Theories of Social Change

Pitirim Sorokin. Change is the oscillation of a culture between two extremes and a middle term. A sensate culture takes reality to be what the senses perceive, and is materialistic, empirical and practical. An ideational culture takes reality to be spiritual and supersensory, and is religious and ascetic. The idealistic culture is the balanced synthesis of the two. Cultures swing between the poles because each, carried to its extreme, exhausts its own possibilities. He held that western culture was in a late sensate phase.

Vilfredo Pareto's circulation of elites belongs here: history is a graveyard of aristocracies, with one governing elite replacing another in a continuous cycle, so that revolutions change the personnel of rule rather than the fact of it.

Criticism: the analogy of a civilisation with an organism is unproved; the theories are vague about what a civilisation is and when a cycle begins and ends; they are unfalsifiable, since any evidence can be fitted to a phase; and Spengler's determinism leaves no room for human agency.

3. Functionalist or equilibrium theories

The claim. A society is a system of interdependent parts tending to equilibrium, from [Social Structure and Social System]. Change is a disturbance to which the system adjusts, and the adjustment restores balance at a new point. Change is therefore gradual, adaptive and orderly rather than revolutionary.

Talcott Parsons. Change occurs through differentiation: a structure that performed several functions divides into specialised structures performing them separately, as the household divided into the family and the workplace. Differentiation creates problems of integration, which are solved by new institutions and by the generalisation of values, and the system stabilises at a higher level of complexity. He described this as moving equilibrium.

Ogburn's cultural lag belongs here too, as the account of maladjustment inside such a model.

Its strength: it explains gradual, adaptive change well and is the best account of how a complex society absorbs an innovation.

Its weaknesses: it treats change as disturbance rather than as normal; it cannot explain revolution or sudden transformation; it underrates conflict and power; and it tends to assume that whatever emerges is functional, which is the conservatism identified in [The Functionalist Perspective].

4. Conflict theories

The claim. Change comes from the struggle between groups with opposed interests, not from adjustment. It is therefore discontinuous, sometimes sudden, and transformative rather than restorative.

Marx. The forces of production develop; at a certain stage they come into conflict with the existing relations of production, which become fetters; and the resulting class conflict transforms the whole superstructure. Change is driven by contradiction inside the system rather than by anything outside it, and it proceeds dialectically. Worked in [Marx: Historical and Dialectical Materialism].

Dahrendorf. Conflict over authority rather than ownership, present in every association, and in modern societies institutionalised rather than suppressed, so that it produces continuous incremental change rather than revolution. This is the more useful version for a contemporary answer.

Coser, from [Conflict]: conflict within an accepted framework produces adjustment and new institutions rather than transformation.

Its strength: it explains sudden, large and contested change, and it accounts for the fact that subordinated groups have improved their position by struggle rather than by adjustment.

Its weaknesses: it explains stability poorly; Marx's predicted polarisation did not occur; and it underrates consensus and cooperation.

The four compared

Which theory explains what

The best answers do not choose a winner; they allocate.

Functionalist theory describes best the ordinary absorption of an innovation: a technology arrives, institutions adjust, new rules appear, and the society stabilises. Most change, most of the time, looks like this.

Conflict theory describes best the changes that were fought for and resisted: the abolition of disabilities, labour rights, reservation, the extension of the franchise. These did not happen by adjustment, and no functionalist account explains why they happened when they did.

Evolutionary theory describes best the very long run, across centuries: societies have in fact become larger, more differentiated and more capable.

Cyclical theory is the weakest as a predictive account and the most valuable as a corrective: it is the standing reminder that no arrangement is permanent and that decline is as possible as advance, which the other three, each in its own way, tend to forget.

A worked example

The extension of the right to vote to all adults.

Evolutionary: a stage in the movement of societies towards differentiation and from status to contract, the political counterpart of Maine's proposition.

Cyclical: a phase in the rise of a political order, which will in due course produce its own dominant minority and its own decline, on Toynbee's account.

Functionalist: a differentiation of the political system that improved integration, allowing groups previously outside the system to be represented within it and so absorbed.

Conflict: a concession won by organised movements from those who held power and did not wish to share it, and every extension of the franchise anywhere was contested.

All four say something true. The conflict account explains why it happened when it did; the functionalist account explains why it stabilised rather than destroying the system; the evolutionary account places it in the long movement; and the cyclical account warns against assuming it is permanent. An answer that gives that allocation is stronger than one which picks a theory and defends it.

Quick revision

1. Evolutionary: directional, cumulative, simple to complex. Comte, Spencer, Morgan, Maine. Neo-evolutionism makes it multilinear and drops progress.
2. Cyclical: no permanent direction; rise and decline. Spengler, cultures as organisms with a life span, deterministic; Toynbee, challenge and response, a creative minority that becomes a dominant minority, so decline is not inevitable; Sorokin, oscillation between sensate and ideational with idealistic as the synthesis; Pareto, the circulation of elites.
3. Functionalist: change is a disturbance and the system adjusts. Parsons, differentiation and moving equilibrium; Ogburn's cultural lag.
4. Conflict: change comes from struggle between opposed groups. Marx, forces against relations of production; Dahrendorf, conflict over authority, institutionalised; Coser, conflict within a framework.
5. Weaknesses: evolutionary is unilinear and ethnocentric; cyclical is unfalsifiable and deterministic; functionalist cannot explain revolution; conflict cannot explain stability.
6. Allocate rather than choose: functionalist for ordinary absorption of innovation, conflict for changes that were fought for, evolutionary for the very long run, cyclical as a corrective against assuming permanence.

Test yourself

1. State the four theories of social change in a sentence each. Evolutionary theories hold that societies pass through successive stages from simple to complex in a single cumulative direction. Cyclical theories hold that societies and civilisations rise, mature, decline and are replaced, so change has no permanent direction. Functionalist or equilibrium theories treat a society as a system of interdependent parts in which change is a disturbance followed by adjustment to a new balance. Conflict theories hold that change arises from struggle between groups with opposed interests and is transformative rather than restorative.

2. Explain Toynbee's account and say why it is preferred to Spengler's. Toynbee held that civilisations arise and grow through challenge and response: an environment or a rival presents a challenge and a creative minority devises a response, growth continuing while challenges are met. Decline begins when the creative minority becomes a dominant minority ruling by force rather than leading, and the majority withdraws its allegiance. It is preferred to Spengler's because decline is contingent on whether responses are found rather than being the inevitable senescence of an organism, so it leaves room for human agency.

3. What is Sorokin's cyclical scheme? That a culture oscillates between two extreme types with a synthesis between them. A sensate culture takes reality to be what the senses perceive and is materialistic, empirical and practical. An ideational culture takes reality to be spiritual and supersensory and is religious and ascetic. The idealistic culture is the balanced combination of the two. Cultures swing between the poles because each, pressed to its extreme, exhausts its own possibilities, and he considered western culture to be in a late sensate phase.

4. How does the functionalist theory explain change, and what can it not explain? Through differentiation and moving equilibrium: a structure performing several functions divides into specialised structures, which creates problems of integration solved by new institutions and by the generalisation of values, so the system stabilises at a higher level of complexity. It cannot explain revolution or sudden transformation, because it treats change as a disturbance to be absorbed rather than as normal, and it underrates conflict and power, tending to assume that whatever emerges is functional.

5. Which theory best explains which kind of change? Functionalist theory best explains the ordinary absorption of an innovation, which is what most change looks like. Conflict theory best explains changes that were fought for and resisted, such as the abolition of disabilities, labour rights and the extension of the franchise, which did not occur by adjustment. Evolutionary theory best describes the very long run, in which societies have become larger and more differentiated. Cyclical theory has least predictive value and most value as a corrective, since it insists that no arrangement is permanent.