An introduction to structural-functionalism

The purpose and relevance of this chapter is twofold. First, it is a chapter that helps to make a clear distinction between ‘functionality’ and the form of ‘functionalism’ underpinning the policies of New Labour. Second, the chapter also aims to provide a focus that will enable the book to portray a working and detailed definition of the ‘functionalism’ utilised by New Labour. Through this definition, it will then be possible for the book to make a clear separation of policies that are functional (that is, those that are practical) from those that draw from functionalist trains of thought (in other words, policies premised upon a benign, teleological view of society and capitalism in particular). Both aspects are integral parts of the policy-making process employed by New Labour. Certainly it is true that all governments intend to introduce policies that are ‘designed’ to serve a function. It would be illogical and politically damning to do otherwise. Nonetheless, the benevolent impression of capitalism – so reminiscent of the functionalism popularised in the US from the 1930s on – can still be seen in much of New Labour’s policy direction.

To begin with, the main concentration of this chapter is upon what Richard Kilminster (1998) once described as a monopoly phase in British and American sociology. During the period 1945-65, he identified a “domination of the paradigm of structural functionalism deriving from Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton” (1998, p 154). It was the work of these two eminent sociologists that helped to establish a supposed synthesis of the works of Durkheim, Weber, Pareto and Freud that, despite its demise and apparent dismissal in the 1970s, still exerts an influence upon contemporary sociology and social policy. Most notably, it was the continuing work of Parsons that provided the initial platform for Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore (1967) to complete a short, highly influential sociological study of stratification upon which Merton (1968) was able to elaborate and expand. As we shall see in due course, the resultant social model produced has a particular relevance to this book in that it provides a framework of reference that easily relates to the theoretical underpinnings used to substantiate and justify the British welfare reforms of today.