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Chapter 6 - Contemporary Changes in the Processes of Social Differentiation: Toward an Analytical Version of the Theory
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- By Alfonso Pérez-Agote, Complutense University of Madrid
- Edited by Roland Robertson, John Simpson
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- Book:
- The Art and Science of Sociology
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 22 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 06 July 2016, pp 97-116
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Some sociologists apply the tools of historical sociology and genetics of concepts to attempt to strip away the universalistic and transhistorical nature of the notions and theories that were formed from the analysis of the historical processes of modernization affecting Western European societies. These concepts and theories can, therefore, be used as convenient instruments for examining any social reality, as they conserve their analytical powers while shedding their predictive nature.
Since Durkheim (1893) wrote his work on the division of social labor, sociology has held differentiation to be one of the underlying tenets of the theory of modernization. This theory has largely served as the skeleton for our discipline. The main aim of this chapter is to offer guidelines for analyzing certain changes in the realm of differentiation that are transforming contemporary Western European societies. I will first highlight some elements in the theory of differentiation that are relevant to this task. I will then identify some of the primary processes in the differentiation of spheres, institutions and symbolic systems that occurred during what is termed the “modernization process.” In the third and final section, I will seek to explain a number of contemporary changes in these differentiation processes.
Toward an Analytical Theory of Social Differentiation
According to Luhmann:
[A]fter the collapse of the utopian beliefs in the future that guided Comte, Marx, and Spencer […] classical sociology consolidated itself by means of a structural description of society. Differentiation was interpreted by Simmel and Durkheim and indirectly by Weber as a result of social development, and thus became a central theme of social theory […] henceforth the structural theme of differentiation determined the view of history. Yet the structure did not take the place of process, as misleading polemics often assume, nor did it produce a static point of view that ignores dynamics and history. Rather, the description of contemporary society as highly differentiated forms was the hinge that mediated past and future. (Luhmann 1990: 413)
Subsequently, with Parsons the theory of differentiation adopts a theoretical coding from sociology, and with it a certain risk of ossification. However, some sociologists used this theory to offer an interesting ideal description of the historical evolution of several social institutions and an empirical analysis of various social realities.