author, ontological

assessment, epistemological assessment and methodological
assessments, your critiques, conclusions and final reflections,
references
 Just submitted and assessed
 PAPER WORK ….
Main paper work
 Select one of the theories in sociology [ classic and contemporary]
and produce a paper, between 15-20 pages

 Outline :Title, contents, introduction to the theory/ social thinker,

presentation of the core assumptions/ tenets of the theory or
contribution of the scholar, your critiques/analysis in relation with
its contemporary societal significance, conclusions and reflections,
references
 Presented and debated in the class

 Requires consultation of several books: original articles/works , and

opinion of other writers
 SUGGESTED TOPICS
 The theoretical construction of the self: Mead
 Feminism: Reviews of the theories of Gender Difference, Inequality
and Oppression in Society
 Comte’s Positivism and its Methodological Contribution to Social
Theories
 Middle Range Theories: Assessing Merton’s Contribution t the
Refinement of Structural Functionalism
 Social Facts and the Structural Analysis of Durkheim

 The individual Society Debate in Sociological Theories:

 Theories of Modernity: Global Cultural Flows : Appaduri and

Giddens
SUGGESTED TOPICS
 Structuration Theory: Giddens

 Capitalism, Class and Class Struggle: K. M

 Critical theory: the tradition of Jurgen H

 Modernity and Post-Modernism: Comparison of their Sociological

Contributions

 The Metaphor of Dramaturgy in Social Life: Goffman

 Social Change: Explaining Evolutions and Revolutions in Social

Theories
 GROUP WORK
 Consider a theory or its assumptions that holds relevance to a policy
of your own interest
 Assess the theoretical linkages or mismatches b/b the theory and the
policy
 Cary out the reviews of the theoretical assessments of the policy in
terms of its importance or the points of departures

Paper size : 10- 15 pages

Every member needs to contribute and should be revealed in some ways
Outline: title , content, Introduction to the theory and/ or policy,
assessments, sort of analysis and conclusions, followed by references