Chapter1: Introduction: Sociological Theory

GEORG SIMMEL AND CONFLICT THEORY

Georg Simmel was committed to developing theoretical statements that captured the form of basic social processes, an approach he labeled formal sociology Primarily through his own observations, Simmel sought to extract the essential properties from processes and events in a wide variety of empirical contexts. In turn, abstract statements about these essential properties could be articulated.

Table 1 0.4 Simmel's Abstracted Propositions on Conflict Processes

Ⅰ. The level of violence in conflict increases when

A. The parties to the conflict have a high degree of emotional involvement, which, in turn, is related to the respective levels of solidarity among parties to the conflict.

B. The membership of each conflict party perceives the conflict to transcend their individual self-interests, which, in turn, is related to the extent to which the conflict is about value-infused issues.

Ⅱ The level of violence in conflict is reduced when the conflict is instrumental and perceived by the conflict parties to be a means to clear-cut and delimited goals.

Ⅲ Conflict will generate the following among the parties to a conflict:

A. Clear group boundaries.

B. Centralization of authority and power.

C. Decreased tolerance of deviance and dissent.

D. Increased internal solidarity among memberships of each party, but particularly for members of minority parties and for groups engaged in self defense.

Ⅳ. Conflict wig have integrative consequences for the social whole when

A. Conflict is frequent, low in intensity, and low in violence, which, in turn, allows disputants to release hostilities.

B, Conflict occurs in a system whose members and subunits reveal high levels of functional interdependence, which, in turn, encourages the creation of normative agreements to regulate the conflict so that the exchange of resources is not disrupted.

C. Conflict produces coalitions among various conflicting parties.

Much like Marx, Simmel viewed conflict as ubiquitous and, hence, subject to analysis in formal terms. In his most famous essay on conflict, Simmnel devoted considerable effort to analyzing the positive consequences of conflict for the maintenance of social wholes and their subunits. Simmel recognized, of course, that an overly cooperative, consensual, and integrated society would show "no life process;' but his analysis of conflict is still loaded in the direction of how conflict promotes solidarity and unification. Thus. unlike Marx, who saw conflict as ultimately becoming violent and revolutionary and leading to the structural change of the system, Simmel quite often analyzed the opposite phenomena--less intense and violent conflicts that promote the solidarity, integration, and orderly change.

Simmel's key ideas on the violence of conflict are summarized in Table 10.4. PropositionⅠ-A somewhat overlaps those developed by Marx. Like Marx, Simmel emphasized that violent conflict is the result of emotional arousal. Such arousal is particularly likely when conflict groups possess a great deal of internal solidarity. As shown in PropositionⅠ-B, Simmel indicated that, coupled with emotional arousal, the extent to which members see the conflict as transcending their personal aims and self-interests increses the likelihood of violent conflict, proposition Ⅱ is Simmel's most important because it contra diets Marx's hypothesis that objective consciousness of interests will lead to organization for violent conflict. Simmel argued that the more clearly articulated are the interests of conflict parties, the more clear-cut and focused are their goals; with clearly articulated goals, less combative means, such as bargaining and compromise, are more likely to be used to meet the specific objectives of the group. Thus, for Simmel, consciousness of common interests can, under unspecified conditions, lead to highly instrumental and nonviolent conflict. In the context of labor-management relations, for example, Simmel's proposition is more accurate than Marx's prediction because violence has more often accompanied labor-management disputes in the initial formation of unions, when interests and goals are not well articulated. As interests become citified, violent conflict has been increasingly replaced by less violent forms of social negotiation.

The consequences of conflict for (1) the conflict parties and (2) the systemic whole in which the conflict occurs are summarized in Propositions Ⅲ and 1V Propositions Ⅲ-A, B, C, and D summarize Simmel's ideas about the functions of conflict for the respective parties to the conflict. Conflict increases the formation of clear-cut group boundaries, the centralization of authority, the control of deviance and dissent, and the enhancement of social solidarity within conflict parties.

PropositionⅣ on the consequences of conflict for the social whole, provides an important qualification to Marx's analysis. Marx visualized initially mild conflicts as intensifying as the combatants become increasingly polarized, ultimately resulting in violent conflict that would lead to radical social change in the system. In contrast, Simmel argued that conflicts of low intensity and high frequency in systems of high degrees of interdependence do not necessarily intensify or lead to radical social change. On the contrary, these conflicts release tensions and become normatively regulated, thereby promoting stability in social systems. Further, with the increasing organization of the conflicting groups, and the formation of coalitions among conflict groups, violence will decrease as their goals become better articulated. The consequence of such organization and articulation of interests will be a greater disposition to initiate milder forms of conflict, involving competition, bargaining, and compromise.

THE RE-EMERGENCE OF CONFLICTTHEORY

IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY