BACK TO SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

BACK TO SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Also by Nicos P. Mouzelis MODERN GREECE: Facets of Underdevelopment ORGANISATION AND BUREAUCRACY: An Analysis of Modern Theory *POLIDCS IN THE SEMI-PERIPHERY: Early Parliamentarism and Late Industrialism in the Balkans and Latin America POST-MARXIST ALTERNATIVES: The Construction of Social Orders *Also from Pal grave Macmillan

Back to Sociological Theory The Construction of Social Orders Nicos P. Mouzelis Professor of Sociology The London School of Economics and Political Science Palgrave Macmillan

ISBN 978-0-333-60543-1 ISBN 978-1-349-23181-2 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23181-2 Nicos P. Mouzelis 1991 All rights reserved. For infonnation, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1991 Reprinted (with corrections) 1994 ISBN 978-0-312-06175-3 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-312-10361-3 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mouzelis, Nicos P. Back to sociological theory : the construction of social orders I Nicos P. Mouzelis. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Sociology-Methodology. 2. Sociology-Philosophy. I. Title. HM24.M68 1991 301 01-dc20 91-9240 CIP

To the two Zairas

Contents Acknowledgments IX Introduction 1 1 Philosophy or Sociological Theory? 11 2 Restructuring Structuration Theory: Duality and Dualism in Sociological Theory 25 1 Core Elements of Structuration Theory 26 2 Duality and Dualism on the Paradigmatic Level 27 3 Social and System Integration 31 4 Institutional Analysis and Strategic Conduct 34 5 Duality and Dualism on the Syntagmatic Level 37 6 Conclusion 39 Postscript: Degrees of Constraint/Enablement 41 3 Social and System Integration: Back to Lockwood 48 1 Lockwood's Basic Formulation 49 2 Actors and System Parts 50 3 Material base and Institutional Patterns 53 4 Differences between Parsonian Functionalism and Marxism on the Social-Integration Level 55 5 Concluding Remarks 58 4 Social Hierarchies and Some Sociological Theories of Micro/Macro Integration 67 1 On the Importance of Social Hierarchies 67 2 The Dialectics of Institutionalisation 71 3 Methodological Situationalism 80 4 The Representation Hypothesis 88 5 Conclusion 93 vii

viii Contents 5 Hierarchies, Social and System Integration, Duality and Dualism 1 Social Hierarchies: Duality and Dualism on the Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Levels 99 2 Social Hierarchies: A System-Integration Perspective 104 3 Social Hierarchies: A Social-Integration Perspective 106 4 On the Hierarchisation of Social Systems 109 99 6 Reification: Ignoring the Balance between Social and System Integration 1 The 'Society-individual' Syndrome 2 Reification in the Strict Sense of the Term 3 Anthropomorphism 4 Teleology 117 117 121 123 125 7 Reductionism: Neglecting Hierarchical Levels 1 Downward Reductionism 2 Upward Reductionism: Development and Personality Structure 3 Upward Reductionism: Rational Choice Marxism 4 Conclusion: Reductionism, Reification and the Neglect of History 137 138 141 146 158 Conclusion 166 Appendix I Social and System Integration: Habermas' View Appendix II The Interaction Order and the Micro/Macro Distinction Index 172 194 202

Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following people who have contributed in a direct or indirect way to the completion of this work: Eric Dunning, Anthony Giddens, Alexis Krokidas, David Lockwood, Leslie Sklair, Anthony Smith and Alan Swingewood. I am also very grateful to Ellen Sutton for her excellent editing. NICOS P. MOUZEUS IX