SOC3070 - Lecture 3

Durkheim

Historical sociology of industrialisation

- contrast of type (pre-industrial / industrial society)

- theory of tendency

- Three types of social structural change: division of labour, social stratification, social integration process of structural differentiation

If industrialisation is a process of differentiation, specialisation, fragmentation etc. how does the new social system hold together?

Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (1893)

Focuses precisely on the problem of social integration

The process of division of labour undermines one kind of integration and replace it with a new, more complex one.

Past and present

How does the division of labour change solidarity?

Structure of the book:

- Functional analysis- Causal analysis- Ideal type analysis (modelling)

Main theoretical interest: the functioning of collective conscience and collective representations. The dualism of human nature

Solidarity, a social fact, cannot be observed directly.

D. uses the systems of law:

- Repressive law (penal)

- Restitutive law (civil, administrative…)

This two systems of law reflect two kinds of solidarity:

- Mechanical, based on likeness. Dominance of “collective conscience”

Property, belief, and sentiments are held in common.

Religion

- Organic, space for personality expands. The rise of individuality, but also of

occupational interdependence.

D. is interested in logical connections rather than careful historical analysis

Book 3: divergence between his models and empirical reality: social conflict and fragmentation. Causes:

- inefficient division of labour

- anomic division of labour

- forced division of labour

Durkheim’s findings:

- the role of labour anomie and class inequalities in the historical construction of industrialism

- Identification of a key-process in which societies become at once more differentiated and more complexly interdependent

Problems:

- Anthropological and historical evidence

- Organic metaphors

- Evolutionary framework

How about Structure / Action?

D. is primarily interested in the relationship between the individual and society

Interplay between material and ideal (cultural) factors in explaining change in social organizations.