Chapter1: Introduction: Sociological Theory

NEOFUNCTIONALISM

Under the barrage of criticisms, structural functionalism declined in significance from the mid-1960s to the present day. However, by the mid 1980s, a major effort was undertaken to revive the theory under the heading "neofunctionalism." The term neofunctionalism was used to indicate continuity with structural functionalism but also to demonstrate that an effort was being made to extend structural functionalism and overcome its major difficulties. Jeffrey Alexander and Paul Colomy define neofunctionalism as "a self critical strand of functional theory that seeks to broaden functionalism's intellectual scope while retaining its theoretical core" ( 1985:11 ). Thus, it seems clear that Alexander and Colomy see structural functionalism as overly narrow and that their goal is the creation of a more synthetic theory, winch they prefer to label "neofunedonalism.''

It should be noted that while structural functionalism in general, and Talcott Parsons's theories in particular, did become extremist, there was a strong synthetic core in the theory from its beginnings. On the one hand, throughout his intellectual life parsons sought to integrate a wide range of theoretical inputs. On the other hand, he was interested in the interrelationship of the major domains of the social world, most notably the cultural, social, and personality systems. However, in the end, Parsons adopted a narrow structural-functionalist orientation and came to see the cultural system as determining the other systems. Thus, Parsons abandoned his synthetic orientation, and neofunctionalism can be viewed as an effort to recapture such an orientation.

Jeffrey C. Alexander :A Biographical Sketch

Jeffrey C. Alexander (1947-) Since my earliest days as an intellectual I have been preoccupied with the problems of social action and social order and with the possibilities of developing approaches to these problems that avoid the extremes of one-dimensional thought. I have always been convinced that tense dichotomies, while vital as ideological currents in a democratic society, can be overcome in the theoretical realm.

My theoretical concerns first took form during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I participated in the student protest movements as an undergraduate at Harvard College and as a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley. New Left Marxism represented a sophisticated effort to overcome the economism of vulgar Marxism, as it tried to reinsert the actor into history. Because it described how material structures are interpenetrated with culture, personality, and everyday life, New Left Marxism-which for better or worse we largely taught ourselves--provided my first important training in the path to theoretical synthesis which has marked my intellectual career.

In the early 1970s, I became dissatisfied with New Left Marxism, in part for political and empirical reasons. The New Left's turn toward sectarianism and violence frightened and depressed me, whereas the Watergate crisis demonstrated America's capacity for self-criticism. I decided that capitalist democratic societies provided opportunities for inclusion, pluralism, and reform that could not be envisioned even within the New Left version of Marxian thought.

Yet there were also more abstract theoretical reasons for leaving the Marxian approach to synthesis behind. As I more fully engaged classical and contemporary theory, I realized that this synthesis was achieved more by hyphenating psychoanalytic-Marxism, cultural-Marxism, phenomenologicaI-Marxism--than by opening up the central categories of action and order. In fact, the neo-Marxist categories of consciousness, action, community, and culture were black boxes. This recognition led me to the traditions which supplied the theoretical resources upon which New Left Marxism had drawn. I was fortunate in this graduate student effort to be guided by Robert Bellah and Nell Smelser, whose ideas about culture, social structure, and sociological theory made an indelible impression upon me and continue to be intellectual resources today.

In Theoretical Logic in Sociology (1982 -1983), I published the results of this effort.The idea for this multivolume work began germinating in 1972, after an extraordinary encounter with Talcott Parsons's masterpiece, The Structure of Social Action, allowed me to see my problems with Marxism in a new way. Later, under the supervision of Bellah, Smelser, and Leo Lowenthal, I worked through classical and contemporary theory with this new framework in mind.

My ambition in Theoretical Logic was to show that Durkheim and Weber supplied extensive theories of the culture that Marx had neglected and that Weber actually developed the first real sociological synthesis. I concluded, however, that Durkheim ultimately moved in an idealistic direction and that Weber developed mechanistic view of modem society. suggested that Parsons's work should be seen as a masterly modem effort at synthesis rather than as theory in the functionalist mode. Yet Parsons, too, failed to pursue synthesis in a truly determined way, allowing his theory to become overly formal and normatively based.

In my work over the last decade I have tried to re-create the framework for synthesis which I take to be the unfulfilled promise of earlier work. In Twenty Lectures : Sociological Theory since World War ]] (1987), I argued that the divisions in post-Parsonsian sociology--between conflict and order theories, micro and macro approaches, structural and cultural views--were not fruitful. These groupings obscured basic social processes, like the continuing play of order and conflict and the dichotomized dimensions of society, that are always intertwined.

My response to this dead end has been to return to the original concerns of Parsons and to the earlier classics.

Yet, in trying to push theory into a new, "post-Parsonsian" phase, I have also tried to go beyond classical and modern theory. My encounters with the powerful group of phenomenologists in my home department at UCLA, particularly those with Harold Garfinkel, were an important stimulus. In "Action and its Environments" (1987), which I still regard as my most important piece of theoretical work, I laid out the framework for a new articulation of the micro-macro link.

I have also concentrated on developing a new cultural theory. An early reading of Clifford Geertz convinced me that traditional social-science approaches to culture are too limited. Since that time, my approach has been powerfully affected by semiotics, hermeneutics, and poststructuralist thought. Incorporating theories from outside of sociology, I have tried to theorize the manifold ways in which social structure is permeated by symbolic codes and meanings,

I believe this movement toward theoretical synthesis is being pushed forward by events in the world at large, In the postcommunist world, it seems important to develop models that help us understand our complex and inclusive, yet very fragile, democracies. I am presently at work on a theory of democracy that emphasizes the communal dimension which call "civil society". I am also publishing a collection of essays which I have written criticizing the growing relativism in the human studies. I would like to believe, despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary, that progress is possible not only in society but in sociology as well. It is only through a multidimensional and synthetic view of society that such progress can be achieved.

Jeffrey C. Alexander’s Point

Alexander (1985a: 10) has enumerated the problems associated with structural functionalism that neofuncfionalism needs to surmount, including "anti-individualism," "antagonism to change," "conservatism." "idealism," and an "antiempirical bias." Efforts were made to overcome these problems programmatically (Alexander, 1985a) and at more specific theoretical levels, for example Colomy's (1986; Alexander and Colomy, 1990b; Colomy and Rhoades, 1994) attempt to refine differentiation theory. Despite his enthusiasm for neofunctionalism, in file mid 1980s Alexander was forced to conclude that "neofunctionalism is a tendency rather than a developed theory"(1985a:16).

Although neofunctionalism may not be a developed theory, Alexander (1985a; see also Colomy, 1990b) has outlined some of its basic orientations. First, neofunctionalism operates with a descriptive model of society that sees society as composed of elements which, in interaction with one another, form a pattern. This pattern allows the system to be differentiated from its environment, parts of tile system are "symbiotically connected," and their interaction is not determined by some overarching force. Thus, neofunctionalism rejects any monocausal determinism and is open-ended and pluralistic.

Second, Alexander argues that neofunctionalism devotes roughly equal attention to action and order. It thus avoids the tendency of structural functionalism to focus almost exclusively on the macro-level sources of order in social structures and culture and to give little attention to more micro-level action patterns (Schwinn, 1998). Neofunctinnalism also purports to have a broad sense of action, including not only rational but also expressive action.

Third, neofunctionalism retains the structural-functional interest in integration, not as an accomplished fact but rather as a social possibility/It recognizes that deviance and social control are realities within social systems. There is concern for equilibrium within neofunctionalism, but it is broader than the structural-functional concern, encompassing both moving and partial equilibrium. There is a disinclination to see social systems as characterized by static equilibrium. Equilibrium, broadly defined, is seen as a reference point for functional analysis but not as descriptive of the lives of individuals in actual social systems.

Fourth, neofunctionalism accepts the traditional Parsonsian emphasis on personality, culture, and social system. In addition to being vital to social structure, the interpenetration of these systems also produces tension that is an ongoing source of both change and control.

Fifth, neofunctionalism focuses on social change in the processes of differentiation within the social, cultural, and personality systems. Thus, change is not productive of conformity and harmony but rather "individuation and institutional strains" (Alexander,1985a:10).

Finally, Alexander argues that neofunctionalism "implies the commitment to the independence of conceptualization and theorizing from other levels of sociological analysis" (1985a:10).

Alexander and Colomy (1990a) staked out a very ambitious claim for neofunetionalism. They did not see neofunctionalism as, in their terms, a mere modest "elaboration," or "revision," of structural functionalism but rather as a much more dramatic "reconstruction" of it in which differences with the founder (Parsons) are clearly acknowledged and explicit openings are made to other theorists and theories. Efforts were made to integrate into neofunctionalism insights from the masters, such as Marx's work on material structures and Durkheim's on symbolism. In an attempt to overcome the idealist bias of Parsonsian structural functionalism, especially its emphasis on macro-subjective phenomena such as culture, more materialist approaches were encouraged. The structural-functional tendency to emphasize order was countered by a call for rapprochement with theories of social change. Most important, to compensate for the macro-level biases of traditional structural functionalism, efforts were made to integrate ideas from exchange theory, symbolic interactionism, pragmatism, phenomenology, and so on. In other words, Alexander and Colomy endeavored to synthesize structural functionatism with a number of other theoretical traditions. Such a reconstruction was supposed to both revive structural functionalism and provide the base for the development of a new theoretical tradition Alexander and Colonry recognized an important difference between neofunctionalism and structural functionalism:

Earlier functional research was guided by... envisioning a single, all embracing conceptual scheme that tied areas of specialized research into a tightly wrought package. What neofunctionalist empirical work points to. by contrast, is a loosely organized package, one organized around a general logic ~d possessing a number of rather autonomous "proliferations" and '*variations" at different levels and in different empirical domains.

(Alexander and Colomy. 1990a:52)

The thoughts of Alexander and Colomy indicate movement away from the Parsonsian tendency to see structural functionalism as a grand overarching theory. Instead, they offer a more limited, a more synthetic, but still a holistic theory.

However, as pointed out in the beginning of this chapter, the future of neofunctionalism has been cast into doubt by the fact that its founder and leading exponent, Jeffrey Alexander, has made it clear that he has outgrown a neofunctionalist orientation. This shift in thinking is apparent in the title of his book Neofunctionalism and After (Alexander, 1998). Alexander argues in this work that one of his major goals was the (re)establishment of the legitimacy and importance of Parsonsian theory. To the degree that neofunctionalism has succeeded in this effort, Alexander regards the neofunctionalist project as completed. Thus, he is ready to move beyond parsons, beyond neofunction alism, although be makes it plain that his future theoretical directions will be deeply indebted to both. Neofunctionalism has grown too confining for Alexander, and he now sees it, as well as his own work, as part of what he has called "the new theoretical movement" (see Seidman and Alexander. 2001). As he puts it. "1 am pointing to a new wave of theory creation that goes beyond the important achievements of neofunctionalism" (Alexander. 1998:228). Such a theoretical perspective would be even more synthetic than neofunctionalism, and more eclectic, drawing on a wide range of theoretical resources, and it would use those synthetic and eclectic resources in more opportunistic ways. Specifically, Alexander is seeking to do much more with developments in microsociological and cultural theory.

Chapter10: Conflict Theory