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Sociologie et sociétés
Théorie et pratique d’une sociologie de l’actionTheory and Pratice of a Sociology of ActionAlain TOURAINE
Changement social et rapports de classesVolume 10, Number 2, octobre 1978
URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/001798arDOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/001798ar
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Publisher(s)Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal
ISSN0038-030X (print)1492-1375 (digital)
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Cite this articleTOURAINE, A. (1978). Théorie et pratique d’une sociologie de l’action.Sociologie et sociétés, 10 (2), 149–188. https://doi.org/10.7202/001798ar
Article abstractThe author's principal proposition is that the central objective of sociologicalanalysis is the relationships between synchrony and diachrony, betweenmodes of social production of societal types and modes oí development ofparticular societies. In this perspective the author presents various conceptsrelative to social action systems and to their components : historicity, in itselfthe basis of class relations, and politico-institutional and organizationalsystems. Others concepts are introduced to permit the author to identify thefunctioning areas of a society : regional theories of reproduction, of crisis andof change complement the theory of social action systems. This set of conceptsproduces a structural synchronie analysis of the general types of societies, seenas levels within an historical analysis including various forms of socialmovements and class relations. The author then studies the question of change,analyzing exogenous factors in a particular society, before attacking thequestion of the State as agent of intersocial relations, as well as of change andtransformation and of order and reproduction. Finally, he asserts that it is theanalysis of class relations, precisely because they are at once relations ofproduction and of reproduction, which permits us to bring together theanalysis of structure and of change in the ruling classes of a society and of theState. Touraine sees a possible application of this theory in dependent societies,Quebec in particular, where class actions, struggle against national dominationand conflicts brought on by modernization appear dislocated.
