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 INDEX

Unit No Name of Chapter Page No

1 Sociology – The Discipline:
(a) Modernity and social changes in Europe and emergence of 1
Sociology
(b) Scope of the subject and comparison with other social 4
sciences
(c) Sociology and common sense 7

2 Sociology as Science:
(a) Science, scientific method and critique 11
(b) Major theoretical strands of research methodology 14
(c) Positivism and its critique 15
(d) Fact, value and objectivity 18
(e) Non – positivist methodologies 22

3 Research methods and analysis:

(a) Qualitative and quantitative methods 34
(b) Techniques of data collection 38
(c) Variables, sampling, hypothesis, reliability and validity 48

4 Sociological Thinkers:
(a) Karl Marx – Historical materialism, mode of production, 62
alienation, class struggle
(b) Emile Durkheim – Division of labour, social fact, suicide, 77
religion and society
(c) Max Weber – Social action, ideal types, authority, 95
bureaucracy, protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism
(d) Talcott Parsons – Social system, pattern variables 114
(e) Robert K. Merton – Latent and manifest functions, 124
conformity and deviance, reference groups
(f) Mead – Self Identity 139

5 Stratification and Mobility:

(a) Concepts – equality, inequality, hierarchy, exclusion, poverty 150
and deprivation
(b) Theories of social stratification – Structural functionalist 168
theory, Marxist theory, Weberian theory
(c) Dimensions – Social stratification of class, status groups, 181
gender, ethnicity and race
(d) Social mobility – open and closed systems, types of mobility, 196
sources and causes of mobility

6 Works and Economic Life:

(a) Social organization of work in different types of society – 206
slave society, feudal society, industrial capitalist society
(b) Formal and informal organization of work 214
(c) Labour and society 221
7 Politics and Society:
(a) Sociological theories of power 226
(b) Power elite, bureaucracy, pressure groups and political parties 239
(c) Nation, state, citizenship, democracy, civil society, ideology 253
(d) Protest, agitation, social movements, collective action, 282
revolution

8 Religion and Society:

(a) Sociological theories of religion 308
(b) Types of religious practices: animism, monism, pluralism, 317
sects, cults
(c) Religion in modern society: religion and science, 329
secularization, religious revivalism, fundamentalism

9 Systems of Kinship:
(a) Family, household, marriage 351
(b) Types and forms of family 351
(c) Lineage and descent 382
(d) Patriarchy and sexual division of labour 386
(e) Contemporary trends 391

10 Social change in Modern society:

(a) Sociological theories of social change 399
(b) Development and dependency 413
(c) Agents of social change 424
(d) Education and social change 429
(e) Science, technology and social change 433
Note:

These notes are made by referring various sources as mentioned in the order below. I request
everyone to make use of it and benefit the maximum through these notes

Reference of sources in order:

1. Smart leader IAS notes

2. Only IAS notes
3. Essential Sociology
4. Neha Bhosle mam notes
5. Neo stencil and achievers IAS (answers)
6. Decipher notes

All the Best

 SOCIOLOGY

PAPER – 1

Unit No: 1

Unit Name: Sociology – The Discipline

Chapter: (a) Modernity and social changes in Europe and emergence of Sociology

Modernity:

 Sociology – science of society – rise of modernity – Renaissance (Italy)(16 – 17th

century) – religion challenged – spirit of science advocated – „God is dead‟ & „man is
the master of his own destiny‟
 Abandon monarchy – striving for democracy
 Champions of Sociology- August Comte, Durkheim, Max Weber.
 Copernican Revolution – Helio centric theory

Reflexive judgements:

 Western society – Free thinking, Rationality – American revolution

 Cultural modernity – art, literature & science
 Political modernity – freedom, civil liberties
 Economic liberty – open market, trade structure
 Social modernity – secularization of religion, rise of family
 Education – mixing of classes, social tolerances

Dark ages:

 Decline in literary activities, limited architectural activity – church dominating –

medieval Europe

Enlightenment (1715 – 1789):

 Montesquieu – Doctrine of Separation of Powers – „Spirit of the laws‟

 Locke – Englishman – advocated every individual has certain rights which cannot be
taken away, if forced then leader must be removed.
 Voltaire – a French philosopher – advocated religious toleration and freedom of
speech.
 Rousseau – in „social contract‟ book – people in a country have right to choose their
sovereign

BOTTOMORE ON INTELLECTUAL STREAMS IN SOCIOLOGY:

 According to TB Bottomore, the main intellectual streams that particularly influence

emergence of sociology are – political philosophy given by Montesquieu, Rousseau –

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 etc.; philosophy of history, theory of organic evolution by Darwin, movements for
social & political reform like French revolution & development of method of soicla
survey.

SOCIAL Intellectual
SOCIAL CHANGES context
CHALLENGES:
 Rise of industrial
society  New face of
Dawn of  Middle class poverty
Dark Ages  Nuclear family Quest for
modernity  Secularism
 Urbanisation answers
and its fall ECONOMIC
outs ECONOMIC CHANGES: CHALLENGES:

 IR  New crimes Emergence

 Poor living of Sociology
 Market forces
 Capitalism conditions

POLITICAL CHANGES: POLITICAL

CHALLENGES: Scientific
 FR context
 Democracy  Chaos and
 Liberty uncertainty

PARDADIGM OF EVOLUTION OF SOCIOLOGY

French Revolution:

Intellectual Push – Ideas of

Montesquieu

Economic Anamolies – Evils of French

Estate system Revolution

Archaic politics – Feudalism,

Despotic rule

Reasons:

 Intellectual developments: Montesquieu (separation of powers) + Locke (inalienable

rights) + Voltaire (FOS) + Rousseau (Social contract – Father of FR)
 Bankruptcy due to American war of Independence
 Meeting at estate – general
 Refusing – Leader – Bailey – Oath of Tennis Court – Beginning of French revolution

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Results:

 Guaranteed freedom of religion & freedom from arbitrary punishments

 Ideas of liberty, fraternity & equality

Industrial Revolution:

 From 1760s & 1780s economic modernity in west got a new momentum under IR.
 Expansion on skilled manpower & DOL.
 Surplus production & free market, Rural  Urban migration.
 Reflexive thinking developed.
 Adam Smith – advocated free market, competition b/w entrepreneurs further
articulated by John Stuart Mill and Saint Simon.
 Saint Simon – social institutions – hall marks of modern society. Such complex DOL,
trade, market neither made by state or society but my man for his convenience/

Outcomes of IR:

 The condition of labour – poverty – socially deprived system.

 State of poor report – first scientific survey – Europe – poverty not natural but social.
 Transformation of property: Capitalism; Urbanization increased crime rate and
poverty; Tech and factory system; Colonialism.

American War of Independence:

 Due to war in Europe new political government developed in America driven by:
o Equality
o Universal adult franchise
o Separation of power
o Self governance and equality of opportunity
 Democracy is not just simply a form of governance rather the spirit of democracy
empowers man to believe that he is equal to the rest of others in the society

 August Comte – „Father of Sociology‟ – 3 stages of society – theological,

metaphysical & positivism.

 Herbert spencer – Universality of evolution, Survival of fittest – as society as more

DOL occurs

 Equal to natural sciences – Positivism was argued.

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Previous Years Question:

1. How did the Intellectual forces lead to the emergence of Sociology? Discuss. (10
marks)(2020)
2. Discuss the historical antecedents of the emergence of Sociology as a discipline. (10
marks) (2019)
3. How had enlightenment contributed to the emergence of Sociology? (10 marks)
(2015)
4. Sociology emerged in Europe and flourished to begin with on social reformist
orientation in the USA. Comment. (10 marks) (2013)
5. How did the French Revolution and Industrial revolution play an important role in
emergence of Sociology? (30 marks) (2012)
6. Emergence of Sociology is an outcome of modernity and social change in Europe. (12
marks) (2011)

Unit No: 1

Unit Name: Sociology – The Discipline

Chapter: (b) Scope of the subject:

Scope of the Subject:

 Scope – subject matter

 Durkheim – social facts; Marx – dynamics of forces & ROP; Weber – social action;
Parsons – action system.
 2 schools of thought.

Specialist or formal school:

 Argued to give definite subject matter.

 Simmel & others – Sociology pure and independent science
 Max Weber – Interpretation of Social behaviour

Criticism:

 Ginsberg – Pure sociology is not practical as none can be studied in isolation from
other social science.

Synthetic school:

 Sociology – science of sciences

 Durkheim – Sociology – coordinating science
 C.W.Mills through book „sociological imagination‟ criticized trend and advocated
more adventurous more imaginative studies.

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Comparison with other social sciences:

Political science: History:

 G.E.C.Catlin – „political science &  Present society bears symbols of past.
sociology are 2 forces or aspects of  History – important past events in
same figure. chronological order and establishes
 Paul Jennet – „Political science is relation with present.
that part of social science which  “History is microscope of past, the
treats foundation of state and horoscope of present & telescope of
principles of government‟. future.”
 Historically sociology has its main  G.H.Howard – history is past
roots in politics and philosophy of sociology and sociology is present
history history
 Benefitted – Plato – the Republic;
Aristotle – The Politics; Kautilya – Economics:
Arthashastra.  Thomas – Economics is in fact, but
 Political sociology – War, one branch of Sociology
Authority, Propaganda & law.  Marx – “ Economic relations
constitute foundations of society
Psychology: Anthropology:
 Psychologists – Karl Pearson –  A.L.Kroeber – Socio and Anthro –
refuse to accept both as special twin sisters.
science.  R.Redfield recognizes the closeness
 Many psychologist – Freud, b/w 2 social sciences.
MacDoughal enriched Sociology  Anthropologists – R.Brown, Mead
and vice – versa. grew sociology
 Social Psychology – „Kretch and  Origin of family, marriage, kinship
Crutchfield‟ – field of behaviour of better understood through anthro
individuals in society. knowledge.
 Socio – Durkheim, Spencer
contributed to Anthro
Philosophy:
 Philosophy – an attempt to
understand reality in its totality.
 Link – philosophy of science; close
relationship b/w socio, moral &
social philosophy; the subject
matter of sociology in human social
behaviour; study of socio leads to
philosophical quest.
 Social philosophy meeting point of
social logic and philosophy.
 Durkheim and Mannheim –
claimed that sociology can make
contributions to philosophy.

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Differences:

Sociology: Political Science:

 Science of society & social  Science of state & government
relationships.  Limited scope
 Wide scope.  Special science
 General science  Studies only politically formal
 Studies formal & informal relations relations
 Studies organised, unorganized &  Studies only politically organised
disorganized society. society.
 Analytical science
 Abstract in nature
 Society – unit of study
 Civilization – vast & dynamic
History: Economics:
 Past events and past society  Science of wealth and choice
 Concrete in nature  Concrete in nature
 Limited scope  Special science
 Descriptive science  Concerned with economic activities
 Special science of man
 Diff techniques to measure
 Man – unit of study
Psychology: Anthropology:
 Science of mind  Science of man & behaviour
 Limited scope  Limited scope
 Individual unit of study  Studies man as part of society
 Studies mental processes  Small and static culture
 Analyse behaviour from  Kluckhon – the socio attitude has
psychological angle headed towards practical & present,
the anthro towards pure
understanding of past

Previous Years Questions:

1. “The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and

relationship between the two in a society” – C.W.Mills. Explain (20 marks) (2018)
2. Discuss the changing equations of discipline of sociology with other social sciences.
(20 marks) (2017)
3. Discuss the relevance of historical method in study of society. (10 marks) (2015)
4. How is sociological approach to human actions different from that of psychological
approach? (10 marks) (2014)
5. Compare and contrast Sociology & Anthropology. (10 marks) (2013)

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Unit No: 1

Unit Name: Sociology – The Discipline

Chapter: (c) Sociology and Common Sense (CS)

 CS is knowledge & awareness that is held communally and doesn‟t depend of

specialist.
 Socio is systematic study of society that uses body of concept, tools and methods to
analyse social content & factors behind a particular event & does not accord „natural‟
or „inherent cause‟ for same questioning approach.
 CS varies b/w individuals and society. However sociology attempts to bring in high
level of consciousness & objectiveness to macro social trends.
 CS knowledge based on experiences, beliefs of people. Socio based on evidence.
 Durkheim showed us that individuals are products of society and that society has
various characteristics that go beyond individual and can‟t be explained by individual
behaviour.
 Bauman & May – the relationship b/w CS & Socio thinking is interpreting &
investigating the meanings of social action & facts that has been branded by CS.
 Brown – collection of facts derived collective from CS are not equivalent to sociology
thinking and research.
 Sociological thought can be categorised scientific but not CS
 Conclusion – Socio and CS are not opposite forces but complement to each other at
many points. Socio uses scientific methods to understand truth behind CS. Thus,
relationship b/w Socio and CS has been dynamic and moulded by dominant
perspective in Sociology.

Previous Years Question:

1. The focal point of Sociology rests on interaction. How do you distinguish it from
common sense? (10 marks)
2. Is Sociology common sense? Give reasons in support of your argument. (10 marks)
(2016)

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Additional notes:

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Additional notes:

9
Additional notes:

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Unit No: 2

Unit Name: Sociology as Science

Chapter: (a) Science, Scientific method and critique

 Early sociologists – tried to establish as science – August Comte – called ‗social

physics‘

What is Science?

 Body of systematic knowledge.

 A branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts systematically arranged
and showing the operation of general laws – adopts scientific methods
 Has following characteristics:
o Objectivity – ability to see and accept
o Verifiability – verifiable evidence
o Ethical neutrality – only seeks knowledge
o Experimentation – sequential procedure
o Reliability – occur under circumstances not once but repeatedly
o Precision – not vague
o Abstractness – not interested in giving a realistic picture.
o Predictability – low predictability
 August Comte – observation, experiment, comparison and historical research
 August Comte and Durkheim – Sociology is science because it adopts scientific
method
 Martha Nussbaum – Sociology is useful science because it solves problems of
society.

Why is Sociology a science?

 Adopts scientific method: sociometry schedule, case study – quantitative measures.

 Empiricism: Durkheim – study of social facts. A social fact is a thing that is external
and coercive of the actor can‘t be investigated by introspection. Durkheim – statistics
on socio to establish his argument that suicide is socio phenomenon.
 Accurate observation: whole world – laboratory.
 Objectivity possible: dowry – social evil – facts collected by sociologists; Weber said
objectivity is possible through methods like Versetehen and Ideal type.
 Describes cause – effect relationship
 Accurate measurement: using statistical methods; Durkheim – study of suicide – tried
to find accurate measures with help of data.
 Accurate prediction: dowry
 Makes generalization: universally acceptable; concept of incest taboo – prohibited
sex relationship among blood relatives; Durkheim – meaning of social facts remain
same.

Why is Sociology not a Science?

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  Why objectivity difficult in social science: cultural effects, social situation effects,
perception effects, effects of history and old ideas, national or ethnic superiority.
 Lack of objectivity: cannot be studied like physical objects. Weber has said that
objectivity is not possible but researcher should try to be value neutral in his approach
to deal with agents and situations.
 Lack of experimentation: humans cannot be put to laboratory tests.
 Lack of prediction:
 Lack of accurate measurement: lack of proper measuring instruments. Relationship
cannot be measured.
 Lack of generalization: universally acceptable theory not possible because no two
humans alike.
 Terminology insufficiency:

 Sociologist Robert Bierstedt in his book „The social order‟ has explained the nature of
sociology:

o Sociology is a social and not a natural science.

o Sociology is a positive and not a normative science.
o Sociology is a pure science and not an applied science.
o Sociology is an abstract science and not a concrete science.
o Sociology is a generalising science and not a particularising science.
o Sociology is both a rational and an empirical science.
 Oxford dictionary – scientific method as a method that has characterised natural science
since 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement and experiment
and formulation, testing and modification of hypotheses.
 Goldhaber and Nieto – scientific method is a group of techniques to investigate a
phenomenon, acquiring new knowledge or the correction and integration of previous
knowledge.

Stages of scientific method:

 Observation and description of phenomenon

 Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon
 Collection of data
 Classification and interpretation of data
 Comparison with similar studies
 Development of general law
 Presentation of data

For Sociology it was not possible for classical methods without modifications:

 Complexity of Social data

 Social phenomenon unpredictable
 Plurality of causes and intermixture of effects
 Social phenomenon are heterogeneous

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  Difficulty in measurement and quantification.
 Subjectivity of researcher and objectivity of research.

Ideographic approach VS Nomothetic approach:

 Represent two different approaches – understand social life.

 Nomothetic – based on Kant described as tendency to generalise and is typical for
natural science. Applies research – supported general formulations to particular cases
and uses deductive reasoning.
 Ideographic – based on tendency to specify and typical for humanities.
 Describes effort to understand meaning, unique and often subjective phenomena –
focuses on individual events or cases. Ex: Ethnographers focus on minute details in
daily life.
 Nomothetic – larger social patterns forming single events or behaviour
 Positivists tried to prove their approaches as nomothetic while interpretivists denied
such possibilities.

Criticisms of Scientific methods:

 Sociology and historical studies like works of Michael Polanyi, Ludvik Fleck have
highlighted socio – cultural roots of scientific method – ideals of pure science such as
universality, objectivity and value – neutrality.
 Feminist theoreticians – scientific method itself flawed because it reflects male
perspective of world.
 Adorno indicates that science is suffocating and kills creativity. Science becomes the
new religion and the blind faith in it negates human freedom, which is integral part of
social sciences.
 J F Feyerband contends scientific method restricts the choices of researcher and
sociological research should be liberating and not constraining.

Previous Years Question:

1. Describe the basic postulates of scientific method. How far are these followed in
sociological research? (20 marks) (2016)

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Unit No: 2

Unit Name: Sociology as Science

Chapter: (b) Major theoretical strands in research methodology

 Research – methodical and structured effort to explore a specific problem that needs a
solution.
 P.V.Young describes ―Social research is a scientific undertaking, which by means of
logical methods, aim to discover new facts or old facts and to analyse their sequences,
interrelationships, casual explanations and natural laws which govern them‖.
 Social science research – methodical and objective investigation of social
developments and precipitating factors behind them – applied to understand similar
situations. After analysing developing framework theory though various methods.
 Advances in natural sciences also influences to sociologists to adopt its methods such
as enquiry, observation, etc.,
 August Comte and others believed in need of scientific approach for study of society
to get accurate knowledge.
 Enriched by researchers like positivists, functionalists, interpretivists, feminists,
postmodernists and so on.
 Giddens (1989) defines Sociology as: ―Sociology is the study of human life, groups
and societies. It is a dazzling and compelling enterprise, having as its subject matter
our own behaviour as social beings. The scope of sociology is extremely wide,
ranging from the analysis of passing encounters between individuals in the street up to
investigation of world – wide social processes‖.
 Two different approaches of sociology:
o Macro sociology: includes functionalism focuses on relationship between parts
of society and how aspects of society are functional and conflict. Theory
which main focus is competition for scarce resources and how the elite control
the poor and weak. Ex: Conflict
o Micro sociology: main branches of sociology, examining everyday human
social interactions and on a small scale. Based on interpretative analysis rather
than statistical or empirical observation. Includes theory of symbolic
interactionism and ethnomethodology that focuses on use of symbols and face
to face interaction.
 Comte believed that he had discovered a law that all human societies passed through 3
stages: the theological (events caused by action of gods); metaphysical (events caused
by abstract forces); the positive (scientific laws formed the basis of explanation.

Previous Years Question:

14
Unit No: 2

Unit Name: Sociology as Science

Chapter: (c) Positivism and its critique

 Comte was confident that scientific knowledge about society could be accumulated
and used to improve human existence so that society could progress and run
rationally.
 Durkheim advocated a similar methodology and is seen as a model of positivist
research.- tried to use scientific and quantitative method
o Social facts – researcher should restrict collecting information about
phenomena that can be objectively observed and classified. He should not be
concerned with internal meanings, motives, feelings and emotions of
individuals as they cannot be observed or measured objectively. Durkheim
proposed that the belief systems, customs and institutions of society – world.
o Statistical data – using classifications of the social world, it is possible to
count sets of Durkheim collected data on social facts suicide rates and
memberships of various religions.
o Correlation – looking for correlations between different social facts. It is the
tendency for two or more things to be found together and it may refer to
strength of relationship between them.
o Causation – caution must be exercised to avoid spurious correlation. It may be
possible that some third factor has causal relationship to both the phenomena
being considered. Example: being working class causes crime, or crime makes
a person working class, instead gender class location or level of criminality.
o Multivariate analysis – this involves trying to isolate the effect of particular
independent variable upon the dependent variables, to overcome the problem
of spurious correlations. Ex: crime is a dependent variable, gender is an
independent variable.
o Laws of human behaviour – if the causal explanation is found and checked in
variety of contexts, then researchers can be confident that they have attained
the ultimate goal of positivism: a law of human behaviour. Ex: Durkheim
claimed to have discovered laws of human behaviour that governed suicide
rate. Suicide rates rose during economic boom or slump.
 This is known as inductive methodology. However, while positivism has influenced
many, the inductive method has not been accepted by all. Deductive approach is an
alternative to it.

Karl Popper falsification and deduction:

 Supports this methodology which reverses the process of induction.

 Falsification starts with a theory and tests it against the evidence, rather than
developing a theory as a result of examining the data.

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  Scientists  start with hypothesis  should be possible to deduce predictions about
the future  includes extrapolation and interpolation  hypothesis can even origin
from common sense  theories scientific is ability to be tested by making precise
predictions.

Laboratory experiments:

 Scientists – to test precise predictions advocated by Popper – controlled environments

– various independent variables. Increase reliability.

Not suited for sociological research:

 Unnatural situations; ethical issues; genuine matching of humans may be impossible;

Alan Bryman points out that researchers in sociology cannot manipulate many
independent variables in research. Ex: gender of the subjects; impractical size and
timing

Field experiments:

 Carried outside laboratory; multiple independent variables.

Issues:

 Not possible to control variables as in lab; Hawthorne effect as seen by Elton Mayo at
Western electricity company in Chicago. It showed that results of an experiment get
affected due to the fact that an experiment is taking place; ethical issues – if subjects
kept unaware; confined to small scale studies over small period of time.

The Comparative method:

 Use of comparison; different societies or different groups in society – identify crucial

outcomes

Overcomes some problems:

 Lesser ethical issues as researcher is not interfering in social world; less likely to
affect behaviour of those being studied; study causes of large scale social changes
over long periods of time.
 Marx compared a wide variety of societies to develop his theory of social change and
stages of society; Durkheim uses method in his study of DOL and change from
mechanical to organic solidarity; Weber compared early capitalist countries in the
West with China and India to show a correlation between capitalism and Calvinism.

Other features of positivism:

 It believes in the unity of method.

 It celebrates objectivity and value neutrality. It, therefore, separates the knower from
the known, subjectivity from objectivity, and fact from value.
 Sociology is not common sense.

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  Positivism emphasises on deductive approaches. It gives focus on theorising as given
in natural sciences.
 Sociology is a formal and organized body of knowledge, characterized by specialized
skills and techno-scientific vocabulary.
 Sociology can strive for abstraction and generalization. Human experiences can be
explained through law-like generalizations.
 The scientific knowledge of society can be used for social engineering.
Critiques:

 First, it is possible to say that what is applicable in the domain of nature is not
necessarily applicable in the domain of human society. Because, unlike nature, society
consists of self-reflexive agents who think, argue, contest, and through their practices
and actions transform the world. Hence society cannot be subject to abstract/universal
generalizations. Positivism, it is alleged, undermines the creativity, reflexivity and
agency of social actors.
 From Adorno to Horkheimer to Marcuse, the central thrust of their argument was that
positivist science was nothing but a form of instrumental rationality leading to
domination and manipulation of human and natural resources. They critiqued this
instrumental rationality, and pleaded for a more critical, reflexive, qualitative and
emancipatory social science.
 For post-modernists, there is no foundational truth that can prove to be objective,
there is no universal totalising theory (like Marxism) that can overcome local contexts
and heterogeneity, and there is no "superior" method (like science or positivism).
 For Karl Popper science is like a conjecture subject to refutation.
 For Thomas Kuhn, science is conservative, and prevails because scientists too like
any other group of people, are being guided by peer group pressure and other
socialising forces.
 For Paul Feyerabend, science has its own history of domination and violence, which
is enough for the delegitimation of the positivistic foundation of social science.
 Anthony Giddens is categorical about the fact that nature and human society are two
different realms of enquiry. Nature is not a human production, but society is being
perpetually created, renewed and altered by human agents. That is why there are
limits to natural science methodology in sociology.
 Another critique that came strongly against positivism came from Gouldner, who felt
that positivism with its methodological coldness separates the knower from the known
and therefore he pleads for a reflexive sociology.
 Positivists were also criticised for over emphasis on universalism which is not
possible in Soicology.

Previous Years Question:

1. Examine the basic postulates of positivism and post positivism. (20 marks) (2017)
2. Critically examine positivistic approach in sociological studies. (12 marks) (201

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Unit No: 2

Unit Name: Sociology as Science

Chapter: (d) Fact, value and objectivity

Fact:

 According to oxford dictionary, a fact is happening of an incident, a correct

statement, a matter of experience, the reality of situation, the conclusion of some
observation or actual present phenomenon. Thus, facts are true and they are real
elements of incidents. According to Durkheim, social facts are actually existent;
religion, morals, and beliefs.
 Has its own existence; perceived same by everyone; remain in same situation for
everyone; objective facts constitute subject matter for natural sciences.
 Objective facts – refer to aspects – independent of observer and thus amendable to
sensory observation of the observer. Positive sciences begin with the premise that
their respective fields of study are constituted by objective facts.
 Sociology – objective facts – social facts; Durkheim – human behaviour are
necessary social facts.
 Positivists – bedrock of facts and empirical knowledge. To make sociology a science,
attention given to factual analysis and not on subjective interpretations and individual
perceptions.
 Another tradition – the interactionist tradition – Max Weber, G.H.Mead etc., believe
outwardly observable aspects of social life tell only one part of story. For
comprehensive understanding of social life – subjective meanings and motives should
be taken into account. Subjective meanings not objective facts since they are not
amenable to sensory observation at all. Hence methods of positive science are
inadequate to study social facts.

Values:

 Refers to social accepted standards of desirability. Defines what is important and

worth striving for – guide to social behaviour.
 Act as general standards from which specific goals and norms of society can be
deduced.
 Linkage b/w social life and individual personality is achieved by internalisation of
values through process of socialisation. Ex: happiness, health, success.
 Two types: end values – ultimate standards in terms which guide other goals. Ex:
happiness; means values – act as means for attaining end values. Ex: success.
 Parsonian sociology – value important place as basic standards which guide all action
and Parsons‘ societal integration depends upon value consensus.
 Marxian – economic interests – guide social action and values are viewed as means of
legitimising pursuit of interests.

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  Play an important role in shaping social behaviour – distinction between fact and
value. – Durkheim and Weber – favoured to make sociology a truly scientific
discipline.

Value free science:

 Subject matter of sociology is human behaviour which is guided by values. Thus

study of social behaviour can never by value free. Social research is in itself a type
for social behaviour and is guided by value of ‗search of true knowledge‘.
 Max Weber – value free sociology – researcher must confine himself for relevant
values only, called value relevance – three levels.
o Level of philosophical interpretation.
o Level of ethical interpretation in assigning value to an object of enquiry.
o Level of rational interpretation in which the sociologists seek the meaningful
relationship between phenomena in terms of causal analysis.
 Point of interpretation is to establish value towards which an activity is directed. It is
not to judge such activity as either good or bad.
 Otherwise the sociologist should observe value neutrality which conducting
sociological research, it means:
o Sociologists should exclude ideological or non – scientific assumptions from
research.
o Should not make evaluative judgments about empirical evidence.
o Value judgement should be restricted to sociologist‘s area of technical
competence.
o Should remain indifferent to moral implications of his research.
o Make their values open and clear and refrain from advocating particular
values.
 Value neutrality – enables social scientist to fulfil the basic value of scientific enquiry
i.e. ‗search for true knowledge‘.
 In practice it has been extremely difficult to fulfil goals of value neutrality.
 Value creeps at various levels of sociological research. All that a sociologist can aim
is to minimise the subjectivity i.e. value contamination in his research. Weber also
admits the same.

Objectivity:

 Study in which subject matter is centre of attention and prejudice is given no place, is
known as objective study – subject matter is observed and described as it is without
exaggeration. Reasoning and intellect more important than belief and faith
 Is basically an exact information and exact interpretation; frame of mind so that
personal choices do not contaminate the collection and analysis of data. Scientific
investigation should be free from prejudices of race, colour, religion, sex or
ideological biases.

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  Need of objectivity in socio research emphasised by important sociologists –
Durkheim: ―Rule of the Sociological Method‖ – stated social facts must be treated as
things and all preconceived notions about social facts must be abandoned.
 Max weber – use of objectivity – when he said sociology must be value free.
 Radcliff Brown, social scientist – abandon ethnocentric biases while carrying out
research.
 Maliownsky advocated ‗cultural relativism‘ while conducting anthropological field
work in order to ensure objectivity – however objectivity remains to be an elusive
goal.
 Gunnar Myrdal – objectivity is an illusion and cannot be achieved; research is always
by guided by certain viewpoints which involve subjectivity; suggested basic
viewpoints should be made clear; believed that subjectivity can creep are various
stages in course of sociological research.
 Personal preferences influence choice of topic Ex: Weber was belief system of
Weber‘s mother who was protestant and his preference for mother‘s belief system;
beside personal choice the ideological biases acquired in course of education and
training also have a bearing on choice of topic of research Ex: Jajmani system in India
studied by W.Wiser – functionalist – represents organic system of DOL contributing
to village solidarity and Oscar Lewis – clearly an exploitative system.
 Subjectivity – creep at time of hypotheses; in course of selection of empirical data;
techniques of data are not fully perfect each has its own bias. Thus objectivity
continues to be an elusive goal.
 Minimising subjectivity:
o The researcher should make his value preference clear in the research
monograph.
o Highly trained and skilled research workers should be employed.
o Various methods of data collection should be used and the results should be
cross checked.
o Field limitations should be clearly stated in the research monograph.

Solutions to problem of objectivity and value neutrality:

 Both Weber and Gunnar Myrdal – emphasised on value frankness

 No single technique should be depended upon for data collection.
 Highly trained research worker must be employed.
 Researcher and known should come close to each other to understand their daily life
such as symbols.
 Sociology is closer to philosophy that science. Hence each sociologist can explain a
topic from different perspective.

 In conclusion it can be advocated that when positivism speaks about childhood of

sociology, objectivity as a problem discussed by Weber explains the advancement of
sociology. But today‘s sociology is a mixture and hence it is not looking for scientific

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 method rather it goes against methodology and that talks about rise of sensitive,
humanistic and reflexive sociology.

Previous Years Question:

1. Distinguish between fact and value in Weber‘s protestant ethic and spirit of
capitalism. (10 marks) (2018)
2. What is value – free sociology? Clarify (10 marks) (2016)
3. Examine the problems of maintaining objectivity and value neutrality in social
science research. (20 marks) (2015)
4. Fact, value and objectivity. (12 marks) (2012)
5. Fact and value. (12 marks) (2011)

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Unit No: 2

Unit Name: Sociology as Science

Chapter: (e) Non – positivist methodologies:

 When it was realised that socio issues can‘t be addressed using fixed laws turned the
non – positivism; positivism saw society as given and man as mere part of it and
governed by rules; non positivist – considered man as an independent thinking being
who can also influence society.
Positivists Non Positivists
They adopt primarily a structural approach They adopt primarily an interactional
approach.
They have a macro perspective They have a micro perspective
They have a normative approach They have an individual centric approach
They take a nomothetic view of things They take an ideographic view of things
They prefer quantitative tools of research and They prefer qualitative tools of research and
the prime focus is on measurement by taking the prime focus is on understanding via
an experimental approach descriptive ethnographical methods
They provide casual explanations and They focus on describing the phenomenon
generalised conclusions
Prime research techniques used are survey, Prime research techniques used are
questionnaires etc. participant observation and unstructured
interview
 Weber is exponent of non-positivism; believe that reality is multi layered and
complex and a single phenomenon is having multiple interpretations.
 Emphasize verification of a phenomenon is adopted when level of understanding such
that it is explored in various unexplored dimension.
 3 schools: phenomenology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism; all schools
suggest qualitative rather than quantitative approaches to social inquiry.

Interpretive and Qualitative Methodology:

 Despite influence of scientific approaches, an alternative series of interpretive or

qualitative approaches has existed long within sociology; claim either scientific
approaches are inadequate on own for collecting, analysing data or totally
inappropriate in a subject that deals with human behaviour – some sociologists
suggest use of interpretive and qualitative approaches suggest that they should be
used to supplement scientific quantitative methodology.
 Qualitative data: quantitative data – numerical form. Ex: official statistics.
Qualitative data – usually in words ex: description of group of people living in
poverty.
 Interpretive approach: sociologists – interpretive approach – strongest advocates
of qualitative data – argue whole basis of sociology is interpretation of social
action which can only be understood by interpreting meanings and motives; argue
little chances to find in quantitative data.
 Some interpretivists – reject use of natural science methodology – study of social
action. They see subject matter of social and natural sciences as different.

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  Natural sciences don‘t have consciousness but people have. They see and interpret
the world in their own meanings.
 People don‘t react automatically to external stimuli as positivists claimed. Instead,
they interpret meaning before responding.

 Max weber defined sociology as study of social action; when it takes account of
other members of society. Believed that explanation of social action necessitated
an understanding of meanings and motives that underlie human behaviour.
Understanding motives could be achieved through Versetehen and Ideal types

1. Symbolic Interactionism:
 Traces its roots such as Mead, Cooley
 As Ken Plummer notes, ―it seeks to unify intelligent thought and logical method
with practical actions and appeals to experience.‖
 Some characteristics – emphasis on interactions among people, use of symbols in
communications and interaction, interpretation as part of action; concerns tends to
be interaction order of daily life and experiences, rather than the structures
associated with large scale and relatively fixed social forces and laws.
 It has Herbert Blumer who took Mead‘s idea – into more symbolic sociological
approach (coined term in 1937 keeping sociological perspective.

Blumer notes: The term symbolic interactionism refers of course, to peculiar and distinctive
character of interaction as it takes place between human beings. The peculiarity consists in the
fact that human beings interpret or „define‟ each other‟s actions. Their „response‟ is not made
directly to the actions of one another but instead is based on meaning which they attach such
actions. Thus, human interaction is mediated by the use of symbols, by interpretation or by
ascertaining the meaning of one another‟s actions. This mediation is equivalent to inserting a
process of interpretation between stimulus and response in the case of human behaviour.

 According to Blumer, the characteristic of approach are:

o Human interaction
o Interpretation or definition rather than mere reaction.
o Response based on meaning
o Use of symbols
o Interpretation between stimulus and response
 In Blumer‘s views, symbolic interactionism rests on 3 basic premises:
o Human beings act – basis of meaning – given to objects – rather reacting
to external stimuli such as social forces, or to internal stimuli – rejects both
societal and biological determinism.
o Meanings arise from process of interaction – meanings not fixed and pre
formed depending upon situations.
o Meanings – result of interpretative procedures by actors within interaction
contexts. By taking role of other, actors interpret the meanings and

23
 intention of others. Thus meanings guide action arises in the context of
interaction via a series of complex interpretive procedures.

Looking Glass self:

 Symbolic interaction was influenced by the view of Charles Horton Cooley that the
sense of self is not self – generating, but it is developed though interaction with
significant others.
 In our social interaction, other people act like mirror or looking glass in which we see
ourselves.
 What other people think us is like a mirror image of ourselves in society.
 A person compares his self – image to how others perceive him.

Symbol:

 Social world is composed of symbols.

 Humans‘ extensive and creative use for communication.
 Through history it could be identified. One stage it may seem fixed, but symbolic
interactionism emphasizes the flexible and creative manner.
 Symbolic interactionist studies and analyses the process involved in all aspects of use
of symbols and communication.

Change, Adjustment, Becoming:

 Considers people as active agents but different from individual of 19th century.
 People are actors and social world is an active one – constant adjustment and
organization as essential features of social interaction. Self is created through such
interaction – not fixed one but flexible one.
 Concern is how self develops, how individual lives develop.
 Symbolic interactionist – world is an active one and society is this active social world.

Interaction:

 Plummer – not just concerned with individual or with society but with joint acts
through which lives are organized and societies assembled.
 Actions are individual action as neither in ration choice nor with personal meaning
(Weberian series).
 Rather, actions are always joint with mutual response and adjustment of actor and
others considered.

Empirical:

 Main theoretical influence during most of 20th century to what actually occurs as
humans interacts.
 Seem to lack – developed concepts, models – makes up for studying interaction of
actual people.

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  Same time the study requires careful observation, an ability to pay attention to detail
and consideration of the accepted and routine.

Criticism:

 Often been accused of examining in a vaccum; small scale face to face interaction
little concern to its historical or social setting. Ropers said that activities which Mead
sees men engaged in are historically determined relationships rather in merely
episodes, counters, etc.
 William Skidmore – interactionist fails to explain reason for certain actions of people
in certain situations; consistently fails to give account of social structure.
 Criticised for not explaining the source of meanings. Critics argue meanings which
interactionist talks about are not spontaneously generated by social structure. Marxists
argued face to face interaction situations (meanings) are product of class relationships.
 Leon Skashkolsky argues – embodies American values of liberty, freedom and
individuality and is biased by it and not deliberately ignore harsher reality of life.

2. Phenomenology:
 Branch of European philosophy – developed by Edmund Husserl.
 Phenomenology – study of phenomenon: appearance of things, or things as
they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things.
 Emphasis on internal workings of human mind and way humans classify and
make sense world around them.
 Individuals come into contact through sense; not possible to know without the
sense.
 Alfred Schutz through his book ‗The Phenomenology of the Social world in
1932- provided philosophical foundation of Weber‘s interpretive sociology by
applying phenomenological philosophy of Husserl to study of social world.
 Schutz – postulated that subjective meanings – gave rise to apparent objective
social world; argued – people depend on language and ‗sock of knowledge‘;
humans developed what he called ‗typicfications‘ – the concept attached to
classes of things that are experienced. Ex: Bank manager, football match;
using people communicate which is called common sense knowledge; not
fixed but changes frequently
 Approach within the field of sociology that aims to reveal what role human
awareness plays in production of social action, situations and world;
phenomenology believes that society is human construction.
 Phenomenology does not view any aspect as casual but rather views all
dimensions as fundamental to all others.
 Faded out due to its pure subjective nature and inability to deliver concrete
concepts. Some contemporary sociologists criticise it for being nothing more
than mere common sense and very narrow and speculative in nature.

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3. Ethnomethodology:

 Literally meaning people‘s methodology is method by which people study social

order in which they live.
 Through this method – common sense view of world is produced by observing and
studying way in which individuals converse and behave in everyday life, providing
alternative mainstream approaches of sociology. Bogdan and Taylor state – it is about
the process by which people make sense out of the situations in which they find
themselves.
 Often suspend their own common sense assumptions to study way people use their CS
in every day‘s life; way people justify their actions is taken into consideration.
 By studying routine activities, actor‘s conception of objects can be understood;
because each one takes different role.
 Concept stemmed from work of Harold Garfinkel in 1954 – interested in process
through which social order is achieved – criticizes conventional sociology for using
same meanings as done by ordinary people in society to create social order and
meaning.
 Talcott Parsons – top – down structural approach- believed society is structured on
basis of limited set of rules and values. Garfinkel – bottom – up process – people
construct social order and conduct according to particular situations.
 Two main concepts: indexicality and reflexivity.
 Views that meaning is always unclear because nothing is fixed; indexicality threatens
social order because without fixed meanings no clear communication is possible
solved through reflexivity – common sense knowledge used.

Ethnomethodology may perhaps be more a technique responsible for sociological approaches,

unlike hypothetical ones. Here, sociologists are to position themselves far from the universal
perspectives of community actors, circumstance and social interactions, and observe the
universally acknowledged perceptive that public actors have taken on and at least absolutely,
acknowledged as they keep on social relations and social interactions. It not only asks the
sociologist to establish and evaluate what precisely these are and how they progressed in terms
of development, but also raises issues or assess critically these, to increase the likelihood of
whether these are publicly appropriate and just, as well as to reflect on substitutes.

Criticisms:

 They are criticised for taking a detached view of the members of society. According
to Giddens, they seem to have no goals.
 Alvin Gouldner says that they ignore the fact that interactionists and reality are
shaped by differential power relations that exist in society.
 According to Goldthorpe – ‗it seems that what members don‘t recognise, doesn‘t
exist for them and they remain insulated with that‘. This is, however not true.
 It is microscopic and trivial which also suggests bias.

26
  The NPM also couldn‘t resolve dilemma of objectivity and subjectivity. Weber and
Mead also favoured objectivity. Non – positivists could also not develop a single
methodlogical principle leading to wide variations in non – positivist research and
some even stressed on using quantitative methods. Non positivist also depended
heavily on ability of interrogator and as a result, different explanations were given for
same phenomenon. Non – positivists ignored independent existence of social
phenomenon and overlooked the fact that man is born in a pre – existing society.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Is non – positivistic methodology scientific? Illustrate. (20 marks) (2018)

2. Elaborate the main tenets of interpretative perspective in sociology. (10 marks) (2018)
3. Examine ethno methodological and phenomenological perspectives as critique of
positivism. (10 marks) (2017)
4. Non – positivistic methodology is essential for understanding human behaviour.
Discuss. (20 marks) (2015)
5. In what way interpretative method is different from positivist approach in the study of
social phenomena? (20 marks) (2014)

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Additional notes:

28
Additional notes:

29
Additional notes:

30
 SOCIOLOGY

PAPER – 1

Unit No: 3

Unit Name: Research methods and analysis

 Research refers to systematic study of one‘s chosen subject for arriving at both new
and valid conclusions.
 Choice of research depends on multiple factors.

Types of Research:

Basic and applied: Descriptive and Analytical research:

 Basic research as pure – it concerns  Descriptive – describes a social
principle or laws and aims of achieving situation. Ex: study of drug abuse and its
knowledge at its own sake. coverage such in college students, nature
 Pertains quest for knowledge about a of drugs, causes of taking drugs etc. uses
phenomenon without concern for survey.
practical use – can be done to verify and  Researchers have no control over
remove doubts; done to reject or variables.
support existing theories about social  Analytical – researcher has to use facts
phenomena. or information already available and
 Pure research – often basis of evolving analyse them to make a critical
necessary concepts and technical evaluation.
terminology; discovers principles and  One of task in analysis of data with
laws. respect to social problems is
 Applied research – discovers ways of establishment of cause and effect
applying them to social problems; in relationship.
socio we carry out applied research.
 Pure research is only carried out when
they seek to find out why crime is
committed or how a person becomes a
criminal. If some sociologists try to find
out how one can rehabilitate criminals
and control their deviant behaviour,
they are engaging in applied research.

Empirical and Exploratory research: Quantitative and Qualitative research:

 Empirical - Relies on experiences or  Quantitative research – based on
observations; data based research – measurement of quantity.
which can verify in future.  Based on methodological principles of
 First had fact is to have working positivism and others to standards of
hypotheses and set up experimental strict sampling and research design.
design.  Qualitative research – non – quantitative
 Appropriate when proof is sought that analysis involving quality or kind. Ex:
certain variables affect other variables investigate reasons for human
in some way. behaviour.
 Evidence gathered gives powerful  Important in behavioural sciences where

31
 support to hypothesis. aim is to discover underlying motives of
 Exploratory – qualitative useful in human behaviour.
formulating hypothesis or testing.  According to Ramkrishna Mukherjee,
 Assumption – researcher has no quality – quantity is not a dichotomy.
knowledge about problem or situation. There is no either or between them.
 Also works for life deficiencies such as Quality refers to only distances in
problems in educational systems, variations, which are not known to us
corruption, and rural poverty. and therefore can‘t be measured.
 Quite valuable in sciences – essential in
researcher breaking ground.
Explanatory (or casual) and Longitudinal Experimental and Evaluative research:
research:  Experiments – theoretically purest way
 Explanatory research -Explains causes of dealing problem of cause and effect.
of social phenomena.  Most sophisticated way of getting at
 Aims to establish between variables. problems of explanation.
 Ex: relationship between drug abuse  Controlled experiments involve
and lack of family control. Does not manipulation of circumstances.
involve comparison and the factors of  Researcher needs to identify factors
change. which are significant and then decide
 Longitudinal research – involves study whether to introduce or exclude them.
of problem or same body of phenomena  Ex: Howthorne studios of Elton Mayo
over a period of time.  Evaluative research: social workers
 Ex: AIDS among males and females in increasingly involved.
India in 1979, 1989, 1999.  Can be reduced to 3 basic questions:
 Covers broad range of phenomena at 1. How effective is the program?
single point of time. 2. How efficient is the program?
3. Should the activity continue?
 Is program effective or efficient?
 According to Mark and Henry, a
competent evaluator may not ignore the
value problems presented.
Participatory action research: Comparative method:
 Involvement with practical issues,  Process of comparing situations, groups
problems, concerns that arise in routine etc.
world.  Marx, Durkheim and Weber used some
 4 defining characteristics of action: kinds of comparative method; adopted
1. Practical – dealing with real very different approaches to comparative
world issues analysis.
2. Change: discovering change in  Ex: Durkheim study of suicide;
social phenomena. Ginsberg study on primitive societies.
3. Cyclical process: feedback loop,
which initial findings generate
possibilities for change.
4. Participation: practitioners are
crucial people in research
process. Participation is active
not passive.

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Deduction and Induction:

 These are two epistemological approaches towards research in sociology.

 Inductive research involves search for the pattern from set of observations and
ultimately concluding the outcomes as theories.
 On the contrary deductive research starts with theory derived through common sense
or literature etc. itself and then moves towards observations.
 Inductive approach is taken when we know very less about the social issue at the
hand. Hence, exploratory research is always inductive.
 Deductive approach is used when there is already an existing knowledge base.
 Confirmatory research is generally deductive.
 Qualitative or interpretivist sociologist more frequently use inductive reasoning where
an investigator takes time to make repeated observations of the phenomena under
study to get a better understanding of the phenomenon under observation.
 Scientific methods may use any of these two approaches for social research.

Elements of research methodology:

 Concepts – building blocks of social research; significant symbol of social scientific

language. Concepts are essentially the abstractions of reality. Reality has several
dimensions; hence concept can convey several meanings. Concepts defined according
to theoretical orientation of the researcher and bring coherence into the abstraction of
the phenomenon under study.
 Propositions or hypotheses – propositions – statements of interrelationship among
concepts; definition of concept as subjects of research involve explicit or implicit
contrast between the concepts under consideration and the set of all other possible
subjects chose from the same universe.
 Theories – systems of concepts and hypothesis explaining the relationships and
underlying principles characterising a phenomenon; could be ‗grand range‘ theories,
which attempt to fit together in logical patterns vast areas of human behaviour; could
also be theoretical system with modest scope involving small number of concepts and
propositions

 3 elements inter related to each other in cyclical fashion.

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Unit No: 3

Unit Name: Research methods and analysis

Chapter Name: (a) Quantitative and qualitative research methods

Quantitative methods:

 Collection and analysis of data which is quantifiable.

 Statistical, mathematical or numerical analysis of data collected through polls,
questionnaires and surveys
 Durkheim used this method in study of suicide.
 Goal – to determine the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent
or outcome variable within a population; designs – descriptive or experimental.
 Descriptive study – establishes only associations between variables; experimental
study establishes causality.

Characteristics:

 Data gathered using structured research; research based on larger sample sizes;
research study can be usually replicated or repeated, given its high reliability.
 All aspects of study are carefully designed before data is collected.

Advantages Disadvantages
Allows for a broader study, involving greater Is more efficient and able to test hypotheses,
number of subjects and enhancing but may miss contextual detail.

34
generalization of results.
Allows for greater objectivity and accuracy Uses a static and rigid approach and so
of results employs an inflexible process of discovery.
Applying well established standards means Development of standard questions can lead
that the research can be replicated, and then to ‗structural biases and false representation.
analysed and compared with similar studies.
Researcher can summarize vast sources of Researcher provides less detail on behaviour,
information and make comparisons across attitudes and motivation.
categories and over time.
Personal bias can be avoided by keeping a Results are limited as they provide numerical
‗distance from participating subjects and descriptions rather than detailed narrative and
using accepted computational techniques. generally provide less elaborate accounts of
human perception.

Qualitative method:

 Empahsize of quality of entity and on processes and menaings.

 Researchers stress on socially constructed nature of reality.
 Three key elements:
o The design:
 Naturalistic – refers to studying real world situations as they unfold
naturally; researcher is open to whatever emerges for him.
 Emergent – acceptance of adapting inquiry as understanding deepens
or situations changes; researchers avoid rigid designs that eliminate
responding to opportunities to pursue new paths of discover as they
emerge.
 Purposeful – cases for study are selected because they ‗information
rich‘ and illuminative.
o The collection of data:
 Data – observations yield a detailed understanding; often derived
carefully conducted case studies and review of material culture.
 Personal experience and engagement – researcher has direct contact
and gets close to people, situation and phenomenon under
investigation; researcher‘s personal experiences – important part of
enquiry.
 Emphatic neutrality – working with study respondents seeks vicarious
understanding without judgement by showing openness, sensitivity,
respect, awareness.
 Dynamic systems – there is attention to process; assumes change is on-
going.
o The analysis:
 Unique case orientation – assumes each case is special and unique.
 Inductive analysis – immersion in details and specifics of data to
discover important patterns, themes and interrelationships.

35
  Holistic experiences – the whole phenomenon under study is
understood as a complex system that is more than sum of its parts; the
focus is on complex interdependencies and system dynamics that
cannot be reduced in any meaningful way.
 Context sensitive –
 Voice, perspective and reflexivity – a credible voice conveys
authenticity and trustworthiness; complete objectivity being impossible
and pure subjectivity undermining credibility.

Advantages Disadvantages
Obtain a more realistic view of the lived Drifting away from the original objectives of
world that cannot be understood or study in response to changing nature of
experienced in numerical data and statistical context under which research is conducted.
analysis.
Allows researcher to describe existing Replication of study is very difficult.
phenomenon
Develop flexible ways to perform data Increases the chances of ethical dilemmas
collection which undermine the overall validity of the
study.
Yield results that can be helpful in pioneering Inability to investigate causality between
new ways of understanding. different phenomenon.
Provide a holistic view of the phenomena Data gathering and analysis is often time
under investigation. consuming or expensive.

Triangulation method:

 Refers to practice of using multiple sources of data to enhance credibility of research

study.
 Some view it as critical to establishing corroborating evidence and others focus on its
potential to provide multiple lines of sight and multiple contexts to enrich
understanding of research question.
 Norman Denzin identified for types of triangulation:
o Data triangulation involves using multiple sources of data.
o Investigator triangulation involves employing several evaluators to engage in
observations or analyse participant responses.
o In theory triangulation, multiple theoretical perspectives are considered either
in conducting research or in interpreting the data.
o Methodological triangulation, which is the most commonly used for of
triangulation, engages multiple methods to study a single problem.

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Previous Years Questions:

1. Distinguish between qualitative techniques of data collection with suitable examples

form Indian society. (10 marks) (2018)
2. Examine epistemological foundations of qualitative methods of social research. (10
marks) (2017)
3. Analyse the importance of qualitative method in social research. (10 marks) (2016)

37
Unit No: 3

Unit Name: Research methods and analysis

Chapter Name: (b) Techniques of data collection

 Technique of data collection in a systematic way.

 Depends on various factors. Required is quantitative and qualitative; it is primary and
secondary data.

Sources:

 Primary sources - Data collected by researcher themselves during course of work;

data collected using questionnaires, interviews, participant observation
 Secondary sources – Data that already exist; official statistics, reports, works of other
sociologists, etc.,

Ethnography, participant observation and field study:

 Ethnography – also known as ethnomethodology or methodology of people.

 Focuses on studying social cultural phenomena of a community.
 Participant observation and field study are part of ethnography.
 Malinowski‘s study of Trobriands islands
 Observation – defined as a process in which one or more persons observe some real
life situation/process/event and record pertinent occurrences.
o It is a qualitative research where target is observed and analysed in natural
setting.
o Used when other data collection methods are not adequate.
o Output of observational research is sometimes followed with a quantitative
survey to support certain behaviours/observation correlate and derives more
meaningful insights.
o PV Young – observation is a systematic viewing along with consideration of
seen phenomenon.
o Ram Ahuja – observation is defined as a planned methodical watching that
involves constraints to improve accuracy.
 The purpose of observation is to: to capture human conduct as it actually happens; to
provide more graphic description of social life; to study important events and
situations; to verify and extend generalisation or theories formed on the basis of other
studies and to gain insights into the problem.

Types of observation:

Participant and Non – participant observation:

Participant observation:

 Investigator becomes a part of the group or phenomenon.

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  Investigator – play twin roles as observer and participant – introduces in disguised
manner.
 Also shares the observation method activities of the community studied and observe
what is going on around; gives an opportunity for intimate study.
 Observation is supplemented with the interaction, conversations and interview, so that
more authentic data is collected.
 Free flow of information is gathered by living with the group and learning their
language, habits, etc.
 Observation may be long which gives a qualitative but enormous in quantity.
 Better than many other methods of data collection; used in social sciences to study the
society and behaviour of its members.
 Greater degree of participation by the researcher may also result in developing close
relationships with the group.
 This method is being used by sociologists, anthropologists, where the observer
becomes part of the group and makes the observation.
 Ex: Maliownsky‘s study of tribes, M.N.Srinivas study of Rampura village,
A.Beteille‘s study of Sripura village.

Limitations:

 Samples are very small and untypical for generalisations to be made.

 Studies cannot be replicated so that results can be checked; difficult to compare with
other studies.
 Data from this method rely upon particular interpretations of a single individual, and
are specific to a particular place and time.
 Quite possible that different result could be found with different researches through
this method.
 Account of social life produced by this method is result of a highly selective method
of data collection.
 Validity of data is bound to be affected by the presence of the researcher as it will
prevent the subjects from acting naturally.
 When observer becomes part of the group, naturally he gets accustomed to the
behaviour, it may effect on maintaining the objectivity of data. Unforeseen factors
might interfere with the observational work.

Non – Participant observation:

 Observer gets detached with the group and does not participate or intervene in their
activities; behaviour of subject may become unnatural; never participating
 Raymond God, in his article ‗Roles of sociological field observations‘ published in
the journal social forces in 1958m proposed four different roles to the observer.
o Complete participant observer: researcher becomes fully – fledged member of
the group under study and is fully involved in the group‘s activities. The
purpose of the observation is hidden.

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 o The participant as observer: Here both the participants and researcher are
aware that the participants are being observed. There is full disclosure about
the observation.
o The observer as participant: here involvement with participants is deliberately
kept to a minimum. There is only partial disclosure.
o The complete observer: here observers are not noticeable and not exposed to
any social contract – they observe in a very public place. The purpose of the
observation is kept completely hidden.

Systematic and Non – Systematic observation method:

 Systematic observation – stated procedures are used for observation and recording the
data has to be done following certain rules; could be possible replicated.
 Non-systematic observation – does not follow any rules and replication gets difficult.

Structured and Un – structured:

Structured:

 Organised and planned which employs formal procedure.

 Units to be observed carefully defined.
 Necessary to define the information to be recorded, selection of data and
standardisation of conditions of observation.
 Categories of observation have to be developed and are subjected to high levels of
control and differentiation.

Un – Structured:

 Longer period and may not be able to structure the program.

 Depend on natural situation.
 Researcher should decide relationship between him and group; the period of
observation; type of behaviour to be observed, etc.
o Direct – indirect:
 Direct - merely records what occurs; no attempt to control situation.
 Indirect – when subject is dead or refuses to take part in study. Ex:
police may visit the site of crime and look for traces left by the
criminal for further investigation or study.
o Natural – Laboratory:

Case studies and life histories:

Case studies:

 Involves in – depth investigations of a single person, group, event or community; data

gathered from various sources.

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  PV Young – ―a comprehensive study of social unit be that unit of a person, a group,
etc.; efforts are made to study each and every aspect of the concerning unit in minute
details and then from case data generalisations and inferences are drawn.
 Becker claims – case study can be used to develop more theoretical statements about
the regularities in social structure and process. Thus Gough‘s study of Nayar society
showed that family structures are based upon a marital bond and not universal.
 Can be used to produce typologies or set of categories defining types of a social
phenomenon. Douglas – case study can used to discover different social meanings of
suicide.
 Help in generating new hypothesis; Paul Willis – study of a single school has
produced a number of hypotheses about the relationship between education and
capitalist societies.

Advantages Limitations
It provides detailed information. Cannot generalize the results to wider
population.
It provides insight for further research. Researcher‘s own subjective feelings may
influence the case.
It permits investigation of otherwise It is difficult to replicate.
impractical situations.
It is time – consuming.

Life Histories:

 Particular type of case studies – whole study concerns one individual‘s life.
 Carried out using a variety of methods but most frequently use extended, unstructured
interviews.
o Some life histories make considerable use of personal documents.
o Ken Plummer – they have number of uses and can be of considerable value in
developing sociological theory. They can help the researcher develop and
understanding of the meaning of concepts used by those he is studying.
o Some feminist researchers argue that life – history research is useful for
helping women to understand their situation and helping them to change it.
o Critical researchers – help raise people‘s consciousness and awareness of their
own exploitation by encouraging them to reflect upon the factors that have
shaped their experiences.

Surveys:

 Method of gathering information from a population on a given subject.

 Unlike qualitative research, survey research invariable covers a large population but it
does not imply that it collects information from each and every individual.
 Quantitative research – census (when information is obtained from every member of
population); expensive, lengthy and time consuming process and sample based
survey research (when only a unit of population is studied)

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  Stephen Ackroyd and John A Hughes have distinguished 3 main types of surveys:
o Factual survey: it is used to collect descriptive information. Ex: government
census.
o Attitude survey: is often carried out by opinion poll organisations.
o Explanatory survey – more ambitious than other types; beyond description and
tries to test hypotheses or to produce new theories; success of any survey
depends ultimately on quality of data it produces. Most social surveys use
questionnaire‘s as means of data collection.

Advantages Limitations
It is a practical way to collect data The biggest disadvantage of the
questionnaire is low response rate.
The result of research can be relatively easily It is reliable but lacks validity. Validity of the
quantified, and with the assistance of data may be reduced if the respondent‘s
computers the data can be analysed quickly inability or unwillingness to give accurate
and efficiently. replies to the questions.
Only when the data re quantified by means of Respondents cannot provide information that
reliable measuring instruments can the results is asked. It is difficult to develop hypotheses
of different studies be directly compared. during the course of the research.
From, a positivist point of view, statistical To interpretive sociologists it precludes the
data from questionnaires can be analysed so possibility the possibility of understandings
that new theories can be introduced. the meanings and motives of the subject of
the research.
Many sociologists like Marshall regard Researchers often use leading questions
questionnaires as a suitable method for which need to be avoided.
testing precise hypotheses in a rigorous
manner.

Interviews:

 Qualitative research technique which involves asking open – ended questions to

converse with respondents and collect elicits data about the subject.
 According to Neuman, ―the interview is a short term, secondary social interaction
between two strangers with the explicit purpose of one person‘s obtaining specific
information from the other…Information is obtained in a structured conversation in
which the interviewer asks pre – arranged questions and records answers and
respondent answers.‖
 Ranjit Kumar in his book Research methodology (1999) opined that any person to
person between two or more individuals with a specific purpose in mind is called
interview.

Types of interview:

Structured interview:

 Extremely rigid in operation and allows very little or no scope of prompting the
participants to obtain and analyse results.

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  Significantly quantitative in approach; questions pre decided according to required
detail of information.
 Structured interviews are excessively used in survey research with the intention of
maintaining uniformity throughout all the interview sessions.
 They can be closed – ended as well as open – ended according to the type of target
population. Closed – ended questions can be included to understand user preferences
of answer option whereas open ended can be included to gain details about a
particular section in interview.

Advantages Limitations
Focuses on the accuracy of different Limited scope of assessment of obtained
responses due to which extremely organized results.
data can be collected.
They can be used to get in touch with a large The accuracy of information overpowers the
sample of target population. detail of information.
The interview procedure is made easy due to The researcher is expected to always adhere
the standardization offered. to the list of decided questions irrespective of
how interesting the conversation is turning
out with the participants.
Replication across multiple samples becomes A significant amount of time is required for
easy due to same structure of interview. structured interview.
Since the structure of the interview is fixed, it
often generates reliable results and quick to
execute.

Unstructured interviews:

 Also called in – depth interviews‘ have least number of questions as they lean towards
a normal conversation but with an underlying subject.
 Main objective - build a bond with respondents – 100% truthful expected; there are
no guidelines for researchers to follow and so they can approach the participants in
any ethical manner to gain as much information as they possible can for their research
topic.
 Researcher is expected to keep their approach in check so that the respondents do not
sway away from the main research motive.

Advantages Limitations
It becomes extremely easy for researchers to Researchers take time to execute the
try and develop a friendly rapport with the interviews.
participants.
Participants can clarify all their doubts about Absence of standardized questions indicates
the questions and the researcher can take questions the reliability of unstructured
opportunity to explain his/her intention for interviews.
better answers.
There are no questions which the researcher In many cases, the ethics involved in these
has to abide by and this usually increases the interviews are considered borderline
flexibility of the entire process. upsetting.

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Focussed interview:

 To get focused in depth information on any issue from the respondent; one of types of
unstructured interviews.
 Main task of researcher is such an interview is to involve the respondent in discussion
on a specific topic so that the researcher gets desired information. Here the
interviewer has the freedom to decide the questions and their sequence.
 Kothari (2004) is of opinion that such interviews are useful in development of
hypotheses.
 The selection of respondents is done on the basis of knowledge experiences of the
respondents in the area of study.

Non – directive interview:

 Interviewer acts as a catalyst; prompts respondents to give information on topic under

investigation.
 Questioning is very less but area to covered is under control.
 Researcher must give a free environment to the respondents so that they can express
their views freely and to the point; the interviewer simply supports the views
expressed by the respondent instead of approving or disapproving them.

Face – to – face interview:

 Requires at least two persons; some cases group interview is also possible; generally
the best data gathering technique for survey research.
 One reason is that it is more difficult for respondents to refuse cooperation when they
are directly confronted and requested to respond to questions than when they receive
questionnaire and are ask to fill out themselves.
 Interviewing situation – increases the response rate. Face to face interview not only
enhances response rate but also quality of response.
 It is expensive and possibility of interviewer bias.

Advantages Limitations
Through questioning in depth information It is a very time consuming as well as very
can be obtained from the respondent. expensive method especially when the target
population is big in number and widely
spread over a geographical area.
In personal interaction clarifications and There is a possibility of biased analysis,
explanations can be made. interpretations from the side of researcher or
interviewee. Biased reactions can also be
received from the interviewee. Age, class,
race, gender, social status, etc. can play
crucial roles in generating biased opinions
from both the sides. Biased reactions,
analysis and interpretation can hamper proper
research results.
This is a very flexible method. Questions can ● If the interviewer/ researcher is not skilled,
be restructured to eliminate ambiguity. trained in the art, he/she may not be able to

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 conduct a successful interview session with
proper control.
Through personal interaction complete There is a possibility if the majority of the
responses can be obtained from the target population consists of high and top-
respondents. level management groups, executives,
therefore this method may not prove
approachable to such clientele. Getting
information from such people is not under
the control of the interviewer
Non- response percentage is very less. As Proper training, selection and supervision of
compared to the questionnaire method here the interviewer are very essential to this
the participant rate is high. method.

 Secondary sources – may be contemporary or historical and data available from them
may be qualitative or quantitative.
 Sociologists – use for practical reasons can save time and money; provide historical
data which primary research cannot produce.

Content analysis:

 Is a research used to identify patterns in recorded communication.

 Conduct content analysis – systematically collect data from set of texts, which can be
written oral or visual; Earl R Babbie defines it as study of recorded human
communication.
 Can be both quantitative and qualitative.
 Researchers – to find out about the purposes, messages and effects of communication
content.
 Used to find out about the purposes, messages and effects of communication content.
 Used to quantify the occurrence of certain words, phrases, subjects or concepts in
historical or contemporary texts.
 Content analysis can be used to make qualitative inferences by analysing the meaning
and semantic relationship of words and concepts. It has various possible goals:
o Finding correlations and patterns in how concepts are communicated.
o Understanding the intentions of an individual, group or institution.
o Identifying propaganda and bias in communication.
o Revealing differences in communication in different contexts.
o Analysing the consequences of communication content, such as the flow of
information or audience responses.

Advantages Limitations
Researchers can analyse communication and Focusing on words or phrases in isolation can
social interaction without the direct sometimes be overly reductive, disregarding
involvement of participants, so researcher‘s context, nuance, and ambiguous meanings.
presence doesn‘t influence the results.
Content analysis follows a systematic Content analysis almost always involves
procedure that can easily be replicated by some level of subjective interpretation, which

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other researchers, yielding results with high can affect the reliability and validity of the
reliability. Content analysis follows a results and conclusions.
systematic procedure that can easily be
replicated by other researchers, yielding
results with high reliability.
It is highly flexible; the researcher can Manually coding large volumes of text is
conduct content analysis at any time, in any extremely timeconsuming, and it can be
location with low cost. difficult to automate effectively.

Focus group technique:

 Is mainly used for non – positivist research; technique basically consists of bring
together a group of people to have an extensive, free flowing technique.
 Robert Merton popularised this method, which was earlier limited to marketing
exercises only – like a group interview. Usual procedure – tape record conversation
and analyse them; objectives clearly specified but no structure of the discussing
pattern.
 On disadvantage – if moderator becomes too active, he may distract the group
respond as per his likings and expectations; observer bias is significant in FGT.

Projective techniques

 Also known as enabling technique – triggering motivations and attitudes.

 Derived from clinical psychology and many remain rooted in this discipline.
 Questioning techniques that depersonalise the question to the respondent thereby
desensitising the respondent to the answer they give and deactivating their conscious
defences about the answer they give.
o Several techniques such as Rorscach technique or ink – blot test, where
subjects are assumed to project aspects of their personality onto the ambiguous
features of a defined set of blots of ink.
o Techniques based on quite unstructured materials – a vague and ambiguous
picture, a word, a phrase, some modelling clay or a paper.
o Number of projective techniques are being used to understand personality
aspects; classified by various schemes, stressing nature of materials, manner of
interpretation or type of behaviour.
o Usually employed in combination with quantitative and qualitative research
techniques.
o Generate curiosity; more likely to stretch respondent‘s imagination and
involvement than survey questions and scales.
o Mostyn and Yoell argued that responses reflected cultural and social
awareness rather than projection of unconscious thought and feelings.
 Examples:
o Thematic Appreception test or TAT – here a person is presented with an
ambiguous picture which they have to interpret.

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 o Draw a person task – individual is instructed to draw an object or a situation
so that cognitive, interpersonal can be assessed. Can be used to evaluate
children and adolescents for variety of purposes.
 Criticism – lack objectivity and very dependent on the observers; methods are indirect
ones and likely to lead to different conclusions.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of social survey method in social research. (10
marks) (2020)
2. Bring out the significance of Ethnography in social research. (20 marks) (2019)
3. Participant observation is the most effective tool for collecting facts. Comment. (20
marks) (2016)
4. Which research technique is most suitable for the study of customer behaviour and its
social correlates? Explain. (20 marks) (2014)
5. What is the subjective method in social research? Examine Focus group discussion
(FGD) as a technique for data collection, with suitable examples. (30 marks) (2011)

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Unit No: 3

Unit Name: Research methods and analysis

Chapter Name: (c) Variable, Sampling, Hypothesis, Reliability and Validity

 After choosing a topic and method of research, a researcher decides upon a sample –
i.e. the actual individuals to be studied. All research involves some sort of sampling,
some selection of who or what to study.
 Sample is part of larger population – usually selected to be representative.
 Use of sample – saves researcher‘s time and money.
 If chosen carefully, it is possible to generalise from it.
 First stage – identifying relevant population; PV Young said that in sampling –
adequate samples should be selected and reliability should be the criteria of selecting
the samples.

Types of sampling:

 Probability – Simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling,

cluster sampling.
 Non – probability sampling – convenience sampling, judgemental sampling, quota
sampling, snowball sampling.

Probability sampling:

 Every unit in population has a chance of being selected and this chance can be
accurately determined.
 Sample statistics produced – sample mean or standard deviation are unbiased
estimates of population parameters.
 All probability sampling have two attributes in common:
o Every unit in the population has a known non – zero probability of being
sampled.
o The sampling procedure involves random selection at some point.
o Different types of sampling techniques include:
 Disadvantages:
o As probability sampling consumes every element of the population, it is more
time consuming and expensive.
o Not mandatory that every person will be interested in research process. Thus
less response will act as disadvanatage.

Simple random sampling:

 All possible subsets of population are given equal probability being selected.
 Each member is chosen either by individual or by chance.
 One way of obtaining a random sample is to give each individual in a population a
number, and then use a table of random numbers to decide which individuals to
include.

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 o Allows the sampling error to be calculated and reduces selection bias.
o Advantage - Most straightforward method of probability.
o Disadvantage – may not select enough individuals with your characteristic of
interest, especially if that characteristic is uncommon; may also be difficult to
define complete sampling frame and inconvenient to contact them if they are
scattered over a geographical area.
o PV Young said that the principle of equiprobability is applied and hence this is
the most accurate method of sampling.

Systematic sampling:

 Sampling frame is ordered according to some criteria and elements at regular intervals
through that ordered list.
 Ex: if you wanted a sample size of 100 from a population of 1000, select every
1000/100 – 10th member of the sampling frame.
 Often more convenient than simple random sampling and easy to administer.
 However, may lead to bias, for example if here are underlying patterns in the order of
the individuals in the sampling frame, such that the sampling technique coincides with
the periodicity of the underlying pattern.

Stratified sampling:

 Population is divided into sub groups who share same characteristics.

 Used when researcher might reasonably expect the measurement of interest to vary
between different sub groups and he wants to ensure representation from all the sub
groups.

Clustered sampling:

 Subgroups of population are used as the sampling unit, rather than individuals.
 Population is divided into subgroups known as clusters which are randomly selected
to be included in the study. Clusters are usually defined.
 Can be more efficient than simple random sampling, especially where a study takes
place over a wide geographical region.

Non – probability sampling:

 Some units of the population have zero chance of selection or where the probability of
selection cannot be accurately determined.
 Units are selected based on certain non – random criteria, such as quota or
convenience.
 May be subjected to sampling errors and sampling bias.
 Cannot be generalized.

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Convenience sampling:

 Also called accidental or opportunity sampling – sample drawn from close to hand,
readily available or convenient.
 Easiest method – because chosen on availability and willingness to take part.
 Results are useful but prone to bias such age or sex.

Judgement (or purposive) sampling:

 Also known as selective or subjective, sampling relies on judgement of the researcher

when choosing who to ask to participate.
 Researchers – implicitly choose a representative sample to suit their needs or
specifically approach individuals with certain characteristics; used by media when
canvassing the public for opinions and in qualitative research.
 Advantage – time and cost effective
 Disadvantage – addition to volunteer bias, also prone to errors of judgement by
researcher and not findings, whilst being potentially broad, will not be representative.
 Quota and snowball sampling are subtypes of judgement sampling:
o Quota sampling – population segmented into mutually – exclusive subgroups
and non – random set of observations is chosen from each sub group to meet a
predefined quota; in proportional quota sampling, the proportion of
respondents in each subgroup should match that of the population.
o Snowball sampling: researcher starts identifying few respondents that match
criteria for inclusion in study and then ask to recommend others who meet the
criteria.
o Hardly leads to representative sample, it may sometimes be the only way to
reach populations or when sampling frame is available.

Variables:

 Variables are something that varies; simplest way of defining a variable.

 Webster says that a variable is a thing that is changeable or a quantity that may have a
number of different values.
 According to Postman and Egan, a variable is characteristics or attribute or attribute
that can take on a number of values. Ex: number of variables a researcher takes into
account IQ, sex, level of anxiety and different degree of illumination are examples of
variables that are commonly employed is psychological research.
 Variables exist in world but theory is an idea; researchers make assumptions to relate
the two – they are guide rope to real world.
 Variables are tangible: duration, frequency, rate or intensity of bar presses; items
checked on a questionnaire; murders committed; books written.
 Theoretical concept is intangible: hunger, motivation, anxiety.
 Variables are related to the theoretical concepts by means of the operational
definitions used to measure the concepts.

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  Mainly Durkheim was first to use variables in sociological research; used in study of
suicide; where he used use of various variables like gender, religion, sex etc. on the
suicide.
 Dependent and independent variables are the major two classifications of variables:

Dependent variable is one about which the Independent variable is that condition or
prediction is made on the basis of research. characteristics which is manipulated or
In other words the dependent variable is the selected by the researcher in order to find
characteristics or condition that changes as out its relationship to some observed
the researcher changes the independent phenomena.
variables.
 Relationship between independent and dependent variables is that of dependence. Ex:
In India Education policies are decided by the politicians, so it depends on political
class. Due to the political class efforts the Right to Education was made a
fundamental right.

Hypotheses:

 After research question is formulated, it makes hypothesis formulation imperative.

 Assumption or proposition whose testability is to be tested on the basis of
implications with empirical evidence and with the previous knowledge.
 Modern investigators agree that, whenever possible, the research should proceed from
hypothesis.
 Van Dalen – ‗A hypothesis serves as a powerful beacon that light the way for the
research worker‘.
 It is presumptive statement of a proposition or a reasonable guess, based upon the
available evidence, which the researcher seeks to prove through his/her study.
 Also a declarative statement in which investigator makes a prediction or a conjecture
about the outcome of the relationship; not just educated guess rather based on past
researches, which investigators gathered as evidence to advance the hypothesized
relationship between variables.
 In formulation, investigator looks for the statements where s/he relates one or more
variables to make predictions about the relationships. The hypothesis tells researcher
what to do and why to do in the context of the problem.
 Relates theory to observation and vice – versa. Hypothesis when tested are either
rejected or accepted, and help to infer the conclusion which helps in theory building.

Hypothesis is the basic function of scientific research. If a simple, brief and clear scientific
hypothesis has been formulated, there shall be no problem for the investigator to proceed in the
research field. Its utility or importance for and research may be studied as under. According to
Goode and Hatt „without‟ hypothesis formulation the research is unfocussed, a random
empirical wandering. The results cannot be studied as facts with clear meaning. Formulation of
hypothesis links between theory and investigation which lead to discovery of addition to
knowledge.

Sources of Hypotheses:

a) Experience and Creativity of the Researcher

51
 b) Background Knowledge
c) Versatility of Intellect
d) Analogies are a strong source for the formulation of hypothesis and finding out
solutions to the problem. Reasoning by analogy is based on similarities and
differences between two situations in which a similar or the same phenomenon or
event takes place.

e) Scientific Theories
f) Authentic Knowledge

Characteristics of Good Hypotheses:

a) Hypothesis should be conceptually clear.

b) Hypothesis must be testable.
c) The hypothesis should be limited in scope.
d) Hypothesis should be related to the existing body or theory and impact.
e) Hypothesis should have logical unity and comprehensiveness.
f) Hypothesis should be capable of verification.
g) Hypothesis should be operation able.
h) A hypothesis must explain what it intends to explain.
i) It must state the expected relationship between the variables.
j) The variables should be defined operationally so that the predicted relations among them
can be tested empirically.
k) The hypothesis should be amenable to testing within a reasonable time.

Three major difficulties a researcher could face during formulation of hypotheses:

 First, the absence of knowledge of a theoretical framework is a major difficulty in

formulating good research hypotheses.
 Second, if detailed theoretical evidence is not available or if the investigator is not
aware of the availability of those theoretical evidences, research hypotheses cannot
be formulated.
 Third, when the investigator is not aware of scientific research techniques, she/he will
not able to frame good research hypotheses.

Types of Hypotheses:

Several types – universal, existential, conceptual but only two categories of the hypothesis

Null hypothesis:

 Is symbolised as Ho.
 Useful tool in testing significance of difference.
 Simplest form, this hypothesis asserts that there is no true difference between two
population means, and the difference found between sample means is, accidental and
unimportant, that is arising out of fluctuation of sampling and by chance.

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Alternative hypothesis:

 Symbolised as H1 or Ha, is hypothesis that specifies those values that researcher

believes to hold true.
 Researcher hopes that sample data will lead to acceptance of this hypothesis as true.
 Represents as all other possibilities and it indicates the nature of relationship.

Errors of testing hypothesis:

 It is possible to arrive at an incorrect conclusion about a hypothesis for the various

reasons if Sampling procedure adopted faulty
 Data collection method inaccurate
 Study design selected is faulty
 Inappropriate statistical methods used
 Conclusions drawn are incorrect two common errors exist when testing a hypothesis.
Type I error – Rejection of a null hypothesis when it is true. Type II error -
Acceptance of a null hypothesis when it is false

Significance of hypotheses:

 Directs monitors and control the research efforts; provides tentative explanation of
facts and can be tested; if valid lead to generalisation helps to understand a problem –
extending the knowledge.
 Not only indicates what to look for in an investigation but how to select a sample,
choose a design a research, how to collect data and how to interpret the results to
draw valid conclusions.
 Orients researcher to be more sensitive to certain relevant aspects of problem so to
focus on specific issues and facts. Helps to not make broad.
 Provides researcher with rational statements, consisting of elements expressed in a
logical order of relationships – which seek to explain not confirmed by facts.
 Testing add a scientific rigour to all types of research. Well thought set of hypothesis
places a clear and specific goal befor researcher and equips him with conclusions of
study on basis of these conclusions. The researcher can make the research report
interesting and meaningful to the reader.

Importance of hypotheses:

 Sarantakos has pointed out 3 following functions of hypothesis:

o To guide social research by offering directions to the structure and operation.
o To offer a temporary answer to the research questions.
o To facilitate statistical analysis of variables in hypothesis testing.
 Primary functions:
o To test theories
o To suggest theories

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 o To describe social phenomena
 Secondary functions:
o To help formulating social policy, solution to various social problems.
o To assist refuting certain common sense notion.
o To indicate need for change in systems and structured by providing new
knowledge.

Reliability:

 Is the degree to which a test consistently measures whatever it measures

 Consistency with which instrument yield similar results
 Concerns ability of different researchers to make same observation.
 Reliability can be improved by two ways:
o By standardizing the conditions under which the measurement takes place i.e.
we must ensure that external sources of variation such as boredom, fatigue
etc., are minimized to the extent possible to improve the stability aspect.
o By carefully designing directions for measurement with no variation from
group, by using trained and motivated persons to conduct the research and also
broadening the sample of items used to improve equivalent aspect.

Methods of determining the reliability:

 Test – retest method: one of easiest method to estimate reliability of empirical

measurements. Same test to same people after a period of time; reliability is equal to
the correlation between scores on the same test obtained at two points in time.
 Alternative form method: is also known as equivalent/parallel form used extensively
in education, extension and development research. Two testing situations required but
with different method.
 Split – half method: widely used method of testing reliability of measuring
instruments for its internal consistence. A test is give and divided into halves and
scored separately, and then score of one half of test is compared to score of remaining
half to test reliability.

Validity:

 According to Goode and Hatt, a measuring instrument possesses validity when it

actually measures what it claims to measure.
 Subject of validity is complex and very important in extension and development
research because it is in this more than anywhere else that the nature of reality is
questioned.
 Possible to study reliability without inquiring into the nature and meaning of one‘s
variables.
 Four approaches to validation measuring instruments:
o Logical validity/face validity: it refers to either theoretical or common – sense
analysis, which concludes simply that, the items, being what they are, and the
nature of the continuum cannot be other than what is stated to be.

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 o Jury opinion: extension of logical validation, except that in case of
confirmation of logic is secured from group of persons who would be
considered as experts.
o Known – group: variant of jury procedure; validity is implied from known
attitudes and other characteristics of analytical groups, rather than from their
specific expertise.
o Independence criteria: ideal technique but its application is usually difficult.
Four qualities are desired in a criterion measure. In order of importance they
are:
 Relevance – relevant if standing on the criterion measure corresponds
to the score on scale.
 Freedom from bias: measure should be one on which each person has
same opportunity to make a good score. Ex: bias in quality of
instrument used, condition of work for a factory worker.
 Reliability: criterion score is one that jumps around from day to day. A
person‘s performance may be high on one day and low on other day. A
measure that is completely unstable by itself cannot be predicted by
anything else.
 Availability: choice of a criterion measure we always encounter
problems of convenience and availability. However, when the
independent criteria are good validation, it becomes a powerful and is
perhaps the most effective of all techniques of validation.

Types of validity:

 Content validity: according to Mc Burney and White, content validity is the notion
that a test should sample a range of behaviour that is represented by the theoretical
concept being measured.
 Criterion – related validity: criterion related validity is the idea that a valid test should
relate closely to other measures of the same theoretical concept.
 Concurrent validity: it reflects the degree tow which the test scores estimate the
individual‘s present status with regards to criterion.
 Predictive reliability: occurs when criterion measures are obtained at a time after the
test. Ex: aptitude tests are useful in identifying who will be more likely to succeed or
fail in particular subject.
 Construct validity: approaches are more complex than other forms of validity. Mc
Burney and White defined as the property of a test that the measurement actually
measures the constructs they are designed to measure. Involves 3 steps:
o Specify theoretical relationship between concepts themselves;
o Examine the empirical relationship between the measures of the concepts;
o Interpret the empirical evidence in terms of how it clarifies the construct
validity of the particular measure.
 Convergent validity: it means the extent to which a measure is correlated with another
measure which is theoretically predicted to correlate with.

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Previous Years Questions:

1. Discuss the importance of sources of hypothesis in social research. (10 marks) (2020)
2. Explain the probability sampling strategies with examples. (10 marks) (2019)
3. How can one resolve the issue of reliability and validity in the context of sociological
research on inequality? (10 marks) (2017)
4. Illustrate with example the significance of variables in sociological research. (10
marks) (2017)
5. Hypothesis is a statement of the relationship between two or more variables. Elucidate
by giving example of poverty and illiteracy. (10 marks) (2016)
6. What are variables? Discuss their role in experimental research. (10 marks) (2015)
7. Why is random sampling said to have more reliability and validity in research? (10
marks) (2015)

Additional notes:

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Additional notes:

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Additional notes:

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Additional notes:

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Functionalism:

 As a perspective evolved with beginning of sociology as a discipline and August

Comte, Durkheim and Spencer put forth ideas which formed its basis.
 Basic premise – society works as a system of interconnected parts and each part has to
perform certain functional prerequisites for the whole system. View is primarily
shaped by functionalists that society behaves like organism with various parts and
performs as an organism as whole. Integration is basic concern of functionalism.
 Often positivism and functionalism are used in conjunction – bot two are not same.
 Positivism wanted to make sociology as scientific discipline in equal to natural
sciences. August Comte was first true Positivist. Both functionalist and conflict
theorists like Durkheim and Marx come under this classification as they offered which
were predictive in nature. Functionalism is a subset of positivism in this sense and
Durkheim was first true functionalist.
 Functionalist – begins with an observation that behaviour of society is structured.
Relationships between members are guided by rules. Social relationships – patterned
and recurrent. They are guided by generalised values in the society which guide our
behaviour. This value consensus also provides for certain degree of integration in
society.
 Applied differently by thinkers – Malinowski – study of religion; Murdock – evaluate
universality of family; Davis and Moore – study stratification in society; Herbert J
Gans – analyse functions of poverty; Merton – study deviance.
 Variant – structural functionalism led by Parsons and Merton, it started to decline as
more viable alternative conflict perspective emerged.
 Functionalists look only at beneficial aspects of social relations, leads to criticism that
their approach is conservative and status quoist also accused of offering teleological
explanations. Ex: Davis and Moore theory of stratification outlines the positive
functions of stratification and then they use these effects to explain origin of
stratification. Critics like Alvin Gouldner point out that while stressing on values in
society, functionalists fail to see whose values are these.
 Functionalist‘s theories are also prone to ecological fallacies i.e. they assume that
inference about individuals can be made out of aggregate data. Ex: Aggregate GDP
growth data in case of world say in year 2021 may be positive, but it doesn‘t mean
that everyone is becoming better off. Functionalists make similar mistakes when they
consider the larger functional role of institutions, but ignore the impact of those
institutions on the individuals.

Tautologies and Teleologies:

 Two fundamental limiting aspects of functionalist explanations.

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  Tautology denotes saying the same thing twice. Ex: rectangle has four sides in
tautological.
 Functionalists are accused of tautological explanations. Ex: they claim that religion
exists because it performs the function of enhancing social cohesion. But when we ask
what they mean by religion, they define it as collective activity which has function of
enhancing social cohesion.
 So causal relationship between religion and social cohesion is simply elaboration of
definition.
 Teleology is study of purposes, intentions or goals. Functionalists explanations are
accused of suffering from illegitimate teleologies.
 Ex: functional explanation of social stratification is teleological in sense that it uses
serving a societal need of ensuring that best people get most important job. The
problem with this is that it uses a consequence as a cause.

Conflict perspectives:

 Stressed on structure and predominantly positive in their approach.

 Suggest grand framework to explain working of society but instead of emphasising
on consensus, they focus on divisions in society – seek to explain why unequal
relations exist in society and how they are perpetuated.
 Marx – first major social thinker who gave perspective through his dialectical
materialistic conception of history – saw societies as divided into two classes of
haves and have nots. His ideas – not only sociological analysis but also radical
agenda of political reforms.
 Frankfurt school of Germany – another major carrier of Marxist ideas – it aimed at
getting rid of deficiencies in Marxist perspective by introducing an element of culture
into structural analysis. Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and
more recently Jurgen Habermas belonged to this school also known as Critical school
or Neo – Marxist school.
 German scholar Ralf Dahrendorf – combined Marxist ideas with Weberian
perspective and he related conflict in society to difference in interests of individuals
and groups. Unlike Marx, who related conflict only with class, Dahrendorf taking
cues from Weber, also added dimension and authority.

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Chapter: (a) Karl Marx – Historical Materialism, Mode of production, Alienation and
Class struggle

 Early pioneers of Sociology; laid foundation of conflict perspective in Sociology,

which was radically different from then prevailing structural – functionalist view.

Historical Materialism:

 Historical Materialism or the Materialistic Conception of History is the pivot to all the
works of Marx; clearest exposition done in his contribution to critique of political
economy, 1859.
 Theory called historical because analysis of society is in terms of evolution from one
state to another as time passes and history is made. According to Marx, History is a
process of man‘s self - creation. It is necessary to understand society and is
materialistic for two reasons (1) firstly, his conception of society is based upon
materialistic and not metaphysical factors which are understood in terms of material
production (2) understanding of change is based upon changing material conditions
and not ideas.
 His theory of historical materialism has two aspects:
o Materialistic conception of society is in terms of economic infrastructure and
social superstructure which are two conceptual entities, created by Marx to
understand the modes of production or society.
o He understands the historical evolution process in terms of dialectic process,
where two opposing forces interact with each other and new structures are
produced and the dialectic process continues.
 Borrowed ideas of Historical or Dialectical Materialism from the Hegelian notions of
Dialectical Idealism, but felt it lead to very conservative political orientation; Ludwig
Feuerbach‘s – a Young Hegelian – notion of materialism was relevant.
 Material world is characterised by its own independent existence and is not result of
human thinking.
 Influenced by economists like Adam Smith and Ricardo who had postulated that
labour was source of all wealth- also influenced by political economists‘ depiction of
the horrors of the capitalist system and the exploitation of the workers, but he didn‘t
deem such evils as inevitable as he saw their solution in communism.
 In order to survive, man must produce – proclaimed Marx; essential part for survival
of human beings. First historical act and had been universally a part of human history
throughout. Marx – Man is a perpetually dissatisfied animal. Once a set of needs is
satisfied, new ones are created. Thus production continues.
 To produce, relation with others man, tools must be there.
 Process of dialectics is governed by three laws:
o Law of transformation from quantity to quality and vice versa.

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 o Law of union of opposites.
o Law of negation and of negation..

Relations between man and man:

 Pertain to the association which individuals form in order to undertake production

which also leads to stratification and formulation of classes depending upon different
positions in the production process.
 2 classes – haves, who own production and earn profits; have nots – sell their labour
and earn wages in an industrial society; nature between two – antagonistic
cooperation; two groups have opposite interests but come together for production.
According to Marx, the have nots are in disadvantaged position.

Relations between man and things:

 Nature of ownership and non – ownership things required in production. Have control
the production process and have nots just own their labour. Man is free to sell his
labour in industrial society.
 Similarly, in other societies or mode of productions, ownership and non – ownership
relations exist.

 Marx – relations are dynamic; antagonism keeps increasing.

 Capitalist society - degree of exploitation is high that man loses control over his own
labour. Marx – these social relationships determine the existence of man and not his
own will.
 Marx – ‗it is not the consciousness of men that determine their being, but on the
contrary their social being determines their consciousness‘ i.e. men themselves don‘t
decide what type of social relations they will have rather social relations determine
who they will be the ruled or the ruler.
 Forces of production according to Marx – two apsects men and things.
 Major changes occur when new forces of production are evolved which also create
new relations of production replacing the older ones.
 Contradiction takes place until it is replaced.
 Ex: in feudal society, land is central; in capitalistic society, capital is central.
 FOP also represents man‘s control over nature; as history proceeds, man‘s control
over nature increases. Man and nature are also in a state of struggle and development
in the FOP can be seen in terms of man‘s increasing control over nature.
 Both FOP and ROP change continuously and constitute economic base or economic
infrastructure.
 Marx has systemic view of society and he deemed production as central in
understanding the society. According to Marx, society or mode of production consists
of two parts.
o Economic infrastructure – includes forces and relations i.e., men and things
being involved in production include classes, tools, techniques; represents the
centrality of material or economic factors shaping whole mode of production.

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 o Social Superstructure – includes all other aspects of society like – culture, law,
state, family, religion and education and it is largely shaped by economic
infrastructure. As economic infrastructure changes, social superstructure also
changes.

 Economic infrastructure shapes social superstructure; nature of FOP and ROP will
result in similar superstructure and consequently, a typical organisation of society will
emerge which is called mode of production.

 Contradiction – conflict between ROP and FOP because unequally controlled by such
groups; in a capitalist production, FOP includes collective production by workers, yet
they are privately controlled by the capitalists. Further, fruit of these forces is also
appropriated unequally by capitalists.
Criticism:
 He is criticised as being reductionist for over – emphasising on material forces. He
reduces the importance of all other factors in society into merely economic factors.
Karl Popper termed his approach as economic reductionism for ignoring ideas.
 Marx also over emphasised conflict and ignored social order aspect. Simmel even
went on to say that conflict also has its own functions.
 Conflict is attributed to relations within economic infrastructure, but Dahrendorf says
differential authority structure is the root cause of conflict.
 Marx focussed primarily on macro evolutionary aspect and ignored the micro reality
of social life which was explored by non – positivist tradition.

Praxis:
 It literally means practical as against mere theory.
 David Harvey defines it as practical reflective activity.
 Critical theorists often argue for the use of praxis against theory in search of practical
solutions to social problem,
 This concept in sociology was initially put forward by Marx, and it has two closely
related meanings.
 First, it suggests action as opposed to philosophical speculation.

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  Secondly, it implies that the fundamental characteristic of human society is material
production against idealism – to meet the basic needs.
 Man primarily acts on the natural world, i.e. he works and only secondarily thinks
about it.
 In terms of Marx‘s idea of social change, it also implies that it is not enough to
understand the world. We must also try to improve it by real actions.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Analyse Marxian conception of historical materialism as a critique of Hegelian
dialectics. (2017) (20 marks)
2. Analyse salient features of Historical Materialism. (2013) (10 marks)

Mode of production:
 Marx – defines evolution of mankind in terms of various stages which he refers to as
modes of production.
 Every mode of production has centrality of one thing.
 Marx conceptualised the society in terms of six stages; every new mode of production
displaces the earlier one because of various like – inherent weaknesses of the system,
contradictions and class struggle. When a set of FOP and ROP becomes obsolete, new
ones.
 4 are historical and 2 are futuristic:
Historical stages:
Primitive communism:
 All were equal and had equal access to FOP and society was hunting gathering
society.
 FOP was at extremely low level and there was equality in society. Food was abundant
and population was low.
 ROP were based upon cooperation, rather than domination as ownership of FOP was
communal.
 With invention of new tools, forces became sophisticated. Communal structure started
to break up. Conflicts and contradiction between erstwhile and emerging new mode of
production which is termed as negation of primitive communism. Those who held
tools emerged as masters and those who became dependent became slaves.

Ancient Slave MOP:

 Some men had control over skills and others were subordinate.
 Symbolises ancient slavery in which slaves didn‘t have control on their labour as well.
 As population increased, slaves were pressurised to produce more, their exploitation
increased and slaves revolted. New FOP emerged in the form of agriculture and
feudalism also emerged.

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Feudalistic MOP:
 Society was divided into land owning feudal lords and landless serfs.
 Land was central to economic activity and feudal lords were in control of land and
serfs were dependent on feudal lords.
 In the MOP, erstwhile masters became masters, controlling the land and slaves
became serfs. Serfs were free, but were forced to cultivate on land of feudal lords and
had to pay tax and service, which kept on rising, leading to revolt of serfs when
conditions arrived.
 New Mop in the form of capitalism emerged with an increase in trade and erstwhile
feudal lords became capitalists and serfs became workers in factories
.
Capitalistic MOP:
 This is current MOP according to Marx, capital is central to production and society is
primarily divided into have nots called the proletariat and haves called the
bourgeoisie. Marx argued capital produces nothing.
 Only labour produces wealth, yet wages paid are too low.
 Workers lose control over their labour as well and start feeling alienated.
 Most significant contradiction leads to class conflict in capitalistic society is –
contradiction between social character of production and private form of
appropriation.
 Leads to conflict and exploited workers will unit and revolt heralding new mode of
production – socialistic MOP, eventually leading to communism.

 Marx terms feudalistic and capitalistic MOP as negation of negation as these modes
of production negate a MOP which has itself negated another MOP.
 According to him, the future stages in the dialectical process will be:

Socialistic MOP:
 Transitory MOP in which proletariat will topple bourgeoisie in a revolution and will
control FOP.
 Marx calls it as dictatorship of proletariat as, for a short while, worker controls FOP.
 It will result into reversal of the control.
 However, Marx believes that control by workers shall also come to an end to realise
the true potential of all human beings.

Advanced communism:
 Final mode in which FOP will be communally owned as workers will renounce their
rule and everyone will carry on his or her own creative pursuit and there will be no
class in society.
 There will be no state and a person‘s true self or being will be re – integrated with
oneself.
 Marx - this will be last mode of production as the contradiction will be resolved in
this mode and there will be no any unequal ROP.

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  Collective production will remain, but the qualitative nature of relations will be
transformed and ownership will also be now collective.
 Dialectical principle will cease to operate in this MOD and this stage will be closing
chapter of dialectical materialism.
 Marx‘ dynamic model of society is based upon following propositions –
o A continuous change in FOP and ROP with response to changing material
conditions.
o Continuous struggle between two classes.
o Continuous struggle between man and nature throughout history will be
resolved in communism.

Asiatic MOP:
 It was referred by Marx to explain the stagnation of oriental societies.
 It was a departure from his dialectical materialistic and evolutionary conception.
 It was characterised by simple production methods, despotic rule, self – sufficient
villages, absence of private property, economy based on handicraft and agriculture
and absence of autonomous cities.
 As there was no private property, there was no class struggle upon antagonism
between land lords and peasants.
 As these societies lacked dynamics of class struggle, there was also a little hope of
revolution.
 However, this model is also criticised for being an overall misfit in the wider
dialectical schema of the Marx also failing to represent the actual oriental society of
those days.

Criticism:
 First of all, his futuristic communist utopia never arrived in communist countries.
Proletariat have never taken a leading role in toppling capitalism and instead,
intellectuals have filled the void by coming forward for the cause of the proletariat.
 He also suggested that some societies may have different MOP as in case of Asia,
where he himself suggested an Asiatic MOP, which runs counter to his generalised
MOP thesis.
 His MOP theory is criticised for narrow empiricism and being reductionist in
approach. He also limited his analysis to production and has ignored the aspects
related to consumption.
 He has also ignored the feminist dimension of production as patriarchy is also seen as
an important factor in growth of capitalism.
 His futuristic modelling smacks his obsession with social justice. Without any sound
reasoning he predicts that process will cease. Some forms of inequalities are likely to
remain due to natural and manmade differences in society.

Marx on Individual:
 Marx – man is perpetually dissatisfied; keeps on creating new needs.

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  Consciousness becomes a function of the person‘s position in the production process
i.e. FOP and ROP influence human thoughts.
 Views on individual are further elaborated in his idea of being. According to him,
there are two essential aspects of human nature, first which is constant and other
which changes with changes in production.
o Constant part called being and is perpetually dissatisfied and creative. Tends
to create things which are expression of his creativity. Once the society limits
the creativity of individual, he feels alienated.
o Other part of human nature is governed by person‘s social position. Referred
as social being. Identified by work done by the individual. Existing in man is
identified by his social being and not by his being. Similarly in existing
societies, individual consciousness is determined by his social being rather
than his being.
 Marx, also talks about the basic nature of social being in different societies. Ex: in
capitalist societies, social beings are selfish; on other hand, in communism, it
becomes cooperative.

Previous Years Question:

1. Evaluate Marx‘s ideas on mode of production. (2016) (10 marks)
2. In Marxian classification of society, feudal and slave societies are very important.
How are they different from each other? (2012) (20 marks)

Alienation:
 Marx believed – there is an inherent relationship between labour and human nature
and this relation is perverted in capitalistic mode of production – calls this as
alienation.
 Rather than being an end in itself, an expression of human capabilities, labour in
capitalism is reduced to being a means to an end i.e., producing and earning money
for the capitalists.
 Labour is owned by the capitalist and no longer transforms the workers, they get
alienated from it and ultimately from themselves.
 Concept of alienation occupies a central role in Marxian understanding of exploitation
and he dwell on it in his work economic and political manuscripts, 1844; literally
means separation from; Marx sees this in multiple dimensions; feeling of
estrangement and disenchantment from a group, a situation, society and even with
oneself; refers to situation of powerlessness, isolation, meaninglessness.
 History of mankind has dual aspect (Marx) – it was a history of increasing control of
man over nature, at the same time it was history of increasing alienation of man.‘
 Primitive man felt alienated with nature because overpowering. Man devised FOP and
ROP to overcome nature, but alienation is transferred from natural to social sphere.
 It is not the consciousness of the man that determine their existence but on the
contrary, it is their social being that determines their consciousness. Hence man
becomes a slave of production and his individuality is lost.

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  Marx – an individual is essentially creative and his true consciousness is defined by
his being, however, man in a mode of production identified by his social being, which
is based on his work. Man uses his creativity to shape his material world. But his
creativity is objectified as he loses control over what he produces.
 Gives primary importance to alienation at workplace as it is part of economic
infrastructure which shapes the super structure; work considered central in life of an
individual.
 Its cause lies in the uneven structure of production itself.

Alienation happens in two ways:

 In a given MOP, it increases with time. Because material forces become stronger and
control over FOP becomes tighter, leading to increasing exploitation. Ex: Slaves in
ancient MOP become more alienated as they are burdened with more work and less
food. Similarly, in feudalism also, taxes and hardship on serfs increase with time.
 Its degree increases as MOP itself changes. Marx says, history of mankind is a history
of alienation. It is least in primitive communism and peaks in capitalism and work
becomes a suffering in capitalism.
 Marx explains alienation in capitalistic MOP in chapter of Fetishism of commodities
in his Das Capital, 1867. In capitalism, the commodities which are produced in the
factory and are sold in the market become fetishes as workers have to purchase in
market what they produced in factory.
 Commodities assume their own importance as if they have their own powerful
existence. Labour of workers become dependent on production of these commodities.
 This fetishism or fixation of commodities prevents workers from seeing actual reality
behind it.

Commodity Fetishism:
 Concept which is closely related to Marxian idea of capitalistic production.
 Condition under capitalism under which social relations become expressed as
relations between things and things assume more importance than the man who
produces them.
 Marx is able to reveal the true nature of capitalistic MOP; commodity is a product of
labour of man.
 Earlier, commodities – produced for satisfaction of his needs and personal use only
and hence, they had use value according to Marx, but in modern capitalistic
industries, when worker is not entitled to fruit of his work, commodities now have
exchange value.
 In capitalistic MOP, commodities come in market and exchanged for money; are
products of human labour.
 In capitalism, it seems that the commodities and market for them have independent
existences. As the commodities take on independent, almost mystical external reality,
they appear like fetishes to those who produce them.
 By fetish, Marx meant a thing that we ourselves make and then worship as if it were
god or spirit.

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  Man feels powerless with little control over what he produces and commodities
become a source of alienation.
 Marx called this fetishism of commodities.
 The concept takes us from level of individual actor to the level of large scale social
structures like religious, political, and organisation structures in the same way as
people reify commodities and other economic phenomena. One major criticism of the
concept is that it ignores the fact that the workers may also sell their labour
independently.

Four dimensions of alienation in capitalism:

 Alienation from the process of production – process of production in capitalism is
defined irrespective of individuality of workers. It is fixed and workers cannot change
it. Workers only man the machines which are given more importance. Worker loses
control over production in capitalism and hence, feels alienated from the process of
production.
 Alienation from the product – in capitalism, product doesn‘t belong to those who
produce it, but to capitalist. Workers don‘t have any control over quantity, quality or
nature of the product. Moreover, the same product has to be purchased from the
market, leading to sense of alienation from the product.
 Alienation from the fellow workers – work is compartmentalized and a worker gets
no time interact with others, either inside or outside the workplace. The commensal or
social element of work is lost in capitalistic MOP. It leads to feeling of alienation
from fellow workers as well.
 Alienation from oneself and one‘s potential – in such a situation, worker feels so
helpless that they even doubt their own existence. Work is not a choice, but a
compulsion. Work is external to the worker; it is not a part of his nature. He loses
control over his own thoughts also, as none of his thoughts can be transformed into
reality. He gets alienated from his thoughts also. This peak of alienation.

 Alienation is not result of impersonal market forces, but is due to changed relationship
between men.
 Solution to alienation was visualised in a state when production process was
overhauled and ROP was modified. It happens in communalism where FOP will be
collectively owned. In communism only, being a man is truly and he goes for all the
creative pursuits that were inhibited in earlier MOP.

Criticism:
 Karl Popper says that alienation can be breeding ground for creative ideals also.
Similarly, Merton also states that people may rebel and innovate if they feel alienated.
 Durkheim had highlighted that anomic and alienation can be corrected by existing
structures also and there is no need for overhaul of the system in form of utopian
communism.
 Goldthorpe and Lockwood, in their affluent worker study highlight that work is just
means to an end, i.e., better standards of living. Workers are more concerned about

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 the latter. Workers are more concerned about what happens outside the factory and it
shapes their behaviours and attitude more than the work itself. Workers can satisfy
their expressive and affective needs through family relationships.
 C W Mills in his study of middle class entitled White collar, 1951, it is not just the
working class that suffers alienation, but white collared staff also witness alienation.
Even white collar staff has to assume a false personality at work in terms of fake
smiles, artificial politeness, etc. which alienates them from their true self. According
to him, their personality is also sold to employer.
 Robert Blauner in his study Alienation and Freedom, 1964 has highlighted that
alienation depends on technology used at work. In different industries, using different
technologies, degree of alienation is different. He rejects the Marxian notion that
workers in industrial society are autonomously alienated. However, Marxians reject
argue back that Blauner missed the big picture. Marx never said that industrialisation
leads to leads to alienation, but it is the capitalism which leads to alienation.
 Max Weber say that over bureaucratisation of society leads to alienation as man is
guided by fixed rules and his creativity is suffocated.

Previous Years Question:

1. Critically assess the Marxian theory of ‗Alienation‘. (2020) (10 marks)
2. What us the Marxist concept of ‗fetishism of commodities‘? (2018) (10 marks)
3. According to Marx, how are human beings alienated from their human potential and
what does he suggest to change this? (2018) (20 marks)
4. According to Marx, capitalism transforms even the personal relationships between
men and women. Critically examine with illustrations from the contemporary Indian
context. (2014) (10 marks)
5. Sometimes workers do not feel attachment for their work. Marx formed a theory for
this situation. Discuss that theory. (2012) (20 marks)

Class struggle:
 One of the most powerful sociological explanations of social conflict is that of Karl
Marx.
 It is important to recognize that Marx viewed structure of society in relation to its
major classes, and the struggle between them as the engine of change in this
structure.
 Class conflict theory – tensions and conflicts arise when resources, status, and power
are unevenly distributed between groups in society and that these conflicts become
the engine for social change.
 Power can be understood as control of material resources and accumulated wealth,
control of politics and institutions that make up society.
 Class is defined by ownership of property. Two classes of society according to Marx
o Ownership class – The Bourgeoisie (The Haves) – who own the means of
production such as machinery and factory buildings and whose source of
income is profit.

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 o Non – ownership class – The Proletariat (The Have Nots) – who own their
labour and sell it for a wage.
 Class is determined by property not by income or status.
 Marx reasoned that as the socio – economic conditions worsened for the proletariat,
they would develop class consciousness that revealed their exploitation at hands of
the wealthy capitalist of bourgeoisie, and then revolt.
 Marx – if changes made to appease conflict maintained a capitalist system, then the
cycle of conflict would repeat. However, if the changes made created a new system,
like socialism, then peace and stability would be achieved.
 Class is fundamental unit of organization according to Marx and society is always
divided into opposing classes. ‗Man is born in a society in which property relations
have already been determined. Just as man cannot choose who his father will be, he
has no choice over his class as well‘ said Marx famously.
 According to Marx – ‗History of hitherto existing societies of class struggle‘.
 Conflict between two classes in every mode of production is force behind historical
developments.
 Class struggle is not smooth and is mediated by a number of factors and situations.
FOP keeps on changing which require entirely new set of ROP. Old relations come
into conflict with new relations creating class struggle.
 For Marx, a true class – only when people become aware of their conflicting relation
to other classes. Without this awareness – class in itself; with awareness – class for
itself.

Six elements in Marx‟s view of class conflict:

 Classes are authority relationships based on property ownership.
 A class defined groupings of individuals with shared life situations, thus interests.
 Classes are naturally antagonistic by virtue of their interests.
 Imminent within modern society is the growth of two antagonistic classes and their
struggle, which eventually absorbs all social relations.
 Political organization and power is an instrumentality of class struggle, and reigning
ideas are its reflections.
 Structural change is a consequence of class struggle.

Objective criteria – class in itself:

 People sharing the same relationship in MOP comprise a class. Ex: Labours with land
owners.
 For Marx, this relationship above is not sufficient to determine the class, as according
to him it is not sufficient for class to be ‗class in itself‘ but should be ‗class for itself‘.

Subjective criteria – class for itself:

 Any collectivity or human grouping with a similar relationship would make a
category not a class, if subjective criteria are not included.
 Class consciousness towards acting together for their common interests in what Marx
class – ―class for itself‖.

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 Marx says – feudal societies didn‘t develop a conflict between lord and serf because
of ideology of rural life. Relationship was paternalistic; in times famine, serfs had free
food to eat from lords; because of this serf couldn‘t develop class conscious.
 Capitalistic societies – new class arose, when new forces of production came up. Ship
building technology, mercantile capitalism contributed to development of class.
 Transformation of class – governed by ever increasing exploitation, communal
working in a factor and rising gap between the haves and the have nots. Polarization
will occur as a result of increasing mechanization and homogenization of workforce.
 According to Marx, the capitalist society by its very nature is unstable as it is based
on contradictions and antagonisms which can be resolved only by its transformation.
 According to Marx, class in itself becomes class for itself only in capitalist MOP, as
in earlier change of MOP resulted only in replacement of one set of contradiction by
the other and no qualitative change in relationships of production occurs.
 Before communism arrives, ‗class for itself‘ is merely transitory in nature as old
contradiction is replaced with the new contradictions. Final transition of class in itself
to class for itself occurs in communism.
 As capitalism irrational system as for as goals are concerned because they are
constantly seeking profit, it tends to end up in over production.
 Over production also generate slump/recession. So, it has boom and slump. In surplus
it may lead to boom or slump. In times of slump, it may lead to extreme chaos. He
identifies three processes here.

1. Pauperisation:
 Workers are progressively turned to paupers in relation to bourgeoisie or capitalists.
 Degree of inequality and disparity is inevitable, working class would get poorer.

2. Polarisation:
 Marx – there would be polarization for Marx the middle class of capitalistic society is
reminiscence of feudal order of 19th century.
 Due to exploitative tendencies of the capitalists in capitalistic society sooner or later
would be forced to join ranks of proletariat.
 Small farmer, small businessmen and independent professional would be squeezed
out.
 On one hand there would be vast impoverished proletariat and minority consisting of
monopoly capitalistic. This is how society gets polarized into hostile groups.

3. Homogenisation:
 There would be trend towards homogenization internally. In feudal society various
classes existed among proletariat. Ex: Blacksmith, gold smith.
 In capitalistic society differences would vanish and come under one roof in factory
sheds.
 This would facilitate for growth of solidarity; conditions would facilitate for
awareness consciousness, consciousness of community and common misery. As
capitalist‘s matured even the proletariat mature as a class for itself.

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  They will resort to political action and fight against system. Sometimes may be
violent. Ex: may throw government and capture power if it fails to address the
grievance.
 Marx diagnosis was quite correct but treatment was wrong; root cause for entire
problem was inequality rooted in private property. He said to abolish the private
property and everyone would work and production would be need driven and not
greed driven and this will lead to creation of communist society.
 Democracy – character of bureaucratic society and hierarchy inevitable in democracy.
Marx doesn‘t suggest it but talks of classless society which is only possible in
communist society.
 For Marx, state is an agent of promoting ownership class. State would gradually die
out.
 What we shall have is a classless and stateless society which would be truly humane
society. Man would have a playful existence.
 Garden of Eden which was lost would be regained in communism. This is how class
consciousness would unfold in society.

Indian Freedom movement:

 Peasantry was totally deprived of economic rights; middle class promised economic
benefits to poor if they supported nationalist movement; supported by upper class
riches like Birla as they know that after British were gone they would emerge as
powerful class.
 Contrary maharajas didn‘t support as they were benefitted by presence of British
Zamindari rights. Marxism is thus a conceptual tool to explain conflict and change.
 In feudal society – complex system of social ranking and objective antagonism
develops between owners and non – owners.
 Non – owners remained as class in itself and count not organize as homogenous class
as there prevailed false consciousness and society remains unchanged.

Post capitalistic society and relevance of Marxism in contemporary industrial society:

 Ralph Dahrendorf – industrial society after WW 2 is qualitative different. If capitalist
before WW2 it is post capitalistic after WW2. Post-industrial society characterized
by:
o Decomposition of capital
o Decomposition of labour
o Social mobility
o Rise of welfare state
o Insulation and institutionalization of conflict due to extreme social
differentiation.
 Daniel Bell gave concept of post industrialized society argued universities rather than
factories are power centers. Decision maker should be technocrat and not an owner.
So knowledge is power rather than economy.

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  Garmsci in his theory of hagemonistic control advocates that a singular class
dominate modern capitalism. Intellectuals, industrialists and professional politicians
come together and exercise control over masses.
 Ralph Dahrendorf – modern society is controlled by leaders of political parties
because they formulate policies and determine destiny of society.
 Pierrie Bourdieu advocates that dominant class do have control over three different
forms of capital
o Intellectuals control cultural capital
o Industrialists control economic capital
o Bureaucrats and politicians control symbolic capital.
 Glasgow university media group – media is emerging most power holder, opinion
maker and power broker and above all group
 There is a contradictory class location of middle class. Middle class structurally
belongs to working class but functionally belongs to ruling class. James Bernham
calls this as managerial revolution of middle class.
 Marx wanted socialism to appear as an alternative to exploitive capitalism. Today‘s
capitalism has socialistic elements. Hence biggest contribution by Marx to mankind is
to compel capitalism to go for self-amendment from monopolistic, exploitative
capitalism to competitive collaborative capitalism. For this reason Marxism is still a
matter of intellectual celebration.

Criticism:
 Marx‘ futuristic conception failed to take shape. Industrial capitalism has in fact
grown stronger and socialist experiments have failed worldwide and communism is
still a utopian concept. The qualitative transformation he talked so vociferously never
happened.
 Frank Parkin in his ‗class inequality and political order, 1972‘ points out that class
exist even in socialist countries.
 Contrary to Marxian prediction that class struggle will intensify, it has moderated in
most of the Europe which is epitome of capitalism. Workers themselves have become
affluent and now have a stake capitalist economy. Class is, in fact, given more
importance as it is now used as a source of identity.
 Weber and others have highlighted that apart from economic basis, there are other
basis of stratification in society. Weber says, in times of Marx, in capitalistic
societies, there are 4 classes and not 2 classes as aid my Marx. They are:
o Propertied upper class
o Property less white collar
o Petty bourgeoisie
o Manual workers
 Weber also sees no possibility of pauperization, polarization and homogenization. No
possibility of polarization because, property less white collars will expand as
capitalism matures. Bureaucracy expands with capitalism.

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  Lenski asserts that even breakdown of capitalism may not lead to socialism, as other
MOP may emerge.
 Modern Marxists like Ralf Dahrendorf contend modern capitalism has modified itself.

Later conflict theories:

 Still relevant in explaining conflict in various aspects of life – understanding social
order, social problems and individual.
 Highly influential in modern and post – modern theories of sexual and racial
inequality, ant colonialism, peace and conflict studies, and many varieties of identity
studies that have arisen across Western academia in the past several decades.
 Focuses on competition between groups within society over limited resources.
 Views social and economic institutions as tools of the struggle between groups or
classes, used to maintain inequality and the dominance of the ruling class.
 Sees society divided along lines of economic class between the proletarian working
class and the bourgeois ruling class.
 Later versions – look at other dimensions of conflict among capitalist factions and
between various social, religious and other types of groups.

Previous Years Questions:

1. How does Marx view social conflict as an essential element in social change? (2020)
(20 marks)
2. What is class? Do you think that Weber‘s contributions to social stratification are
different from that of Marx? (2011) (30 marks)
3. Explain Karl Marx‘s views on ‗class – in – itself‘ and ‗class – for – itself‘ with
reference to proletarians. (2010) (30 marks)

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Chapter: (b) Emile Durkheim – Division of Labour, Social Facts, Suicide, Religion and
society

 Durkheim was exposed to ideas of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Comte.

 Was influenced by:
o Kant held that society could exist only when individuals were governed by
moral values.
o Boutroux – his teacher‘s conception of social reality.
o August Comte – positive science of society must develop.
o Spencer – organismic analogy. But spencer‘s idea of egoistic individualism
was rejected by Durkheim.
o Charles Renouvier – emphasized on need for moral regulation.
o Schafles and Schomoller – Individual exists only as a part of society and not
society
 Developed four dimensions of society: Perspective, Subject matter, methodology,
Application of methodology; fulfilled all four and so was called as ―the pioneer of
modern sociology‖.

Rules of Sociological method:

A. Rules of observation:
1. Treat social facts as things, i.e. it should be looked in an objective manner and in a
detached way as if independent of and external to individual members.
2. The voluntary nature of phenomenon i.e. meanings and motives should never be
considered beforehand. He tells, social facts could not be sufficiently known in terms
of individual purpose alone. He did not assert that social facts are not voluntary, but
he said that for correct and exhaustive observation we should not assume their
voluntary nature, as they are not verifiable.
3. All pre – conceived notions should be avoided. Due to our common sense familiarity,
pre – conceived nations may come.
B. Rules of classification:
1. Social facts are divided into normal and pathological, based on observation.
2. Classify social fact in terms of typologies using comparative method.

After knowing how to observe and describe social fact we should see to establish their
normal or pathological condition in particular societies. His rule of classifying social
fact was based on objective criteria. A social fact is normal in a given species of
society if it is found in the average type of members. If social fact is found in a
particular kind of society, it is normal for that kind of society. For example gender
inequality is normal in agrarian society while pathological in industrial society.

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 C. Rules of Explanation:
1. Causal explanation that is every social fact should be explained in terms of preceding
social fact.
2. Functional explanation that is explaining in terms of consequence.
D. Rules for testing sociological explanation:
Experimentation is the crucial method of testing the theories in science. It is not
possible in sociology. So, comparative methods which are the closest alternative to
experiments must be employed for testing the sociological explanation. Normal social
facts should be compared with pathological social facts to understand why integration
is present in normal and chaos in pathological.

Division of Labour:

 Second doctoral thesis of Durkheim; was responding to the change of society.

 Industrials society developed due to increasing DOL and wanted to enquire on how
DOL would impinge on solidarity.
 Primary concern – establishment of order and cohesion in France; found that egoistic
and individualism was cause of chaos and conflict.
 DOL – discussed by classical economists Adam Smith and Ricardo.
 Classical economists – heralded DOL as a sign of human progress by linking it with
productivity and efficiency. DOL – refers to which complex task is broken into many
simpler tasks.
 Neo – classical economists of Cambridge school – extended to international plane –
called comparative advantage; advocated every country should specialize to produce
goods and services which are best suited for them in terms of resources, manpower
and technology followed by free trade which would benefit both consumers and
producers bringing rapid economic growth and prosperity.
 Durkheim rejected economist POV as they cannot exist in isolation. If DOL in
economic sphere doesn‘t accompany with spheres of society then it will be
unsustainable.
 DOL as a phenomenon encompasses the whole society.
 Logically, there can be two different types and hence different types of society.
o Simple societies characterized by low DOL based on ascriptive criteria like
age and gender.
o Modern societies characterized by high DOL based on achievement criteria
like intelligence.

Ascriptive DOL:

 All members – same age – perform same task – productivity low.

 Society divided into units called segments based on clan, lineage and each segment
self – sufficient; little or no interdependence among segments.
 Chose four dimensions of collective conscience in terms which he analysed these
consequences: volume, intensity, determinateness, content.

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 Ascriptive DOL – volume of collective conscience is high – influences all spheres of
social life. Ex: economic, political, religion.
 Laws are repressive. Deviance is taken as wrong against the society as a whole. Ex:
in Islam a person stoned to death in case of adultery.
 According to Karl Marx, class war erupts because of gross inequalities while
according to Durkheim complete equality is not good as unmeritorious would be
rewarded as meritorious.
 Fear of divine and retribution is added.
 These societies are called as ‗segmental societies‘ and solidarity is brought by
maintaining a likeness in mechanically juxtaposed segments called mechanical
solidarity; authority is diffused and no particular individual has authority; here
individual is robbed of his autonomy.
 Reasons for change from simpler war erupts because of gross inequalities while
according to Durkheim complete equality is not good as unmeritorious would be
rewarded as meritorious.
 Fear of divine and retribution is added.
 These societies are called as ‗segmental societies‘ and solidarity is brought by
maintaining a likeness in mechanically juxtaposed segments called mechanical
solidarity; authority is diffused and no particular individual has authority; here
individual is robbed of his autonomy.
 Reasons for change from simpler society to complex society: when there is increase
in material volume, gives rise to material density; gives increased frequency of social
interaction due to increase in population; problems occur; Durkheim says to solve
these problems DOL is peaceful solution else it would face chaos and disorder.
 High DOL; social relations depend on individual‘s performance and ability;
autonomy must be given; volume of collective conscience drops.
 An individual is free and his freedom is guarded by an authority structure; however
authority must be limited as to not interfere in individual sphere of autonomy;
religion may appear as private institution; Durkheim – secular institution would take
care of laws and religion would disappear from public sphere.
 Laws are restitutive – not try to suppress the act, but only to try to prevent people
from robbing off others autonomy – needed to tolerate high DOL.
 These societies are called organic solidarity i.e. unity due to inter – dependence.
 According to Durkheim organic solidarity is more solidarity than mechanical
solidarity because organic solidarity has inbuilt solidarity.

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Causes for chaos in Industrial society:

 Caused by unregulated market, its arbitrary and extreme inequalities – restricted on

social mobility and its class wars and trade unions.

Two pathological forms of high DOL:

Anomic DOL:

 Durkheim – true freedom lies in being regulated by collective conscience; man should
be controlled sociologically because he cannot be controlled biologically.
 There should be norms to regulate the society; without norm to regulate desires there
would be anomie. Usually seen in industrial strife where there is tug of war between
greed of capitalist and workers; regards trade unions replacing individual selfishness
with collective.
 Anomie refers to a social condition which is a temporal phenomena present in
societies in transitional stage.

Inadequacy of norms:

 Inadequate arrangement to enforce those norms.

 When situation changes and new situation develops there will be no new norms and
may take long time. Anomie may be due to:
o Normative deregulation i.e. norms are outdated.
o Polynormativism i.e. norms are mutually contradictory.
 Particular in third world countries.

Solution:

 Only way is group integration and internalization of norms.

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  Each profession – grow into association and have ethics which shouldn‘t be violated.
 Each association – grow into a community to enforce moral regulation so that egoistic
individualism should be replaced by moralistic individualism.

Forced DOL:

 Socially structured inequalities which undermine solidarity.

 High DOL is based on meritocratic principle; for it to prevail – people assigned goals
depending on talent.
 Society – grossly structured rigid inequality where a poor talented person has no
opportunity. It leads to forced DOL.
 People occupy positions based on compulsions rather than talent.

Solutions:

 Institution of inheritance of property should be abolished

 Feeling of cynicism amongst people due to corruption.
 Absence of proper laws and regulations so professions should develop into
communities and enforce moral regulation.
 Needs of workers like recreation, education, health should be considered.
 Workers and capitalists – should come to wages and profits.

Inadequate organization or poorly coordinated DOL:

 If work is not organized properly, it creates improper imbalance and generate

conflicts.
 Very purpose of DOL is destroyed.
 No unity in actions thus solidarity breaks down and disorder results.

Inequality:

 DOL based on inequality fails to produce log lasting solidarity.

 Tensions, rivalries and antagonism result.
 Ex: Indian caste system – DOL – based on inequality.
 Examples: Piketty and Lucas Chanchel estimate that the share of the top 1% in India‘s
income pie is higher than ever before.
 The economists Ishan Anand and Anjana Thampi showed in 2016 research paper that
the extent of concentration in wealth has increased sharply since the early 1990s.
 The striking differences in wealth and income across social groups in India makes
inequality much more deep and layered compared to what aggregate measures
suggest. Anand and Thampi show that the share of scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled
tribes (STs), other backward classes (OBCs) in national wealth are not only lower
relative to their population shares, but have also deteriorated since 1991.
 Religious inequality tends to generate feeling of exclusion among religious minority
groups. This reduces their participation in mainstream, in India religious minorities
have large population their economic exclusion compromises the GDP growth of
nation as whole.

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  Poor development indicators like IMR, MMR, low per capita income, lower education
and learning outcomes at schools, high rate of population growth can be traced to
existing socio – economic inequalities.
 Produce social conflict among social groups.
 Ethnic movements develop. Ex: Nagas for great Nagalim

Critical evaluation support for Durkheim:

 Landmark study to establish relation between labour and solidarity for first time;
gave rise of new branch of sociology called ―sociology of organizational behaviour
and sociology of occupation and profession‖.
 Social environment – behaviour of worker
 Elton mayo conducted Hawthorne experiment in General electric company
influenced by Durkheim wrote a book ―social problems of industrial civilization‖ –
gave two types of societies.
o Established society – pre industrial characterized by mechanical solidarity.
o Adaptive society refers to industrial civilization which is characterized by
organic solidarity.
 Mayo – adaptive society failed to create social cohesion or solidarity; problems like
suicide occur.
 Harold Wilensky – people with stable academic carrier and stable occupation carrier,
even if no high economic reward had low divorce rate, stable family, frequent kin
group contact, etc., those have unstable carrier have poor integration with family and
kin group and hence high divorce rate and less cohesion in community life; supports
Durkheim‘s view that DOL and social integration are related.

Criticisms:

 Durkheim‘s primary objective was to evaluate the social changes related to

industrialization and to better understand the ills. But British legal philosopher
Michael Clarke argued that Durkheim fell short by lumping a variety of societies into
two groups: industrialized and non – industrialized. Durkheim didn‘t see or
acknowledge the wide range of non – industrialized societies, instead imagining
industrialization as the historical watershed that separated goats from sheep.
 American scholar Eliot Freidson pointed out that theories about industrialization tend
to define labour in terms of the material world of technology and production. Freidson
says that such divisions are created by administrative authority without consideration
of the social interaction of its participants.
 American sociologist Robert Merton noted that as a positivist, Durkheim adopted the
methods and criteria of the physical science to examine the social laws that arose
during industrialization. But physical sciences, rooted in nature, simply can‘t explain
the laws that have arisen from mechanization.
 ―The DOL‖ also has a gender problem, according to American sociologist Jennifer
Lehman. She argued that Durkheim‘s book contains sexist contradictions. Durkheim
conceptualizes ‗individuals‘ as ‗me‘ nut women as separate and non – social beings.

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 By using this framework, the philosophers entirely missed out on the role of women
have played in both industrial and pre – industrial societies.

Conclusions:

 Durkheim gives a conception of a socialist state in which DOL will be kept in normal
stage by large number of occupation associations which will implement the ethical
code corresponding to their own occupation.
 Also help in organizing work properly. But unlike Marx who suggested a radical
solution to overcome alienation, Durkheim believed that solution can be provided
within existing framework of society.
 Self – interest which dominates business and commerce should be replaced by a code
of ethics which emphasizes needs of society as a whole.

Previous Years Question:

1. What is the difference between anomie in Merton and Durkheim? Explain. (2018) (10
marks)
2. Identify the similarities and differences between Marx‘s theory of alienation and
Durkheim‘s theory of anomie. (2014) (20 marks)
3. Compare Karl Marx with Emile Durkheim with reference to the framework of
division of labour. (2013) (20 marks)

Social Fact:

 Durkheim – book ―the rules of sociological method‖ – outlined social fact and book
became one of foundational texts of sociology.
 According to Durkheim – social facts emerge out of collectives of individuals, they
cannot be reduced to the level of individuals, and they cannot be reduced to the level
of individuals; it must be studied as their own reality – referred social facts as sui
generis (unique).
 Social facts can only be explained by other social facts. Durkheim explains DOL and
even rate of suicide with other social facts rather than individual intentions.
 Social fact – is a way of acting, thinking or feeling, which is more or less in a given
society – treated as things – real and exist independent of individual‘s desire or will.-
capable of exerting constraint upon them; true nature lies in collective characteristics
inherent in society.
 Ex: statuses, roles, population, distribution, urbanization, social institutions, social
activities and strata of society, patriotism.
 Durkheim‘s view – view of sociology as an objective science must conform to model
of other sciences. Contains two requirements.
o Subject matter of sociology must be specific and must be distinguished from
subject matter of all other social sciences.

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 o The subject matter of sociology must be observed and explained. Similar to
the way in which facts are observed and explained in other sciences.
 Durkheim – defined sociology as essentially the study of social facts and explanation
of such facts in a sociological manner. Thus subject matter of sociology refers to
attributes of collectivity i.e. social facts.
 Social facts in Durkheim‘s view therefore are ‗Things‘ because they refer to:
o An entity possessing certain definite characteristics which are independent of
human observation.
o An entity, the existence of which is independent of human volition (will).
o An entity, which can be known only through external observation and not by
introspection.

Four main characteristics of social facts:

 Externality: exist outside individual and must be seen apart from individual. These are
sui – generis (coming into existence on their own as a part of autonomous
development of society). They are expressions of autonomous development of
society.
 Constraining: exercise constraining influence over individual action. Is in nature of
coercion. The existence of constraints makes social facts as real as constraint is visible
in terms of its consequences.
 Generality: general in nature and must not confused with individual facts. Studied in
form of generalized perception understood by all individuals in same manner.
Durkheim rejects the study of exceptions and focuses upon identifications of ‗general
types‘ ex: he studies religion as a general type and not a particular religion.
 Independence: are independent of the will of the individual. Individuals cannot
change the social facts, but rather opposite is true.

Material and Non material:

 George Ritzer says that Durkheim talks about two types of social facts.
 Material social facts – architecture, forms of technology – easier to understand
because they are directly observable – they are external to individuals.
 Non material social facts – certain extent found in individuals.
 Types:
o Morality: if society doesn‘t limit us we will become slaves to the pursuit of
more. Durkheim – held seemingly paradoxical view that the individual needs
morality and external control in order to be free. This view of the insatiable
desire at the core of every human is central to his sociology.
o Collective conscience: refers to general structure of shared understandings,
norms, and beliefs. Durkheim employed this concept to argue that primitive
societies had a stronger collective conscience than modern societies.
o Collective representations: they also cannot be reduced to individuals because
they emerge out of social interactions but can be directly studied more
directly collective conscience because they are likely to be connected symbols

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 such as flags, icons. Therefore, sociologist can begin to study how certain
collective representations fit well together, or have an affinity and others do
not.
o Social currents: most examples of social facts are associated with social
organizations. Durkheim suggested that social acts be studied in terms of their
effects and consequences in society. Scientific approach should be adopted
and the researcher should be objective in approach without any bias or
ideology.
 Two ways of explaining social facts:
o Determining cause of social facts – according to him, cause of social fact lie
in another social fact. Ex: cause of suicide doesn‘t lie in individual‘s will, but
should be explored through various social facts like population, integration,
social order and so on.
o Determining functions of social facts – according to him, social facts perform
‗functional pre – requisites‘ of society. Most important of which maintenance
of social order. According to him, ‗collective conscience‘ is that social fat that
maintains social order. It has constraining effect individuals which affect their
action. Thus society manifests in individual activities.

Normal and Pathological social facts:

 A social fact – normal – every deviation from standard is pathological form. Ex:
some degree of crime is normal in every society. Occasional crimes or deviance help
society in two ways:
o Give a chance for society to strengthen its solidarity.
o Helps society to identity the causes of the crises so that the corrective
measures can be taken before it can make some bigger damage.
 Extraordinary increase in crime is pathological. These are harmful or dysfunctional
for society.

Criticisms:

 George Kathleen – believes that individual merely do not follow the collective
sentiment rather through their individual efforts, vision, wisdom etc. they change the
norms of society. A social reform, revolutionaries etc. comes in this category of but
social facts does not consider or accepts these facts.
 Heidleman, considers Durkheim is more concerned about making of society, rather
than describing a methodology for it.
 His emphasis on universalistic and general theories didn‘t have much practical
significance for all their encompassing nature. According to Merton, middle range
theories are required.
 Peter Berger accuses him of doing an injustice to discipline by ignoring individual
human behaviour in his bid to objectivity. Further, objectivity is not possible in social
observation.

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  Weber – social facts doesn‘t exist as things in their own right waiting to be gathered
like pebbles on beach. Social facts lie inside an individual and their influence is on the
basis of individual‘s own interpretation of social fact. In a nutshell, instead of a purely
macro perspective, a micro view is also required in understanding of society.
 Gabriel Tardesays that it is very difficult to understand how a society can exist
without an individual.

Previous Years Questions:

1. What are the problems in observing social facts in Durkheim‘s views? (2020) (10
marks)
2. Social Fact is to be treated as thing. Discuss. (2012) (20 marks)

Suicide:

 ―Le Suicide‖ a classic text in sociology; Durkheim chose to study because it is a

relatively concrete and specific phenomenon for which there were comparatively
good data available – most importantly to prove new power of sociology.
 Durkheim believed that if he could show that sociology had a role in explaining such
a seemingly individualistic act as suicide, it would be relatively easy to extend
sociology‘s domain to phenomena that are much more readily seen as open to
sociological analysis.
 Studied suicide and rate of suicide to establish power of sociological method of
empirical study of social facts to explain social phenomenon.
 Rather he studied ‗rate of suicide‘ in different societies and in same societies over
different times. Consistency of suicide rate shows that suicide is a social fact because:
o Suicidogenic currents are exterior – exteriority
o Suicidogenic currents compel – constraint
o Suicidogenic currents are diffused throughout society and generality

Overview of Durkheim‟ text:

 Offers an examination of how suicide rates at the time differed by religion; analysed
differences between Protestants and Catholics.
 Found lower rate of suicide in Catholics and theorized due to stronger forms of social
control and cohesion.

Demographics of suicide: study findings

 Less common among women than men; more common among single people than
among those who romantically partnered; less among who have children; took data
from police records. He established suicide is a social phenomenon and not an
individual phenomenon. Gave arguments in his support:
o Firstly, proved suicide cannot be explained through psychological,
geographical, climatic, hereditary factors etc and hence rejected existing
explanations. He used data to show that there were no positive correlation

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 between rate of suicide and different non-social factors like temperature, race
etc.
o He explains sociological causes of suicide.
o He proved that certain rate of suicide is normal for society with the help of
statistical data. Analysing data from different countries he concluded that
factors race, heredity, climate done produce consistent explanations.

Correlation vs Causation: Suicide‟s driving forces:

 Based on data, Durkheim argued that suicide can be result not only of psychological
or emotional factors but of social factors as well.
 If social integration increases – chance for suicide is less and vice versa.

Durkheim‟s typology of suicide:

Types of Suicide:

 Integration – Low – Egoistic suicide

 High – Altruistic suicide
 Regulation – Low – Anomic suicide
 High – Fatalistic suicide

Forces of Integration: two types – „over integration‟ and „low integration‟

Altruistic suicide:

 Result of excessive regulation of individuals by social forces such that person may be
moved to kill themselves for benefit of society. Ex: Japanese Kamikaze pilots of WW
II, soldiers.

Egoistic suicide:

 Totally detached from society – retirement or loss of family or friends increase

chance. Elderly people are highly susceptible.

Forces of Regulation: two types: „over regulation‟ and „under regulation‟

Fatalistic suicide:

 Extreme social regulation resulting in oppressive conditions and a denial of the self
and of agency. Ex: Prisoners. Widowhood in India, couple suiciding after intercaste
marriage, farmers, bonded labour.

Anomic suicide:

 A sense of disconnection from society; occurs during period of serious social,

economic or political upheaval, which result in quick or extreme changes to society
and everyday life. Ex: sudden implementation of mandal commission which gave

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 reservation in many suicides as many upper caste people couldn‘t find jobs, people of
Kerala in 1990 due to economic boom.
 Further classified:
o Acute economic – sporadic disease – in ability of traditional institutions to
regulate and fulfil social needs.
o Chronic economic – when there is abolition of social regulation, but failure to
replace with new ones
 Durkheim suggested moral education and higher integration through occupational
growth as social problem of high rate of suicide.

Social rates and social reform:

 Durkheim – suicides result from social currents are good for society.
 We don‘t want to stop anomic suicide because they cause economic boom
 Durkheim admits suicide is normal but he argued modern society has seen a
pathological increase in both egoistic and anomic suicides. In particular, social

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 regulation and integration are too low that leads to an abnormal rate of anomic and
egoistic suicides.

Criticism:

 J.W.Darwis: believed that primarily suicide is an individual fact. In any society,

human resources are highly valued and no society provokes to commit suicide. It is a
crime in almost all societies.
 J.B.Dough: in his study says that explaining only in terms of social facts is at best
incomplete in itself. We can‘t ignore individual meanings. In fact a successful suicide
is once in a lifetime thin. Such a vital decision being taken without rationality looks
incomplete.
 Gabriel Tarde: The imitation theory of suicide of Gabriel Tarde also rejects
Durkheim‘s theory as a social fact. He believes that there are a lot of cases of suicide
individual hears here and there when they come in a particular situation, they follow
one of it. He found that after the case of suicide of a celebrity in US, lots of people
followed the same for sometime. David Philips in his study found Tarde‘s theory true.
He found that whenever there was a celebrity committed suicide, the suicide rates
shoot up, because people identify themselves with celebrities. So, imitations have a
role to play. This is suggestibility that suicide is right thing to do.
 Morris: Believed that suicide is mainly a psychological phenomena because accepting
the pressure in unfavourable situations is not same of every individual. He believes
that the psychological or individual reason cannot be ignored because he interrogated
with the people who attempted suicide and failed and learned that suicide thought has
been there for a very long time until they executed.
 Atkinson: He questions Durkheim claims that, rates of suicide are a factual order
existing by itself as if official statistics are permanently valid. He questions the data
itself. He says officials can‘t decide nature of suicide or even say whether it is a
suicide or not. It is just done by attributing common sense meanings/assumptions.
Also in poor and developing countries, official records can be manipulated. So, we
can‘t claim data to be infallible. And once data itself is faulty, theory is an obvious
fault.
 Post-partum depression which occurs due to hormonal imbalance after child birth also
triggers a suicidal tendency. But Durkheim out rightly rejected the biological (or)
genetic cause of suicide.

Previous Years Question:

1. Explain Durkheim‘s basic arguments on suicide. Can you analyse high suicide rates
of contemporary Indian society with Durkheim‘s theory? (2018) (20 marks)
2. Discuss distinct sociological method adopted by Emile Durkheim in his study of
‗suicide‘. (2017) (20 marks)

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Religion and society:

 Raymond Aron – The Elementary forms of religious life – Durkheim‘s most profound
and most original work.
 Durkheim put forward – sociology of knowledge and theory of knowledge.
 Society through religion creates religion by defining certain phenomena as sacred and
profane.
 Sacred – that is are set apart from every day – form the essence of religion; created
through rituals that transform moral power of society into religious symbols that bind
individuals to a group; brings out an attitude of reverence, awe and obligation; it is the
attitude accorded to these phenomena that transforms them from sacred to profane.
 Profane – the common place, the utilitarian, the mundane aspects of life.
 Durkheim – could not believe – anything super natural was source of these religious
feelings; argued that religion symbolically embodies society itself.
 Religion is the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of
itself; this was only way that he could explain why every society has had religious
beliefs but each had different beliefs.
 Society is a power that is greater than we are. It transcends us, demands our sacrifices,
and suppresses our selfish tendencies and fills us with energy.
 According to Durkheim, society exercises power through representations; society is
source of sacred.
 Most daring argument – moral bond becomes a cognitive bond because the categories
for understanding such as classification, time, space, and causation are also derived
from religious rituals.
 Book – detailed analysis of clan system and of totemism in the Arunta tribes of
Australian aborigines.
 Religious form in primitive society could be shown in all their nudity and it would
require only the slightest effort to lay them open; religion in modern society- takes
diverse forms.
 Being a functionalist and positivist – basis of study and experimentations was
empirical; he didn‘t collect data but relied on data from other scholars like Spencer
and Grill.
 Durkheim – religion is something social – religious representations are collective
representations which expresses collective reality; acted as source of solidarity;
provides meaning for life; provides social control, cohesion and purpose for purpose
for people as well as another means of communication and gathering for individuals
and reaffirm and social forms.

Totemism:

 Is a religious system in which certain things, particularly animals and plants –

regarded as sacred and emblems of clan. Durkheim – as simplest, most primitive form
of religion.
 Argued that totem is nothing but representation of clan itself.

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  Durkheim believed – gathering itself was the real cause, but even today, people are
reluctant to attribute this power to social forces.
 Totems are the material representations of non-material force that is at their base and
it is none other than society.
 Totemism and more generally religion are derived from collective morality are
derived from collective morality and become impersonal forces not simply series of
mythical animals, plants, personalities, spirits or gods.

Origin of religion:

 Ordinary objects are transfigured into sacred objects once they bear the emblem of
totem.
 Durkheim writes, Totem refers to an implicit belief in a ysterious or sacred force or
principle that provides sanctions for violations of taboos, inculcates moral
responsibilities in the group, animates the totem itself.
 Durkheim claims, past societies created gods and religion; future societies will create
new gods and religion when they are in state of exaltation. Religion is nothing but
indirect worship of society.
 Source and object of religion, Durkheim pointed out are collective life – the
individual who feels dependent on some external moral power is not a victim of
hallucination but a responsive member of society.

Substantial Function of religion:

 Creation, reinforcement and maintenance of social solidarity; acts of agency of social

control and provides solidarity; emerges when separation is made between sphere of
profane and sacred.

Criticism:

 The dichotomy of profane and sacred is not absolute and there can be things which
are mundane also as per Weh Stanner.
 Durkheim also didn‘t explain why a particular totem is chose. Even a tribe may have
more than one religion.
 His theory is termed as an arm chair by Malinowski – he didn‘t visit Arunta tribes
even for one time.
 According to Edmund Leach, profanity and sacred are two extreme, all social actions
fall in between.
 His theory fails to explain the cause of solidarity in multicultural polytheistic societies
like India.
 Durkheim ignored conflict caused by it and focused only on its functional aspect.
 Alexander Goldenweiser criticized Durkheim‘s theory on three grounds:
o How Durkheim can calim hat Arunta tribe is the most primitive tribe and their
religion is the most ancient religion of world?

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 o In many of the primitive communities, Goldenweiser found that totem is
different and they are worshipping something else. Thus, it cannot be said that
totem is god.
o In simple societies, the difference between sacred and profane can be made
easily but not in complex societies.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Critically analyse Durkheim‘ views on elementary forms of religious life and role of
religion. Also discuss the consequences of religious revivalism in contemporary
society. (2020) (20 marks)
2. In what way did Durkheim perceive religion as functional to society? (2018) (10
marks)
3. How is Durkheim‘s theory of religion different from Max Weber‘s theory of religion?
(2016) (20 marks)
4. Elaborate the views of Durkheim on The Elementary Forms of religious life. (2015)
(10 marks)
5. Show how Durkheim through the study of totemism demonstrates the reality of
religion. (2012) (30 marks)
6. Write short note on Sacred and Profane. (2012) (12 marks)
7. Define sect, cult and religion. In what way do Weber‘s views or religion differ from
those of Durkheim? (2011) (20 marks)

Extra notes:

Relevance of Durkheim‟s idea on third world/industrial societies:

 Theory is almost 100 years old.

 Asia and Africa constitute third world societies; Asian countries are pluralistic
societies except China; in fact none other China existed as a unified nation.
 New boundaries emerged after colonial rule – ethnically and culturally they are plural
and sense of nationalism is also not strong in these societies.
 Sub nationalist tendencies are very strong – Tamil Nadu people talked about Dravida
Nadu saying that they were victims of exploitation by north Indian Brahmins.
 Even well integrated state like Punjab thought of separate Khalistan and that is still
alive in sub – nationalist tendencies hampering national integration.
 These societies – are also characterised by extreme form of inequalities and many
communities sections within these nations are marginalized economically and
politically; thus have emerged as nations recently.
 Experimentation with democracy is very nascent; democratic popularity in these
nations is reduced to pure populism.

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In the context of religion:

 Societies have witnessed attempt to create national solidarity be resorting

monoculturalism like Hindutuva practiced in India. Religion used to foster national
identity imposing religion symbols and ideologies.
 Durkheim said religion can survive as basis of solidarity and to that extent where
monoculturalism imposed in pluralistic societies. These societies also witnessed rapid
revitalization.
 Third world societies – rapid urbanization which is overwhelming dominated by
western culture. Along with modernity, consumerist culture and new liberal ideas are
spreading which in turn are weakening traditional customs creating what Durkheim
called anomie.
 Religious revivalisms – attempt to restore supremacy of traditional values over
modern values; consequence of high modernity(creates state of confusion, uncertainty
and loss of identity)
 In course of transition new problems emerge like exploitation or marginalization of
certain groups or society.
 Durkheim studied religion only when there was only single religion. Third world
countriews are plural.
 Thus religion can also play a divisive role as pointed by Merton.
 This revival of religion is only in transitional phase and after this a new ideology may
come up or religion may come up in new forms compatible to 21st century.

Durkheim on Education:

 Education was defined by Durkheim as the process by which the individual acquires
the physical, intellectual and moral tools to function in a society. He had said that the
relation of sociology to education is that of theory to practice.
 Schools as institution provide a social foundation for modern morality. Argued
through collective effervescence in the small classroom society, morality can be
inculcated into individuals. Identified functions as:
o To provide individuals with discipline they need to restrain the passions that
threaten to engulf them.
o To develop a sense of devotion to society and its moral system.
o To develop autonomy, in which discipline is freely desired and attachment is
voluntaristic. Durkheim identified occupational associations and schools as
institutions and schools as institutions of regulation and integration. On
conflict between managers and workers, he rejected Marxian thesis of inherent
contradiction and argued that this due to lack of common morality. He found
out occupational associations as an integrating institution which was social
and professional at the same time.

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Previous Years Questions:

1. According to Durkheim, ―the major function of education is the transmission of

society‘s norms and values.‖ Discuss. (20 marks) (2020)

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Chapter: (c) Max Weber – Social action, Ideal types, authority, bureaucracy, protestant
ethic and spirit of capitalism

 Best known and most influential figure in sociological theory. Had influence on
structural functionalism, especially through work of Talcott Parsons.
 Symbolic interactionists have been affected by Weber‘s ideas on versetehen as well as
other ideas.
 Alfred Schutz was powerfully affected by Weber‘s work on meanings and motives
which played a major role in development of ethnomethodology.

Social Action:

 Social action is defined as the behaviour by which human beings react to external
forces after cognizing (knowing), understanding and interpreting them. In this sense
all actions are behaviour although all behaviour does not fall in the category called
‗action‘.

Weber‟s social action has the following characteristics:

 At least two individual are needed.

 Individual‘s action should be intended towards others.
 It is meant to affect others
 For individual, social action must have some significance

 Weber – combined qualities of action and meaning were central facts for sociologists‘
scientific analysis.
 Weber defined sociology as a science which attempts the interpretive understanding
of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation and of its course and
effects.
 Weber utilized his ideal – type methodology to clarify the meaning of action by
identifying four basic types of action.
o Means – ends rationality or action that is determined by expectations as to the
behaviour of objects in the environment and of other human beings; these
expectations are used as conditions or means for attainment of the actor‘s own
rationally pursued and calculated ends.
o Value rationality – action that is determined by a conscious belief in the value
for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious or other forms of
behaviour, independently of its prospects for success.
o Affectual action – determined b emotion state of actor.
o Traditional action – determined by the actor‘s habitual and customary ways of
behaving.

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Weber mentions two conditions for any action to become social:

 Action is social if some meaning is attached to it by the actor i.e. actor must be
conscious to his action.
 Action is social if it is oriented towards to some other i.e. only those actions are social
which are taken in orientation to some other subject.

 Excluded imitative actions and mass conditions actions from his definition as they are
not oriented to some other object and no conscious meaning is attached to them;
understanding the meanings attached by actors to their actions can help us to establish
‗cause and effect‘ relationship.

Types of action into four categories:

Zweckrational action or rational action in relation to a goal:

 Actor determines the goal and chooses his means purely in terms of their efficiency
towards achievement of goal. Both means and ends are rational.
 Person acting in a planned way and that‘s why action is rational.
 In Weber‘s words, world is tending towards more and more bureaucratization which
means our dependency on bureaucracy is thoroughly increasing day by day.
Obviously rationality also increased.

Wertrational action or rational action in relation to a value:

 Means are chose for their efficiency but ends are determined by value; action which is
performed on any artistic religious or moral basis and which is accepted without any
logical reasons.
 It means that in this action, means are rational but not the ends.
 Ends are accepted on the basis of social values. Actions related with attainment of
salvation or heaven come under purview of action.

Affective or Emotional action:

 Emotion or impulse determines the ends and means of action; they are those which
are instigated by emotions and invitations.
 Such behaviour is affected love, hatred and enmity or angry and are mostly rational.
 Ex: a father gets angry suddenly on the failure of his son.

Traditional action where both ends and means are determined by customs:

 Rituals, ceremonies and practices of tradition; they are those which are controlled by
that social action followed by several people over a long period of time.
 Followed for a reason – no place for logic and value, sentiment in action.
 Ex: Kinship and in the patriarchal or matriarchal families. The quantity of such
actions has decreased in due course of time and is being replaced by rational legal
actions.

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  Weber acknowledges the existence of regularities in societies, but unlike Durkheim he
insists that these regularities exist in mind of individuals.
 The expression of these regularities is visible in terms of actions on the basis of
subjective interpretation of these regularities.

Criticism:

 According to Hans Gerth and C W Mills, although Weber implied that he had great
concern with mental processes, he actually spent little time on them.
 His idea of social action has focus on individual and collective action is ignored.
 Weber also ignored unintended meanings and consequences of social action. Merton
highlights such consequences in terms of latent functions.
 His definition of social action is also handicapped by orientation towards other.
Parsons expanded meaning of social action is including situational choices,
constraints and aspiration of actor as well.
 Parsons believed that social action do not require two individuals. It may be
performed singularly when it is performed in a socially defined situation.
 Cohen said that freak (lose one‘s nerve) action is also a social action which is not
mentioned by Max Weber in his analysis.
 Vilfred Pareto had talked about illogical actions which are very much an integral part
of social life which has not been mentioned by Weber.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Differentiate between Marxian and Weberian theories of social stratification. (2015)

(20 marks)

Ideal types:

 Weber‘s best known contributions to contemporary sociology; occupies very

important place in his methodology.
 Methodology is a conceptual and logical research procedure by which knowledge is
developed.

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  He didn‘t want sociology he rely on positivist approach alone. Weber believed, it was
the responsibility of sociologists to develop conceptual tools. The most important of
such conceptual tool is the ideal type.

Components of his methodologies are:

1. Versetehen:
 Use of empathy in sociological or historical understanding of human action and
behaviour.
 Versetehen refers to understanding meaning of action from the actor‘s POV.
 It is now seen as a concept and a method central to a rejection of a positivist social
science, though Max Weber appeared to think that two could be united.
 It requires treating actor as subject, rather than an object of your observations.
 It also implies that unlike objects in natural world human actors are not simply in
product of pulls and pushes of external forces; literally means understanding or
comprehension.
2. Ideal types
3. Causal pluralism (Causation and Probability)
 Dictated partly methodological touch of ideal types and partly because of critical
response of Weber to Marx as mono causal economic determinism. Marx – relied on
single cause (economic forces). Weber says that social reality is complex and cannot
be determined by single cause.
 Though Marx is not wrong, when Weber is only surrounding Marx rather than
rejecting him.
4. Value neutrality:
 Social research should be unbiased. Process of data and analysing of data shouldn‘t
be contaminated by personal prejudices or due to cultural bias of social scientist.
 Having said he realised that total value neutrality is not possible. So made a
distinction between areas of value relevance and area of value neutrality.

 ‗Ideal‘ is a conception or a standard of something in its highest perfection; refers to

metal image or conception rather than a material object.
 The term type means a kind, class or group a distinguished by a particular character.
 We may conceptualize ideal type as a kind, category, we may conceptualize ideal
type as kind, category, class or group of objects, things or persons with particular
character that seems to be best example of it.

 Sociologists make use of ideal types as a means to find out similarities and
differences.
 It is one of methods of comparative study.
 It is not purpose of ideal types to describe or explain the world. Instead, they provide
us with points of comparison from which to observe it.
 By comparing ideal type of socialism in socialistic societies, we can highlight their
characteristics by seeing how they match or depart from ideal type.

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  Ex: socialist states usually have been authoritarian and never reflect worker‘s
interests. In the same way, capitalist markets are increasingly controlled by
oligopolies rather than being freely competitive.

 Weber – science of sociology – developed basis on concept – ideal type; sociology

concerned with social action and social behaviour.
 Weber – ideal type is mental construct like model for scrutiny and systematic
characterization of a concrete situation.
 Ideal types – not mirror images of real world, but are one – sided exaggerations of the
essence of what goes on in real world. Weber‘s view, the more exaggerated ideal
type, and the more useful it will be for historical research.
 Weber argued that ideal type need be positive or correct; it can just as easily be
negative or even morally repugnant.
 Ideal types should make sense in themselves, the meaning of their components
should be compatible, and they should aid us in making sense of real world.
 Weber believed that idea type could describe static or dynamic entities.
 Ideal types are not developed once and for all because society is constantly changing,
and interests of social scientists as well, it is necessary to develop new typologies to
fit the changing reality. This is in line with Weber‘s view that there can be no
timeless concepts in the social sciences.

Formulation of ideal types:

 Formed by a number of elements which though found in reality, may or may not be
discovered in their specific form. These elements must be found by trained
investigator in form of abstractions drawn from subjective meanings of the individual.
 Used ideal types in his works like ‗Economic and Social Organization‘, ‗The City‘,
‗Sociology of Religion‘ and so on.
o Ideal types of historical particulars – these are ideal types of particular
historical phenomena like some ancient city, protestant ethics, capitalism etc.
o Ideal types of abstract phenomena in social reality – it involves developing
abstract phenomena like – social action, authority etc which can be used to
understand a social phenomenon.
o Idea types of particular behaviour – he developed ideal types of particular
behaviour like economic or political behaviour.
o Structural ideal types – these are forms taken by the causes and consequences
of social action. Ex: traditional domination.

Criticism:

 Weber has not suggested any specific method to identify elements of ideal type and it
is totally left on investigator.
 Despite his claim of objectivity, ideal type is highly susceptible to subjectivity of
investigator, especially in the selection of elements of ideal type.

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  Walter believed that Weber could not resist himself under influence of positivism.
Though he called positivist attempt a blunder but he himself tried to develop
sociology on the line of sciences.
 Ideal type may be able to understand the reality approximately but not is accuracy.
Exaggerations, deliberations etc. take reality far from the truth. Ideal type is not
capable enough for scientific understanding.
 Science studies phenomena in its totality and not is exaggeration or elimination. It
studies phenomena as it is.
 Ideal type is brainchild of the researcher which cannot be freed from their own values
and prejudices. Hence, the outcome through ideal type largely depends upon the
researcher.

Limitations:

 As Weber calls it, ideal type is one sided accentuation of reality, at best a partial
model.
 While exercising selectivity there is a great deal of merit in saying that personal
choices of researcher may influence. So, there is no yardstick for judging the
appropriateness and adequacy of ideal type. So they, tend to be guided by personal
choice.
 Talcott Parsons said that ideal types are note derived from any general theory. There
is a great deal of subjectivity as part of researcher while building an ideal type.
 Hample criticized ideal type as type atomism. He said ideal types are atomized types.
It is nothing but small isolated part not connected with others.
 Ideal type is not a method. It is just the way the human mind works. Here, Weber only
formally lays down the process of selectivity in ideal types.

Previous Years Question:

1. Examine Max Weber‘s method of maintaining objectivity in social research. (20

marks) (2016)
2. Define Ideal type and explain Weber‘s concept of Versetehen for understanding social
phenomena. (30 marks) (2011)

Authority:

 Weber – no political radical, he was often called ‗bourgeois Marx‘ to reflect the
similarities in the intellectual interests of Marx and Weber as well as very different
political orientations.
 Weber – did not advocate revolution wanted change in society not gradually not
overthrow it.
 Critical of authoritarian leaders political like Bismarck – placed nation above all.
 Preferred democracy as a political form not because he believed in masses but
because it offered maximum dynamism and the best milieu to generate political
leaders.

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Power:

 Weber – first sociologist to present a systematic definition of power – often

distinguish between two forms of power i.e. authority and coercions.
 Authority is that form of power which is accepted as legitimate i.e. as right and just
and therefore obeyed on that basis.
 Coercion is that form, which is not regarded as legitimate by those subject to it.
Ordinary usage, the term ‗power‘ means strength or the capacity to control; it involves
the ability to influence and/or control the behaviour of others even against their will.
 For Weber – power is an aspect of social relationships; possibility of imposing one‘s
will upon the behaviour of another person.
 Impact of power varies from situations; on one hand it depends upon the extent to
which it is opposed or resisted by other.
 Weber says that power can be exercised in all walks of life. It is not restricted to
politics or battlefield.
 Power is the ability to exercise one‘s will over others.
 Affects more than personal relationships; shapes larger dynamics like social groups,
professional organizations and governments.
 Two contrasting sources of power.
o Power which is derived from a constellation of interests that develop in a
formally free market. Ex: a group of producers of sugar control supply of their
production in the market to maximize their profit.
o Power which is derived from an established system of authority that allocates
the right to command and the duty to obey. Ex: in army, a Jawan is obliged to
obey the command of this officer. The officer derived his power through an
established system of authority.
 If power is to be effectively used for realizing goals on sustained basis, this kind of
power must be voluntarily accepted by those on whom it is exercised.
 If accepted legitimacy rises – when power is legitimized it gives rise to authority.
 Authority results in an established order where incumbent authority is to issue
command and expect those commands to be obeyed.
 Endeavours to gain power and influence do not necessarily lead to violence or abuse.
Ex: Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi commanded powerful movements that affect
positive change without military force both relied on non-violence.
 Modern technology has made forms nonviolent reforms to be easily implemented.
 Ex: in Arab springs, twitter feeds and other social media helped protesters coordinate
and their movements, share ideas, and bolster morale, as well as gain global support
for their causes.
 Social media – important in getting accurate accounts of the demonstrations out to
world.

Authority:

 Weber – defined domination as the ―probability that certain specific commands) will
be obeyed by a given group of persons‖.

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  Domination can have a variety of bases; legitimate as well illegitimate, Weber
mainly interested in legitimate forms of domination, or what he called authority.
 Three types of authority – rational, traditional and charismatic.
 Legitimized on rational ground rests ―on a belief in the legality of enacted rules and
the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands‖;
legitimized on traditional grounds is based on ‖an established belief in the sanctity of
immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them‖;
authority legitimized by charisma rests on devotion of followers to exception
sanctity or heroism.

Rational – Legal authority:

 Power made legitimate by laws, written rules and regulations.

 Power is vested in a particular rational, system or ideology and not necessarily in
person who implements the specifics of doctrine; a nation that follows a constitution
applies this type of authority.
 Refers to a system of authority which is both, rational and legal. Those who exercise
authority are appointed to do so, based on their qualifications.
 According to Weber, Bureaucracy – purest type of exercise legal authority.
 Weber concluded that future belonged to bureaucratization and time has borne out his
prediction.
 Legal because is in accordance with laws of land which people recognize and feel
obliged to obey; typical features of modern society; reflection of the process of
rationalization.
 Weber considers ―rationalization as the key feature of western civilization‖. It is,
according to Weber, a specific product of human thought and deliberation.
 Bureaucracy – institutionalized form of ‗goal – rational action.
 Offices arranged in hierarchy.

Characteristics of Bureaucracy:

 Hierarchy – each official has a clearly defined competence and is answerable to a

superior.
 Impersonality – the work is conducted according to set rules without arbitrariness or
favouritism and a written record is kept of every transaction.
 Continuity – the office constitutes a full – time salaried occupation with security and
prospects of regular advancement.
 Expertise – officials selected on merit, trained and control access to knowledge;
weber argued that bureaucratic organizations are dominant institutions of industrial
society; believed rational action has become dominant mode of action in modern
industrial society; involves precise calculations of the means to attain the goal and
systematically eliminates those factors which stand in way of achievement of its
objective.
 Bureaucracy is therefore rational action in an institutional form.

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Traditional authority:

 It is based on claim by leaders and a belief on part of followers.

 Not a superior but a personal master.
 In Weber‘s words, ―Personal loyalty, not the official‘s impersonal duty, determine the
relations of the administrative staff to the master‖/
 Staff of traditional leader obeys because the leader carries the weight of traditions –
he or she has been chose for that position in traditional manner.
 Power is accepted because it has been traditional accepted; its legitimacy exists
because it has been accepted for a long time.
 In this type of authority, a ruler typically has no real force to carry out his will or
maintain his position but depends primarily on group‘s respect; based on customary
law and sanctity of ancient traditions.
 Does not function through written rules of laws but transmitted by inheritance down
generations; carried out with help of relatives and personal favourites.
 In modern times, it has declined. Ex: Monarchy exists but in a diluted form. Queen of
England is a traditional figure of authority but she does not actually exercises her
authority but representatives of the people.
 Can be interwined with race, class and gender.
 Weber - Two types:
o Patriarchalism: simplest kind of all traditional societies, authority exists at
domestic levels where eldest member of family exercises authority. Follow
gerontocracy; no clear defined administrative staff; exercises his authority in
accordance with customary principles, but has no ability to enforce his will.
o Patrimonialism: relatively advanced societies. Ex: chiefdoms and kingdoms.
Weber says Ottoman emperor of Turkey represented patrimonialism in its best
form. Authority based on individual who exercises on hereditary principles,
examples and lineage. Exists administrative staff; selected on basis of loyalty
and personally committed to the authority.

Charismatic authority:

 In Weber‘s own words, ―A certain quality of an individual personality which is

considered extraordinary and treated by others as endowed with supernatural,
superhuman or exceptional powers.‖
 Weber – charisma was a revolutionary force.
 While traditional authority is inherently conservative, rise of a charismatic authority
may pose a threat to that system and lead to dramatic change.
 Charisma is a product of crisis.
 As Gita says, ―Whenever there is a moral crisis, god takes an incarnation to save‖ this
incarnation is charisma.
 Comes into existence when traditional or legal rational authority fails to deliver.
 Followers accept the power of charismatic authority because they are drawn to
personal qualities of leader. Ex: Hitler‘s rise to power in the post war economic
depression of Germany.

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  Not dependent on customary beliefs or written rules; purely result of special quality of
leader who governs or rules in his personal quality; tend to hold power for short
durations and according to Weber, they are just as likely to be tyrannical as they are
heroic.
 Diverse male leaders – Hitler, Mao, Gandhi, Nelson, Mandela are considered
charismatic leaders; Women – Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc, Mother Theresa.
 Problem – succession.
 Actual authority – maybe combination of above ideal types of authority. Ex: Franklin
D Roosevelt as president of US and Nehru, Indian PM ruled on all three bases.
 A particular type of authority may change over time and transform into another type.
Weber refers routinisation of charisma and traditionalization of rationality.

Criticism:

 Weber‘s concept of authority is primarily criticized for anomaly in ideal type of social
action and ideal type of authority. He mentions four types of social action, but
mentions only three types of authority.
 Michael Foucault has argued that authority and power don‘t lie with particular
institutions and persons as Weber suggested. Power is highly dispersed in society and
operates at all levels in different situations.
 According to Robert Dahl, authority is situational and one may hold different kinds of
authority. It is also relative. One may be in controlling position in one instance and
may be controlled by others in other instances.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Which concepts did Weber use to analyse the forms of legitimate domination? (2015)
(10 marks)
2. According to Max Weber, class and status are two different dimensions of power.
Discuss. (2014) (20 marks)
3. Power and Authority go together. Examine. Explain the various types of authority.
(2012) (30 marks)

Bureaucracy:

 Administrative system designed to accomplish large scale administrative tasks.

 Weber observed 3 types of power in organizations i.e. traditional, charismatic and
rational – legal or bureaucratic. Emphasized that bureaucratic type of power is ideal
one.
 Machinery which implements rational – legal authority. Max Weber – first to give
causes and consequences and development of bureaucracy.
 Weber –view of bureaucracy must be seen in context of his general theory of social
action; argued that all human action is directed meanings.
 Also linked to ideal type of concept of Weber and Weber links it to the rising
rationalization of society.

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  Weber – bureaucracy is type of organization which suits most of the modern societies
where work is done rationally. Capitalism which is the basis of economy in the
modern world also works on rational organization requires bureaucratic organizations
for its working.
 Weber – from a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is capable of attaining
the highest degree of efficiency and is in this sense formally most rational known
means of exercising authority over human beings; it is superior to any other form in
precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability; thus
makes possible a particularly high degree of calculability of results for heads of
organization and for those acting in relation to it.

Bureaucratic organizations evolved from traditional structures due to following

changes:

 Traditional structures – leader delegate duties and can change at any time. However,
over time this changed and there was a clear specification of jurisdiction areas along
with a distribution of activities as official duties.
 In a bureaucratic organization, the subordinates follow the order of superiors but can
appeal if they feel the need. On the other hand, traditional structures, the authority
were diffused.
 Rules are exhaustive, stable and employees can learn them easily, the organization
records them in permanent files.
 Personal property is separate from office property.
 Selection of officials is based on technical qualification and appointment and not an
election. Received a salary as compensation for their work.
 Official is taken in for a trial period and then offered permanent position with
organization. Protects him from arbitrary dismissal.

Characteristics of Bureaucracy:

 Administrative class – generally have administrative class responsible for maintaining

coordinative activities of members.
o People are paid and are whole time employees.
o Receive salary and other prerequisites normally based on their positions.
o Tenure in the organisation is determined by the rules and regulations of the
organisation.
o Do not have any proprietary interest in organisation.
o Selected for purpose of employment based on their competence.
 Hierarchy – basic features – hierarchy of positions in the organisation; no office is left
uncontrolled in the organisation; serves as line of communication and delegation of
authority.
 Division of work – divided on basis of specialisation to take advantages of DOL.
o A sphere of obligations to perform functions which have been marked off as
part of systematic DOL.

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 o The provision of the incumbent with necessary authority to carry out these
functions.
o The necessary means of compulsions are clearly defined and their use is
subject to definite conditions.
 Official rules – basic and most emphasised feature – administrative process is
continuous and governed by official rules; for a system of maintaining rules to ensure
twin requirements of uniformity and coordination of efforts by individual members;
provide benefits of stability, continuity and predictability and each official knows
precisely outcome of his behaviour in a particular matter.
 Impersonal relationships – relationships are governed through system of official
authority and rules; free from personal involvement, emotions and sentiments.
 Official record - maintenance of proper official records – for future reference – made
possible by extensive use of filling system in organisation. An official record is
almost regarded as encyclopaedia of various activities performed by the people in the
organisation.
 Selection for employment and promotion based on technical competence, specialized
knowledge or skill.
 Office – holding as a ‗vocation‘. Official work is no longer a secondary activity but
something that demands the full working capacity of the official.
 Clear distinction between sphere of office and that of private affairs of the individual.
 Practice of performing specialized administrative functions according to purely
objective considerations and official discharge of business according to calculable
rules and ‗without regard for persons.‘

Advantages of Bureaucracy:

 Rules and procedures are decided for every work it leads to, consistency in employee
behaviour. Since employees are bound to follow rules etc., the management process
becomes easy.
 Duties and responsibilities of each job are clearly defined there is no question of
overlapping or conflicting job duties.
 Selection process and promotion are based on merit and expertise.
 DOL assists workers in becoming experts in their jobs. Performance of employees
improves considerable.
 Enterprise does not suffer when someone leaves it.

Why is a Bureaucratic Organization criticized?

 System suffers from too much of red tapism and paperwork.

 Employees do not develop belongingness to the organisation.
 Excessive reliance on rules and regulations and adherence to these policies inhibit
initiative and growth of employees.
 Rules are inflexible and rigid.
 Involves lot of paperwork which leads to waste of time, money and effort.

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  While government organizations can benefit from a bureaucratic structure, business
organizations need quick decision – making and flexibility in procedures. Therefore,
it is not suitable for the latter.
 Limited scope for human resources management.
 Coordinating and communicating is difficult.

How to make it responsive and controlled bureaucracy?

 For long time used to pro rich; shown cynical attitude of policies; political heads
ineffective heads in controlling bureaucracy because they are experts in their
departments. In India IAS officers is considered to be most powerful trade union.
 India – land reforms – near total failure except West Bengal, Kerala and Haryana
because of nexus between Bureaucracy and landlords.
 Weber himself was concerned about control of state bureaucracy administration. He
saw two main dangers, if this control was left in hands of bureaucrats themselves.
o Firstly – in time of crisis it would be ineffective; trained to follow orders and
conduct routine operations, rather than to make policy decisions and take
initiatives in response to crisis.
o In capitalist societies – top bureaucrats may be swayed by pressure of
capitalists and tailor administrative practise to fit demands of capitalists.
 Weber believed - this could be only avoided by strong parliamentary control of state
bureaucracy. In particular, professional politicians must hold top positions in various
departments of state; will encourage strong and effective leadership.

Criticism:

 R.K.Merton – called bureaucrats as ‗ritualists‘ (those who follow the means but
ignores the goals/end). Merton believes that in bureaucracy rules are so much
emphasized that goals are often ignored.
 James Vander Zenden – He accused bureaucracy by calling it ‗specialists without
spirit‘ because they are completely detached from human values. This is also known
as ‗dehumanisation‘.
 Tom Burns – He studied 20 electronics companies of Britain and Scotland and found
that with excessive written and formal rules, bureaucracy is unable to take quick
decision in a market economy. The late decisions always cost companies because they
have to follow the formal process of decision.
 Peter Blau – In his book ‗Informal Structure of Bureaucracy‘ wrote that formalities
are a lot attached with bureaucracy which decreases its efficiency. Some informalities
can increase its efficiency.
 Alvin Ward Gouldner – He partially agrees with Peter Blau and believed that the
element of formality or informality depends upon the nature of the organization. He
suggested formalities for army and police whereas informalities in construction,
mining etc.
 Peter Selznick – In his book ‗Problems of Controlling the Bureaucracy‘ found that
sometimes bureaucracy becomes so powerful that it undermines the democratic

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 authorities also. He studied Tennensy Valley Authority, Washington DC and found
that sometimes bureaucracy becomes very powerful and tough to be controlled.
 Seymour Lipset – He studied the state bureaucracy in a province of Canada
(Saskatchenwan) and found that bureaucracy successfully prohibited the
implementation of socialist policies of the new government.

Steps to improve efficiency of Bureaucracy in developing societies:

 Effective training for hospitality and services and not for the governance. The
democratic training should replace colonial training.
 Bureaucracy is required to be accountable like the private sectors. Time bound
promotions and efficiency and punishment and dismissal in case of inefficiency is
required to be introduced.
 Target-centric approach. In this system, every individual or official should be given a
rational target according to the salaries and facilities they get. It should be mandatory
and it must be added in their service book.
 Job insecurity is essential in improving the quality of administration. In government
jobs, there is a tendency of feeling secure which discourages to work efficiently.
Accordingly, the action of termination, suspension should be taken.
 ‗Onus of proof‘ against corruption, nepotism, irregularities should be on the
bureaucrat.
 In developing societies, bureaucrats should be trained on the pattern of Western
bureaucracy training pattern of Western societies can help in changing the culture of
bureaucracy like private sector.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Explain the salient features of Weberian bureaucracy. (2013) (10 marks)

Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism:

 Religion of protest. Founders - martin Luther and John Calvin broke from Catholic
Church – church immersed in doctrines and rituals – lost touch with common people –
greed, corruption and vice had gripped church.
 Calvinism, founded by the Frenchman John Calvin was one such sect – followers in
England were called Puritans – migrated to North America.
 Weber observed that in the west, it was by and large the Protestants who had made
greatest progress in education and employment.
 However Protestantism succeeded in turning the pursuit of profit into a moral crusade.
 Theoretically, by stressing he was dealing the relationship between the ethos
(Protestantism) and another (the spirit of capitalism).
 Ex: its goal is to instill an ―attitude which seeks profit rationally and systematically‖.
 Ethos, were unique elements that were there in Western Europe and not found
elsewhere; didn‘t develop in India, China due to world rejection ethos.

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  Ethos, played an independent causal role, contributing to rise of modern capitalism;
because modern capitalism is characterized by gain spirit which is nothing but rational
age of conduct or ethical regulation of conduct.
 Protestants – rejected role of priest and did away with priestly class; The
Protestantism asked to approach individual‘s class without aid of priest.
 Previously, the church and priest were important source of security and support.
 This developed an acute sense of anxiety and insecurity, if people get salvation or not
now, Calvin, the founder of Calvinism solves problem of Protestants with this theory
of doctrine of predestination.
 Doctrine of predestination – salvation is predestined. Calvin said there is two kinds of
people in eyes of god (a) Elected (b) Damned.
 Calvin – only elected attains salvation and damned remains like that; further said
priests can‘t aid an individual, for getting elected and that people who are elected are
predestined.
 This created more anxiety in people, as to what is to be done, if they were elected or
damned.

Further Calvin says two things:

 Ways of god cannot be known.

 God‘s decision cannot be altered either. So, then how does know if he is elected or
damned. Calvin starts with the assumption that salvation is obligatory.

Calvin suggested a method:

 Begin with an assumption that you are elected.

 If you want proof of that, then treat your vocation in your life as a calling i.e. as a god
given duty. So, life must be devoted to God‘s purpose or to demonstrate glory of God.

God has only two purposes (a) demonstrate good of god (b) human welfare

 Life shouldn‘t be wasted in seeking pleasure of flesh and is to be totally devoted to

God‘s purpose and to demonstrate glory of god, it lies in success of your endeavours.
 Protestantism asks all Protestants to lead a life of self – demean, ascetic living,
working efficiently. Imperfection and inefficiency can‘t be tolerated.
 Efficient/traditional/organization of work, frugal living, profits that are earned on
manifestation is elected.
 Profits attained should reinvest for success; symbol of profits shows that he is elect.
The effect was spirit of capitalism, particular kind of entrepreneurial mind-set.
 The ideology, contributed to the spirit of capitalism which in turn contributed to rise
of capitalism.
 Brand of capitalism that, Weber was most interested in was Calvinism.

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Main features of Calvinism:

 Doctrine of predestination – some people are chose by God to enter into heaven and
nobody can know whether one is chose or not.
 This worldly asceticism – protestant ethics suggest strict self – discipline with no
enjoyment and more hard work for the glory of God.
 All work is sacred – it is not mere work, it is ‗calling‘ or mission and should be done
with devotion for the glory of god.
 God created the world for his own glory and he is unknowable.
 Ne mediation of any priest can help us know god.
 Riches earned through hard work should not be spent on luxuries, but in glory of god.

 Marx and Engels – emergence of capitalism in economic factors; advances of

technology led to generation of surplus led to monetization of economy, breakdown
of feudal society, lead to contractual establishment to law and order; cumulative effect
of all these led to growth of commerce and mercantile capitalism.
 Brought capitalistic transformation of agriculture taking shape of industrial
capitalism; Weber accepts this but also says not sufficient for rise of modem
capitalism.
 Weber‘ view – spirit of capitalism is not defined by economic greed; moral and
ethical system, an ethos that among other things stresses economic success; the thirst
for money making for its own sake is the very essence of modern capitalism.
 Capitalism is an economic system which aims at the unlimited accumulation of profit
through rational organisation of production.
 Weber – positive relationship between protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism;
Western capitalism according to Weber, assumed its shape because it was supported
by a certain belief system, namely the ‗protestant ethic‘. Weber argued that the
protestant ethics is closely associated with the spirit of capitalism.
 To overcome methodological problem of defining capitalism and protestant ethic,
Max Weber made use of concept of ideal type. Protestant Ethic does not refer to any
particular theological doctrine but a set of values and belief system that make up a
religious ideal. Capitalism, in its ideal type, is to be that complex activity designed
specifically to maximize profit through the careful and intentional exercise of rational
organization and management of production.
 Wealth has been regarded as symbol of power, status and prestige but never in history
it has been organized and disciplined.
 Capitalism arose in ―Industrial Revolution‖. The growth of factory system, new
techniques of production, new tools and machines made it possible for the capitalists
or the owners to earn vast amounts of money. The production process had to be
rationally organized; in other words, efficiency and discipline were essential.
 Worker means to an end – being profit
 Weber believes in plurality of causes; dual variables exist – Spirit – provided by
protestant ethics, but only spirit cannot lead to ‗practice‘ of capitalism and ‗substance‘
should also be there which was present in form of new factory system, new

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 techniques of accounting, newly invented tools and machines, democratic political
system for stable governance.
 India – during Mughal period – political centralization, effective law and order;
advances of technology in the Kharkanas established under the patronage of nobles;
monetization and growth of trade but modern capitalism never developed
 China – advances were greater than India, Mercantile class, abundant availability of
monetization, technological breakthroughs (gunpowder, paper printing) even a
centralized authority existed, but there traditionalism hampered the growth of
capitalism.
 Capitalism stresses individualism, innovation and the relentless pursuit of profit.
Traditionalism, as described above is characterized by much less disciplined and
efficient system of production.
 According to Weber, Capitalists needs a great desire of having more and more
property and this desire did not only come with the advent of industrialization rather it
was in the system in one or the other forms.

Types of capitalism:

 Booty capitalists – When capital is acquired by theft, robbery etc, it is called booty
capitalists; popular in ancient days.
 Pariah capitalists – This kind of capitalism where money was lent to earn more
interest and so more profit.
 Traditional capitalists – this kind of capitalism was proved in Medieval Europe in
which capital was gained by traditional methods and so there were informal relations
between masters and workers.
 Modern capitalists – efficiency and discipline are necessary for modern capitalism;
the labourer is greatly controlled and so they consider hard work as their religion;
development of modern capitalism is result of IR in which new model of production
were developed like Mechanization, factory system, formal rules and regulations and
the only reason for high inclination of people towards this system was profit making.

Weber identified a number of values embedded in Protestantism which are in harmony

with the spirit of capitalism:

 The concept of calling – emerged from Calvinist doctrine of predestination according

to which every soul is predestined at birth for heaven or hell. There are signs by
which god indicates to every individual whether he is among elect ones – success in
life; economic impact of this doctrine was profound indeed; no longer was it
necessary for ‗religious‘ men to take the vow of poverty, enter a monastery, undertake
a pilgrimage or indulge in self – torture, some of catholic means of salvation is middle
ages; new doctrine exhorts men to seek gainful enterprises exhorts men to seek
gainful enterprises, accumulate wealth and prove their destiny.
 The new attitude toward the collection of interest on loans – theological doctrine of
Catholicism proscribed collection of interest on loans; prohibition discouraged the
operation, at least open and legal operation of lending houses and accumulation of

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 capital; approving in a practice that had been proscribed in Catholicism promoted
spurt of economic activity.
 Structures of Alcoholism – Protestant ethic prohibits the consumption of alcoholic
beverages; there is no comparable theological doctrine in Catholicism. Indeed, the
prohibition movement is western societies was always spearheaded by protestant.
 Encouragement of literacy and learning – placed great emphasis on literacy and
learning which led to significant breakthrough in sphere of education, leading to
development of mass education.
 Rejection of holidays – Catholic calendar – full of holy days and almost every holy
day is a holiday. In Protestant Ethic – no need for holy days and celebrations
 Protestant Asceticism – incorporates the notion that earthly things and flesh belong to
order of sin and death and should abstain from the pleasures of the world; one hand –
protestant ethic exhorts people ‗accumulate and accumulate‘ and on other hand
forbids use of wealth for enjoyment; undoubtedly a condition par excellence for
development of capitalism.

 Protestantism – acted bridge between mundane and spiritual; Weber says that
protestant ethic contributed to one element of capitalism, which is entrepreneurial
capitalism, which is the spirit of capitalism.

Iron cage of rationality:

 Max Weber used the term to describe the bleak, but inevitable, future of bureaucracy
and increasing rationality in social life.
 According to him, more rationality would not lead to universal freedom as
enlightenment theorists had believed, but would rather create an ‗iron cage‘ from
which there would be no escape
 It will reduce the men into mere cogs in the machine as individuals will lose
autonomy and individuality in wake of increasing specialisation and rational
organisation of work.

Criticism:

 Ideal types which Weber draws may be erroneous. He seems to have concentrated on
certain aspects of religion only.
 It is also argued the doctrine of calling was already present among the Catholics.
 He seems to be selective while drawing elements for his analysis. Ex: according to
Milton Singer, he took selective elements out of Hinduism; there is an equivalent of
Calvinists in forms of Chettiars of Madras.
 Lawrence Stone‘ studies in England concluded that it were not Protestant ethics, but
British aristocracy which had accounted for the rise of capitalism.
 Goldner, Mauller and Wallerstein didn‘t argue with Weber‘s conclusion. They believe
that colonialism is responsible for the rise of capitalism in the West. West in form of
colonies git huge market in Asia, Africa and America and simultaneously got cheap

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 labour and raw materials. The cost of production was low and demand was high
which led to accumulation of wealth and hence capitalism.
 Peter Sombart believes that it isn‘t true that the capitalist were only Protestant
believers. The capitalist came from all ranks and files of society like peasants,
artisans, landlords etc.

Present situation of Weber‟s ideas:

 His ideas are still relevant in understanding of society in wake of tremendous rise of
individualism, isolation etc.
 His prognosis of bureaucracy as an iron cage of rationality is also found to be correct
to a degree and we have seen tremendous growth of such bureaucratic institutions.
 His concepts are still widely used by contemporary scholars. George Ritzer in his
McDonaldization of Society, 1993 used Weberian bureaucracy model to explain
increasing mechanisation of human experiences and its negative impacts.
 Ritzer argues that McDonaldization is dehumanising as we make queues to get a
burger as if we are on a conveyor belt and staff repeats the same mundane tasks again
and again like robots.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Discuss the role of Calvinist ethic in the development of Capitalism. (2015) (20
marks)

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Chapter: (d) Talcolt Parsons – Social system, Pattern variables

 Talcott Parsons – foundation for what was to become the modern functionalist
perspective and developed a general theory for the study of society called action
theory.
 Played a crucial role in the development ―The Grand Theory‖ which was an attempt
to integrate the different social sciences into one theoretical framework.

Major Publications:

 The structure of social action (1937)

 The social system (1951)
 Essays in sociological theory (1964)
 Societies: evolutionary and comparative perspectives (1966)
 Politics and social structure (1969)

 Parsons and functionalist approach occupied intermediate position between classical

and contemporary sociology.
 Around 1950s it became dominant; there were many new developments in sociology.
Micro sociological approaches such as symbolic interactionism and study of
individual and small group interaction began, perhaps because these had not been
emphasized by earlier sociologists.

Social Action:

 According to him, Value Consensus is the integrating force in society – result of role
of performance which is institutionalized in a society.
 According to him, main task of sociology is to analyse the institutionalized pattern of
values.
 Second problem, apart from the value consensus, is the apparent incompatibility
between the needs of society or social system and individual needs. Referred by
Parsons as ‗motivational problem‘ and is dealt by the respective systems by meeting
individual needs.
 Considers that all possible empirical action of people can be arrested into a universal
theoretical framework – developed ‗structure of social action‘ in contrast to Weber‘s
ideal types of social action.
 Social Action is defined Parsons in his ‗Structure Action is defined by Parsons in his
‗Structure of Social Action, 1937‘ – ‗Any act consciously performed is social action‘.
Thus unlike Weber who says that should be oriented towards others for it to be social.
Parsons gives four conditions:
o It occurs in a social situation i.e. actor is a member of society while
performing a social action.

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 o It is oriented towards attainment of a particular goal i.e. actor is motivated.
o Action is regulated by norms and values.
o It involves investment of energy.
 According to him, an actor is a goal seeking individual with alternative means to
attain those goals and is influenced by two factors:
o Motivational orientation – It is due to personal condition of the actor. It is
affected by cognitive, cathectic (emotional response) and evaluative needs of
an individual.
o Value orientation – it refers to the influence of norms and values of society. It
is influenced by values in 3 ways – Cognition, Appreciation and Moral.
 Like Weber he also classified actions as 3 types –
o Instrumental action (similar to Zweckrational action of Weber) – evaluative
component is most dominant. Both means and ends are logically decided.
o Expressive action (similar to affective action of Weber) – in this appreciative
component is dominant.
o Moral action (similar to traditional and wertrational action) – here the actor‘s
own motivation is subordinate to values of society.
 Further, actions don‘t occur in isolation, but in constellations. Such constellation in
form of institutionalized social interactions is called social system.

Social System:

 Parsons gave structural functionalist theory as master framework for all social
institutions – social action don‘t occur in isolation, but in constellations which are
various social systems – developed his idea of social system from works of Tonnies,
Durkheim etc. – took idea of ‗cultural system‘ from Malinowski, W H R Rivers etc.
and idea of ‗Personality system‘ from G H Mead, C H Cooley etc. – social system is
one of the four highest functional framework and is made up of a constellation of
social actions and fulfils some functional prerequisite.
 Social system is defined as – ‗consisting of plurality of individual actors interacting
with each other in a situation which has an environment with actors who are
motivated in terms of a tendency to the optimization of gratification‘.
 As Parsons was not simply a structuralist but also a functionalist, he delineated a
number of functional prerequisites of a social system –
o First, social system must be structured so that they operate compatible with
other systems.
o Second, to survive, the social system must have requisite support from other
systems.
o Third, the system must meet a significant proportion of the needs of its actors.
o Fourth, the system must elicit adequate participation from its members.
o Fifth, it must have at least a minimum of control over potentially disruptive
behaviour.
o Sixth, if conflict becomes sufficiently disruptive, it must be controlled.
o Finally, a social system requires a language in order to survive.

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  However didn‘t ignore issue relationship between actors and social structures in social
system; interested in how norms and values transferred to actors.
 Initially – Parsons – ‗Mechanism equilibrium phase‘ viewed social system only in
terms of structure i.e. how different mechanisms like family, law education maintain
an equilibrium which according to Parsons is ‗moving equilibrium‘, but later through
his ‗requisite functional phase‘ Parsons talked about AGIL functions.
 AGIL – subtle shift from analysis of structure to analysis of function.

AGIL Functional imperatives for Social System: (ADAPTATION, GOAL

ATTAINMENT, INTEGRATION, LATENCY)

Adaptation:

 Social system – cope with external boundary such as resource base, territory –
economic activity serves to solve problems of adaptation.

Goal Attainment:

 Goals of societies and social institutions have to be defined, resolving conflicts,

prioritizing some over others. Determining resource allocations and directing social
energies. Political activity organizes and directs the goal attainment of modern social
systems.

Integration:

 All adaptive efforts of social institutions within a society should be integrated into a
cohesive system – institutions should be regulated – harmonious society can emerge
from their interaction. Legal systems solve this problem, seeking overarching
principles for aligning social activities.

Latency:

 Encultured patterns of behaviour required by the social system must be maintained.

People‘ motivation must be established and renewed, and tensions as they negotiate
and social order must be managed. Fiduciary systems – families, schools, schools and
churches solve these problems of patter/tension management.

 These four functional imperatives AGIL provided what Parsons felt was a more
complex and systemic account of social phenomena which previous theorists had
tried to explain in terms of unitary causes.

At the highest abstractions/generalization he gave four action systems:

 Organismic system or Biological system or Behavioural system – it is the physical or

biological aspect of social reality. – Store house of energy.
 Personality system – internal, hidden aspects of society resulting from motives alone
– Store house of motivation.

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  Social system – refers to pattern of actual interaction between units of society; it has
AGIL within it. Important social system is society.
 Cultural system – consists of norms and values also termed as Store house of
information.

 4 action systems – do not exist in real world but are, rather, analytical tools for
analysing the real world; he gave primacy to structure over individual.

University:

 Adaptation – Fees, monetary inputs, donations etc. constitute an organismic system

which secures facilities from an environment.
 Goal attainment – Academic excellence through efforts of students and teachers
constitute personality system which mobilizes resources for goal attainment.
 Integration – university rules, discipline, laws, code of conduct constitute a social
system which maintains viable relationship among system units.
 Latency – vision of university enshrined in code of ethics and its organizational
values constitutes a cultural system which ensures pattern maintenance.

According to him, every action system has the following characteristics:

 System is a unified whole made up of interdependent parts called subsystems and

each subsystem can be treated as a system itself.
 Each system has a boundary that separates it from other systems and environment.
 Systems or subsystems are organized in a relatively stable manner, so that definite
patterns of inter – relations come to exist between subsystems.
 Systems are dynamic in nature.
 There are certain functional prerequisites which need to be fulfilled for the existence
of a system.

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 Parsons – system exists because it performs certain functional prerequisites which are
necessary to sustain the system in equilibrium.
 To survive a society must find solutions to the problems.
o In order to survive, social system must gain some control over environment
(for needs like food, security). The economy is the subsystem that performs
the function for ‗society‘ of adapting to the environment through labour,
production and allocation. Through such work, the economy adapts the
environment to society‘s needs, and it helps society adapt to these external
realities. Adaptation refers to the relationship with environment.
o The political system performs function of goal attainment by pursuing societal
objectives and mobilizing actors to that end.
o The fiduciary system handles the latency or pattern maintenance by
transmitting culture to actors and allows it to be internalized by them. It helps
in maintaining basic patterns of values of society.
o Finally, integration function is performed by societal community or
institutions of social control which coordinates various components of society.
 Parsons took a synthetic approach (action theory for micro and systems theory for
macro explanations).
 A social system is distinct form other systems and maintains a boundary as do other
systems from each other. A social system by maintaining this boundary.
 In his conceptualization of systems, Parsons also sees the inter – relation and inter –
linkages; liked with other systems through ‗energy flow‘ and ‗information control‘
which Parsons termed as ‗Cybernetic Hierarchy of Control‘; social change occurs
when there change in energy or equilibrium is disturbed. This is restored by:
o Socialization – shared values are transmitted from one generation to another
by various institutions like family, education etc.
o Social control – it discourages deviance and various institutions enforcing it
are law, police etc. Parsons also views social change as a change in terms of
‗evolution from simple to complex societies‘.

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Criticism:

 Grand functional theory – less practical utility and empirical testability; ideas too
abstract with little empirical verifiability – Dahrendorf called his conception as
utopian.
 Takes an over socialized view of man in which man is influenced by norms and
values alone like a cog in a machine.
 Merton takes much realistic view and he included latent functions, dysfunctions as
well in his analysis. Termed grand conception as both futile and sterile.
 Jonathan Turner – structure functionalism of Parsons suffers from illegitimate
teleology and tautology which are two most important logical problems confronting
structural functionalism. They often take cause and effect and vice versa.
 Emphasis in writings of Parsons and Merton – criticized as positivism due to
scientific character.
 Marxist – functionalism for its neglect of class conflict that exist in society; political
– neglecting role of power and domination in structure and function of social
institutions.
 Turner, he ignored conflict and obsessed with integration.
 Buckley – vaguely conceptualized amalgam of mechanistic and organismic models
placing excessive emphasis on integration, consensus and stability and devaluing
change, conflict and strife.
 Percy Cohen – sees problem in social system that all elements of a society are seen
as reinforcing one another as well as system as whole. Makes it difficult to see how
these elements can also contribute to change.
 I.L.Horowitz – Parsons tend to see conflict as necessarily destructive which is wrong
assumption.

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  However, despite its limitation it can be used to understand problems in tribal areas
through social system:
o Poverty (Adaptation – Economic system)
o Vested interests (Goal Attainment – political system)
o Alienation (Integration – Cultural system)
o Stress and Lack of motivation (Latency – family)

Previous Years Questions:

1. How can Parsons‘ AGIL framework be used to analyse key problems in a society?
Discuss. (2018) (20 marks)
2. Describe the functional prerequisites of social system as given by Talcott Parsons.
Examine in the context of a university as a social system. (2016) (20 marks)
3. How is social equilibrium maintained in Parsonian framework? (2015) (20 marks)
4. Examine the relevance of Parsonian social system in the present society. (2013) (10
marks)
5. Give conceptual meaning of social system. What is cognitive consonance between
pattern variables and paradigm? (2011) (30 marks)

Pattern variables:

 One way that Parsons organized his analysis of social action and activities within
social systems is through pattern variables remember social action is voluntary,
oriented and subject to guidance or influence of social norms.
 The variables include ‗categorization of modes of orientation in personality systems,
the value patterns of culture and normative requirements in social systems.
 Pattern variables – provides a means of describing and classifying institutions, social
relationships, and different societies and values and norms of these.
 For Parsons, these were necessary to make the theory of action more explicit and to
develop clearer specifications of what different contingencies and expectations actors
were likely to face.
 Speaks about pattern variables in his book ‗the structure of social action‘/ man is a
bundle of impulses but is bound by compositions i.e. he wants to do something but
culture and norms bind him to do something else. Parsons talks about the
interconnectivity between.

Actor; Social Structure; Cultural structure:

 Pattern variables talk about successful negotiation between above three.

 To make social system more clear, Parsons deals with cultural variables or pattern
variables; considers that there is huge amount of diversity across social system, and so
there is need to arrive at common set of variables; valid for all types of social system
and is called pattern variables.

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  Parsons‘ idea of pattern variables is closely linked with his idea of social actions and
inspired from Weberian idea of Ideal types; is the connecting link between the
Parsonian idea of social action and social system, while pattern variables are
dielmmas, social system is the solution.
 Actions according to Parsons never occur in isolation, but in constellation in form of
Action Systems and there are some dilemmas that exist in social systems while
performing social action.

Parsons and Modernity:

 Prior to Parsons, study of modernity had been centrality to sociological inquiry;

influenced by work of Fredinand Tonnies, Durkheim and Weber.
 Parsons – defender of modernity indicated that modernity is not just production of
culture, social structure or social action, rather the negation between the personality,
social and cultural system and its outcomes sufficiently explain the possibility of
modernity in a given society. Develops theory of pattern variables to explain
modernity, recognizing the fact that modernity is:
o A product of actor understanding the demands of action situation;
o Negotiating with other actors, confirming to the normative and value system
differently;
o Realizing the dilemma in ac action situation;
o Making attempts to neutralize this dilemma;
o The outcomes of all these discourse manifest the possibility, degree, form and
content of modernity in a given society.
 Hence, pattern variable is a mega theoretical framework where Parsons defines, how
in an action situation:
o An actor identifies the counter actors;
o The degree of emotional relationship appropriate in action situation;
o Range of obligation of actor towards counter actors;
o Form of attachment between the actor and counter actor;
o Benefits/results coming out of interaction

 Pattern variables – framework through which Parsons tries to understand how actor
negotiates with action situation and manifest kind of behaviour; Parsons says that
culture is patterned and institutionalized, but culture is not patterned in a monolithic
way, rather it is dualistically patterned in a monolithic way, rather it is dualistically
patterned; offers choice; actor should resolve through a culture. According to Parsons
this duality exists at multiple levels. He identified five levels of this duality. The five
levels at which duality is manifested, Parsons called them Pattern Variables.
 A social system may be characterised by the combination of solutions offered to
these dilemmas that actor faces or in other words, these pattern variables structure
any system of interaction; dilemmas can be resolved by ‗role institutionalized and
role internalization‘.

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  Pattern variable is designed to explain microscopic and macroscopic situation to
explain the negotiation between social actors and influence of cultural and social
system on his behaviour in different social situations and its outcomes.

(i) Particularism Vs Universalism:

 Refers to dilemmas regarding standard of values to be used in the evaluation process;

particularism refers to traditional values and beliefs; universalism refers to modern
and rational value system.
 Dilemma of categorization of social objects; actor has to evaluate and judge with two
possible ways. Ex; a man may consider his son intelligent simply because he is his
son, but if he is a member of a recruitment board, he has to follow an objective
criterion in judging intelligence.
 On other hand, choice of doctor not on basis of his competence but because he is a
friend, is an example of giving precedence to particularistic criteria over universalistic
one.

(ii) Ascription Vs Achievement:

 There are patterns which help actors judge others in a situation whether judgement is
to be done in terms of ascriptive (based on birth) or based on achieved attributes.
 Patterns of variable of modality of objects. Ex: is an actor expected to give more
importance to the achieved or ascribed? Sex, age, family and caste are ascribed while
merit and success are achieved.

(iii) Affectivity Vs Affective Neutrality:

 Actor has to make choice between two situations; let emotions dominate behaviour or
keep them apart. Ex: a husband should be emotionally attached with his wife but a
doctor shouldn‘t be with his patient; social system varies and role of same person
varies wrt situations.
 Affective relationships are found in family or peer groups, here emotions dominate
over behaviour; but in occupational groups like soldier, civil servant etc. relationship
is instrumental, task – oriented and not to be enjoyed in its own right. In other words;
action is not for self- gratification but to achieve the goal of large organizations.

(iv) Diffuseness Vs Specificity:

 Dilemma is to participate as total person (diffuse) or participate in specific capacity

(specificity). Ex: marriage relationship may serve as a prototype of a diffuse
relationship i.e. ego orients to alter as a total personality. But as a boss he should have
job – specific relationship with his secretary.

(v) Collective – orientation Vs Self – orientation:

 Refers to the dilemma between fulfilment of self- interest or collective interest;

collective or private (personal interest). Concern is primacy of moral standards in an

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 evaluative procedure. Ex: a man as husband or a father is expected to think for his
family, i.e. to be collective oriented but as salesman he should be oriented towards
profits i.e. self - orientation.
 Parons\
 Parsons all social systems can be described in terms of these pattern variables;
represent dilemmas of choices of orientation which have to be resolved before an
action is performed. All these levels are subsumed under natural and rational will.
 Thus there is no unlimited freedom. Later he says for most part culture itself answers
the questions. Ex: be particularistic in private and universalistic in family, which is
culturally accepted way.

Further on basis of his idea of pattern variables, he identified four types of structure of
social system –

 Universalistic achievement pattern – its nearest example is modern American society

 Universalistic ascription pattern- its example is Nazi Germany. As an organisation it
was rational but notions of superiority and inferiority were assigned based on birth.
 Particularistic achievement pattern – classical Chinese family is one of examples,
where the royal blooded members of the family had to prove their worth via
individual achievements.
 Particularistic ascription pattern – traditional Indian caste system is an example

Criticism:

 Parsons did not take into account clash of interests across sections, clashes or roles in
society. In modern society there is an interchange of personnel between systems so
there is great potential for conflicts in standardized norms and values. Parsons has
ignored this dilemma.
 C.W.Mills considers that an institution is a set of roles graded in authority. Ex: in
doctor – patient relationship, the doctor wants to maintain distance from a normal
patient, vice – versa if the patient is VIP he tried to develop closeness.
 Devereux considers Parsons list of pattern variables inadequate. He mentions that
Parsons at one time entertained the idea of introducing long run versus short run as a
variable. Didn‘t include it at end. If he would have included it as well as influence of
power in relationship, his theory would have contained more merit.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Analyse the relevance of ‗Pattern Variables‘ in the study of social change. (2020) (10
marks)
2. Critically analyse Talcott Parsons‘ conception of Pattern variables. (2017) (10 marks)
3. Write short note: Universalism and Particularism. (2012) (12 marks)

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Chapter: (e) Robert K. Merton – Latent and manifest functions, conformity and
deviance, causes of mobility

Major publications:

 Social theory and social structure (1949)

 The Sociology of Science (1973)
 Sociological Ambivalence (1976)
 On the shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript (1985)
 On Social structure and science
 Pursuied a version of Parsons‘ functionalism but more in a critical way; Merton
argued for middle range theories in particular areas or on specific subjects. Criticized
some of the more extreme and indefensible aspects of structural functionalism.
 Although both Merton and Parsons are associated with structural functionalism,
differences – Parsons – creation of grand, overreaching theories; Merton – more
favourable toward Marxian theories.

Merton‟s criticism of the Functionalist Analysis of Society:

 Saw three basic postulates of functional analysis as developed by anthropologists

Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown – to avoid confusion about how this methodology is
to be applied; he gave procedural steps to apply functional analysis, which is nothing
but codification.
 He questions three assumptions and their utility; which should have been tested and
suitably modified.
 Postulate of Functional Utility:
o Holds all standardized social and cultural belief and practices for society as
whole and as well for individuals in society; various parts of society shows
high integration; it might be true in small, primitive societies cannot be
extended to larger, more complex societies; argues that functional unity is a
matter of degree; extent must be determined by investigation rather than
simply beginning with the assumption it exists
o Assumption – any part of social system is function for the entire system.
According to Radcliffe Brown, every social system should have minimum
functional unity.
o Merton agrees to this statement of Brown, as some degree of functional unity
is required, otherwise it will break apart. If functional unity is to be arrived we
also observe functional disunity along with it. Ex: in a pluralistic system, due
to various faiths, both unity and disunity are to be taken. By not accounting for
functional disunity, functionalists have become unsuitable for studying
modern industrial societies.

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  Postulate of universal functionalism:
o Argued that all standardized social and cultural forms and structure have
positive functions; Merton argued that this contradicts in real world; not clear
that every structure, custom, idea, belief and so forth has positive functions.
o Suggests functional analysis should proceed from assumption that any part of
society may be function, dysfunctional or non - functional. Ex: Poverty may
be seen as dysfunctional for the poor but functional for the non – poor and for
society as whole.
 Postulate of indispensability:
o Argument – all standardized aspects of society not only have positive
functions but also represent indispensable parts of working whole; leads to
idea that all structure and functions are functionally necessary for society. Ex:
Davis and Moore claim that religion plays a unique and indispensable part in
the society.
o Merton argues this assumption and argues that it may be met by a range of
alternative institutions. Ex: a political ideology like communism can provide
functional alternative to religion.

 Merton‘s belief that empirical tests, not theoretical assertions, are crucial to functional
analysis, are crucial to functional analysis led him develop his ‗paradigm‘ of
functional analysis as a guide to the integration of theory and research.
 According to Merton, not all social structures have positive functions; some
contribute to in negative as well. Ex: caste system in India – does not contribute
anything positive to society; instead threatens democratic values of society. So, caste
system may be classified as dysfunctional. Hence, we can say that some social
institutions have dysfunctions too.

Function:

 Functions, according to Merton, are defined as ―those observed consequences which

make for the adaptation or adjustment of a given system‖.

Latent and Manifest functions:

 Published in 1949 book ―social theory and social structure‖ – also contains other
theories by Merton such as reference groups and self-fulfilling prophecy.
 As part of his functionalist perspective on society, he took close look at social actions
and their effects and found that manifest functions could be defined very specially as
the beneficial effects of conscious and deliberate actions.
 Manifest functions stem from all manner of social actions but are most commonly
discussed as outcomes of work of social institutions like family, religion, education,
and media and as product of social policies, laws, rules and norms.
 Ex: Education institute – conscious and deliberate intention is to produce young
people who understand their knowledge and practical skills to be productive members
of society.

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  Media – inform public of important news and events so that they can play an active
role in democracy.

Manifest versus Latent functions:

 Manifest – refers to intended function of social policies, processes or actions that are
consciously and deliberately designed to beneficial in its effect on society.
 Latent – not consciously intended, but that, nonetheless, has a beneficial effect on
society.
 Contrasting with both manifest and latent functions are dysfunctions, which are type
of unintended outcome that is harmful in nature.
 Latent functions:
o Functional consequences that are not intended or recognized by members of
social system in which they occur.
 Manifest functions:
o The functions of a type of social activity that are known to intended by the
individuals involved in the activity.
 While manifest function – consciously and deliberately intended to produce beneficial
outcomes, latent functions are neither conscious nor deliberate but also produce
benefits – they are unintended positive consequences.
 Manifest – easily noticeable; but latent not easily noticeable as not many are aware of
it.
 Ex: criminal getting punished – deviant behaviour not allowed in society – it is
manifest. But latent function of punishment upholds society‘s faith in collective
conscience.
 Social scientists need to know beyond the common sense perception of the
participants and observe the latent consequences of social structures.
 Sociologists – social institutions produce latent function in addition to manifest
functions – Latent – friendship among students who matriculate at same school; the
provision of entertainment and socializing opportunities via school dances sporting
events and feeding poor students with food (lunch).

Examples of Manifest and Latent functions:

 Schools are expected to educate the children in the knowledge and skills that they
need. The manifest functions are obvious, admitted and generally applauded. Latent –
unrecognized and unforeseen consequences of institution. Ex: schools not only
educate young they also provide mass entertainment.
 Latent – may support of manifest functions. Ex: latent functions of religious
institutions in modern society include recreational activities and courtship
opportunities to young people. Latent functions may be irrelevant to manifest
functions. Ex: big events organized in school may not impact education.
 Latent – may sometime undermine manifest functions. Ex: manifest function of civil
service regulations is to secure a competent dedicated staff of civil servants to make a
government more efficient.

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  Civil service system – may have latent function of establishing more rigid
bureaucracy.
 Distinction between manifest and latent in essentially relative and not absolute. A
function may appear to be manifest for some in social system and latent for others.

Dysfunction:

 Latent – go unnoticed – unless produce negative outcomes; classified harmful latent

functions as dysfunctions as they cause disorder and conflict within society. However
also recognized – dysfunctions can be manifest in nature – occur when negative
consequences are in fact known in advance and include. Ex: disruption of traffic and
daily life by a large event like street festival or a protest.
 It‘s the former though, latent dysfunctions, that primarily concern sociologists. In fact,
one could say that a significant portion of sociological research is focused on just that
– how harmful social problems are unintentionally created by laws, policies, rules and
norms that are intended to do something else..
 Clear ideological bias when focus is only on adaptation or adjustment for they are
always positive consequences. Important to note that one social fact can have negative
consequence for another social fact. To rectify this Merton developed idea of
dysfunction; just as structures or institutions could contribute to the maintenance of
other parts of social system, they could have negative consequences for them.

Non – Functions:

 Merton – posited idea of non – functions, which he defined as consequences that are
simple irrelevant to system under consideration. Included here might be social forms
that are ‗survivals‘ from earlier historical times.
 Although they may have had positive or negative consequences in the past, they have
no significant effect on contemporary society.
 Merton added the idea that there must be levels of functional analysis. Functionalists
had generally restricted themselves to analysis of the society as a whole, but Merton
made it clear that analysis also could be done on an organization, institution or group.

Unanticipated functions:

 Idea is related to Merton‘s concepts – unanticipated consequences. Actions have both

intended and unintended consequences. Although everyone is aware of the intended
consequences, sociological analysis is required to uncover the unintended
consequences; indeed to some this is the very essence of sociology.
 Peter Berger called this ‗debunking‘ or looking beyond stated intentions to real
effects. Merton made it clear that unanticipated consequences and latent functions are
not same. A latent function is one type of unanticipated consequence, one that is
functional for the designated system. But there are two types of unanticipated
consequences: ―those that are dysfunctional for a designated system, and these
comprise the latent dysfunctions‖, and ―those which are irrelevant to the system
which they affect neither functionally nor dysfunctionally‖.

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Security of tenure of bureaucrats:

 Manifest functions: Leads to job security and hence increases efficiency; not
influenced by external pressure; training process can be implemented better since
tenure is long and fixed.
 Latent functions: Encourage bright people to take bureaucracy basis on merit; as
bureaucracy involves both typical legal and rational, decision, encourages them to
take risks; tenure security has encouraged corruption in bureaucracy; power capturing
tendencies have created in sensitive bureaucracy towards public service.

Corruption in Indian society:

 Manifest functions: innovation in bureaucracy or perception of alternative solution in

public.
 Latent functions: solution of inefficiency in institution.
 Dysfunction: moral degradation and failure of norms like honesty, integrity etc.

Limitations of Merton‟s theory of functionalism:

Lack of rationality:

 Merton has not told what is function or dysfunctional especially for a modern society.
 It is a difficult question not resolved by Merton.
 Apart from that, the relevancy of objective consequence is also questionable became,
their also it is difficult to tell rationally, to what extent any activity is function of
dysfunction.

Lack of objectivity and universality:

 Like Brown and Malinowski, Merton also presented example of simple societies
(Hopi Indians). In that way, his universality is questionable he has also presented the
example of group (political machine) to which, he himself a member.
 It means, has studies suffer from subjective experiences and so it lacks objectivity.
 Apart from it, the political machine acting illegally can‘t be approved in all societies
and so its universality is also questionable.

Criticism:

 This theory is against the goals of objectivity in sociology, since latent functions are
not observable and cannot be proved. It completely depends upon the researcher what
latent function he/she is identifying out of that particular manifest function.
 Colin Campbell considers that, Latent function can be used as a tool to justify many
wrongdoings in the society which primarily signifies orthodoxy, evil customs etc.
 Functionalism was criticized as a status quoist theory. Merton wanted to make it a
dynamic one but his purpose remained unfilled through this theory.

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Middle range theories:

 Proposed middle range theories in wake of apparent failure of Grand Functional

theories to help in study of society; bath between macro theories (too ambitious) and
micro theories (little consequence).
 Focus on limited set of assumptions from which specific hypothesis can be derived
and empirical testing is possible; more suitable for socio analysis for its limited set of
assumptions, specific hypothesis and empirical testability.
 Major task is to fill gap between raw empiricism and grand theories.
 Takes specific aspects of social reality which can be theorized and tested empirically.
 Must be supported by quantitative as well as qualitative method and use both primary
and secondary sources of data.
 Middle range theories – triple alliance of theory, data and methods.
 Advantages – scientific nature, testability, practical applicability.

Conclusion:

 Further clarification, Merton pointed out that a structure may be dysfunctional for
system as a whole yet may continue to exist. One might make a good case that
discrimination against blacks, females and other minority groups is dysfunction for
society, yet it continues to exist because it is functional for a part of social system.
 Males do suffer discrimination against females; one could argue that these forms of
discrimination adversely affect those who discriminate by keeping vast numbers of
people underproductive and by increasing the likelihood of social conflict.
 Merton – not all structures are indispensable to the workings of the social system;
some parts can be eliminated and helps functional theory overcome another of its
conservative behaviour biases.
 Recognizing that some structures are expendable, functionalism opens the way for
meaningful social change. Our society, for example, could continue to exist and be
improved by elimination of discrimination.
 Thus, Merton‘s clarifications are of great utility to sociologists who wish to perform
functional analyses.

Previous Years Question:

1. What are the reactions of R.K.Merton to the functionalism of social anthropologists?

Bring out the limitations of latent functions. (2020) (20 marks)
2. What, according to Merton, is the difference between unanticipated consequences‘
and ‗latent functions‘? Give examples to elaborate. (2019) (10 marks)
3. Analyse the manifests and latent functions of ‗security of tenure of bureaucrat‘s in the
light of Merton‘s theory. (2016) (20 marks)
4. Using Merton‘s concepts of manifest and latent functions, explain the persistence of
corruption in Indian society. (2014) (10 marks)

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Conformity and Deviance:

 Deviance concept – describes non – conformity to social norms, values and civic
expectations, while deviant is someone whose behaviour departs from established
moral standards; not necessarily criminal though two are often conflated.
 Conformity – is achieved by commitment to dominant social norms, which is often
unconscious or unspoken; can also be ensured by more overt social, political, legal or
cultural pressure.
 Deviance – any action which conflicts with values of the dominant social group which
defines what is acceptable and what is normal.
 As such, deviance is a socially constructed phenomenon.
 Conformity and deviance are two responses to real or imagined pressure from others.
Conformity means going along one‘s peers or individuals of a person‘s own status.
Ex: a recruit entering military will typically conform to the habits and language of
other recruits.
 Conformity – opposite to social deviance which implies obedience to norms that make
person acceptable to particular society; concept of conformity was use by Merton to
refer acceptance of cultural goals and legitimate or approved means of achieving
them. In his scheme of adaptations to the goals and means, only conformity to both
indicates non – deviance.
 Deviance – behaviour that violates the standards of conduct or social norms of
society. Ex: Alcoholics, sex deviants, drug addicts in class are all classified as
deviants or deviant acts. Involves violation of group norms. It is a very
comprehensive concept that includes not only criminal behaviour but also many
actions not subject to prosecution. Standards of deviance – vary from group to group
and also vary time.
 A society – must have social order if it is to function smoothly. No society succeeds
in getting all members as expected all time; when a person fails – deviance occurs. If
societies have to survive, they must have ways of making people conform to social
norms.
 Durkheim – earliest sociologists to address issue of deviance; deviance is unavoidable
– there can never be complete socialization. Conscience collective cannot be fully
followed by all. Deviance is also normal and healthy that some degree of deviance
may exist if collective conscience becomes too repressive.
 Merton in his theoretical analysis – ‗social structure and anomie‘ takes inspiration
from Durkheim‘s work. It provided the intellectual foundation for Merton‘s attempt to
develop a macro – level explanation of rates of norm violating behaviour in American
society.
 Merton starts from functionalist that for smooth functioning of society, value
consensus is essential. As all are not placed in same positions it can generate
deviance. In Merton‘s words, ―the social and cultural structure generates pressure for
socially deviant behaviour upon people variously located in the structure.‖
 Contrast to Durkheim, Merton bases his theory on socio assumptions about human
nature; replaces Durkheim‘s conception of limitless needs and appetites with

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 assumption that human needs and desires are primarily product of social process i.e.
cultural socialization. For instance, people raised in a society where cultural values
emphasize material goals will learn to strive for economic success.
 Anomie, Durkheim, referred to failure of society to regulate or constrain the ends or
goals of human desire. Merton, on other hand, is more concerned with social
regulation of the means use to obtain material goals.

Merton‟s theory of deviance (strain theory):

 First developed by Merton in 1940s to explain rising crime experienced in USA at

that time; became popular with contemporary sociologists.
 Argued that cultural system of the USA was built on ‗American Dream‘ – a set of
meritocratic principles which assured the American public that equality of opportunity
was available to all, regardless of class, gender or ethnicity; encouraged individuals to
pursue a goal of success which was largely measured in terms of acquisition of wealth
and material possessions; people expected to pursue through legitimate means such as
education and work; dominant cultural message was if you are ambitious, talented and
working hard, then income and wealth should be your rewards.
 Developed concept of anomie to describe imbalance; argued that such imbalanced
society produces anomie – there is strain or tension between goals and means which
produce unsatisfied aspirations.
 Indicates that deviants are not sub – cultural group rather people manifest deviant
behaviour in different spheres of life. A mismatch between cultural prescriptive
means and socially prescriptive goals give way to deviant behaviour. Find that deviant
behaviour persists in society because it has not outlived its function therefore
sociology should not be concerned about deviance as a pathological problem rather
one should study latent and manifest orientations of deviance.
 Considers anomie is not product of rapid social change rather form of behaviour
manifested by people when they are suffering from social strain. Anomie theory is
also known as social strain theory; strain – product of mismatch between culturally
prescriptive means and socially prescriptive goals.at different points of anomic
behaviour these deviant behaviours are function, dysfunction and non – functional.
 Chronic discrepancy between cultural promises and structural realities not only
undermine social support for institutional norms but also promotes violations of those
norms.
 Merton‘s presents an analytical typology, shown in following table, of individual
adaptations to the discrepancy between culture and social structure; Merton argued
that when individuals are faced with a gap between their goals and their current status,
strain occurs; people have five ways to adapt.

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Merton‟s typology of individual adaptations to environmental pressures:

(+) signifies acceptance; (-) signifies rejection; and (+-) signifies of prevailing goals or
means and substitution of new goal or means.

 These adaptations describe kinds of social rules people adopt in response to cultural
and structural pressures.
 Conformity – non deviant adaptation – people continue to engage in legitimate
occupational or educational roles despite environmental pressures towards deviant
behaviour.
 Innovation – involves acceptance of cultural gaol but rejection of legitimate
institutionalized means. Occurs when individual has assimilated the cultural emphasis
on the goal without equally internalizing the institutional norms.
 Ritualism – quite different from cultural standards. The ritualistic is an over
conformist. Here, the pursuit of the dominant cultural goal of economic success I
rejected or abandoned and compulsive conformity to institutional norms becomes an
end it itself.

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  Retreatism – is rejection of both cultural goals and institutionalized means. Complete
escape from pressure and demands of organized society. Ex: activities of psychotics,
outcasts, chronic drunkards and drug addicts.
 Rebellion – not only rejects the goals and means of established society but actively
attempts to substitute new goals and means in their place – refers to role behaviour in
political deviants, who attempt to modify existing structure of society; in his later
work, Merton uses other forms of deviant behaviour that are typical.

 Merton defined anomie – a breakdown in cultural structure between cultural norms

and goals and the socially structured capacities of members of the group to act in
accordance with them.‖ In this conception cultural values may help produce
behaviour which is at odds with mandates of values themselves.

Traffic problem:

 Conformist – following traffic rules will make transportation smooth in urban India.
 Innovators – Jumping red light when no police is there to check.
 Ritualist – Someone might lose a job if he/she goes late but still follows the rule.
 Retreators – Someone drinking and driving.
 Rebellion – when new motor vehicle act fixed highest fine at Rs. 10000 few people
protested and finally state government reduced it.

Critical points:

 Firstly – not all working class individuals turn to crime and so we need something
else to explain; subcultural theorists argue that role of working class subcultures
plugs this gap in explanation – deviant subculture provide rewards for individuals
who commit crime.
 Secondly, Merton‘s reliance on official statistics means he overestimates extent of
working class crime and underestimates the extent of middle class or white collar
crime.
 Thirdly, strain theory only really explains economic crimes; it doesn‘t really explain
violent crime.
 Marxists point out lack of equality of opportunity is at heart of capitalist system.
 Cloward & Ohlin – theory does not explain why some people should become
innovators, ritualistic etc. they talked about criminal subculture, which is solely
responsible for deviance.
 Walter Millar – criminals are not always those who failed to gain legitimate
opportunity structure. They make deviant acts out of thrill i.e. to become smart – pick
– pocketing, boxing etc.
 David Matza – there is a minor difference between criminals and non – criminals.
Even deviants believe in value of society. Most of time, they try to disown the
responsibility for example – they argue that ‗everybody is corrupt only I am caught‘.

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  Howard Becker – in his labelling theory argue that society applies label in context
behaviour. The behaviour becomes deviants when other label it as such i.e. give the
dog a bad name; there are all chances that it will live up to that expectation.
 Edwin M. Lemart – made distinction between primary and secondary deviation
primary deviance consist of deviant acts before they are publicly labelled. Secondary
deviance is the response an individual or group to societal reaction.

Conclusion:

 Insists that anomie is essentially a sociological concept. Anomie refers to a ―property

of a social system, not to the state of mind or this or that individual within the
system.‖
 Ex: condition of anomie exists when there is a general loss of faith in efficacy of
government, when contractual cooperation is characterized more by mistrust then
trust, or when there is uneasiness gripping the community because of the alarming
increase in crime rate.
 Thus, the appeal of Merton‘s theory and a major reason for its far – reaching impact
upon the field of deviance lies in his ability to derive explanations of a diverse
assortment of deviant phenomena from a relatively simple analytical framework. This
is precisely what a general theory of deviance must do.

Previous Years Question:

1. How according to Merton, are deviant subcultures generated? (2019) (20 marks)
2. Anomie is rooted in social structure. Explain with reference to R.K.Merton‘s
contribution. (2015) (10 marks)
3. How could one use Merton‘s concept of deviance to understand the traffic problem in
urban India? (2014) (10 marks)

Reference groups:

 Man is an imitative anima. He compares with others and begins behaving like them in
order to reach their status and position.
 Such behaviour after comparison with others is called ‗Reference behaviour‘. One
relates to other individuals or groups and tries to adopt their values and standards.
Such imitation of behaviour is found at both the individual and group levels.
 In sociology concept of Reference Group behaviour was given by Hayman. Later,
Turner, Merton and Sheriff further elaborated this concept. According to Hayman,
there are some particular individuals in a society whose standards or values become
ideals for other people and are imitated by them. Sheriff provided a psychological
explanation of reference behaviour.
 According to him, an individual in a group situation accepts group norm but he
sometime also begins to imitate behaviour of distinguished people. According to

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 Linton, in every society there are some roles and statuses every individual seeks to
achieve.
 Two reasons for reference group behaviour, one the social and economic situation;
second the psychological of individual or group.
 Sheriff has defined as ―those groups to which individual relates him as a part or to
which he relates himself psychologically.
 Merton – ―Reference group behaviour theory aims to systematize the determinants
and consequences of those processes of evaluation and sub – appraisal, in which
individual takes the values or standards of other individuals and groups, as a
comparative frame of reference‖.
 Three kinds of members: aspiring members, potential members and actual members.
Some aspire to enter but lack the ability to enter – their position is one of non –
member.
 Some individuals who do not have any desire to enter other group. There are other
individuals who do desire to enter a reference group but cannot enter it on account of
some personal ideals. When Parsons possessed of capacity and ability to enter the
other group fail to enter, it is called negative membership. Such persons suffer from
mental tension.

Types of Reference groups:

 Harold Kelly – it is for two purposes:

o A normative reference group influences your norms, attitudes and values
through direct interaction. Examples of normative reference groups include
your parents, siblings, teachers, peers, associates and friends.
o A comparative reference group is a group of individuals whom you compare
yourself against and may strive to be like. Ex: celebrities and heroes.
 Merton later distinguished between Reference group and interaction group.
Interaction groups are more general part of individual‘s social environment – but may
neither set ‗normative standards‘. On other hand reference group is the aspirational
group and is defined in normative terms as a standard of comparison. It implies that
relative deprivation is also akin to reference group behaviour.
 Reference group can be of two types:
o Membership groups
o Non – membership groups.
 Any of in – groups (membership) or out – groups (non – membership) which becomes
points of reference for shaping one‘s attitudes, evaluations and behaviour, is his
reference group.
 For a group another group is reference group if any of four circumstances prevail.
o Some or all members of first group aspire for membership in second group.
o Members of first group strive to be like members of reference group in some
respect or make their group like reference group in some respect. Here we can
notice one thing that the first group wants to be like the second group simply
because the first group cannot secure membership of second group.

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 o The members of first group derive satisfaction from being unlike members of
reference group in some respect and strive to maintain the difference between
the groups in between themselves and the members of the reference group. Ex:
in the US, the white strives to remain unlike the Negros and enjoy more
prestige, superiority in ranking etc. In this case Negroes serves as reference
group for the whites.
o Without necessarily striving to be like or unlike the reference group or its
members, the members of first group evaluate their own group or themselves
using standard for comparison.
 Merton suggested some factors which are decisive in making a group as reference:
o Power and prestige
o Isolation in membership group
o Open vs close group
o Reference individuals or role models in a group
 Further, reference groups don‘t remain same always. Choice of reference groups
depends on nature and quality of norms and values one is interested in and as interests
change, reference groups also change.
 One‘s reference group in political field may not be same as those in religious field. As
choice of reference group is entirely upon an individual, often there is a considerable
difference in type of groups chosen by different generations. This to some extent
explains the phenomenon of ‗generation gap‘.

Further sociologists have identified two types of reference groups as described below:

 Positive reference groups:

o These are ones we want to be accepted by. Thus, if we want to be a film actor,
we might carefully observe and imitate the behaviour of film actors. These are
the groups, collectivities or persons that provide the person with a guide to
action by explicitly setting norms and espousing values.
 Negative reference groups:
o These groups we do not want to be identified with, also serve as sources of
self – evaluation. A person might, for example, try to avoid resembling
members of a particular religious group or a circus group. A group rejected by
or in opposition to ego‘s own group, it is ‗the enemy‘ or the negative group.

Importance and Functions:

 Concept is important for understanding socialization, conformity and how people

perceive and evaluate themselves, especially in relation to self.

Reference groups perform three basic functions:

 They serve a normative function by setting and enforcing standards of conduct and
belief. T.Newcomb (1953) writes: ―the significant thing about a reference group is, in
fact, that its norms provide frame of reference which actually influence the attitude
and behaviour of a person‖.

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  They also perform a comparison function by serving as a standard against which
people can measure themselves and others.
 They serve not only as sources of current evaluation but also as sources of aspiration
and goal attainment (as a means of anticipatory socialization). A person who chooses
to become a professor or a lawyer begins to identify with that group and becomes
socialized to have certain goals and expectations.

Functional aspects of Reference Group:

 Mentioned certain functions as well as dysfunctions of reference groups.

 First – reference groups motivates the individual to accept its values, attitudes and
behaviour – pattern. Consequently, not only many newer values, ideals, thoughts,
images and behaviour patterns are added to an individual‘s personality, but there
emerges possibilities of his going high in social status because of those new values,
thoughts etc.
 Thus, according to Merton, the function of reference towards anticipatory
socialization of individual is noteworthy.
 (anticipatory socialization refers to learning of rights, obligations, expectations and
outlook of a social role or beliefs, values and norms of a status or group to which he
aspires. This kind of socialization is part of training in any administrative hierarchy.)
 When reference groups are of negative nature, its influence on individual can be
dysfunction. Also when society is of closed or conservative nature, it does not tolerate
such individuals who discards the accepted traditional norms, values and ideals and
accept that of others. Such betrayal or change over is resisted and opposed by the
society as a result of which the state of social tension and conflict emerges.

Characteristics of Reference groups:

 Psychological attachment
 Certain norms, rules & regulations – we follow these of our own group and also that
of the reference group. This gives emotional satisfaction. Sanskritisation is an
example (the lower castes follow rules and regulations of higher castes).
 Ideal Person – Ex: Mahatma Gandhi.
 Every person or group may have different reference group. One may or dislike a
particular group. If you like you imitate and else don‘t.
 Changes with time, situation etc.
 When he is not satisfied with the group to which he belongs he wants to join another
group and so you imitate. This gives rise to ―Marginal Man‘.
 Social adjustment – when we follow norms etc. of the reference groups we are
actually adjusting to that group and this leads to us adjust more easily to our society.
 Social control.
 Social transformations – development a betterment of society.

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Reference groups in India context:

 Applied to Indian society by M.N.Srinivas. His theory of Sanskritization is a form of

anticipatory socialization that provides space for tribes, lower castes to experience
their mobility in their caste position in search of superior caste status.
 In field of sociological research, outcomes of research are not planned. Therefore
sociological research is different from natural science in true sense. Therefore Merton
is truly a sociologist who establishes connectivity between theory and facts and
liberating sociology from the bondage of extreme empiricism and extreme form of
determinism.
 Merton‘s theories and concepts are considered relevant especially, developing a
concept of holistic explanation in terms of both intended and unintended
consequences. Social problems can be approached in more pragmatic way
undertaking its manifest and latent analysis. By using Merton‘s functional paradigm a
number of middle range theories were formulated which have strengthened the
understanding of society. Ex: his theory of deviance has led to development number
of subcultural theories of deviance. The study of limited phenomenon is followed till
now. Finally, his reference group concept is so widely used in practice, that it has now
become a part of common vocabulary.

Previous Years Questions:

1. How can we use reference group theory to understand fashion in society? (2014) (10
marks)

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Unit No: 4

Unit Name: Sociological Thinkers

Chapter: (f) Mead – Self and Identity

Pragmatism and symbolic interactionism:

 Much of Mead‘s work focused on the development of the self and the objectivity of
world within social realm: he insisted that ―the individual mind can exist only in
relation to other minds with shared meanings‖.
 Two most important roots of Mead‘s works and of symbolic interactionism in general,
are the philosophy of pragmatism and social behaviourism. (i.e. Mead was concerned
with the stimuli of gestures and social objects with rich meanings rather than bare
physical objects which psychological behaviourists considered stimuli).
 Pragmatism is a wide – ranging philosophical position from which several aspects of
Mead‘s influences can be identified.
 Four main tenets of pragmatism:
o First, to pragmatists true reality does not exist ―out there‖ in the real world, it
―is actively created as we act in and toward the world‖.
o Second, people remember and base their knowledge of the world on what has
been useful to them and are likely to alter what no longer ―works‖.
o Third, people define the social and physical ―objects‖ they encounter in the
world according to their use for them.
o Lastly, if we want to understand actors, we must base that understanding on
what people actually do.
 3 ideas are critical to symbolic interactionism: the focus on the interaction between
the actor and the world a view of both the actor and the world as dynamic processes
and not static structures and not static structures and the actor‘s ability to interpret the
social world.
 Thus, Mead and symbolic interactionist, consciousness is not separated from action
and interaction, but is an integral part of both. Symbolic interactionism as a pragmatic
philosophy was an antecedent to the philosophy of transnationalism.

The Conversation of gestures and significant symbols:

 Mead – gesture is perhaps most important entryway into understanding social

structure. A gesture, according to Mead, is an act by an organism that calls out a
response in another organism.
 Mead argues that humans similarly live in a conversation o gestures, but our
conversation also includes significant symbols – he states, are gestures are meant to
arouse in those they are directed at. – argues we take the perspective of others toward
symbol as our own, like when we learn to feel patriotism when looking at national
flag or when we take perspective of both buyer and seller into account when
bargaining price of commodity.

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 Noteworthy features – symbols assume anticipatory experiences are fundamental to
development of language – we have ability to place ourselves in positions of others –
that is to anticipate their responses – with regard to our linguistic gestures also crucial
for development of self and self – consciousness. For Mead, as for Hegel, the self is
fundamentally social and cognitive and should be distinguished from individual who
also has non – cognitive attributes
 The self, then, is not identical to the individual and is linked to selfconsciousness. It
begins to develop when individuals interact with others and play roles.
 What are roles? They are constellations of behaviors that are responses to sets of
behaviors of other human beings.
 The notions of role-taking and role playing are familiar from sociological and social-
psychological literature.
 For example, the child plays at being a doctor by having another child play at being a
patient. To play at being a doctor, however, requires being able to anticipate what a
patient might say, and vice versa. Role playing involves taking the attitudes or
perspectives of others.
 Significant symbol – kind of gesture – only humans can make. Gestures became
important symbols when they arouse in individual who is expected to make some kind
of response they are supposed to elicit from those to whom gestures are addressed.
 Communication is not possible in full sense among bees, ants and so on – physical
gestures most are not likely to become significant symbols thus it is vocal utterances
that are likely to become significant symbols. Set of significant symbols is ‗language‘.
 In a conversation, only gestures are communicated with language gestures and their
meanings are communicated.
 From pragmatic POV, a significant symbol works better in social world than does non
– significant gestures.
 Ex: in communicating our displeasure to others, an angry verbal rebuke works far
better than does contorted body languages.
 Mead‘s theory is another function significant symbol – that they make the ‗mind‘.
Mental processes and so on, possible. It is only through significant symbols,
especially language, that human thinking is possible – defines thinking as ‗simply an
internalized or implicit conversation of the individual with himself by means of such
gestures‘ or it is a conversation between ―I‘ and ‗Me‘. Other words – thinking
involves talking to oneself and this is possible only when there is present a language
or significant symbols. Significant symbols like language also make possible
symbolic interaction.
 Mind – defined by mead as a process and not as a thing – is an inner conversation
with one‘s self, is not found within the individual; not intrancial but is social
phenomenon – arises and develops within social process and is an integral part of that
process – can be distinguished from other – sounding concepts like consciousness etc.
in Mead‘s work by its ability to respond to overall community and put forth an
organized response – involves thought processes oriented toward problem solving.
 Real world is rife with problems and it is function of mind to try to solve those
problems and permit people to operate more effectively in world.

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  Mead – mind can be studied scientifically because its workings are displayed in
people‘s conduct, not concealed behind it – capacity of humans to respond in a more
complex and flexible way to their environment than other animals is a product of
human biology and its evolution into specific form. Ex: no small part of the crucial
linguistic/symbolic capacity of humans is a result of the evolution of the vocal cords.
 Mead – emphasizes the contrast between way animal response is tied to immediate
situation and way humans can transcend it; able to reflect upon and respond to past
situations well after they have occurred and can anticipate and prepare for future
situations before they happen. How we react to situation depends on our preparation.
Ex: reaction of knee on being hit. We do have reflex action but not only those.
 The capacity to transcend immediate circumstance in this way requires the
development of Symbolic Capacity i.e. our ability to be able to represent, recall or
envisage past and future situations to ourselves, to conjure them up when they are not
actually present, are in the past or have not yet happened.

Concept of Self:

 Mead – book – ―Mind, Self and Society‖ has developed the concept of ‗I‘ and ‗Me‘.
 ‗I‘ – represents the unsocialised self of the individual whom develops at early stage
age of child – society treats in a very confident perception about them called ‗I‘.
 When interaction starts with society, it starts evaluating on general rules are equally
applied on others members of society.
 Over period, unsocialised ‗I‘ convert into ‗Me‘ over period of time and difference
between them disappears and develops ‗Self‘.
 Mead – ‗Self is essentially a social process going on with distinguishable phases – I
and Me are processes within the larger process of self; they are not things. And self
is basically ability to take oneself as an object; the self is the peculiar ability to be
both subject and object.
 Mead – a sense of self only arises when we begin taking the perspectives of others
toward ourselves, and view point ‗who I am‘.
 Self – emergent product of social experience. Only by being able to take others‘
perspectives can we gain a view point from outside of our own egos from which to
think about and evaluate our personal identities.
 Mead – if we simply to take roles of others, we would never develop a self-
consciousness or nascent form.
 A role taking consciousness of this sort makes possible what might be called a proto
– self, but not a self, because it doesn‘t have the complexity necessary to give rise to
a self. How then does a self-arise? Here Mead introduces his – well known concept
of the generalized order.
 ‗Generalized others‘ on other hand do not play any important role in process of
development of self in initial stage but gradually with passage of time, it plays a
prominent role in development of ‗self‘. In fact it shapes community sentiment or
expectations. Mead explained that ‗Self and Identity‖ emerged in three evolutionary
stages:

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 o Stage of imitative acts – occurs about second year of life, during which time
the child mimics the mannerisms and behavioural patterns of his parents,
siblings and other ‗significant others‘.
o Play stage – begins about third year which is characterized by child‘ growing
interest in assuming various roles of his ‗significant others‘. Ex: playing
mother – father, big sister, bride – groom, police – thief. While playing these
roles they try to learn or sense coming roles in society.
o Game stage or Role playing – final stage and unified self emerges which is
called by Mead as ―Game stage‘ – child develops ability to ‗take the role of
others‘ – is able to assume attitudes of several people comprising his social
group, all at one time – child develops ability to play complex organized
games. Ex: football – it is played by a number of individuals with different
roles – ‗the child taking one role is ready to take the roles of everyone else‘.
 Third stage – very complex and indicates real maturity in consciousness of self and
others; rational adaptive behaviour is an indicator of mature self – consciousness.
This maturity occurs when an individual is able to mentally perceive, understand and
employ the symbolic meanings of his own gestures and those of ‗generalized others‘
i.e. the attitude of the whole community.

Significant others:

 Are those who are important for the individual with their perceptions, suggestions,
etc. Get importance in process of development of the ‗Self‘. It is based on two aspects
i.e. (i) Value (ii) Expertise
 Those people who have taken care of the individual physically and emotionally
become significant others.
 Baltimore –study – those parents who do not take care of their children are not given
importance by the children.
 Other people who are considered as expert of particular subject are the significant
other for the ego (individual), though they have not taken care of him/her. Ego
considers their suggestions and perception in development of ‗self‘.

Generalized others:

 Developed by G.H. Mead as a core concept in his discussion of social genesis of self.
 Mead – self lives in an individual‘s ability to account for himself as a social being.
 Also requires a person to account for the role of other as well as how his or her
actions could affect a group.
 The generalized other represents the collection of roles and attitudes that people use
as a reference to figure out how to behave in any particular situation.

According to Mead:

 ―selves developed in social contexts as people learn to take roles of their consociates
such that they can with a fair degree of accuracy predict how one set of actions is
likely to generate fairly predictable responses.

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  People develop these capacities in the process of interacting with one another, sharing
meaningful symbols, and assign meanings to social objects, (including themselves).‖
 For people to engage in complex and intricate sense of expectations is to be developed
- the rules, roles, norms.
 Attitude of generalized other is the attitude is whole community. Ex: in case of such
social group as a ball team, the team is the generalized other in so far as it enters – as
an organized process or social activity – into the experience of any one of the
individual members of it.
 For Mead, although these commodities can take different forms, they should be
though as systems; Ex: a family can be thought of systemically and can therefore give
rise to a generalized other and a self that corresponds to it.
 Generalized others can also be found in concrete social classes or subgroups, such as
political parties, clubs, corporations which are all actually functional social units, in
terms of which their individual members are directly related to one another.
 The others are abstract social classes or subgroups, such as class of debtors and class
of creditors, in terms of which their individual members are related to one another
only more or less indirectly.

The “I” and the “Me”:

 Although self is a product of socio – symbolic interaction, it is not merely passive

reflection of generalized other – individual‘s response to social world is active;
decides what hi will do in light of attitudes of other; but his conduct is not
mechanically determined by such attitudinal structures.
 2 phases:
o That phase which reflects the attitude of the generalized other
o That phase which responds to the attitude of the generalized other.
 ‗Me‘ is social self and ‗I‘ response to me.
 ‗I‘ is the response of the organism to attitudes of others; the ‗Me‘ is the organized set
of attitudes of others which one assumes himself‘.
 Mead defines ‗me‘ as a conventional habitual individual and ‗I‘ as novel reply of
individual to generalize other.
 ‗me‘ is internalization of roles which derive from such symbolic processes as
linguistic interaction, playing, and gaming while I is a creative response to
symbolized structures of me – there is a dialectical relationship between society and
individual.
 Explains deeper understanding of self, and how body and self can distinguished from
each other.
 Explains how body can do things without thinking involved – idea of self – being
more complex in that, you are not born with self but the individual‘s self is shaped by
society and members of same social group.
 Similar to Cooley, Mead‘s theory is built on idea that the individual experiences him
or herself through generalized other or individual of their social group.

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  They are defined by symbolic interactions that we all encounter in social experience.
This part of self that regulates our behaviour based on how we imagine others to
perceive us called the ‗me‘. The ‗I‘ is the part of us that is ‗the response of the
individual to the attitude of community as this appears in his own experience.
 Self that arises in relationship to a specific generalized other is referred to as the ―me‘
– the ‗me‘ is a cognitive subject which is only known retrospectively, that is, on
reflection.
 When we take perspective of generalized other, we are both watching and forming a
self in relationship to system of behaviours that constitute this generalized order. Ex:
if I playing cricket as a batsman, I may reflect on my position as batsman but to do
that I have to be able to think of myself in relationship to whole with other actors and
rules of game. We might refer this cognitive subject as cricket self or Me. Better
example – self in relationship to one‘s view family of origin.
 Mead – Me arises in relationship o systems of behaviours, generalized others and
therefore is by definition multiple, although the behaviours of various me‘s can
overlap. Further, Freud model assumes a determinism that is not inherent in relation
of the I and Me. Not only does I initiate novel responses, its new behaviours can
become part of Me – Me‘s are not static and undergo transformation.
 Mead lays great stress on the I for four reasons:
o First, It is a key source of novelty in social processes and gives dynamism to
the individual personality, which otherwise, sounds conformist to the society.
o Second, Mead believes that it is in the I that our most important values are
located.
o Third, the I constitutes something that we all seek, which is the realisation of
the self. It is the I that permits us to develop a definite personality.
o Finally, Mead sees an evolutionary process in history, in which, people in
primitive societies is dominated more by the Me, while in modern societies,
there is a greater component of the I.

I Me
Both are two dimension of the Self, which is created socially
The I is the immediate response of an The Me is the adoption of the generalised
individual to others. others and is also called social self.
It is the incalculable, unpredictable and The Me is a conventional and habitual and
creative aspect of the self. habitual individual.
We are never totally aware of the I and we We are conscious of the Me.
know the I only after the act has been carried
out.
It initiates change. It promotes status quo.
It is the storehouse of novelty and creativity. It is a storehouse of conformity.

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Criticism:

 Manford Kuhn and Bernard Meltzer – criticized vagueness of essential concepts such
as mind, self, I and me. Because these concepts are imprecise and so testable logic
cannot be generated.
 Weinstein and Tanur – criticized tendency to downplay or ignore scale structure. The
concept of social structure is necessary to deal with the incredible density and
complexity of relations through which episodes of interaction are interconnected.
 Petras criticized median theor for ignoring factors such as unconscious and emotions
as well as needs, motives, intentions and aspirations.
 Peter Hamilton – if Mead can faulted for anything, it is being overly optimistic about
contemporary man‘s capacity for reflective intelligence. He may also have been
unrealistic or naïve in regard to devisive categories and habits of thought hold and
constrain the self – realization process of ordinary man. We live in a world of racism,
sexism, nationalism and a hundred other ‗isms‘ which serve to retard Mead‘s
prophecy.

How Mead matters today?

 Many live in a culture that encourages thinking of ourselves as essentially and

uniquely individual cut off from or even opposed to larger societies in which we live.
 When we hear people say things like, I don‘t care what other people think about me,‖
we get a glimpse into common misconceptions of what it means to be a self.
 But Mead‘s theory of self convincingly shows that this way of thinking is
wrongheaded.
 What others think of us, the perspectives of others we gain from being a part of the
conversation of gestures are absolutely necessary for us to even have a sense of self.
 We think of ourselves as individuals, to be sure, but we are only able to do so by
virtue of being a part of a larger social community.
 Arguably no other social theorist argues this point more brilliantly and systematically
than G.H.Mead.

Previous Years Questions:

1. According to Mead, ―We play a key role in our own socialization.‖ (2019) (20 marks)
2. Do you think ‗I‘ and ‗Me‘ are central terms in Mead‘ work. (2018) (10 marks)
3. Self and Society are twin – born. Examine the statement of Mead. (2015) (10 marks)
4. Critically analyse the contributions of G.H.Mead to symbolic interactionism. (2013)
(20 marks)

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Comparison questions between thinkers:

1. Compare Karl Marx with Emile Durkheim with reference to the framework of
Division of Labour. (2013) (20 marks)

Division of Labour
Durkheim Marx
Basic Functional Conflict
approach
Causes of Both, Durkheim and Marx make a very clear distinction between DOL in
DOL simple societies and complex industrial societies and acknowledged that
DOL is inevitable.
Durkheim explains DOL in Marx does not see it as means of
industrial societies as a cooperation and coexistence and views it
consequence of increased as a process forced upon workers in
material and moral density. order to let the capitalist to extract profit.
Specialisation makes it possible
for harmonious coexistence.
Nature of Durkheim sees DOL as Marx sees DOl as unequal relationship
DOL functional and leading to which legitimises the relationship
cooperation. between the haves and have nots.
Consequences It leads to integration in society. It leads to dehumanisation of workers
of DOL and alienation in industrial society.
Solution to Anomie is abnormal and According to Marx, capitalism itself is
problems according to Durkheim, can be the problem. Problems of alienation can
related to handled by making workers be ended through revolution
DOL conscious of their role in society.
By making them feel organically
linked and involved with the life
of society.

2. What is the difference between anomie in Merton and Durkheim? (2018) (10 marks)

Durkheim Merton
Refers to normless as well as lack of social Is an extension of Durkheim‘s anomie and
cohesion and solidarity that often comes with mainly describe how anomie leads to
rapid social change. deviance.
Anomie is normlessness, which is a result of Most people attempt to achieve culturally
lack of social cohesion and solidarity that valued goals,. When society does not provide
typically accompanies rapid social change. people with the legitimate means to achieve
culturally valued goals, they seek alternative
ways to break from the norms, and achieve
their goals, resulting in crime and deviance.

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 3. Identify the similarities and differences between Marx‘s theory of alienation and
Durkheim‘s theory of anomie. (2014) (20 marks)

Similarities:

 Both have origin in modern societies industrial society and its side effect of growth
concept of industrial society.
 Alienation is based on conflict between social order and man which is similar to the
anomie situation.
 Both concepts are individualistic in nature as there is no collective tendency of being
alienate or anomie.
 Alienation and anomie are condition in which individual is apart from self and is in
realisation process.
 Alienation and anomie are subjective in its interpretation as there is no way to
calculate that how much one is alienated or anomie.

Differences:

Anomie Alienation
The product of rapid social change. Product of exploitative system of production.
Not beneficial to any. Beneficial to bourgeoisie due to exploitative
DOL.
Resolved by bringing new norms and values Proletariat revolution and overthrowing of
and reintegrating the individual self – interest bourgeoisie through class – in – itself to class
with social interest. – for – itself is the only solution to end
alienation.
Durkheim sought solution within framework Marx sought to replace the existing
of the society. framework with socialism.

4. Max Weber & Emile Durkheim

Weber Durkheim
Basic approach Focused on meanings that Stresses the exteriority of social facts,
individual generates. which he regards as things.
Basic view of Individuals are actors in Society is sui – generis.
society society.
Unit of analysis Weber studied the major Durkheim studied religion in what he
features of the great religions believes is its most elementary form.
of the world. He generalised it.
Role of religion He saw religion as a force Durkheim emphasized the role of
behind new ways of thinking – religion as a collective phenomenon
Protestants lead to rise of which serves to strengthen social
capitalism, Buddhism in India bonds.
opposed caste system, Judaism
was the religion of the
opporessed Palestinian
peasantry.
Weber saw religion as part of Durkheim viewed religion as the

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 parcel of a larger historical reflection of society itself.
trend, namely, the move
towards, industrialisation and
rationalisation.
Supernatural Did not hesitate to use the idea Denied that religion is concerned with
of gods and spirits. Weber, the mysterious, with gods and spirits.
unlike Durkheim, attaches He called religion as society itself.
great important to prophets in
propagating religious beliefs.
Science and Weber‘s comparative studies Durkheim viewed both religion and
religion showed that how religion science as providing society with its
across the world advocate collective representations. So, he didn‘t
values that differ and are see any conflict in the two.
sometimes in opposition to
rationality. Science, on the
other hand, is empirical. So, he
sees an opposition between the
two.

5. Capitalism – Marx and Weber

Marx Weber
View of society Takes society as his unit of Studies society in terms of meanings
analysis. attributed or given by individuals to the
world around them.
View of Describes capitalism as one of Understands capitalism in terms of the
capitalism the historical stages and gives a psychological motivations of
mono – causal explanation for individuals and gives a causal – plural
its rise. explanation of its growth.
Emergence of Sees the emergence of Sees rise of capitalism as a result of
capitalism capitalism in terms of a shift in mutual affinity in the Protestant Ethics
the mode of production. and factors conducive for the growth of
capitalism.
Consequences Capitalism leads to alienation of Is a symbol of growth of rationality,
of capitalism workers. but Weber also acknowledges that
bureaucracy and capitalism grow side
by side and will ultimately lead to
disenchantment of human beings.
Stratification Marx sees class as the only Argues that class is only one dimension
dimension of stratification in a and there are other dimensions also in
capitalistic society as it form of status and party.
overshadows all other
dimensions.
Solution Marx foresees a revolution as an Sees no end to rationality as it is
end to capitalism necessary in modern societies.

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 6. Merton and Durkheim on Anomie and Deviance.

Durkheim Merton
Sees anomie as a result of pathological Anomie is a structural phenomenon.
consequences of certain social facts.
Anomie is a temporary stage, occurring when According to Merton, anomie is ever present
there is transition from one set of values to in society as some degree of structural strain
another and there is lack of value consensus is always there.
during this transition.
Durkheim sees anomie as synonymous to Anomie is not normlessness per se, but a
normlessness and since it is a pathological result of frustration from inability to achieve
state, it has negative consequences. culturally defined goals. It may also lead to
positive effects like innovation and
revolution.

7. Marxian and Weberian analysis of religion

Marx Weber
Opium of masses. Rise in capitalism was due to people
following a particular religion.
Correlated between religion and other social Religion helps in embourgeoisement of class
institutions like economy. position.
Religion needed to overcome the alienation Did analysis of various world religions.
temporarily created by capitalism.
Results in rise of sects and cults. Considered religion as harbinger of social
change. Ex: Calvinism.
Unlike Weber, didn‘t do any analysis on
religions.
As per him, it‘s not religion but economy is
the agent of social change.

Conclusion: religion serves purposes of both Marx and Weberian principles.

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 SOCIOLOGY

PAPER – 1

Unit No: 5

Unit Name: Stratification and Mobility:

 Social stratification is a process in which social inequalities exist in form of structural

hierarchical strata, one placed above the other.
 Defined by Sutherland and Maxwell – ‗As a process of differentiation, which places
some people higher than the others‘. Stratification is viewed as a social process (social
phenomenon) as well as a method (mental construct), devised by sociologists to
understand inequality in society. As a social process it can be visualised as having
four sub processes –
o Differentiation – differences exist socially as well as naturally and they exist
in every society.
o Evaluation – differences are evaluated in terms of prestige, desirability and so
on; leads to feeling of superiority, inferiority, etc. among people with
differences. Ex: In Indian society, skin colour is valued more and placed over
others.
o Ranking – the differences and inequalities also don‘t exist in objective state,
but are compared. Ranking is applied to people who share a set of common
characteristics which are evaluated in terms of desirability and undesirability.
o Rewarding – After differentiation and evaluation, society develops a system of
rewards and punishment in the form differential opportunities to those
belonging to different strata, and stratification is further reinforced.
 Strata is either closed or open; in closed, mobility not possible. Ex: caste; open strata -
institutions in modern democracies such as bureaucracy.
 Classified into four forms by T.B.Bottomore – slavery, estate, caste and class
 JS Mills – gave credit to education, only educated should get rights to citizenship.
 CW Mills – power elite theory
 Aristotle – very rich, very poor and moderate; 3 classes, inequality in birth, strength
and wealth.

Unit No: 5

Unit Name: Stratification and Mobility

Chapter Name: 5(a) Concepts – equality, inequality, hierarchy, exclusion, poverty and
deprivation:

Equality:

 Equality has been one of cherished values of people since times immemorial.
 J.J.Rousseau – ―men are born free and equal but everywhere they are in chains‖.

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  Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the
most of their lives and talents.
 Equality or social equality refers to a condition in which members of group have
equal access to wealth, prestige or power.
 Though term ‗equality‘ has political, legal and philosophical overtones, most of
sociological discussions have focused on equality as an aspect of social context. Ex:
growth of liberal democracies – political equality – assumes equality between
individuals as citizens.
 Social equality emphasizes the fair distribution of income and wealth. Ex:
Sociologists have demonstrated how material resources affect people‘s life chances.

Thinkers perspective:

 Persistence of inequality and quest for equality is essence of human society

universally.
 G D Berreman suggests that out of ‗differentiation‘ of persons, which is a natural and
universal phenomenon, inequality or social evaluation of differences arises. He terms
the behavioural expression of inequality as ‗dominance‘ and combination of
inequality and dominance is social inequality.
 Classical thinkers like Plato and Aristotle justified social inequalities on the basis of
natural inequalities. Plato differentiated between Men of Gold, Silver and Iron, who
he believed were chosen by nature to take up differentiation occupations. Aristotle
was opposed to granting citizenship rights to women and slaves.
 Marx views difference in the relationship with factors of production as source of
social inequality. Communal ownership of MOP would lead to communist and utopia
and hence socially equal.
 Political thinkers Pareto, Mosca assigned primacy to power as real source of
inequality in society. According to them, power is ability to make others do what they
do not want to do and elite groups exercise this power as they occupy top positions
within the institutions of given society.
 Bourdieu – employs the terms symbolic capital and distinction, to identify social
groups who enjoy more prestige and honour in society simply because they are
endowed with more symbolic capital reflected in their pattern of behaviour and taste.
 Peter Saunders distinguishes between three types of equality:
o Formal or legal equality – all members of the society are subject to the same
laws.
o Equality of opportunity – all people have an equal chance to become unequal,
individuals compete for success and those with greater merit achieve more.
o Equality of outcome – results in an egalitarian society. However, he argues
that it undermines equality of opportunity and legal equality.

 Equalitarian objectives of welfare still remain unfulfilled. Various empirical

researches have clearly shown that despite attempts to provide various social services
to needy people in various fields inequalities have persisted and in some cases have

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 increased. It is surprising to note that western experience with liberal democracies has
revealed that equalitarian objectives of welfare are not acceptable to majority.

Inequality:

 It is unequal treatment in terms of opportunities, advantages and disadvantages. Issue

of equality and inequality is largely complex because it is guided by concept of
ideologies of different societies.
 Liberal society believes that equality in equality of opportunity.
 It is found in all societies irrespective of time or place. Personal characteristics such
as skill, strength and personality may all play a role in the perpetuation of inequality.
However, there are also patterns of inequality associated with the social positions
people occupy.
 Types: natural (age, sex, weight, etc) and manmade (different occupation groups
perform different activities).

Thinkers:

 Plato was one of first to acknowledge that inequality is inevitable and to suggest ways
in which distribution of money, status and power could be altered for the betterment
of both the individual and society. Plato envisioned is explicitly class – structured.
They are (a) ruling (b) non – ruling (c) auxiliaries or the workers; eliminated
inheritance of class status and provided equality of opportunities regardless of birth.
 Machiavelli – who is fit to rule and what form of rule will produce order, happiness,
prosperity and strength – saw tension between elite and masses – preferred democratic
rule – about selection for ruling positions he advocated inequality in situation is
legitimate so long as there has been equality of opportunity to become unequal.
 Thomas Hobbes – all men equally interested in acquiring power and privileges,
leading to chaotic conditions, unless there is set of rules by which they agree to abide
– rules constitute ‗social contract‘, under which people give right to one man to rule,
who has collective desire and will – can be removed if he fails to maintenance of
equality for safety of all men.
 Marxists – attribute inequalities in societies to unequal access to FOP. According to
them opportunities and resources are monopolized by a few at expense of others
which lead to inequalities in societies.
 Functionalists – argue that inequalities in society are inevitable as they ensure that all
kinds of job get done in society. Inequality are a result of unequal capabilities of
individual and they get unequal rewards for that. Attempts have also been made to
measure inequalities especially economic inequalities – in objective terms. Gini
coefficient is used by economists to measure economic inequalities at national level.
 A 2017 report of Oxfam, titled An Economy for the 99%, indicates that the richest 1%
in India hold 58% of the total wealth.
 Max Weber – 3 groups on different forms of inequality and fact that they may be
independent of one another. Suggested 3 types of market situations:
o (i) labour market

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 o (ii) money market
o (iii) commodity market
 Weber termed second form of inequality social honour or prestige and their form of
inequality for Weber was power.
 Wilkinson and Pickett – Inequality in society is not harmful for the individual, but is
also dysfunctional for society as a whole.
 Dr.Ambedkar – opposed inequality based on caste, feminists in western society
opposed gender inequality, Martin Luther King opposed inequality based on colour.

 Social stratification is only one form of social inequality – possible to exist without
social strata. Exists all around us.

Inequality becomes stratification when two conditions exist:

 The inequality is institutionalized backed up both by social structures and by long –

standing social norms.
 The inequality is based on membership in a group (such as oldest sons or blue –
collar workers) rather than on personal attributes.
 Scarce resources about inequality – 3 types: prestige, power and money.

Excessive inequality: are seen as undesirable in both communist and capitalist societies
as it is a potential source of conflict, unrest and antagonism.

Indian constitution mentions reduction of social and economic inequalities as one of the
directive principles, which state should strive to follow. Ex: Implementing Mandal
commission report.

Most countries such as South Africa, Slovenia, Denmark, and Sweden follow form of
progressive taxation, which involves rich at a higher rate and less affluent at a lower
rate.

Similarly social security schemes are run by governments in most of developed

countries which aim at uplifting poor and bridging the economic gap between the rich
and the poor.

In India also, many positive discrimination tools are used to minimise social and income
inequalities. Provisioning of reservation, PDS, subsidies, free education etc. aim at
reducing inequalities.

Socialist states like USSR – economic inequality was replaced by political inequality –
rule of oligarchs.

Welfare states like India see an interventionist approach by state to redistribute benefits
which does not cause equality, but makes inequality more bearable.

Political inequality institutionalized in socialism, economic inequality in capitalism.

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India and goal 10 of SDG:

Goal 10: Reduced inequalities within and among countries.

 The Gini coefficient of income inequality fell from 36.8% in 2010 to 33.6% in 2015.
 The government of India‘s emphasis on the three pronged Jan Dhan – Aadhaar –
Mobile programmes are aimed at a comprehensive strategy of inclusion, financial
empowerment and social security.
 These priorities are in line with the SDG targets aimed at achieving greater equality
and promoting social, economic and political inclusion of all by 2030.

Targets:

 By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of bottom 40% of the
population at a rate higher than national average.
 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all,
irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or
other status.

Conclusion:

 The beliefs that social inequalities are caused by natural or biological inequalities
seem to sense as rationalizations to justify the stratification system.
 The beliefs serve to make social inequality appear rational and reasonable.
 Currently, the existence of inequality, its causes and consequences as related to social
class, genders, ethnicity and even region or locality, continues to assume sociological
prominence.

Hierarchy:

 The literal meaning of term ‗hierarchy‘ is gradation or ranking system. This term is
very commonly used in discussions of social stratification. It signifies that individuals
and groups in any society are not socially treated equally but graded differently
depending upon the type of statuses that they occupy.
 Any system, social or otherwise, is said to be hierarchical or gradational in nature if it
consists of different strata or layers one on top another. In a system for say caste
system hierarchy help us understand social inequality and social distance among
castes.

An overview:

 Hierarchies can be present in many forms like caste hierarchy, class hierarchy, gender
hierarchy and political hierarchy. More extensive the hierarchy, higher is the
differentiation is the society.
 Further, according to the functionalists, hierarchy is also a symbol of rising
specialisation and differentiation in society. Post modernists argue that western

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 societies, now have a continuum of individualised inequalities and hence, almost
infinite strata and numerous hierarchies.
 Can also be interpreted as opposite of equality. Modern democracies provide for
equality of opportunity and abhor hierarchy based on status. Rule of law and equality
of law have given equal status to everyone. Though, modern democracies have
facilitated equality in the political sphere, inequalities in social and economic sphere
still exist.

Thinkers:

 CH Cooley states that the Varna system of the early Vedic period appears to be an
open class system of stratification. The ‗Divine Origin theory‘ made it a closed
system, resulting into social hierarchy. Similarly, the estate system of medieval
Europe was viewed as divinely ordained and hence hierarchical.
 Weber does not subscribe to divine orgin belief, and states that there are three axes of
stratification in any society – power, prestige and wealth. However when other two
axes are dependent and derived from the third axis, the society will effectively
contain single axis of stratification. This will result into a rigid and hierarchical
system.
 Louis Dumont – hierarchy is a feature of social system where normative principles
determine the utilitarian and instrumental principles in the affairs of society.
 Dipankar Gupta elaborates that capitalist or open market system is prone to become
hierarchical. If health and education are left in hands of market forces, people in the
lower classes will have limited access to avail the best of these services. Thus, they
will have little opportunity to improve their class, status or part position.
 Gerhard Lenski also talks about two related and important concepts:
o Status crystallization – is the situation where an individual or a group is high
or low on all the three dimensions of social rewards (traditional caste system)
– strict hierarchy and stability.
o Status inconsistency – results when an individual or a group is high on one
dimension, but low on another (caste system in modern India) – dispersed
hierarchy and can create conflicts.
 Marxists perceive this hierarchy as a design of dominant classes and deem it inimical
to classless society. According to them, hierarchy promotes conflict as well.
Functionalists on the other hand argue that hierarchy is symbol of DOL in society and
necessary for working of social system.

Examples:

 Caste system – the Brahmins as caste group occupy the top – most position enjoying
the privileges associated with it, while the untouchable castes occupy the bottom most
position suffering from all the disabilities related with it. A large number caste often
referred to an ‗intermediary castes‘ occupy different positions which lie in between
these two extreme positions.

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  Class system – is also hierarchical in which capitalists and the rich occupy the top
position in the hierarchy while workers and the poor occupy the bottom most position.
The position in between these two is occupied by the middle class. Sociologists have
also spoken of a six – fold division of class hierarchy.
 In western societies, a colour hierarchy emerged that persists in importance today. In
this hierarchy, those who are viewed as being more European or ‗white‘, are generally
endowed with high social status. The colour hierarchy is utilized for more than simply
classifying people based on their or physical appearance. The racial hierarchy is
complicated by the presence of considerable numbers of people with partly African
and Asian heritage. Nonetheless, these groups are often categorized on the colour
hierarchy somewhere between indigenous and European.

Indian context:

 India is an appropriate place to demonstrate this variety of social stratification. The

various languages that are spoken in India speak eloquently of a horizontal system of
social stratification where differences are paramount.
 Secular India again provides as an example of religious stratification where religions
are not hierarchized or unequally privileged in law, but have the freedom to exist
separately in full knowledge of their intrinsic differences.

Conclusion:

 Hierarchy also results into unequal opportunities and unequal rewards. Unequal
rewards further reinforce hierarchy – is viewed in value – neutral terms also. In
parlance of work organisation, hierarchy is a necessity. In organisation, hierarchy
provides direction to the collective efforts and ensures that orders are executed.
 No organisation in the world is without a formal or informal hierarchy. In some
organisations like army, it is very tight, in some organisations like family, it is very
loose.

Exclusion:

 Social exclusion has been interpreted differently in different contexts at different

times. It is a multidimensional term.
 It was initially coined in France in 1974 where it was defined as a rupture of social
bonds. Later on it became the central theme of social policy in many European
countries.
 As a broader framework of social policy, it was suggested that social exclusion is
process that excludes individuals, groups and aggregates from full participation in the
society in which they live.

Dimensions:

 Social exclusion may also lead to exclusion of social rights and erect barriers thereof,
which prevent access to these rights.
 It may lead to resource or economic exclusion as in case of poverty.

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  It can lead to labour market exclusions as in case of unemployment and
underemployment.
 It can lead to service exclusion as in case of caste system, racial segregation, etc. even
today, upper caste Hindus prevent the people from lower castes to access even the
basic services.
 It may also lead to exclusion from social relations like family and friends, which
happens when people are away or forbidden to make such contacts.
 It can also lead to exclusion and isolation from larger society itself. It also leads to
issues like anomie and social integration.
 Exclusion can also manifest itself as extreme marginalisation as in the case of multi –
cultural societies.

Thinkers:

 Michael Harlambos – it refers to a situation in which multiple deprivations prevent

individuals from participating in important areas of social activities.
 UNDP – social exclusion as the non – recognition of basic and civil rights.
 Mary Daly states that exclusion is a wider concept than poverty as it talks not only
about resource availability but also participation in various social processes. It is
characterized by 6 key attributes – multidimensionality, dynamism, relativity,
ruptured social relations, communal resource constraints and limitations on agency.
 Weber saw it as a way of social closure, where one group attempts to secure for itself
a privileged position, by excluding some other group from the same.
 Marx saw alienation as a process at four levels – peers, product, process and self.
 Merton speaks of self – exclusion to become a part of one‘s reference group.
 Ghurye speaks of self – exclusion by sadhus, elites also practice self – exclusion.
 Sometimes it can also be an individual exclusion as opposed to collective social
exclusion. This can be due to presence of socially undesirable traits in a particular
individual. It can form of discrimination. Ex: HIV patients, leprosy patients, or may
be a reaction against socially viewed deviancy, Ex: criminals.
 Repercussions of social exclusion can also include deviance, retreatism, rebellion and
even crime.
 Brian Barry – individuals or groups are social excluded if they are denied the
opportunity of participation, whether they actually desire to participate or not. Lack of
job opportunities among the adults in an area tends to depress scholastic motivation
and thus contributes to poor educational outcomes that condemn the next generation
to extremely limited opportunities in their turn.
 Antony Giddens – homelessness is one of the worst forms of social exclusion.
 Elliot Currie – exclusion leads to delinquent behaviour.
 Ex: Apartheid, LGBT

Mechanisms:

 Geographical segregation: Observed that untouchables and even minorities are

residentially segregated from mainstream society. They are made to live and construct

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 their residential places and dwellings outside villages or at periphery of village or
town. Most of tribals live in hills and forests and are excluded from the mainstream
population.
 Intimidation: verbal abuse, sarcastic remarks, threat of harm etc are main means of
intimidation. It can be observed at every level in a society. Intimidation is a major
form of control used by men over other men and women.
 Physical violence: it can be committed by state, community, group or individuals.
Violence against women in the household and against poor people and ethnic and
religious minorities is reported to be practised all over the world. Domestic violence is
rooted in norms of gender inequality and patriarchy.
 Barriers to entry: involves mostly related to documentation process. Others include
transition cost.
 Corruption: main cause of many social evils in India and elsewhere. It prevails all
over the world. People who are excluded from obtaining goods and services do not
have required necessary amount to pay for securing jobs, health care and other public
services. It causes insecurity among the excluded. Corruption denies access to
resources, opportunities and information.

Consequences:

 Leads to various kinds of deprivations – economic, educational, cultural and social.

 Leads to impoverished of human life and develops a poorer sense of well – being.
 Leads to inequality, poverty, unemployment and involuntary migration.
 Leads to social stigmatization and marginalization.
 Develops fear complex among the excluded.
 Puts various restrictions on the excluded about their free and full participation in the
economic, cultural and political activities.
 On the whole, it puts an intense negative impact on the quality of life.

Nature:

 Social exclusion is systematic – result of structural features of society. Ex: rich people
are never found to be sleeping on pavements or under bridges; they are not excluded
but they chose not to.
 Social exclusion indicates deprivation of opportunities – focuses attention on broad
range of factors that prevent individuals or groups having opportunities open to
majority of population. Indicates some are denied access to goods and services such
as education, health, security, banking etc.
 Social exclusion in not accidental – in most cases found to be an in built mechanism
to deprive a few of their social rights. It is the result of structural features of society.
The ‗untouchables‘ in India, were excluded from doing many things. Ex: entering
temples, sharing food along higher caste people, receiving education on par with
other, etc. as a matter of caste rule.

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  Social exclusion is involuntary – practiced regardless of wishes of those who are
excluded. Ex: prevented from having access to something desirable, Ex: having
access to education, or entering religious institutions, etc.
 Prolonged exclusion leading to a reaction against inclusion: it may stop making
attempts for inclusion. Ex: denial of temple entry to Dalits – they built own temples or
converted to other religion.

Poverty and Social Exclusion:

 Poverty refers to a lack of material resources, whereas social exclusion includes a

broader range of ways in which people may be disadvantaged in society. Many of
these types of deprivation concern the inability to participate fully in society in ways
that are only partly shaped by material resources.
 The social excluded might include the unemployed, who lack a role in the formal
economic system; those who do not register to vote, who lack a role in the political
system; and elderly individuals living alone, who lack a role in social system.

Parameter Poverty Social Exclusion

Situation Insufficient resources Denial of ability to exercise rights
Cause Unmet needs Discrimination and denial to access to
institutions of social integration
Perspective Static condition Dynamic process
Stratification Vertical – lower v/s upper Horizontal – outsiders v/s insiders
Policy Social transfers Social services and reforms
Discipline Economics sociology

Socially excluded people and people excluding themselves socially:

 Social exclusion refers to being excluded from wider participation in mainstream

society. Within class – the lower are excluded, within race – the blacks and within
gender – females. Marxist ideology of power of ruling elite and rejection of subject
class form mainstream because they don‘t own MOP and the functionalist view that
hierarchy and stratification is legitimate to maintain social order and stability helps in
explanation of those are socially excluded. In India, caste system legitimates social
exclusion too.
 O other hand, those who exclude themselves socially from society can be those who
religiously separate themselves from mainstream like Evangelists or other sects from
Catholic. Also, delinquents, particularly retreatists mentioned by Merton and Egoistic
suicide people of Durkheim belong to this category. They socially exclude themselves
because they don‘t agree with the current norms and values that are propagated by the
majority or want to improve their situation in any which way possible.

Conclusion:

 Hence, social exclusion is a form of inequality found in almost all societies, though
the criteria and the form of social exclusion are not universal but in traditional

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 societies it is based on certain cultural prejudices which are always a concern for
social reforms.

Poverty:

 Poverty is a social condition that is characterized by the resources necessary for basic
survival or necessary to meet a certain minimum level of living standards expected
for the place where one lives.
 People in poverty typically experience persistent hunger or starvation, inadequate or
absent education and healthcare and are usually alienated from mainstream society.
 Poverty is a consequence of the uneven distribution of material resources and wealth
on global scale and within nations. Sociologists see it as a social condition of
societies with an unequal and inequitable distribution of income and wealth, of the de
– industrialization of western societies and exploitative effects of global capitalism.

The cause and effect of poverty is multidimensional in which following causes are
considered as important:

 Culture of poverty (Oscar Lewis)

 Lack of opportunity due to overpopulation
 Natural disasters prone society
 Religious dominance which discourages individuals not to go for worldly
achievement (Weber)
 Concentration of wealth or resources in the hands of a particular group (Marx)

Types of Poverty defined:

 Absolute poverty is what most people think of when they think of poverty, especially
if think at global level – defined as total lack of resources and means required to meet
the most basic standards of living – characterized by lack of access to food, clothing
and shelter – characteristics of this type are the same from place to place; is also
called subsistence poverty since it is based on assessment of minimum subsistence
requirement – Nutrition is measured by intake of calories and proteins, shelter by
quality of dwelling and degree of overcrowding and rate of infant mortality and
quality of medical facility. In broader sense it suggested that one should go beyond
the physical need and also include cultural needs – education, security, leisure and
recreation.
 Relative poverty is defined differently poverty from place to place as it is depends on
social and economic context in which one lives – definition of poverty should
therefore be related to the needs and demands of changing societies. Ex: In India in
196 those who had a per capita income or Rs.20 or less per month in rural areas were
considered to be BPL – in 2011 – 12 those who have an income of less than Rs.816
per month in rural areas and Rs.1000 (Tendulkar committee) in urban areas are
considered to be BPL.
 Cyclical poverty to poverty that may be widespread throughout a population, but
occurrence itself is of limited duration. In non - industrial societies, (present and past),

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 this sort of inability to provide for one‘s basic needs rests mainly upon temporary
food shortages caused by natural phenomena or poor agricultural planning – in
agricultural societies – the chief cyclical cause of poverty is fluctuations in the
business cycle, with mass unemployment during periods of depression or serious
recession – throughout 19th and 20th century business panics and recessions enlarged
number of poor. The US experience in great Depression of the 1930s, though unique
of its features, exemplifies this kind of poverty. John Maynard Keynes, who sought
solutions to problems caused by extreme swings in business cycle. Since great
depression, governments in nearly all advanced industrial societies have adopted
economic policies that attempt to limit ill effects of economic fluctuation.
Governments play an active role in poverty alleviation. By increasing spending as
means of stimulating the economy.

Theories:

 Blame the poor view and blame the system view – argued that poor remain in poverty
because avenues of social mobility are very few and structural means are not available
to everyone – often visible barriers and invisible barriers which are overlooked by
blame the poor view – identified that poor is poor due to lack of skills competency
and unwillingness to enter labour market, structural perspective asks why a poor
person has low skill and competency? There are several structural factors like class,
caste, gender, ethnicity, health access and geographical factors which lead to
differential access to resources and rewards. So, lack of ambition, skills and
competency is consequence of constrained situation of poor and not a cause of it. So,
structural view calls for minimisation of inequalities and redistribution of resources
for reducing poverty.
 The cultural perspective – popularised in US in 1950s by Oscar Lewis, in his study of
Mexican cities. According to it, poverty is not result of individual shortcomings, but
an outcome of larger social atmosphere in which children are socialised. According to
the cultural perspective on poverty, the lower class is seen as manifesting patterns of
behaviour and values which are characteristically different from this of dominant
society and culture and it is similar across the countries, marked by features like
fatalism, instant, gratification, feeling of dependency and helplessness – culture or sub
– culture, as Lewis calls it helps in perpetuating poverty.
 Poverty as a positive feedback system or a vicious circle – also called a vicious circle
of poverty and this theory argues that various factors which cause poverty work in
such a way that a poor person can never get out of those. Ex: Unemployment leads to
poverty, poor people cannot have good education, without good education there is no
employment.
 Stratification theories – they occupy bottom of pyramid. Functionalists like Herbert
Gans, in his more equality, 1973 argue that poverty persists because it is rewarding
for a majority of section who want various kinds of services. Its existence ensures that
all kinds of menial works also get done. Poor also provide a baseline of failure to rest
of society which works hard to avoid falling to that level. However, non – functional

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 view holds that some sections like older people, minority groups and females are
more likely to witness poverty.
 Dialectical approach - Marxists argue that poverty in society can only be understood
in terms of effects of a capitalist economy. According to them, the question Why
Poverty? Is same as asking Why Wealth?. Poverty exists because it benefits ruling
class.
 Poverty and power thesis – Ralph Miliband in his politics and poverty, 1974, argues
that poor are weakest groups in struggle for the scarce resources. Poor often have no
bargaining powers, low trade union support, etc. which is exploited by the employers.
 Feminist view – ‗poverty of women if often hidden behind the study of poverty as a
household phenomenon, according to Ruspini in his article Longitudinal Research in
social science, 2000. It is well known that employment rates of women are lower than
men and they often land into low paid jobs.
 Dependency theory – Andre Gunder Frank argues that poverty in the East is a result
of prosperity in the West. Western countries‘ exploitative colonial rule impoverished
these countries. Similarly, Wallerstein conceptualised this argument in the form of
World Systems theory.

Thinkers:

 Peter Townsend mentions three conception of poverty:

o Poverty as a subsistence issue – inability to obtain minimum necessities for
maintenance of merely physical efficiencies. Per capital calorie intake is the
measure deployed.
o Poverty as an issue of basic needs (termed as multidimensional poverty
Amartya Sen) – a state where the individual lacks the necessary physical
goods like clothing, shelter and access to services like education, sanitation
and healthcare. It is measured on the basis of per capital consumption on
such basic human needs by a family.
o Relative deprivation – refers to lack of resources or social conditions when
compared with that of other members in the society.
th
 The 18 century writings of Sir John Sinclair and Sir Fredrick Eden observe that
poverty is a social problem. Herbert Spencer did not share this view and believed it
was unnatural to help those engaged in ‗dissolute living‘ to avoid the consequences
of their action. This who were too lazy to work should not be allowed to eat.
 In modern societies, poverty is generally relative of which Merton talks about in his
reference point theory. Marx spoke of pauperization of the proletariat due to
increasing mismatch between the exchange value of labour and use value of labour.
However, the functional perspective endorses such inequalities and calls them a
social necessity.
 Weber argued that a person‘s class position is dependent upon his or her market
situation – the ability of individuals and groups to influence the labour market in
their own factor so as to maximize the rewards they receive. The low paid have few

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 skills or qualifications and this hampers their ability to command higher wages and
keeps them poor.
 Dependency theorists like AG Frank argue that poverty in the East is a result of
prosperity in the West.
 It has been said that the urban poor of India are only an overflow of the rural poor
into the cities and essentially they belong to the same class as the rural poor –
Dandekar and Rath, 1971.

Dependency culture:

 It is neoliberal perspective which refers to a system of social welfare that encourages

people to stay on state sponsored benefits rather than work.
 Liberal politicians like Margaret Thatcher were vocal critics of this culture.
 The critics of this view point assume that people make rational calculations and for
them, finding a work which requires more efforts and provide less returns, is a loss
making proposition and hence, they continue to hang on state doles.
 The theory also terms the situation bad for the beneficiaries as well as they become
indolent and don‘t develop any capacities.
 A dependency culture may arise out of a desire to reduce relative poverty, through
means tested benefits and a progressive tax system.

The Dynamics of Poverty:

 Poverty operates in a dynamic cycle, with the effects of poverty increases the
likelihood that it will be transferred between generations.
 In economics – the cycle of poverty has been defined as a phenomenon where poor
families become trapped in poverty for at least three generations- these families have
limited social and economic resources – many disadvantages that collective work
making it impossible to break the cycle of poverty.
 Definitionally, poor people are less likely to have financial capital, education and
social capital. Without these resources poverty – stricken individuals experience
disadvantages that, in turn increase their poverty.
 Additionally, those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger, or in
extreme cases starvation, and also exhibit high rates of disease which can prevent
people to work to improve their social economic and social status.
 Finally, poverty increase risk of homelessness. Slum – dwellers, who make up a third
of world‘s urban population live in poverty no better if not worse, that rural people,
who are traditional victims of poverty in developing world.

Two classic sociological approaches to poverty and social stratification:

 The structural – functionalist approach: according to them, stratification and

inequality are actually constructive phenomena that benefit society: they ensure best
people are at top of hierarchy and less worthy are at bottom. According to this logic,
inequality ensures that the most functionally important jobs are filled by a best
qualified people.

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  Conflict – theory approach – offers critique of structural – functionalism – it is
difficult to determine functional importance of any job, as a system of
interdependence makes every position for functioning of society – according to this
theory – stratification benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of poor – those in
high – status positions continually build on their wealth, only further entrenching the
gap between high status and low status people

Feminization of poverty:

 Refers to fact that women represent a disproportionate share of the world‘s poor.
 Describes a phenomenon in which women represent a disproportionate percentage of
world‘s poor.
 Not only due to lack of income, but also lack of opportunities due to gender biases
and fixed gender roles in some societies. Women‘s increasing share of poverty is
related to the rising incidence of lone mother households.
 Though lack of income is primary cause of female poverty, there are many
interrelated sources of this problem – deprives basic needs such as food and shelter,
limits their opportunities for advancement.
 Female headed households (where no male is present) are most susceptible to poverty
because they have fewer income earners to provide financial support within the
household. Lone mother households relate to gender inequality issues as women are
susceptible to poverty and lack essential life needs in comparison to men.
 Have reduced access to health care services.
 The education of women and children, especially gifts, can create greater
opportunities for women to lift themselves out of poverty and increase their social
position. Countries with strong gender discrimination and social hierarchies limit
women‘s access to basic education. Even within the household, girls‘ education is
often sacrificed to allow male siblings to attend school.

CA: Pew Research centre:

 Poverty rate – the poverty rate in India likely rose to 9.7% in 2020, up sharply from
the January 2020 forecast of 4.3%
 Increased poverty – from 2011 to 2019, the number of poor in India was estimated to
have reduced to 78 million from 340 million. In 2020, the number increased by 75
million. Increase in India accounts for nearly 60% of the global increase in poverty.
 Record increase in MGNREGS participants as proof that the poor were struggling to
find work.
 Reduced middle class – it is estimated to have shrunk by 3.2 crore in 2020. The
middle income group is likely to have decreased from almost 10 crore to just 6.6
crore.
 Shrinked Low income group – vast majority of population fall into low income group.
The group shrank from 119.7 crore to 166.2 crore per day, with about 3.5 crore
dropping BPL.

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Solutions:

 Employment generation
 Transparency in government spending
 Prioritizing programs that target fundamental human rights
 Taxing the rich more and the poor less
 Building self – sufficient economies
 Involvement of media
 Education

Conclusion:

 Sociology provides a powerful tool for thinking about poverty.

 It allows us to understand personal troubles as part of economic and political
institutions of society and permits us to cast critical eye over issues that me otherwise
be misinterpreted.
 Sociological thinking can be helpful in trying to disentangle poverty from range of
related concepts and largely pejorative discussions about variety of social problems.
 Some attention has recently been devoted to the discussion of rising inequality. In the
current context, economic inequality is getting more extreme, with those at the very
top growing ever richer while majority is finding life increasingly harsh and poverty
rates are increasing.

Deprivation:

 ―Deprivation‖ is one of the concepts closely associated with the discussions of social
inequality. Sociological analysis defines deprivation broadly as inequality of access to
social goods. Includes poverty and wider and forms of disadvantage.
 In general, deprivation refers to a condition in which people lack what they need, the
lack of economic and emotional support generally accepted as basic essentials of
human experience. These include income and housing and parental care for children.
 Absolute deprivation refers to the lack of basic necessities i.e. food, water, shelter and
fuel. It means the loss or absence of the means to satisfy the basic needs for survival –
food, clothing and shelter.
 Relative deprivation refers to deprivation experienced when individuals compare
themselves with others. In this case, individuals who lack something compare
themselves with those who have it, and in so doing feel a sense of deprivation.
Consequently, relative deprivation not only involves comparison, it is also usually
defined subjective terms. The concept is intimately linked with that of ‗reference
group‘ – the group with whom the individual or set of individuals compare
themselves.
 Absolute deprivation refers to a situation when one doesn‘t have even basic
necessities of life – food, sanitation, drinking water, basic education, health. Extreme
poverty, marginalization and hunger are examples of absolute deprivation.

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Thinkers:

 Robert Merton – mentions ‗relative deprivation‘ as another form of deprivation.

Despite absolute progress in society, due to presence of inequalities, relative
deprivation always remains there.
 Marxists attribute deprivation to unequal nature of society which is marked by
unequal control over the forces of production.
 Deprivation is measured not by objective standards by comparison but by comparison
with the relatively superior advantages of others, such as members of the reference
group with whom one desire to emulate. Thus, the mere millionaire friends. The
concept of relative deprivation has been used in the study of social movements and
revolutions, where in study of social movements and revolutions, where it is argued
that relative, not absolute deprivation is most likely to lead to pressure for change.
 According to Pierre Bourdieu, it is lack of adequate social, cultural, symbolic and
economic capital. Thus, deprivation is broader phenomenon that poverty. When
compared to exclusion, while deprivation is ‗of‘ resources, exclusion is ‗from‘ social
participation.
 One may face deprivation despite relatively good economic conditions. People in war
torn areas, like West Asia and some African countries, suffer from multiple
deprivations in form of non – access to health, education, sanitation, housing etc due
to absence of a peaceful political atmosphere. In other cases, cultural norms can lead
to derivations.
 Ex: in Islamic countries and many other orthodox patriarchal societies, women are not
allowed to take education and other social activities. Some traditional societies like
India also had rigid social stratification like caste which also led to multiple for those
in lower strata. Similarly, racism and ethnocentric practices also deprive one section
of population from amenities of life as it is still in case of South Africa. Thus,
deprivation can also be due to structural factors.

Material deprivation in EU:

 Deprivation and poverty criteria can be wide ranging and a comparison of EU criteria
with India criteria will illustrate this fact.
 The indicator adopted, as of November 2016, by the social protection committee of
EU, to reflect the level of deprivation, measures the percentage of the population that
cannot afford at least three of following nine terms:
o To pay their rent, mortgage or utility bills
o To keep their home adequately warm
o To face unexpected expenses
o To eat meat or proteins regularly
o To go on a holiday
o Own a television set
o A washing machine
o A car
o A telephone

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Socio – economic consequences:

 It may lead to class conflict and proletariat revolution.

 It may lead to sequential migration.
 Poverty leads to moral corruption, law and order problem, bad habits, etc.
 Concentration of population at the place of emerging opportunities which on the one
hand will lead to overpopulation of one place and under population at another.
 It develops a sense of retreatism and pessimism.
 It may cause social movements, civil wars, communal tensions, separatist movements.

Previous Years Questions:

1. How are Hierarchy and Exclusion the major impediments in the transformation of
societies? Discuss. (20 marks) (2020)
2. What is the difference between natural and social inequality? Discuss with examples
from caste & class dimensions. (10 marks) (2018)
3. Discuss the relationship between poverty and social exclusion. (10 marks) (2016)
4. Distinguish between people being socially excluded and people excluding themselves
socially in societies. (10 marks) (2013)
5. In our society, Hierarchical relations are influenced by social mobility? Discuss. (20
marks) (2012)

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Unit No: 5

Unit Name: Stratification and Mobility

Chapter Name: 5(b) Theories of social stratification – Structural functionalist theory,

Marxist theory, Weberian theory

 Social stratification refers to a system by which a society ranks categorized of people

in a hierarchy.
 Some groups have greater status, power, and wealth than other groups.
 These differences are what led to social stratification.
 Social stratification is based on four major principles:
o Social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual
differences.
o Social stratification persists over generations.
o Social stratification is universal (it happens everywhere) but variable (it takes
different forms across different societies).
o Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs as well (inequality
is rooted in a society‘s philosophy).

Structural Functionalist theory:

 Functionalist theories assume that society has certain basic needs or functional
prerequisites that must be met if it is to survive.
 They assume that the parts of society form an integrated whole, whose stability and
order needs to be maintained.
 They are concerned with the role of social stratification in integration and continuance
of society.
 Social stratification is viewed as a dynamic system characterized by social mobility
and continual restructuring of the rules of consensus building.
 They recognize the role of competition and conflict but also postulates existence of
institutional mechanism like socialization, education, empowerment by democratic
participation, etc. through which aspirations of social mobility may be realized.
 These theories postulate analogy between social order and organism - both have
internal mechanisms for self-regulation and self-correction.

Talcott Parsons:

 Parsons believes that order, stability and cooperation in society are based on its value
consensus.
 He argues that stratification systems derive from such common values. If values
exist, then it follows that individuals will be evaluated and placed in some form of
rank order and those who perform successfully will be ranked highly and rewarded.
Because different societies have different value systems, the ways of attaining high
position will vary from society to society.

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  Example: bravery and generosity are valued among the Sioux Indians in North
America, while modern USA values individual achievement and efficiency.
 Stratification is an inevitable part of all human societies, and is just and proper
because it is an expression of the shared values.
 He does not deny the presence of conflict, but states that conflict is kept in check by
the common value system which justifies the unequal distribution of rewards. The
specialized division of labour in the complex industrial societies necessitates
cooperation, interdependence and reciprocity between social groups.
 For example: Each class needs and cooperates with the other, since any large-scale
task requires both organization and execution.
 Thus, some members will specialize in organization and planning, while others will
follow their directives.
 Parsons argues that this inevitably leads to inequality in terms of power and prestige.
This power inequality is also legitimate as those who occupy positions of authority
use it to pursue collective goals based on shared societal values.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore: - article „some principles of stratification‟:

 They argue that all social systems share certain functional prerequisites which must be
met if the system is to survive and operate efficiently.
 One such prerequisite is effective role allocation and performance.
 This means that:
1. All roles must be filled.
2. They must be filled by those best able to perform them.
3. The necessary training for them must be undertaken.
4. The roles must be performed conscientiously.
 All societies need some mechanism for ensuring effective role allocation and
performance.
 This mechanism is social stratification, which they saw as a system that attaches
unequal rewards and privileges to the different positions in society. People differ in
terms of their innate ability and talent, and positions differ in terms of their
importance for survival and maintenance of society.
 According to Davis and Moore, a fire-fighter‘s job is more important than a grocery
store‘s cashier because the former needs more training and skill.
 A major function of stratification is to match the most able people with the
functionally most important positions. It does this by attaching high rewards to those
positions.
 The desire for such rewards motivates people to compete for them, and in theory the
most talented will win through.
 Such positions usually require long periods of training that involve certain sacrifices,
such as loss of income. The promise of high rewards is necessary to provide an
incentive to encourage people to undergo this training and to compensate them for the
sacrifice involved. The high rewards also provide the necessary inducement and
generate the required motivation for a diligent and conscientious role performance.

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  The functional importance of any position can be measured in two ways: 1. The
degree to which a position is functionally unique. 2. The degree to which other
positions are dependent on it.
 Thus, stratification is a social necessity to place and motivate individuals, and
contribute to maintenance and well-being of the social system.

Melvin M. Tumin: - a critique of Davis and Moore:

1. Functional importance - there is no objective way of measuring the functional importance
of positions. Many occupations which afford little prestige or economic reward can be seen
as vital to the society. Example: garbage collectors.
2. Power and rewards - Davis and Moore ignored the influence of power on the unequal
distribution of rewards. Differences in pay and prestige between occupational groups may be
due to differences in their power rather than their functional importance.
3. The pool of talent - Davis and Moore assumed that only a limited number of individuals
have the talent to acquire the skills necessary for the functionally most important positions.
This is a questionable assumption as:
a. An effective method of measuring talent and ability has yet to be devised.
b. The pool of talent in society maybe considerably larger than assumed. As a result,
unequal rewards may not be necessary to harness it.
4. Training - Tumin rejects the view that the training required for important positions should
be regarded as a sacrifice and therefore in need of compensation. He pointed to the rewards
of being a student - leisure, freedom and the opportunity for self-development. He also noted
that any loss of earnings can usually be made up during the first ten years of work and
continuing high pay after that may not be justified.
5. Motivation - he argues that social stratification does not serve the function of motivating
talented individuals, but rather it acts as a barrier to the motivation and recruitment of talent.
The hurdles which people from lower strata need to overcome in order to succeed can be
daunting and can discourage rather than motivate people. Davis and Moore also failed to
consider the possibility that those who occupy highly rewarded positions erect barriers to
recruitment. Occupational groups often use their power to restrict access to their positions, so
creating a high demand for their services and increasing the rewards they receive.
6. Inequality of opportunity - those born into the lower strata can never have the same
opportunities for realizing their talents as those born into the higher strata.
7. Social divisions – differential rewards can ‗encourage hostility, suspicion and distrust
among the various segments of a society. Hence, stratification is a divisive rather than an
integrating force.

 He concludes by stating that functionalists have tended to ignore or downplay many

of the dysfunctions of stratification.

Davis and Moore‟s Argument:

1. Tumin seeks to demolish the concept of institutionalized inequality but he offers no
explanation of the universality of stratified inequality.

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 2. Their interest lies in understanding why stratification exists in society, while Tumin
argues that stratification does not have to exist.
3. He underestimates the importance of the specialized DOL that is essential for a
complex industrial society.

Contemporary Indian society:

 All important positions are filled and role allocations are ensured with competitive
exams.
 Our society is moving towards meritocratic society.
 Unequal rewards and privileges to the functionally important positions provide
equality of opportunity to everyone, be it the political, social or economic sphere.
 However, as Melvin Tumin argued that social stratification can and often does act as a
barrier to the motivation and recruitment of talent.
 This is apparent in closed system such as caste and racial stratification thus the
ascribed status of untouchable prevented even the most talented from becoming
Brahmins.
 Lower strata never have the same opportunities as of higher strata.
 Social stratification at times increases hostility and becomes divisive for sicety as seen
in recent agitation for reservation.

Criticism:
 Apart from Tumin, Dahrendorf was also one of major critics of functional theory.
Observes that stratification originates from the ‗closely related trinity of norms,
sanction and power‘.
 Similarly, rigidity of caste system cannot be explained through functional theories of
Davis and Moore and others.
 Beck and Baudrillard also visualize that such functional stratification is no longer
valid as inequalities are not individualized and no clear strata exist today.
 According to Alvin Gouldner, stratification is not inevitable as Davis and Moore
predicted and criticizes them for providing a justification for social inequalities.
 According to Jonathan Turner – structure functionalist theories suffer from
illegitimate teleology as a big logical problem. They often take cause and effect and
vice – versa.
 It is impossible to measure objectively the functional importance of different
occupations.
 The functionalist analysis of power and is flawed in that power should not be seen as
a variable sum concept and it is not necessarily used in the interests of all members of
society.
 The functionalist analysis of social status is flawed because there is no necessary
agreement within society as what factors determine social status and which
occupations are deserving of high social status. Who has higher social status; nurses
or investment bankers?
 Unequal patterns of social stratification may for several reasons be dysfunctional and
undesirable rather than functional and desirable.

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  The functionalist analysis of the significance of training costs as a factor necessitating
income inequality is flawed.
 Functionalists have overstated the extent to which there is a limited pool of talent of
individuals with functionally important skills.

Marxist theory:
 The Marxist perspective differs from the functionalist perspective in focusing on
divisive rather than integrative aspect of social stratification.
 Marxists regard social stratification as a means through which the group in the upper
rungs exploits those in the lower rungs. Here the system of stratification is based on
the relationship of social groups to FOP.
 Conflict theorists take a very different approach to inequality. They argue that
inequality results not from consensus over how to meet social needs but from class
conflict.

Underclass:
 The concept is used by neo – liberal sociologists and is similar to Marxist concept of
lumpenproletariat.
 Charles Murray popularised this concept in sociology.
 According to him, this is a stratum which is a result of unequal economics and
misplaced government policies.
 It is born where people have very less bargaining power and are at the mercy of
employer.
 He, however warns that this growing class may also cause threat to social cohesion.
 Various researchers have found that minority groups, women etc. are most likely to be
its part.

Classic conflict theory:

 Karl Marx provided classic conflict theory of inequality – argued it grew naturally
from private ownership of MOP.
 Those who own MOP seek to maximize profits by minimizing amount of return they
must give to proletarians, who have no choice but to sell labour to highest bidder.
 In this view stratification is neither necessary nor justifiable. Inequality does not
benefit society but only rich.
 Marx exclusively had never talked about social stratification rather his theory is
derived out of his theory of social conflict. Hence, the major concept of his view over
social stratification is following:
o The base of all inequalities and social stratification lies in unequal distribution
of economic resources.
o Stratification may be universal phenomena but it is not inevitable for all
societies.
o Stratification is an outcome of conflict which took place in the process of
control over the surplus production in the society.

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 o The values and ideology of social stratification represents the values of
dominant class which justifies inequality and suffering of the have – nots.
o Stratification is a medium to ensure unequal distribution; hence it is unethical,
unjustifiable and illegitimate as an institution.

Modern conflict theory:

 Like classic Marxist theory, modern conflict theory recognizes powerful can oppress
those who work for them by claiming the profits from their labour (wright 1985).
 It goes beyond Marx‘s focus on ownership, however, by considering how control also
may affect the struggle over scarce resources and how class battles play out in
governmental politics.
 In addition, modern conflict theory looks at noneconomic sources of power,
especially gender and race. These theorists argue, for example, that in the same way
that capitalists benefit from the productive labour of workers, men gain benefit from
the ‗reproductive‘ labour of women.
 The term reproductive labour describes traditionally female tasks such as cooking,
cleaning and nurturing – those tasks that often make it possible for others to work and
play.
 Modern conflict theorists point out that in most families, those with the least power do
the most reproductive labour, as a result, these individuals end up having fewer
opportunities to earn good incomes that might otherwise increase their power within
the family.

Concepts:

It regards stratification as divisive rather than integrative structure.

 Classes – a class is a social group whose members share the same relationship to the
MOP. In all stratified societies, there are two major social groups: a ruling class
(bourgeoisie) and a subject class (proletariat). The power of the ruling class comes
from its ownership and control of the MOP.
 Classes and historical epochs – Marx believed that western society had developed
through four main epochs. Primitive communism is the first epoch and only example
of a classless society while the other epochs all saw two major classes:
o Ancient society – master and slave
o Feudal society – lord and serf
o Capitalist society – capitalist and wage labourer
During these, epochs, the labour power required for production was supplied by
subject class who were in majority. Classes emerged when productive capacity of a
society expanded beyond the level required for subsistence, when agriculture became
dominant MOP. Increasingly, more complex and specialized DOL has occurred.
Surplus wealth and private property form the basis of class societies.
 Dependency and conflict – while classes are mutually dependent, it is not a
relationship of equal reciprocity. Instead, it is a relationship of exploiter and

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 exploited. The ruling class gains at the expense of the subject class and there is
therefore a conflict of interest between them.
 Power and the superstructure – political power comes from economic power. The
superstructure of society – the major institutions, values and belief systems – is seen
to be shaped by the economic infrastructure. The various parts of the superstructure
are hence seen as instrument of ruling – class domination and oppression of the
subject class.
 Class struggle – is the driving force of social change. The proletariat would overthrow
the bourgeoisie and seize the MOP, the source of power. It would transform the
capitalist society by replacing private property with communally owned property.
 Class consciousness – will occur when the false consciousness is replaced by a full
awareness of the true nature of exploitation and contradictions. This will transform
the proletariat from a ‗class in itself‘ to a ‗class for itself‘.
 Polarization of the classes – the gap between the proletariat and bourgeoisie will
widen and hasten the downfall of the capitalist economy. This will be caused by
obliteration of the differences in labour (homogenization of working class), the
pauperization of the proletariat and sinking of the petty bourgeoisie into the
proletariat.

Marx had believed the process of polarization had begun in 19th century Britain and soon the
proletariat revolution and dawn of communist utopia would occur.

Critique:

 Weber argued against economic determinism and proposed ‗Trinitarian model‘

consisting of class, status and party. He also states that there could be numerous
divisions within two classes, depending upon the ‗market situation‘ of individuals.
 Ralf Dahrendorf in ‗class and class conflict in industrial society‘ views Marx‘ ideas as
relevant in the 19th century in Europe. However, he sees the 20th century as ‗post
capitalist societies, where there occurs a decomposition of both – capital (example:
multiple shareholders) and labour (example: even managers do not own capital, but
neither are they working class as they hold substantial authority). He also sees
increasing social mobility and a widening middle class.
 Gramsi argues that the ruling class could not depend on false consciousness and
instead will need to make real concessions to other groups in society in order to win
their support.

Criticism:

 There is little doubt that people who have control (through ownership or management)
systematically use their power to extend and enhance their own advantage.
 Critics, however, question the conclusion that this means that inequality is necessarily
undesirable and unfair.
 First, people are unequal. Some people are working harder, smarter and more talented
than others.

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  Unless forcibly held back, these people will pull ahead of others even without force,
fraud and trickery.
 Second coordination and authority are functional. Organizations work better when
those trying to do the coordinating have the power or authority to do so.

Weber‟s theory:

 Weber believed that social stratification results from struggle for scarce resource in
society. Although he saw this struggle as being primarily concerned with economic
resources, it can also involve struggles for prestige and for political power. It affects
‗life chance‘ and ‗lifestyles‘ of their members.
 He sees class as a group of individuals, who share a similar position in a market
economy, and by virtue of that fact, receive economic rewards. Thus, a person‘s class
situation is basically their market situation. He views class groupings as follows:
o The propertied upper class
o The property less white – collar workers
o The petty bourgeoisie
o The manual working class
 Factors other than ownership of property are significant in the formation of classes.
The market value of the skills of the property less group varieties, and the resulting
differences in economic return are sufficient to produce different social classes.
 Weber saw no evidence to support the idea of polarization of classes. He argues that
the petty bourgeoisie instead of sinking into the manual working class will enter the
white – collar working class. This white – collar middle class expands rather than
contracts as capitalist expands.
 He saw no reason why those sharing a similar class situation should necessarily
should necessarily develop a common identity, recognize shared interests and take
collective action to further those interests. Ex: he suggests that individual manual
workers may grumble, work to rule or sabotage industrial machinery instead of
organizing strikes or organizing others to overthrown capitalism.
 He also sees groups form because their members share a similar status situation.
Status refers to the unequal distribution of ‗social honour‘. Occupations, ethnic and
religious groups, lifestyles are accorded different degrees of esteem by members of a
society. Unlike classes, members of a status groups are aware of their common status
situation and social closure is practiced to exclude others from such status groups.
However, class and status situations may not always be closely linked. Ex: Nouveaux
rich, homosexuals.
 The present of different status groups within a single class, and of status groups which
cut across class divisions, can weaken class solidarity and reduce the potential for
class consciousness and further, political parties are found cutting across both class
and status groups.
 Thus, weber provides a more complex and diversified picture of social stratification.

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Class:

 Refers to person‘s economic position in society. Like Marx, Weber sees class in
economic terms – argues that classes develop in market economies in which
individuals compete for economic gain.
 Defines a class as a group of individuals who share a similar position in a market
economy and by virtue of that fact receive similar economic rewards. In weber‘s
terminology, a person‘s class situation‘ is basically his market situation.
 Those who share similar class situation also share similar life chances. Their
economic position will directly affect their chances of obtaining those things as
desirable in society. Ex: Access to higher education and good quality housing.
 Like Marx, Weber argues – class division between who own FOP and those who
don‘t. Those who have substantial property holdings enjoy life better and chances for
high economic rewards. However, Weber sees important differences in market
situation of property less groups in society. In particular the various skills and services
offered by different occupations having differing market values. Ex: in capitalist
society, managers, administrators and professionals receive relatively high salaries
because of the demand for their services.
 Admits that a common market situation mat provide a basis for collective class action
but sees this only a possibility. Market value of skills of property less varies and
resulting difference in economic return are sufficient to produce different social
classes. Thus, he rejects Marxian view that political power necessarily drive from
economic power. Weber noted how managers of corporations or industries control
firms they do not own; Marx would have placed such a person in the proletariat.

Status:

 Refers to person‘s prestige, social honour or popularity. Weber noted political power
was not rooted in capital value solely, but also in one‘s individual status.
 Class forms one possible group formation. Argues that there are other bases for these
activities.
 While class refers to unequal distribution of economic rewards, status refers to the
unequal distribution of social honour. Occupations, ethnic and religious groups and
most importantly styles of life are accorded differing degrees of prestige or esteem by
members of society.
 Status group is made of individuals who are awarded similar amount of social honour
– members share similar lifestyle, identity with and feel they belong to their status
group and often place restrictions on ways in which outsiders may interact with them.
 In pre – industrial Europe, there were two status groups i.e. only certain families were
part of patrician class and you had to be born a patrician. They were only small
percentage of Roman population but held all the power.
 Plebeians were other citizens who were farmers, labourers, soldiers etc, of Rome.
 Weber argues that status groups reached their most developed form in caste system of
traditional Hindu society in India.

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  In many societies – class and status are closely linked. Those who share same class
may not be same status group. Status group may create divisions within classes. Ex: a
worker may have same market situation with their co – workers but different status
situation. The presence of different status groups within a single class cut across class
boundaries and weakens class solidarity and reduces the potential for class
consciousness.

Party:

 Defines parties as groups with concerns about influencing policies and making
decisions in interests of their members.
 In Weber‘s words parties are concerned with acquisition of social powers‘.
 Parties are always structures struggling for domination according to Weber.
 Parties may represent interests determined through class situation or status situation.
 In most cases they are partly class parties and partly status parties. Ex: the
combination of class and status interests can be seen in various black power
organizations in USA. They represent a status group but also class interests.
 The interplay of class, status and party in formation of social groups in complex and
variable and must be examined in particular societies during particular time periods.
Marx attempted to reduce all forms of inequality to social class and argued that
classes formed the only significant social groups in society.
 Weber argues that the evidence provides a more complex and diversified picture of
social stratification.
 Parties may pursue interests that are determined through class situation or through
status situation. Identifies two types of parties – parties of patronage, and parties of
principle. Whatever they represent, parties are oriented to the attainment of power.
They may even recruit members from them. They may not, however, be fully class
parties or fully status parties. They may be neither of the two.

Criticism:

 Cellia Heller – on the one hand, Weber says that economic order and status groups are
different on the other hand he says that they are very often correlated.
 Ulrich Beck says that today inequalities are rooted in risk position. In his ‗risk
society: towards a new modernity, 1992‘ contends that inequalities in modern society
are a function of risk taking capability, risk consciousness and risk avoiding capability
and not due to class and status per se.
 Beck and Baudrillard gave concept of individualized inequalities.

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Differences:

Structural – Functional theory and conflict theory:

Basis of comparison Structural – Functional Conflict theory

theory
Society can be best be Groups cooperating to meet Groups competing for scarce
understood as: common needs resources
Social structure Solve problems and help Maintain current patterns of
society adapt inequality
Causes of stratification are: Importance of vital tasks, un Unequal control of MOP
– equal ability, pleasantness maintained by force, fraud
of tasks and trickery
Conclusion about Necessary and desirable Unnecessary and undesirable,
stratification: but difficult to eliminate
Strengths: Consideration of unequal Consideration of conflict of
skills and talents and interests and how those with
necessity of motivating control use system to their
people to work advantage
Weaknesses: Ignores importance of power Ignores the functions of
and inheritance in allocated inequality and importance of
rewards, functional individual differences
importance overstated

Marxian and Weber theory:

 Social stratification is a form of socially constructed inequality. It has social groups

ranked in order where members of each strata share common interests, values in terms
of power, prestige and wealth and common lifestyles.
 From a Marxist perspective, Social stratification was based on two major classes -
The ruling class and the subject class. The ruling class owns and control the means of
production, while the subject hires their labor to the ruling class and expect returns.
The ruling class exploits and oppresses the subject class. Karl Marx talks about 4
societies - primitive communism, ancient society, feudal society and capitalist society.
He believes except in primitive communism alias hunting and gathering bands where
the goods are communally owned, there exists two major classes in all other societies
- masters and slaves in ancient society, lords and serfs in feudal society, capitalists
and workers in capitalist society. He thinks means of production in capitalist societies
segregates the members of society into two major classes - upper class and lower
class.
 Although Weber also believe the major class divisions based on who owns the
production or property(upper class) and who does not (propertyless lower class), he
found different classes developed in propertyless class - 1) propertyless white collar
middle class 2) The petty bourgeoisie 3) the manual working class - because of their
skills and services.

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 As Weber, Karl Marx also acknowledged the intermediate strata (middle class)
between upper and lower strata. But because of increased use of machinery,
difference in wealth and cause of pauperisation, and competitive nature of capitalism
which enables minority big capitalists usurp the petty bourgeoisie, there will be
polarisation of classes. This results in two major classes with increased differences
between them. However, Weber found evidence of expanding middle class because of
social mobilization. Weber says as capitalism requires modern bureaucratic
administration and clerical staff which results in expanding white-collar middle class.
 Karl Marx talked about "class for itself". He thinks a social group becomes class for
itself when its members have 'class consciousness' and 'class solidarity'. Class
consciousness is one that replaces the "false consciousness", which disguises the fact
that rulers exploit and oppress the subjects, and realizes the exploitation, share
common interests and evolve common identity. They take up collective struggle
against oppression.The peasant movements in 1920s- Bardoli satyagraha, Mappila
Rebellion, Kisan sabha movements, and the indian working class movements in 1920s
- formation of All Indian Trade Union Congress(AITUC), are the examples of
evolving common identity and going for collective struggle. Karl Marx thinks of
inevitability of proletariat revolution. However Weber agrees that there is going to be
struggle between classes, he rejects the view of inevitability of proletariat revolution.
 Weber thinks the sharing similar class does not necessarily evolve into common
identity. He says people not satisfied with their class situation could do multiple
things - resigning the job, showing stress at others and freeing herself, see a movie,
but not necessarily have to go for a revolution. Also Weber does not see social groups
only on the basis of class. Weber thinks social groups can be formed based on their
status - social honor/prestige, and parties. Status groups are generally closed to others
because of their common tastes, life styles. Indian caste system is a good example.
Weber thinks the status groups can divide class ie each class has different status
groups, and can cut across the classes ie each status group can have members from
different classes. Social activists, environmentalists, homosexuals, anti-homosexuals
are good examples.
 But Karl Marx thinks class based stratification is the basis of other stratifications. He
thinks Political power comes from economic power and the superstructure of society -
all institutions, values and belief - are based on economic infrastructure. He calls this
"ruling-class ideology".
 In ruling-class ideology, all the major institutions serve the interests of dominant
values, culture of ruling class. It legitimizes the inequality by creating false
consciousness. He thinks power of ruling class stems from control of means of
production. But Weber rejects the view that only class is the basis for power. He
thinks there are other factors like parties, status, knowledge help in gaining power.
 Feminists criticize Marx and Weber for not considering 'gender' in their perspectives.
However, Many contemporary studies by sociologists follow either Marx or Weber
theory. They are neo-Marxists and Neo-Weberians. There are some other researchers
like W.G Runciman who use both Marx and Weber concepts in their approach.

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  Erik Olin Wright combines aspects of Marxian and Weberian theory. He status that
there are three dimensions of control of control over economic resources in modern in
capitalist production, and this helps to identify different classes in the society:
o Control over investment or money
o Control over physical means of production like land
o Control over labour power.
 Members of the capitalist class have control over each one of them, while working
class have control over none. Between these two classes lies the group of managers,
white collared workers, who sell their skills and expertise and whose positions are
ambiguous and Wright calls them ‗contradictory class locations.‘ They are able to
obtain more privileges through their relations to the owner of MOP and hence are
closer to the interests of their bosses than to other workers.

Is social stratification universal?

 Sociologists point out that simple societies of hunters and food gatherers usually do
not have groups, which are ranked one above the other. Differences of power, wealth,
and prestige do not exist at the level of groups.
 All clans are equally placed. No ranking exists between them. All members of these
communities have equal access to resources.
 As a result, there are no rich or poor people among them.
 Whatever inequality exists between them is at the level of sex and age.
 Women (or men) may have more or less prestige in different societies. Elders may be
respected. The solutions they offer in of conflict may not be binding on the
individuals involved, yet they are respected and followed.
 From this we may conclude that although social inequality may be found in all
societies, social stratification may not be universal.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Davis and Moore made it clear that social stratification is a functional necessity and
also an unconscious device. Discuss. (10 marks) (2019)
2. Compare and Contrast the contributions of Marx & Weber on social stratification in
capitalist society. (20 marks) (2019)
3. Evaluate if social stratification is functional for society. (10 marks) (2018)
4. What is Weberian critique of Marxist notion of social stratification? (20 marks)
(2017)
5. Elucidate the basic premises of Davis‘ structural functional theory of social
stratification. How far is it relevant in understanding contemporary Indian society?
(10 marks) (2016)
6. Differentiate Marxian & Weberian theories of social stratification. (20 marks) (2015)
7. How do Karl Marx & Weber differ in terms of analysis of social stratification? (20
marks) (2013)

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Unit No: 5

Unit Name: Stratification and Mobility

Chapter Name: 5(c) Dimensions – Social stratification of class, status groups, gender,
ethnicity and race:

Class:

 The class system is universal phenomenon denoting a category or group of persons

having a definite status in society which permanently determines theory relation to
other groups.
 The social classes are de facto groups) not legally or religiously defined and
sanctioned) they are relatively open not closed.
 Their basis is indisputably economic but they are more than economic groups.
 The relative importance and definition of membership in a particular class differs
greatly over time and between societies, particularly in societies that have a legal
differentiation of groups of people by birth or occupation.

Overview:

 Among, scholars, there is a difference of opinion on what constitutes class. Thus,

naturally, there would be difference between which are the classes.
 Class is largely considered an industrial phenomenon as expansion of production
forces beyond needs of subsistence, created stark distinctions between people, both
economically and politically.
 But class is a pre – Marxian idea. Aristotle divided society into 3 classes – upper,
middle and poor but this term was first used by St. Simon as a synonym to estates.
 There are particular characteristics of class:
o Classes are arranged in a vertical order
o There is an idea of permanent class interest among the members of classes.
o Idea of class consciousness and solidarity is present among the members.
 Thus class endorses to the idea of social distance and class distinctions get expressed
in form of social inequalities and social boundaries.
 Marx defines it as ‗a social group sharing same relationship with the MOP‘. Hence, he
historically identified different antagonistic class across MOP. According to him 2
classes stand opposite to each other in ancient, feudal and capitalist MOP. Primitive
communism doesn‘t have any concept of classes as the relationship with MOP is
same. He believed classes will drift away from each other and true class
consciousness leads to class struggle which will establish a state of communism with
no classes at all.
 Like Marx, Weber also talks of classes – propertied and property less. But there were
more classes in property less category and differentiated on basis of their skills,
capacity and talent which are identified in terms of their economic relationship in a
market situation. These classes are:
o Propertied upper class

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 o Property less white collar workers.
o Petty bourgeois
o Manual working class
 He talks about how classes affect ‗life chances‘ and ‗life style‘ of members. Also, he
gave the concepts of status closure and status groups which create sense of exclusion
and inclusion in society. With increased DOL and role of government, it was
observed in the 50s that embourgeoisement was actually happening leading to
expansion in the middle class.
 Ralf Dahrendorf, unlike Marx, argues that classes will became more and more
heterogeneous with time and working class will get further divided into – unskilled,
semi – skilled and skilled.
 Similarly, Anthony Giddens suggests that there are 3 classes – upper – who hold
MOP; middle – who hold technical means and lower who hold manual labour. Frank
Parkin was another scholar who classified SS on similar lines. (he said middle class
doesn‘t aspire for either upper or lower class and acts as a buffer against polarization
as envisaged by Marx)
 Pierre Bourdieu suggests horizontality in stratification in form of different capitals in
society. Those who hold economic capital are industrial capitalists, those who hold
cultural capital are knowledge capitalists and those who hold symbolic capital are
power capitalists.
 Classes vary in consistency, depending on weightage given to ascription or
achievement. In traditional societies, societies were more consistent but less mobile
because of high ascriptive associations whereas modern societies are market more
fluidity in classes owing to achievement orientation.
 Pakulski and Watersin their ‗Death of class, 1996‘ argue that status dimension is
becoming more important in post – industrial societies. Consumption is now based on
status and not on the basis of occupation of economic well – being. Rising
consumerism has promoted status and eclipsed class.
 Pierre Bourdieu in his ‗An invitation to reflexive sociology, 1992‘ also proposed that
lifestyle choices, rather than class, are more important today. Individual identities are
now more shaped by lifestyle choices rather than by more traditional indicators like
occupation.

Study:

 Goldthrpe, in his empirical study in England, indicates that in even European

countries, mobility is limited to only among the immediate classes and mobility form
a class is significantly distanced hierarchy from another which is lower i.e., long
range mobility is difficult.
 A few decades later, similar conclusions were drawn by Ken Roberts in his class in
contemporary Britain, 2011. According to him, even in the developed societies like
Britain, class has not fragmented. In fact, the strangehold of the upper class has only
got stronger. Unlike Marxian concept of class, this upper class is dubbed as most
powerful but not the most dominant class.

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The Affluent works study:

 It was a landmark study organised by Goldthorpe and Lockwood to test the

Embourgeoisement thesis, which was popular in 1960s, in which, many sociologists
suggested that Marxian class idea of Proletarianisation was not happening and the
opposite was happening, i.e. working class labour was becoming more affluent and
moving towards middle class status.
 Goldthorpe and his team chose an upscale area of England to test this thesis and
ultimately found that Embourgeoisement was actually not happening on the ground.

Indian society:

 Oxfam report 2019 titled ―Public good or private Wealth?‖ gives various class
inequalities between the rich and poor in India:
o The top 10% of Indian population holds 77.4% of the total national wealth.
o The total wealth of Indian billionaires is higher that the Union Budget of India
for the fiscal year 2018 – 19 which was at INR 24422 billion.
o The bottom 60%, the majority of population, own merely 4.8& of the national
wealth. Wealth of the top 9 billionaires = bottom 50% of the population.
o In the last 12 months, the wealth of the top 1% increased by 39% whereas
wealth of bottom 50% increased a dismal 3%
o Mukesh Ambani, is 19th on the Forbes 2018 billionaires list and is the riches
Indian alive. His residence in Mumbai, a towering 570 – foot, 27 storey
building, is worth $1bn and is most expensive private house in the world
while on the other side. Pratima, who lives in a slum in Patna, eastern India,
lost both of her twins due to delays and scarce resources in her nearest clinic.

Conclusion:

 Hence, classes stratify societies and answer to certain kind of sociological questions
on poverty, exclusion, deviance, social inequalities, social mobility, social change,
status, power, life chance, life styles.
 Criteria of identifying classes may differ among different scholars but a sense of class
is ingrained in the minds of members of the class and hence influence on every aspect
of society.
 With increasing economic development, there is a persistent effort to re – distribute
wealth, income through progressive taxation, estate duties and taxes on capital gains.
 Therefore, there is equality of living standard, growth of middle class. But to Marx‘s
disappointment, it seems classes are here to stay for long time to come in one form or
other.

Status Groups:

 The concept of status group was given by Weber who explained this concept in his
Trinitarian model of social stratification. Contrary to Karl Marx, he believed that in
pre – industrial Europe there were no classes because market was non – existential.

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  While class is broadly perceived as grouping on the basis of economic criteria, status
is based on prestige, goodwill, fame, personal qualities and social capital of an
individual. Status is both achieved as well as ascriptive. Ex: Caste, Nobleman, Clergy,
Estate owner. Today the term status is wider.
 As society becomes modern, status is also redefined.
 Status is one of dimensions of stratification according to Max Weber and he
differentiates it from class as ‗social estimation of honour‘. Status is associated with
consumption and not production. According to Weber, caste is the most developed
form of status based stratification.
 Weber called Hindu caste group as ―advanced status group‖ and believed Brahmin,
Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra are lifestyle and not economic class.
 Theoretically, class and status may look independent to each other but practically
these two phenomena have capability to influence each other.

Overview:

 While class is dependent particularly on economic variables, status groups are

founded on the differences in honour and prestige differences.
 Status is one of the most ancient systems of social stratification where ranking is done
on the relative position in terms of honour and respect. In traditional societies it was
attached to birth, hence was ascriptive, but in modern societies it is more achievement
oriented.
 Status groups are more closed and try to influence the idea of superiority or difference
by maintaining status boundaries and imposing certain qualifiers on other people,
which Weber called Social Closure.
 In many societies and status groups are closely linked to each other but that is not
always the case. Ex: Fire fighters and doctors for highest status groups in US despite
there being richer businessmen economically above them. Similarly, nauveaux riches
may not get the kind of equal of equal status treatment as compared to other elites.

Thinkers:

 Pakulski and Waters in ‗Death of Class‘ argues that status dimension is becoming
more important in post – industrial societies. Consumption is now based on and not
on basis of occupation or economic well – being. Rising consumerism has promoted
status and eclipsed class.
 WL Warner emphasizes on social status instead of economic class as a form of
stratification. He considers education, occupation and income and determinants of
status.
 However, MN Srinivas quotes the example of Lingayats in Karnataka as a community
that through their economic and political power, also managed to improve their caste
position and now refer themselves as ‗Lingayat Brahmins‘. He terms this process as
Sanskritization. Louis Dumont counters this argument by stating that while it is easy
to become Kshatriya in India, the same is not true for Brahmins. Proclaiming Brahmin

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 status and obtaining Brahmin status are two different things, and hence Brahmins
were and are a status group.

Conclusion:

 Hence, status groups may not necessarily linked to economic or political status of a
person. Today, it is also a question of legitimacy that is accorded to person‘s status by
the way of his deeds.
 With rise of civil society, status is getting attached with nobility, transparency of
deeds. More philanthropic one are respected more.
 It is a different matter that philanthropy may be again linked to economic and political
milieu of a person.
 Thus, status group today is a dynamic system of social stratification which needs to be
continuously needs to be proven by deeds and is less ascriptive as it was in the past.

Gender:

 Gender concerns the psychological, social and cultural difference between males and
females.
 Gender is linked socially constructed notions of masculinity and feminity.
 Broadly speaking, the term ‗gender‘ refers to cultural ideas that construct images and
expectations of both females and males.
 Nature has divided human race between men and women, but their status and role in
society are determined by culture.
 Sex and gender are two identical terms which are used interchangeably but both are
different terms because sex is a biological phenomenon which is determined on basis
of reproductive organs of individual whereas gender is socio – cultural expression of
sex.

Thinkers:

 A UN report (1980) declares that while women constitute half of world population,
they perform 2/3rd of the total work hours, receive 1/10th of the total income and own
less than 1/100th of the total property.
 According to Naila Kabeer ‗biology is gendered as well as sexed‘. Male and female
are translated as man and woman based on mutually exclusive traits of masculinity
and feminity. Marl Daly blames female oppression on male aggression.
 Sex and gender based DOL has increased with the advent of industrialization. Karuna
Ahmad finds four trends in women‘s employment:
o Pink collarization – clustering of women in a few occupations.
o Clustering either in low status occupation or in the lower rungs of the
prestigious profession.
o Glass ceiling – women receive lower salaries and advancement opportunities
than men.
o High proportion of highly educated and professionally trained unemployed
women.

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 Gender, as a form of stratification, difference and inequalities found mention in
literature since 70s when feminism started taking shape. It was observed that gender
differences were present in every sphere of society in terms of status, wealth and
power. Matrilineal societies like the Khasis are often cited to rebuff the idea that
women in all societies are discriminated. However, recent writingshave shown how
even among matrilineal society like Khasis, control of property and decision making
within family often resides with the male head – the brother.
 Rousseau argued that biological inequalities matter least in form of social
stratification, but feminists state that the most ancient system of social stratification is
based on gender. Plato placed reproductive role of women that their productive roles.
Aristotle was against citizenship for women.
 There are different streams of Feminism which study gender differently:
o Radical feminism – they see society as patriarchal and blame man for the
exploitation of women. Men use violence and its thread to secure and maintain
their power over women.
o Marxist and socialist women – they see capitalists as main beneficiaries of the
exploitation of women, as in pursuit of profits, they either hire women at
lower wages or gain from women‘s work indirectly. Sexual inequality is
treated in terms of DOL and Marxist approach considers women as ‗reserve
army‘. Unlike, Marxists, Socialists believe in the democratic system and aim
for change within it.
o Liberal feminists – are the most moderate of them all and believe that it is
culture that is the culprit for women‘s plight and not men. They aim for
gradual changes in political, economic and social systems. Aim for equal
opportunities, especially in education and work.
 Shulamith Firestone traced origins of gender stratification in biological differences.
She believes that women are disadvantaged by their biology (menstruation, child
birth, feeding) due to which their dependence on men increased, which provided
further grounds for different forms of exploitations. She says the sexual class system
was first form of stratification.
 Michelle Rosaldo argued that it is division between public and private world which is
a reason for women subordination. With example of Mbuti Pygmies of Africa, she
demonstrated that where men and women share responsibilities, the societies are
relatively egalitarian.
 Fredirck Engels states that in primitive communism, women had higher position than
men but as society developed and forms of private property emerged, the control of
men increased, putting gender equality on the backburner. He believed that capitalist
society, despite all its issues, provided an opportunity for women to work at par with
men and gain some equality. However, he observed that bourgeoisie women were still
forced to submit to male control.
 Heidi Henderson believes that capitalism and patriarchy are very interwined, but she
does not believe that interests of men are identical to that of capitalists. Ex; Capitalists
may want women to work at low wages but men may want their wives to be at home
to perform services for them.

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  Parsons believes that with the arrival of modernity, hierarchy of genders has been
converted into a competitive gender relationship. Hence, gender does not determine
ranking in stratification systems.
 Helen Mayor dismisses class notion attached to women and instead terms them as
minority.
 Sylvia Walby in ‗thoerizing patriarchy‘ identifies six patriarchal structures which help
men maintain dominance over women:
o Paid work – male dominated unions ensure that women interests are kept at
bay.
o Relations within household – household work is unpaid and unvalued.
o Culture – key sign of femininity is seen to be sexual attractiveness of a
woman.
o Sexuality – sexually active women are labelled negatively.
o Violence – final form of manifestation of dominance of men on woman.
o State – policies, though have undergone changes, are still lacking in many
aspects to ensure gender equality.
 Even religion has been portrayed as one of the factors promoting patriarchy. Ex:
Christianity projects Eve as being produced from Adam‘s spare rib and the origin of
all human sufferings is blamed on her actions.
 When gender is combined with the other forms of prejudices like race, ethnicity and
poverty, then it becomes worst form of exploitation. Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval –
Davis believe that patriarchy, capitalism and racism are all part of one system, which
advantages some groups and disadvantages others.
 Ann Oakley in ‗gender on planet earth‘ believes patriarchy and capitalist is damaging
planet. Ex: War and violence stems from what men learn about being masculine and
from attempts to maintain patriarchy. Male – dominated transnational companies are
constantly feeding the consumption culture. Male economists ignore housework in
GDP calculations. Medical science making invasion of the female body possible, like
IVF.

Two phenomena led to change in status of women initially in Europe and later
worldwide:

Industrial and French Revolution:

 IR created an economic environment where women emerged as working force.

 First, they came out of four walls and realized their potential which led to self – belief
among them.
 FR entrusted the ideology of equality among them which inspire them to mobilize for
cause of equality which simultaneously gave birth to Feminist movement in Europe.

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Two World Wars:

 These two wars changed the demographic profile of Europe where loss of male young
population due to war gave the opportunity to women to take the responsibilities
which traditionally belonged to men.
 This further led to rationalization of potential among the women who started
challenging male dominance over them.

Hence, after these two phenomena, the status of women started changing in Europe and other
parts of world which became colony of Europe, this culture diffused to other societies also.

Marxist School of thought:

 Led to conceptualization of sexual DOL in terms of ‗place‘ of female labour within

the class structure and of its ‗functions for capital‘ – see female subordination as a
result of private property, emergence and consequent adoption of monogamy.
 Marx and Engels – one of positive fallouts of capitalism is increased participation of
women in workforce which will lead to her improved status within family.
 Both believed, gender stratification can end but, in modern society the relative status
of women is changing fast.
 Feminism, economic activities, social legislations, legal safeguards, education and
awareness has held to challenge the old age patriarchal system worldwide.

Diversity and Dimensions:

 Has moved beyond conventional male- female debate and increasing focus on
transgender, bisexuals, gays, lesbians is also there.
 Many countries have now officially recognized and given legitimacy to such groups.
Their problems are also now becoming part of mainstream stratification debate.
 Gay Pride, gay Liberation Front etc have highlighted the issue of rights of such
groups globally.
 Even in India, on 6 September 2018, the court unanimously ruled in Navtej Singh
Johar vs Union of India that section 377 was unconstitutional ―in so far as it
criminalises consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex‖.
 Recent mobility studies show women are doing better than their male counterparts.
Education attainment of women has improved significantly in percentage terms as
compared to men in 2011 census. As birth frequency decreases and child gap
increases, more women can now take to full time jobs.
 Gender issues are assessed on 3 specific dimensions in the 2017 – 18 economic
survey; though it is pointed out that gender equality in itself is ‗an inherently
multidimensional issue‘. They are.
o Agency – relates to ability of women to make exclusive decisions on
reproductive rights, financial independence and spending on themselves and
on their household, as well as their own health and mobility.
o Attitude – relates to attitudes about violence against women and ideal number
of female children preferred against ideal number of male children.

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 o Outcomes – relates to phenomenon of son preference, which is essentially
measured by sex ration of last child, choice of contraception, education and
employment of women, age at marriage, age at first childbirth and all types of
violence experienced by women.

Mechanization of domestic work:

 Washing machines, packaged foods etc – has also reduced some burden on women
and she can devote more time on career.
 Love marriages and romantic relations have also altered the nature of domestic DOL.
 Right to property has also given some security to women in traditional societies like
India.
 New laws like Sexual Harassment at Workplace act 2013 will promote a safe working
place to encourage women participation.
 Coupled with institutional measures and social movements, they are gaining more
space and in male dominated areas. This is certainly making stratification less
skewed.

Conclusion:

 With development, many societies are giving high priority to gender in different
aspects of planning and policy formulation.
 Concepts like gender budgeting are gaining popularity.
 Similarly, changes in company‘s act and maternity benefit act, social movements like
‗Beti Bachao Beti Padhao‘, reservation in local bodies, women – specific
entrepreneurial schemes, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, priority in institutional lending
to women owned business and women SHG are some measures that are helping
journey towards gender equality. , cultural and attitudinal change is the most
important factor here.

Ethnicity:

 Sociologists study systems of racial and ethnic classification, which divide people into
racial and ethnic categories that are implicitly or explicitly ranked on a scale of social
worth.
 Ethnicity is derived from ancient Greek word ‗Ethnos‘ which refers to a range of
situations where there is a sense of collectivity of humans that live and act together.
 Ethnicity relates to ascriptive identities like caste, language, religion, region etc.
inequality in terms of sharing power between two ethnic groups results into conflict.

Brief:

 Ethnicity is a socio – cultural expression of race, for example, a single race of

Caucasian spread worldwide from Germany and settled in different parts of world.
They adopted distinguished language, culture, food habits, clothing etc according to
new environment and hence became ethnic groups. Hence Aryans, Britons, French,

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 Russian etc. are some of ethnic group emerged out of Caucasian race – purest form
cannot be identified.
 The term was popularized in common American usage with the publication of Yankee
city series of Warner published in 1941. Warner used the term of ethnicity as a ‗trait‘
that separates the individuals from some classes and identifies him with others‘.
o The ethnicity is socially mobilized and territorially confined. It has
numerically sufficient population and is a pool of symbols depicting
distinctiveness.
o Ethnicity is manifested in society not merely due to grass root discontent but
sometimes it is also a creation of vested political interest.
 Ethnicity causes ethnic movements after being left out of the developmental process
or even being a victim of uneven development. The racial and ethnic categories to
which people belong are a product of three interrelated factors: chance, context and
choice.
o Chance is something not subject to human will, choice, or effort. We do not
choose our biological parents, nor do we control physical characteristics we
inherit from them.
o Context is the social setting in which racial and ethnic categories are
recognized, created and challenged.
o Choices are the act of choosing from a range of possible behaviours or
appearances.
 Race and ethnicity are different. Ethnicity refers to shared membership in a cultural
group. Like race, it is also socially constructed.
 But unlike race, ethnicity has major consequences for people‘s life chances.

Thinkers:

 Thomas H. Eriksen sees ethnicity as relating to relationships between groups whose

members consider themselves distinctive, and these groups are often ranked
hierarchically within a society and are biologically perpetuating. He distinguishes
between different types of ethnic groups – modern migrants, indigenous people, proto
nations or ethno – nationalist movements, ethnic groups in plural societies like
Mauritius and post – slavery minorities.
 Fredrick Barth sees ethnicity is a much more elastic concept as compared to race or
caste. It is usually used for invoking political milieu. Though some forms of ethnicity
are much more in grained and complex than others, however, by way of language
shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for some
individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group and enter another.
 There are three popular conceptions of ethnicity:
o Biological – it is based on a common genetic descent. In this sense, ethnicity
has been treated as synonymous with race.
o Cultural – it treated ethnicity as a cultural phenomenon.
o Psychological – a consciousness of common identity. An awareness exists
among the members of a group regarding their similarity to each other.

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  Depending on which sources of group identity is emphasized to define membership,
the following types of ethnic groups can be identified: ethno – racial, ethno –
religious, ethno – linguistic, ethno – national or ethno – regional.
 Paul Brass discusses three ways of defining ethnic groups:
o In terms of objective attributes – presence of some distinguishing features or
ethnic markers that separate one group from the other. Ex: language, territory,
religion, dresses, etc.
o By reference to subjective feelings –existence of an ethnic self –
consciousness, a ‗we feeling‘.
o In relation to behaviour – existence of concrete, specific ways in which ethnic
groups do or do not behave in relation to or in interaction with other groups.
 According to Karl Deutsch, ethnicity has been instrumental for balkanization and rise
of so many nations in Europe, post the WW2
 Steve Fanton – ‗Hot ethnicity‘ involves appeals to ‗blood and passion‘ and may be
mobilized in support of nationalist movements. It emphasizes strong group loyalty.
‗cold ethnicity‘ involves ‗calculation and instrumentality‘ and is contingent upon
deriving benefits from group membership.
 Gellner and Wallerstein advocate that merit – based nature of modern society will
dissipate any divisions on basis of ethnicity and abilities will spell out class positions.
They believe that modern principles lead to more homogenization and thus
disappearance of culture and ethnic identities.
 But critical theorists like Habermas and primordial theorists like Borris and Richmond
argue that ethnicity becomes more prominent in modern times to preserve itself from
drastic changes and is present in covet forms even in modern society.
 Glazer has contended that not only does ethnicity not cease to exist in modern, but is
actually ‗revived‘ and the increasing importance of ethnic identities or ethnicization
can in fact, be attributed to very conditions of modernization. Clifford Geertz, a
symbolic theorist, states that ethnicity will continue to exist, not because of its
functions but because of emotions.

Examples:

 Nuer and Dinka tribes of South Sudan were engaged in ethno – religious conflict.
 Crimea was annexed by Russia from Ukraine on an ethno – national basis.
 The holocaust was of ethno – religious war.
 On the other hand, demands for separate Indian states were made on ethno – linguistic
basis, and this has often been stated as having helped the process of development.
 Antagonistic co – existence is best exemplified which suffer ethnic conflicts. Such
type of societies has sharp ethnic lines. Sri Lanka is such an example where ethnic
Tamils and Singhalese exist in form of distinct strata.

Ethnicity and Plurality in India:

 India has a cultural, economic and social heterogeneity.

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  The complex ethnic plurality is visible with ethnic groups varying in size, culture and
consciousness and no clear demarcation is present between different groups.
 The system is highly segmented and heterogeneous. However, emergence of ethnicity
all around primarily on cultural grounds has put the boundary of nation state under
severe stress. Usually the quest for larger identity is emphasized as it also serves some
political purpose.
 But at the same time, this emphasis on a large identity like nation ignores the reality
of plural identities and their possible interplay and thus reverts back to the nation
where religion, language etc become static categories of ethnic attributes.

Conclusion:

 Ethnic violence is seen in areas where ‗immigration – host‘ model sees a crisis, as
instead of acknowledging differences and providing space of inclusive development,
hosts expect immigrants to fit into their culture, smoothly and invisibly. Ex: demand
for bans on turban and hijabs.
 Hence, we see wide manifestations of ethnicity ranging everyday prejudices to
formation of nations. Thus, ethnicity as a system of social stratification both integrates
and disintegrates societies.

Race:

 Sociologists define race as a vast collectivity of people more or less bound together by
shared and selected history, ancestors and most importantly physical features.
 Race in one of the primary lines along which our society is stratified. First, we should
note that race is not biological. That means that the difference we perceive among
people in our society is a social construct. When sociologists use this term, they mean
that race is an invention of our society. But, it has very real social consequences.
Racial minorities have much less access to many important resources in our society.
 Racial stratification has affected different societies differently and racism is worst
form of racial stratification. An extreme example is Apartheid in South Africa which
once segregated white and blacks in highly discriminated manner.
 India too has witnessed racial stratification in past during colonial rule. Criminal
tribes act was the result of such skewed racial perception. Developed countries like
USA also suffer from ‗racial profiling‘ incidents.
 After declaring equal civil rights in USA in 1960s, official abilities of Apartheid in
South Africa in early 1990s and similar steps by other countries, racial stratification
and racism now operates in more subtle ways than earlier open blatant racism. It is
termed as ‗new racism‘.
 Discriminatory attitudes still persist. Ideas of cultural differences instead of biological
ones are now used to disguise racism.
 Those cultures which refuse to assimilate into dominant culture face threat
marginalization and are discriminated on various grounds. Ban on turbans, hijab,
Islamic headscarves etc in European countries are such attempts which have political
backing too.

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Theories:

 One theory says, difference was already there for centuries, but they acquired a racist
shape with the arrival racial nomenclature and terminologies which coloured those
physical differences as racial differences. White race supremacy is the result of one
such early theory.
 Ethnocentrism is another explanation which is actually a suspicion of outsiders with a
tendency to evaluate the culture of others, with terms of their own culture. It creates
notion of in – groups and out – groups. Use of exclusionary devices like ghettos,
intermarriage restrictions and social distance maintenance gives a practical shape to
ethnocentrism. The group which is powerful marginalises the others in this process.
This happened in the case of Blacks, in both America and South Africa.
 From conflict perspective, according to O C Cox, in his class, caste and race, 1959,
racial stratification is seen as a product of capitalist system in which ruling class used
slavery, colonisation and racism as tools for exploiting labour.
 Another theory says that racism is a result of highly unequal and exploitative relation
that whites established with the non – whites. Slave trade was a consequence of this
approach. Whites used racism as a tool to justify colonialism and decline political
rights like citizenship to non – whites in their colonies further strengthened racial
stratification.
 Another reason is attributed to migration of ethnic minority to Western countries.
When developed countries witnessed periods of economic hardship, native
populations started blaming the outsider for usurping their employment opportunities
and economic space.

Thinkers:

 Geneticist Steve Jones states that genetic diversity has little to do with race and the
overall genetic difference between ―races‖ – say African and Europeans – is no
greater than that between different countries within Europe aor within Africa.
 Richardson and Lambert view race as a social construction with no biological basis. It
has more to do with what people make of physical differences and the everyday or
common sense notions which influence them.
 There can be two kinds of racisms of social stratification:
o Overt racism usually feeds directly into a stratification system through its
effect on social status. Ex: members associated with a particular race may be
assigned a slave status, a form of oppression in which they are refused basic
rights that are granted to other members.
o Covert racism, which many scholars opine is practiced in more contemporary
societies, in social hidden and less easily detectable. It often feeds into
stratification systems as an intervening variable affecting income, education
opportunities and housing.
 Both overt and covert racism can take form of structural inequality in a society in
which racism has become institutionalized. Sociologists argue that while class forms

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 stratification, race, forms hierarchy. Studies point to how race is factor that hinders
social mobility. Ex: blacks are less represented in many areas of social life.
 In his book ‗invisible man‘, Ralph Ellison talks about the atrocities blacks on account
of their colour.
 Merton states that victims of racism respond in various ways and can become
retreatists, innovators, rebellious or ritualists.
 Gunnar Myrdal observes that while America is considered as a land of opportunity, it
is seen that though coloured Americans also follow institutionally prescribed means to
pursue culturally prescribed goals, they are still subjected to inequalities.

Conclusion:

 Today, a greater openness and diversity among ethnic groups has led to questioning of
the concept of race.
 A growing number of individuals identity themselves as multiracial or multi-ethnic.
The lines between ethnicity and race are getting blurred and contemporary
stratification cannot be explained independently on any one line of race, ethnicity or
even class.
 But injustices in many parts, are also developing new shapes and kinds, keeping pace
with such changes. ‗Black Lives Matter‘ movement is an example of the outcome of
such prevalent issue.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Why is gender a dimension of social stratification? How does gender intersect other
dimensions of inequality based on caste, class, race & ethnicity? (20 marks) (2019)
2. Examine gender, ethnicity and race as major dimensions of social stratification. (20
marks) (2017)
3. What do you understand by gender? How does it shape male identity? (20 marks)
(2014)
4. Analyse gender bias in present societies with examples. (10 marks) (2013)
5. Write short note on stratification of classes. (12 marks) (2012)
6. What is class? Do you think that Weber‘s contribution to social stratification is
different from that of Marx? (20 marks) (2011)
7. Write short note on problem of gender. (12 marks) (2011)

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Unit No: 5

Unit Name: Stratification and Mobility

Chapter Name: 5(d) Social mobility – open and closed systems, types of mobility,
sources and causes of mobility:

 According to Wallace and Wallace, social mobility is the movement of a person or

persons from one social position to another.
 It normally entails changes in the life chances and lifestyles. Social mobility may not
just be limited to class. For example, simply adapting to a new language or
mannerisms may also increase mobility of a person in a relatively open structure.
Implicit in invoking the concept of social mobility is the recognition of social
hierarchy and gradation in society.
 This gradation is usually in terms of power, wealth and prestige. Strata sub-cultures
tend to be particularly distinctive when there is little opportunity to move from one
stratum to another.
 This opportunity to move decides whether a system of stratification is open or closed.
Mobility is an indicator of a meritocratic society and stability of class architecture in a
society.

Open and Closed Systems:

 Weber talks of social closure by different status groups. For example: caste endogamy
in Hindus. In a closed system, individuals are assigned their place in the social
structure on the basis of ascriptive criteria like age, birth, sex.
 This system emphasizes the associative character of the hierarchy. It justifies the
inequality in the distribution of wealth, status and power and discourages or even
suppresses any attempt to change it.
 Considerations of functional suitability or ideological notions of equality of
opportunity are irrelevant in this society.
 In an open system, the norms prescribe and encourage mobility. There are
independent principles of ranking like status, class and power. Individuals are
assigned to different positions in the social structure on the basis of their merit or
achievement. The system is characterized by occupational diversity, flexible
hierarchy, and rapidity of change.
 The hold of ascription-based groups like caste, kinship or family is insignificant. The
dominant values in such a system emphasize on equality and freedom of the
individual and on change and innovation. Industrialization and urbanization are the
contributing factors.
 Very little vertical mobility is possible in a closed society. Pre-modern India was a
closed system to a great extent. In contrast, an open society allows for greater vertical
social mobility. However, even in open societies people cannot move from one
stratum to another without resistance.

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  Blau and Duncan in their study on mobility observe that most while open societies
have a fairly high degree of vertical social mobility, the social distance travelled is not
very long.
 Every society has established criteria - which might be proper manners, family
lineage, education, or racial affiliation etc., which must be satisfied before people can
move to a higher social level. A study by Willmott and Young in the London revealed
that 83% of the managing directors in 1970s were the sons of professionals and
managers.
 A recent survey by Stanworth and Giddens designed to investigate the social origins
of company chairmen revealed a high degree of elite self-recruitment.
 Lipset and Bendix study on social mobility confirms that the rate of mobility displays
a basic similarity across industrial societies. But they also point out that the high
mobility of industrial societies is less an effect of greater openness of these societies.
Instead they consider the high mobility as primarily caused by structural change in
these societies.

Types of Mobility:

Horizontal and Vertical mobility:

 Horizontal social mobility means movement by individuals or groups from one

position to another which does not involve a shift into a higher or lower stratum. For
example, when a rural labourer migrates to the city and becomes an industrial worker.
 Anthony Giddens considers that there is a great deal of mobility along the lateral
direction in modem societies, and refers to horizontal mobility as lateral mobility. On
the other hand, vertical mobility involves a movement into a different stratum.
 Pitirim Sorokin states that according to the direction of the transition, there are two
types of vertical social mobilities - ascending and descending, or 'social climbing' and
'social sinking' respectively.
 Giddens calls those who gain in property, income or status as upwardly mobile, while
those who move in the opposite direction as downwardly mobile. He also comments
that in modem societies vertical and horizontal mobility are often combined. For
example: an individual working in a company in one city might be promoted to a
higher position in a branch of the firm located in another town, or even in a different
country.
 In fact, mobility is being considered as a factor of promotions in modern societies.

Intra-generational and Inter-generational mobility:

 Mobility taking place in personal terms within the lifespan of the same person is
called intragenerational mobility. lifetime.
 Example: Ms. Arundhati Bhattacharya started as a PO in SBI and rose to the position
of its Chairman. It is also termed as career mobility. Alternatively, one can analyze
the status of a daughter, upon reaching adulthood, as compared to that of her parents.
Example: if the daughter of a clerk becomes an IAS officer. This is inter-generational
mobility and it tells us to what extent inequalities are passed on from one generation

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 to the next. If there is very less inter-generational mobility, it shows that inequalities
are deeply built into the society and life chances are majorly determined at birth.
Studying the American occupational structure, Blau and Duncan have found that a
person's chances of moving up the occupational ladder are strongly influenced by -
amount of education, nature of first job and father‘s occupation.

Absolute and Relative mobility:

 Absolute mobility is the actual change in position that occurs whereas relative
mobility is judged in comparison to others.

Structural and Circular mobility:

 Structural mobility is the mobility of people who are already part of the occupational
structure. By virtue of change in technology, skills, education, policy, such people
become socially mobile.
 On the other hand, there are people who are outside the social structural. When such
people enter into occupations, it is referred to as circulation mobility.

Sponsored and Contested mobility:

 R.H. Turner calls sponsored social mobility as the one which a person acquires due to
some policy decision. For example: policy of reservation is known as sponsored
social mobility. On the other hand, contested mobility is the one based on open
competition.

Structural mobility:

 Structural mobility is a kind of vertical mobility. It refers to mobility which is brought

about by changes in stratification hierarchy itself.
 It is a vertical movement of a specific group, class or occupation relative to others in
the stratification system. It is a type of forced mobility for it takes place because of
the structural changes and not because of individual attempts.
 For example, technology or labour market changes may lead to the rise or decline of
an occupational group within the social hierarchy. Cotton mill workers in India saw a
decline in their social position after the mass shutdown of mills and increasing use of
synthetic fabrics.
 An influx of immigrants may also alter class alignments, especially if the new arrivals
are disproportionately highly skilled or unskilled.

Individual and Group mobility:

 When an individual change their social position due to achievement of economic

means, prestige or power, it is termed as individual mobility.

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  When a group as a whole improves its social position, it is termed as group mobility.
For example: with increase in trade and agriculture in the later Vedic period, Vaishyas
experienced group mobility.

Sources and Causes of Mobility:

 Stratification system, economic or political restructuring, role of state and value

system are some of the sources of mobility.
 According to Harold Gould industrialization brought about the transfer of specialized
occupations of all kinds from the context of the kin groups to factories organized on
bureaucratic principles.
 This meant that occupational role and role occupant would be in principle separated
and that the preponderant criteria for determining occupations would be performance
qualities and that economic rewards and social mobility would constitute the principle
standards for evaluating the worth or the status of any given role.
 Thus, industrialization and the accompanying urbanization are major sources of social
mobility.

According to Sorokin, there are certain four primary factors that affect mobility in all
societies:

1. Demographic factor - the birth rate of higher strata is generally lower than that of lower
strata. The net population growth is such that there is usually some room at the top for
members of lower strata. This is also true in terms of urban and rural populations, where
migration from rural areas balances the low birth rate of urban population. From the mobility
angle, this means that new kind of vacancies are created which must then be filled.

2. The abilities of parents and children - Sorokin notes that abilities of parents and children
may not match. In ascriptive societies, children may not always be as suited to their inherited
status positions. Lipset and Bendix state that there are always new supplies of talent which
must be absorbed somewhere or the other. Even in societies with inherited status positions,
there were always opportunities for talented individuals to be upwardly mobile. For example:
under feudalism, individuals with military prowess could rise. But critics argue that class of
origin still matters in and the topmost positions and the lowest positions are largely self-
recruiting.

3. The faulty distribution of individuals in social positions - Pareto says that history is the
graveyard of aristocracies . He contended that over time generations lose their innate
qualities, or persons from lower strata might exhibit those qualities, and thus a change in the
personnel of the elite would take place.

4. The change of the environment - economic, social, political, legal, technological changes
also have an effect on social mobility. Example: globalization, democratization, increase in
literacy rates and education standards, etc.

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  Lipset and Bendix emphasize that the rate of social mobility displays basic similarity
across industrial societies. According to them, among industrial societies, no
association is apparent between mobility rates and rate of economic growth. Social
mobility becomes relatively high once their industrialization reaches a certain level.
They list five factors that lead to social mobility in industrial societies.
These are:
o Changes in the number of available vacancies
o Different rates of fertility
o Changes in the rank accorded to occupations
o Changes in the number of inheritable status positions
o Changes in legal restrictions pertaining to potential opportunities
 However, Goldthorpe cities the work of Miller, who, using more data than Lipset and
Bendix, shows that in fact there is a lack of convergence between the rates of mobility
of industrial societies.
 This shows that perhaps it is not industrialization per se, but also other factors, such as
cultural factors, the education system etc., which also have a bearing on social
mobility.
 Personal talent of gifted individuals is also a source of mobility. Subjective factors:
Aspirations, motivation of people, degree of exclusivity. Merton writes about the
importance of the reference group in determining social behaviour. He states that an
individual who seeks to be mobile has, as a reference group, a non-membership group
rather than his own group, and goes for anticipatory socialization.
 Barriers to mobility: Marxian viewpoint.
 Causes for downward mobility: because certain occupations have lost in prestige
through a re-ranking of positions, and thus their occupants have moved down. Or
those very positions cease to exist.

Social Mobility and Social Change:

 Giddens suggests that if the rate of social mobility is low, class solidarity and
cohesion will be high.
 Most He criticizes conventional discussions of mobility which look at classes as fixed
categories which can be populated by different people at different times. Schumpeter
for example likens classes to buses, which have different passengers at different
times.
 Merton's work on social structure and anomie, sheds more light on this. He
differentiates between socially accepted goals and means of achieving these goals.
The goals refer to the values of society. Those who accept the goals and the means of
achieving them are Conformists. But there may be those who reject the goals - the
values, as well as the means of achieving them.
 These people may either retreat from social life - Retreatism, or may rebel against
society - Rebellion. In the latter case, they may, postulate a new structure of society,
rather than seek advancement within the given structure.
 Social mobility is a product of social change and also it also initiates social change.

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Consequences of Mobility:

 High mobility adds to social cohesion. America did not witness class wars as the
social structure was open. Europe had a rigid social structure and the class inequality
was far more pronounced.
 Frank Parkin - opportunities for many able and ambitious members of the working
class to improve their situation. As a result, the frustration which might result, if
opportunities for upward mobility were absent, is prevented from developing. Greater
innovation, creativity and productivity.
 Better efficiency and economic growth.
 Cultural homogenization. Anomie of infinite aspiration, illegitimate means may be
used to climb up the ladder, by people with achievement motivation. Weakens kinship
ties. Social deviance increases.
 Ralf Dahrendorf believes that the situation has arrived in modern western societies,
where, there are considerable opportunities for individual advancement. There is,
therefore, less need for people to join together as members of a social class, in order
to improve their situation.
 In Dahrendorf‘s words, ‗Instead of advancing their claims as members of
homogeneous groups, people are more likely to compete with each other as
individuals for a place in the sun‘. ‗although mobility diminishes the coherence of
groups as well as the intensity of class conflict, it does not eliminate either‘.

Four forms of social stratification having specific patterns of social mobility:

SLAVERY SYSTEM : Mobility was possible only in two ways – through manumission and
through rebellion.

ESTATE SYSTEM: Mobility was possible through the act of grace the monarch. He could
bestow a person in rank of nobility. Other avenue of mobility was occupational guilds.
Marriage also was an important avenue of social mobility, especially for women.

CASTE SYSTEM : is an example of closed stratification system where an individual‘s

position is largely ascribed. There is little scope of social mobility, though avenues are
available for social mobility:
– Flexibility in the political system.
– Availability of land cultivation.
– Sanskritization.
– Hypergamy.

CLASS SYSTEM : is an example of open system of stratification.

– Membership depends on achievement.
– Norms envisage mobility.
– Equality of opportunity.
– Open model of mobility.

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General factors of social mobility:
Industrialization, urbanization, education, social capital and social status, occupation, social
and cultural values, environmental changes, social movements, law and constitution,
migration, physical features, technology, culture, political factors, subjective factors.

Range of Mobility:
 When people move up or down the social scale, they may travel through one or many
strata. The social distance thus covered is denoted by the term 'range'. It could be
movement covering a short social distance, i.e., short-range Shift.
 Also, a big slide across a number of strata (up or down) is also possible. This is a case
of long-range mobility. For example, when Blau and Duncan collected information on
a national sample of 20,000 males, they concluded that there is much vertical mobility
in the United States.
 Interestingly, nearly all of this is between occupational positions quite close to one
another. 'Long-Range' mobility is rare. On the contrary, Frank Parkin stresses on
instances of 'long- range' mobility.

Indian context:
The important channels of social mobility during the ancient period were (a) Sanskritization
(b) conversion to Buddhism, Jainism and other heterodox sects (c) migration (d) renouncing
the world and taking to the life of mendicant and preacher Medieval period - Islam, Bhakti,
Sufi.

Service Sector:
 It is important to appreciate that modern society has moved beyond the crucial
transition from agricultural to industrial society.
 Advanced industrial countries move beyond the predominance of manufacturing
occupations to develop the tertiary branch of the economy, viz, trade transportations,
communications, and personal and professional services.
 That is to say, overall there is a predominance of 'service' sector in any advanced
industrial society.
 Such a situation was forecasted by Daniel Bell almost three decades back.
Agricultural employment declines both proportionately and absolutely, while
manufacturing declines proportionally. This change increases white collar and
middle-class occupations.
 These developments, rather than individual effort, account primarily for social
mobility. Marxist writers have further developed the theme of proletarianization.
Given the growth in service sector occupations, they have sought to see whether the
lower rungs of white collar occupations can in fact be included into the proletariat,
and have concluded that they can be.
 Notable amongst those who have argued thus are Braverman and others, although
other Marxists have disagreed. Outside the Marxist fold, there are those like
Dahrendorf and others who argue that the changes that have taken place since the

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 analysis of Marx have been so far reaching, that today's societies can no longer even
be called capitalist, but rather, post-capitalist.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Critically assess social mobility in open & closed systems. (10 marks) (2020)
2. Is social mobility possible in closed system of stratification? Illustrate from research
work. (10 marks) (2018)
3. Vertical mobility brings structural change even in closed social system. Comment. (10
marks) (2016)
4. No society can either be absolutely open or absolutely closed. Comment. (10 marks)
(2015)
5. How open and closed systems of stratification undergoing transformation in
emergence of new hierarchical social order in societies? (20 marks) (2013)
6. What do you mean by social mobility? Discuss the major sources and causes of
mobility? (20 marks) (2011)

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Additional notes:

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Additional notes:

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Additional notes:

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Unit No: 6

Unit Name: Work & Economic life

Chapter: (a) Social organization of work in different types of societies – slave society,
feudal society, industrial/capitalist society:

Social organization of work:

 Work – paid or unpaid defined as being carrying out of tasks requiring mental and
physical effort, which has its objective the production of goods and services to cater
to human needs. Economy system – consists of institutions that provide for
production and distribution of goods and services.
 Distinctive characteristics – modern societies – high DOL; shift of location of the
work.
 Various dimensions of analysis of organization of work in different societies can be:
o Activities of production, hunting, gathering, agriculture, mass production.
o Nature of work – simple or complex, formal or informal.
o Source of power – land, capital etc. classical elite theories locate source of
power in individual qualities. Marx see source of power in control over MOP.
o System of stratification – master – slave in ancient mode. Lord – serf in
feudal, haves – have nots in capitalism, chatur – varna in caste system;
stratification – result of pattern inequalities that exist in society – basis of
such inequalities is explained through various theories of stratification.
o Social mobility – avenues of social mobility in different in different MOP.
When DOL is low and work is ascriptive in nature, mobility is poor as in case
of feudal and ancient MOP.
o Degree of alienation – according to Marx – it peaks in capitalism and
according to Weber it is a result of increasing rationalization of work.

Social organization of work in different types of society:

Slave society:

 Masters – slaves, with slaves being dominant producing class; masters had complete
control and ownership right over slaves.
 Slavery system is highlighting the term stratification in society which exists due to
caste, creed, sex and many other factors.
 People were categorized into two kinds i.e. Dominance – the people who ruled over
other people and submissive – the people who were condemned to follow upper –
class people who were condemned to follow upper – class people because of lack of
power and self – awareness.
 Marx & Engels – slave society was earliest form of class society – extreme form of
inequality in which some individuals is owned by others as their property.
 T Hobhouse – defined slave as a man whom law and custom regarded as property of
another – in extreme cases he is without any rights.

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  H.J.Nieboer – basis of slavery is always economic because it emerged a kind of
aristocracy which lived upon slave labour.
 Prevalent in Europe. Slave dynasty in India is also an example when king used to
give the state to their slaves to rule on behalf of them. Also found in America, Asia
and Africa but not developed as in Europe.
 The article Slavery in the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences (1968) makes a
distinction between primitive, ancient, medieval and modern slavery. Two main types
of slavery - ancient slavery and new world slavery. Ancient slavery was prevalent in
ancient Rome and Greece. Here slaves were usually foreign prisoners of war. In new
world slavery, the basis of development of slavery were colonial expansion and racist
ideology. The slave was designated as the master's property and had no political and
social rights. It is said that the decline of slavery was primarily brought about by the
inefficiency of slave labour.
 In India, both male and female servants and slaves performed specialized functions in
domestic and non-domestic services of the privileged class. They were also used as
an object of display. Payments to the servants were very low. Slaves were very
cheap, even cheaper than animals. A woman slave for domestic work cost from 5 to
12 Tanka; a concubine, 20 to 40; untrained slave boys, 7 or 8 Tanka; and trained
slaves, 10 to 15 Tanka during Alauddin Khilji‘s reign.
 Manu mentions seven kinds of slaves - a captive of war, a slave of maintenance, a
son of a female slave, one purchased for money, a slave obtained as a present, a
hereditary one, and one condemned to slavery for any offence.

Various types of slavery:

 Chattel slavery – traditional form of slavery where people were bound to become
master‘s personal property and nowadays this kind of practice in null and no
government takes this system to legal.
 Bonded labour – bond practice for some time and not lifetime. Ex: if someone took a
loan which he fails to pay then the person pays his debt by becoming labour for some
time.
 Forced labour – condemned to work under someone due to their influence or terror
against weak people.
 Forced marriages – force fully married for any sexual desire or to work household
chores.
 Dependents – common work used for slaves but it has been observed that their
condition was somehow better than freeman in Persia.

Abolished due to following reasons:

 Change in MOP – agriculture came in existence where man learnt to use land and
animal as source of energy which led to loss of relevance of slaves as MOP.
 Frequent revolts and violence by the slaves for the pursuance of their freedom.
 Intellectual opposition and criticism against the slavery system.

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Feudal system:

 Practiced around 9th century till 16th century; basically a system in which people were
bound to work for upper – class people in exchange of money or land.

Characteristics of Feudalism:

 Unlike slavery system this practice was a legal practice, it provided everyone‘s rights
and duties. The labours were not boycotted from public gatherings.
 Broad classification of labour in estate system which means there was no violence or
making them working for long hours. Three key main elements – nobility, clergy and
commons.
 Nobility – protect them; clergy – see their well – being and commons always provided
with their basic needs like food or sanitation.
 Lastly, well defined political groups – came with rights not only with duties which
were a relief opposite to slavery system. Three estates existed before French
revolution namely first estate, second estate, third estate and estates general.
o First estate - clergy (upper clergy – bishops, noble persons); (lower clergy –
priests, monks, nuns) – not much difference. Basic function ensures people‘s
wellbeing.
o Second estate – nobility (nobility of sword and nobility of robe); basic
function was to provide justice and was a part of royal court and
administration; form 1.5% population before French revolution.
o Third estate – 98% of total population; commoners and unnecessarily forced
to pay higher taxes which were beneficial to other estates but with few rights;
abolished after French revolution.
o Estates general – assembly by King Louis XVI – first setup of assembly by
king to discuss some financial problems because of the French revolution.
 Feudalism in different contexts and characteristics – found in Asian societies like
China, Japan and India; - James Tod in 1820 wrote that European feudalism was
almost similar in he found in Rajasthan. Though there is a debate in history whether
Indian society had this system or not because in Indian feudalism the army was not
allowed to the zamindars/feudal.
 In India, a feudal type of society started emerging during the Gupta period (AD 1300-
600) which gradually got stabilized. Land grants were made by the Gupta emperors,
their feudatories and private individuals which created a class of powerful
intermediaries between the king and the masses. Further, land grant became more
common during the post-Gupta period.

Capitalist society:

 Private ownership of means of production

 Profit as incentive
 Free competition for markets Restless expansion
 Investment to accumulate capital

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 Giddens:
o Highly complex division of labour and high degree of specialization - UK
census lists some 20,000 distinct jobs in the British economy
o Shift in location of work. Earlier small - scale artisanship from home. Now in
factories.
o High economic interdependence From animate to inanimate power
o Taylorism, Fordism and Post Fordism (collaborative work groups, mass
customization, global production).
 Marxist scholars Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis - Capitalists need surplus amount
of labour to enhance their bargaining potential and exert managerial control over
them. Thus, organizational structure in industries is used to perpetuate class divisions.
 CW Mills in ‗white collar alienation‘ says that the market buys the personality of a
worker and not always his skills. Thus, some pieces of personality are given
importance and in order to chase them, man alienated himself from his true self.
 Feudal system matured with increase in production, rise in surplus, rise in trade; new
instruments, new markets. Instead of being controlled by nature, man now tries to
control nature. With emergence of factories, family loses its primary position in
production.
 Karl Marx‘s book – The Communist Manifesto – criticizes upper classes in a
capitalist society; capitalist societies aren‘t single type of economy but a variety.
 Notion of free market essential to understand capitalism; free market – system of sales
and consumption where prices are set by buyers and sellers according to supply and
demand.
 Adam Smith - Wealth of Nation begins with an example of how an individual worker
can make just 20 pins in a day, but if the work is broken down among 10 specialized
labourers, they could together make 48000 pins, therefore increasing production by
240 times.
 A capitalist society is a social order in which private property right and free market
serve as the basis of trade, distribution of goods and development.
 Capitalist society (Industrial society) was different than the pre – capitalist MOP in
the following ways:
o Capitalism was oriented on the profit – making rather than consumption.
o Capital and machines became MOP and human potential reduced to merely
helping machines to produce.
o Family was no longer a unit of production and confined to consumption
merely.
o The production took place at large level and complicated work organization
came in existence which gave birth to bureaucracy.
o DOL became complicated for first time in history and women emerged as a
strong workforce.
o DOL became specialized and not based on ascription.
o Democracy, secularism, rule of law, etc. developed to facilitate
industrialization.

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 o Capitalist society gave birth to new values, culture, custom, beliefs which
were completely different than the pre – capitalist societies.
o Numerous secondary institutions emerged in this society.
 According to Durkheim – DOL is specialization of cooperative labour in specific to
increase productivity in labour in industrial society.
 Historically the growth of a more and more complex DOL is closely associated with
the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of
industrialization processes.
 Increasing specialization may also lead to workers with poorer overall skills and a
lack of enthusiasm for their work (alienation). Viewpoint was extended and refined by
Karl Marx; he described process as alienation; workers become more and more
specialized and work repetitious which eventually leads to complete alienation.

Taylorism and Fordism:

 Taylor‘s approach – called scientific management involved detailed study of

industrial process in order to break them into simple operations that could be
precisely timed and organized.
 Not merely an academic study – was a system of production designed to maximize
industrial output, and it had a widespread impact not only on organization of
industrial production and technology. But also on workplace politics as well.
 In particular, Taylor‘s time and motion studies wrested control over knowledge of
production process from worker and placed such knowledge on process in hands
management, maintaining autonomy from their employers. It is widely associated
with the deskilling and degradation of labour.
 Principles were appropriated by industrialist Henry Ford – significant innovations
was introduction of assembly line industry – each worker assigned with specialized
task.
 Ford – realized mass production requires mass markets and increased raising wages
at his Dearborn Michigan, plant in 1914 to 5$ which was a generous wage for 8 hour
work.
 Fordism – name given to designate system of mass production tied to cultivation of
mass markets- referring to a historical period in development of post – Second World
War capitalism, in which mass production was associated with stability in labour
relations and high degree of unionization.
 Under Fordism – firms made long term commitments to workers and wages linked to
productivity growth; this system is generally understood to have broken down in the
1970s to have greater flexibility and insecurity in working conditions.

Post – Industrial societies:

 In 1973, Daniel Bell – new type of society was emerging; described essential changes
that are accompanying emergence of Post – industrial society, one that relies on
intellectual technologies of telecommunications and computers, not just large
computers but computers on a chip.

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  Six characteristics:
o A service sector so large that most people work in it.
o A vast surplus of goods.
o Even more extensive trade among nations.
o A wider variety and quantity of goods available to the average person.
o An information explosion.
o A global village where the world‘s nations are linked by fast communications,
transportation and trade.
 In addition to technology, a substantial proportion of working population employed in
service, sales and administrative support occupations distinguishes post – industrial
societies; increased emphasis on education as an avenue of social mobility.

Market Economy:

 Market or Free economy is characterized by a system in which allocation of resources

is determined by supply and demand in the market.
 Production and distribution determined by market forces to ensure competition and
efficiency.
o Has effect on traditional families – as a result of monetization different
members of family contribute to income of family and increased the avenues
for social mobility.
o Rapid growth of industries which the employer – employee relations are based
on contractual relations – work has become commodity – exchanged for
wages.
o Expansion of markets – increased volume of trade and commerce facilitating
integration of country and different societies.
o Growth of economy leads to occupational diversification and increasing
specialization of occupations which in turn has created a demand for
educational institutions to provide specialized training.
o Due to industrialization and expansion of economy in urban areas leads to
consumption oriented life – style.
 Governed by supply and demand is unstable – leading to anomie – a characteristic of
urban life – inflation also poses a constant threat to instability in urban markets.

Social Determinants of Economic Development:

 Economic development depends upon various social factors also. Uneven economic
development of various societies proves this. Max Weber in his Protestant Ethics and
Spirit of Capitalism shows that social factors profoundly affect economic
development.
o Education system
o Religious beliefs
o Social stratification like caste and class
o Personal values like asceticism, hard work and enterprising.
o Demographic composition and dependency ration

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 o Scientific advancement
o Spread of penetration of money economy
o Level of urbanisation
o Secularisation
 In case of India, despite considerable availability of material resources, social
resources were not conducive for economic growth in modern times. Caste system
rendered the society fragmented. Religious practices of both Islam and Hinduism
promoted worldly asceticism. Joint family system also focused more on affective
aspects and less on liberal enterprising values. Later, there was also lack of political
unity post Mughal period.

Industrialisation and Social Change:

 It is defined as shift from animate (humans or animals) to inanimate (coal, electricity)

source of power. Industrialisation, best defined as rise of factories and use of
machinery in production of goods, first occurred in England in late 1700s and
particular phase was termed as Industrial Revolution by Arnold Toynbee. It led to
following changes:
o Occupational shifts
o From ascriptive to achievement based DOL
o High DOL and opportunity
o Changing power relations
o New forms of conflict
o Demand for skilled jobs and educational changes
o Changing family structure
o Revolution and Marxian thoughts

Previous Years Questions:

1. What are the theoretical models of societal power? Which one of them is most
applicable in advanced industrial societies? (2019) (20 marks)
2. Discuss the nature of social organisation of work in capitalist society with reference to
the limits of working day. (2018) (10 marks)
3. Trace the changing nature of organisation of work in capitalist society over the years.
(2017) (20 marks)
4. Describe the nature of social organization of work in Industrial society. (2016) (10
marks)
5. The increasing importance of the tertiary sector has weakened the formal organization
of work in recent times. Examine the statement. (2015) (20 marks)
6. Distinguish between the social organization of work in feudal society and in capitalist
society. (2015) (10 marks)
7. What are the distinctive features of social organisation or work in slave society? How
is it different from feudal society? (2014) (10 marks)
8. How do formal and informal organisation of work influence labour‘s mobility?
Explain with examples. (2012) (20 marks)

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9. In Marxian classification of society, feudal and slave societies are very important.
How are they different from each other? (2012) (15 marks)
10. What is formal organization? The growth of bureaucracy has resulted in extreme
concentration of power at large levels of social organization. Discuss. (2011) (20
marks)
11. Write short note on Self Help Group (SHG) as an informal organization of work.
(2011) (12 marks)

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Unit No: 6

Unit Name: Work & Economic life

Chapter: (b) Formal and Informal organizations of work:

 Formal sector – activities which are taxed and monitored by government and activities
involved in GDP – informal sector neither taxed nor included in GDP or GNP of a
country.
 Composition – formal sector: specific working hours and regular wages and worker‘s
job is assured – employed by government, state or private sector enterprises; licensed
organization and liable to pay taxes; includes large – scale operations such as banks
and other corporations.
 Informal sector – irregular working hours and wages are exempted from taxes; mainly
concerned with primary production of goods and services with primary aim of
generating employment and income on small scale. Rag Pickers, moneylenders,
brokers are part of informal sector also described as grey economy.

Formal Organisation of Work:

 Deliberately planned and designed and duly sanctioned by competent authority.

 Individuals agree to work together because they are prepared to contribute their
services and receive in return certain benefits.
 Max Weber – first sociologist to discuss formal organization in length; everyone
holds some office and their position and authority are judged by office; every post is
inter chained in mutual relation of command and obedience; transparent system of
super and subordination. Ex: industries, bureaucracy. Political parties.
 Formal organization of work is frame through which organized effort is directed
towards achieving the goals. It has certain characteristics they are:
 David Silverman have three distinguishing features:
o They arise at an ascertainable moment in time.
o They exhibit patterns of social relations which are less taken for granted than
those in nonformal organizations (such as family) and which organizational
participants often seek to coordinate and control.
o Considerable attention is paid to these social relations and to plan changes in
them.

Legal status:

 It is backed by legal sanctions – establishment of any organization where work is

formally organized requires enactment of Parliament or SLs. PSOs like LIC, Food
corporation, etc. were established on basis of union parliament; law which enables the
organization to come into existence also confers authority; personnel working in
various departments in discharge of their official work are backed by authority of law.

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Division of work:

 Very basis for Formal organization of work is made possible through formal
organisation.
 Indicates levels of management, the designation of officers and their area of operation
make it very convenient for division of work.

Primacy of structure:

 Emphasis is laid on design and structure; structure – clearly defined and roles of
individuals working in organizations are clearly spelled out; structure also describes
communication flows and relationship between workers.

Permanence:

 Is relatively permanent; they adapt to environmental conditions and change structure

and even objectives, they are generally created to last a long time; not only last long
but also grows with time.

Rules and Regulations:

 It is done with accordance with well – formulated rules and regulations; officials
cannot act as per their likes and dislikes but should function within framework of the
stipulated rules and regulations.
 Important to determine goals and objectives in absence it would be difficult to direct
skills of men and women to accomplish stated goals.
 Goals and objectives spell out nature and scope of activities of different persons
working in organization; in formal organization of work every higher level
functionary coordinates activities of the officers immediately below him.

Arguments against formal organization:

 Ritzer - McDonaldization. Increasing rationality leads to irrational outcomes and it is

dehumanizing.
 Weber gave importance to formal relations within an organization.
 Peter Blau on the other hand, studied informal relations within formal organizations
and found that they actually tend to increase the efficiency of workers instead of
pulling it down. Informal networks bring life into the organizations.
 Elton Mayo - Study of Hawthrone works of GE in Chicago: It came as a response to
classical theory which laid emphasis on formal structure. Mayo believed classical
school underemphasized socio-psychological aspects of informal organization. He
found that work satisfaction depended largely upon informal social pattern of work
group. Norms of higher cooperation were established because of them. Work is a
group activity and group collaboration are not by accident. Informal groups within
work plant exercise strong social controls.
 He performed some experiments like illumination experiment (which studied the
impact of physiological aspects), relay assembly test room experiment (which studied

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 what impact did change in working conditions - financial, rest periods etc. have on
morale), mass interviewing program - found that hearing grievances alone may
increase their morale. He did not reject classical theory completely, but tried to close
its gaps, and thus his theory is called neo-classical theory.
 Critique of Mayo: lacks scientific validity, Marxists find it just another way to exploit
by de-emphasizing economic factors, it ignored environmental factors (found that
working conditions, rest hours etc. did not boost morale), behaviour of workers in
experiments was not natural, over-concerned with happiness, Goldthorpe and
Lockwood had pointed towards instrumental orientation of work.

Informal organisation of work:

 Characterised by excessive seasonality of employment (especially in farm sector),

preponderance of casual and contractual employment, absence of social security
measures and welfare legislations, negation of social standards and worker rights,
denial of minimum wages and so on.
 Poor human capital base (education, skill and training) as well as lower mobilization
status of work force further add to the vulnerability and weaken the bargaining
strength of workers in informal sector
 Thus, sector has become competitive and low cost device to absorb labour, which
cannot be absorbed elsewhere, whereas any attempt to regulate and bring it into more
effective legal and institutional framework is perceived to be impairing labour
absorbing capacity of sector.
 J. Keith Hart, an anthropologist while working for a project in ILO, studied African
societies (labour market in Accra) and coined term informal sector (1973), later
popularized by ILO. Definition of informal by ILO – the informal sector is broadly
characterised as consisting of units engaged in the production of goods or services,
with the primary objective of generating employment and income to persons
concerned. According to ILO – ‗This sector encompasses a range of vulnerabilities
and deficits in decent work.
 Have low levels of education and thus low levels of skills; thus they are involved in
jobs engaged in low technology; workers in formal sector have skills and their
position in labour is better.
 A 2012 working paper titled The Informal Economy: Definitions, Theories and
Policies by Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising identifies
four theoretical strands that explain the existence of informal sector
o The Dualist school – views informal sector as comprising only marginal
activities, which provide income to poor and a safety net in time of crisis. This
school argues that informal workers are excluded from modern economic
opportunities due to an imbalance between population growth rates and
industrial employment growth rates on one hand, and a mismatch between
people‘s skills and structure of modern economic opportunities on the other.
o The Structuralist School – views informal sector as subordinated economic
entities and workers serve to reduce input and labour costs and hence, increase

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 competitiveness of large capitalist firms. It is an essential feature of a
globalised free market system.
o The Legalist School – views to be made up on small entrepreneurs who
choose to operate informally in order to avoid costs, time and effort of formal
registration. In countries like India, convoluted and out dated laws also force
such entrepreneurs to operate informally.
o The Voluntarist School – also focuses on informal entrepreneurs who
deliberately seek to avoid regulations and taxation but, unlike the legalist
school, it does not blame the bureaucratic processes and instead, does an
overall cost – benefit analysis to remain formal or informal.

Easy entry:

 Getting work is easier compared to formal sector; any able person irrespective of skill
can become a labour; with min investment the same person can become a street
vendor and sell her/his wares in market; people do not need money to invest in shop;
able to absorb more workers who would not get any work because they are either not
qualified or they do not have capital for investing in business.

Low paid employment:

 Because of requirement of low skill and easy entry, informal sector has low returns;
no high wages; biggest grievance against this sector is that wages are many times
below sustenance level; many cases, low wages drive other members of family in
informal workforce because main wage earned is not sufficient for sustaining a
household. In this sense, children too may be encouraged to join labour force.

Immigrant labour:

 Largely composed of immigrants; most workers come to city from rural areas in
search of livelihood. Hence migrant status is a characteristic of informal sector.

 Tasks which are to be accomplished in project or mission mode have greater scope of
informal working as team has to improvise new strategies, new plans and have to
work in flexible manner.
 Informal organization working offers more flexibility over formal organization
working.
 Limitations of informal organization – way of informal decision making and working,
some individuals and usurp more power in organizations and may undermine goals
and principles – can also be exploited to promote vested interests.
 Corporate scams, insider trading, monopolistic practices, collusive bribery etc. are
some of ill consequences of informal organization of work within formal
organizations.

Case Studies of Garment Workers:

 One of largest employers in informal sector.

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  Caters to all income groups, namely, manufacturing clothes that will be nought by
poor and also high priced designer wear for upper income group.
 Ever growing export group.
 Till 2005, India faced restrictions on exports as important buying countries like USA
and European countries had imposed quota on Indian exports of clothes.
 After India joined WTO, they were phased out which gave India much opportunity to
increase garment exports. Hence export market too is an important component of
garment industry.
 Two types of informal workers in this industry – first – stitches clothes in small
factories and secondly – stitch clothes from home; home based workers outnumber
factor workers.

Impact of new labour codes:

 Prevents alienation of labour (Marx) – by including unorganised sector under

umbrella of social security, labourers will feel integrated with society.
 Maintaining social solidarity (Durkheim) – by resolving conflicts among the labour
unions with government through use of industrial tribunals.
 Ensuring safety of women at workplace and distorting gendered DOL by employing
women in night shifts.
 Strengthen labour unions & associations to demand their basic rights (Marx – class
for itself)
 Defining migrants as workers and providing them with social security will be add on
to the FOP.

Case study: (garment making)

 Ela Bhatt (founder of SEWA) found in her studies in Ahmedabad (2006) that home
based workers are exclusively women; getting payment at piece rates.
 Payment is low, mostly poor, belonging to Muslim communities were exploited by
contractors and buyers of clothes.
 Women had to own implements of production like sewing machines, thread, needles
and any other equipment, thus extra cost was added to their work.
 Other types of workers involved in small factories – different from home based
workers.
 Can be found in industrial estates in Mumbai, Delhi and most large cities. Clothes
manufactured are of superior quality that are either exported or are sold in large retail
outlets.
 Naila Kabeer, a Bangaldeshi researcher from Susses University – study on women
garment workers in Dhaka (Bangladesh) and London (Kabeer 2000) – around 20
million women in industry. Work for 8 hours and paid wages combination of piece
and time.
 Kabeer mentions that women working in factory given them autonomy in their lives.
This is one of the positive fallouts of working independently because, as in all South
Asian countries, in Bangladesh too, the girl child is treated as inferior to the son.

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Informal Sector in Urban Economy - Jan Breman (Handbook of Indian Sociology)

 High rate of urbanization is not marked with equivalent rise in formal sector
employment. He describes informal sector as a colourful arrangement of irregularly
working people that scratches around for a living close to or at bottom of the urban
society, where life and work are both precarious.
 Informal sector is unregulated, unorganized and unprotected. Trade unions and other
collective organizations are rarely visible in informal sector.
 He proposes a formal-informal continuum:
o Difficult to demarcate between informal and formal as both overlap and are
interdependent.
o Though top and bottom of an urban economy can be easily distinguished,
there is a diffusion zone where formal and informal labour may be together
and there is no dividing line.
 He rejects the view that the informal sector is being mobilized to become micro-
entrepreneurs as upward mobility very less and growth of informal sector has
outpaced formal sector.
 He classifies majority of the so-called self-employed as camouflaged wage labourers.
For example: rickshaw pullers and auto drivers with vehicle on rent or street vendors
who get specific products from larger retailers.
 Breman identifies certain distinct characteristics of informal sector:
o Composed of heterogeneously composed categories of working people who
have no formal training
o No source of income apart from own labour
o Much higher participation of women and children
o Low status attached with informal self-employment
o He divided informal sector into: o
 Petty bourgeoisie - self-employment, brokers, contractors, agents.
 Sub-proletariat - casual and unskilled; move from one place to another
for employment; have temporary employments. o
 Paupers - lumpen drags of society whose presence nobody values.
Totally alienated from consumption and labour itself.
 He maintains that there is fluidity among the above class structure though drastic
upward / downward mobility is rare.

Linkages Between Organized and Unorganized Sectors:

 The two sectors are linked to each other as they depend on each other in their
production process.
 The organized sector gets inputs and components at cheaper rates from the
unorganized sector while the latter depends on the former for marketing its products.
At the same time the large number of casual and contract labour in the organized
sector shows that there is an unorganized sector within the organized sector.
 Though the two sectors are linked to each other, their relationship is not on equal
basis. The unorganized sector and its labour are in a weaker position.

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  Over the last decades there has been a shift to what is often called ‗flexible
production‘ and ‗decentralization of work‘.
 It is argued that in this period of globalization, it is the growing competition between
firms and countries that makes it essential for firms to organize production suiting the
changing market conditions.
 Instead of mass production of goods at a centralized location (Fordism), we have
moved to a system of flexible production at dispersed locations (post-Fordism).

Previous Years Questions:

1. Capitalism has brought increasing informalisation of work in society. Substantiate

your answer. (2020) (20 marks)
2. Discuss the new labour codes and their impact on formal and informal labour in India.
(2020) (20 marks)

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Unit No: 6

Unit Name: Work & Economic life

Chapter: (c) Labour and Society:

 Marx – man is a creative being – with his labour acts upon the nature and tries to
change it. Man never satisfied with existing conditions and always looks for change.
 Man uses his labour which is the essence of human beings.
 In process of acting upon nature with help of his labour and transforming it for his
benefit man gets satisfaction. – at this stage his work becomes a fully satisfying
activity, encompassing both himself and community of fellow human beings. Work
through an individual activity becomes a social activity as well.
o In process of acting upon nature get involved in interaction with other human
beings and gradually society moves towards stage of complexity. In the
process man engages himself in social production.
o All types of relationships and institutions emerge in society in this process
with economic process as infrastructure and other sub systems including
culture, religion, etc. as superstructure. According to Marx without culture
there can be no production possible. The MOP includes the social ROP which
are relations of domination and subordination into which human beings are
either born or enter involuntarily.
o Class is an economic as well as cultural formation. Thus human beings are
also in process of social production which is a very wide concept including
almost all the subsystems of society, culture, religion, economic production
etc.
o The interaction between man and nature produce significant consequences as
in his social production man is in constant touch with nature.
 Durkheim called DOL as social fact and unlike Marx explained non-economic
function labour. Mechanical solidarity is the ‗solidarity of similarity‘ – in these
societies, individual is supposed to work on the basis of their age and sex. Organic
solidarity it is solidarity of interdependence and he believed that society expects
everyone to be specialized and this way society ensures that another form of solidarity
should emerge.
 Adam Smith – economic description of labour. In his book ―The Wealth of Nation‖
he explained that in those societies where labour is specialized society becomes more
prosperous than other societies.
 Feminist perspective – views labour in society in terms of female participation.
According to Ann Oakley, industrialization led to confinement of women ant home.
Workforce participation was limited as women were forced to take role of a
housewife. Recent studies have however shown that workforce participation of
women is increasing, but there is also occupational segregation as well.
 Increasing use of tech and IT at workplace has also enhanced control at workplaces as
they are under surveillance. Face to face interaction is cut and life is restricted to a
cubicle and work has become more mechanical as a result.

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  Handy in his ‗Empty Raincoat, 1994‘ argues that organizations today require workers
with multiple skills and hence labour is ‗flexible labour‘ today. Such workers are not
specialized in one task but have skill portfolio and such workers are termed as
portfolio workers. On one hand this offers workers choice and can enjoy different
works, on other hand it also given capitalists power to hire and fire at their will.
 Globalization of labour is another aspect of labour in post – modern times. Labour,
today is marked by high mobility, Trans – boundary movement etc. world becomes
increasingly competitive as industries also shift in search of cheaper production.

Laws:

 There are a number of laws governing work in the organized sector. Two of the most
important laws in this respect are the Factories Act of 1948 and the Industrial
Disputes Act of 1947.
 There are a number of other Acts such as the Minimum Wages Act, Payment of
Bonus Act, Provided Fund Act, Employees State Insurance Act etc. which provide
protection and some facilities to the workers.
 We can divide these legislations into two groups, one dealing with the regulation of
work and the other dealing with social security. In the first group we can place the
Acts such as Factories Act, Industrial Disputes Act, Minimum Wages Act, Shops and
Establishment Act, Workmen‘s Compensation Act, Contract Labour Regulation and
Equal Remuneration Act and so on.
 Acts such as Payment of Bonus Act, Employees Provident Fund Act, Employees
Family Pension Scheme, Employees State Insurance Act, Payment of Gratuity Act
and other fall in the second category.
 There are other Acts too which cover workers in specific industries such as the
Plantation Labour Act, Mines Act, Motor Transport Worker‘s Act etc. Women -
Equal Remuneration Act, Minimum Wages Act, Maternity Benefits Act. Increasing
emphasis is now given to organization and mobilization of unorganized women
workers in order to give them voice and collective strength for the improvement of
their working conditions and wages.
 A few organizations like Self-employed Women's Association (SEWA), Ahmedabad,
Working Women's Forum (WWF), Madras, Annapurna Mahila Mandal (AMM),
Bombay and several grassroots organizations have mobilized urban and rural poor
women workers in order to strengthen their bargaining capacities and improve their
access to credit and other resources. SEWA is a trade union of over 40,000 poor
women workers in Gujarat. has a membership of 15,000 women and has now spread
its activities to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
 Women have struggled for land ownership, minimum wages, access to forest produce,
water resources, rights of hawkers and vendors etc. The revitalization of women's
movement in the 1970s and 1980s, has resulted in an increasing awareness about
women's rights and their participation in local and larger struggles.
 Children - orphans living on the streets, kids who have left home, kids of migrating
families. Workers in the unorganized sector are less protected legally than workers in

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 the organized sector. There are a few Acts which cover the workers in this sector
(Contract Labour Regulation and Abolition Act, Equal Remuneration Act, Minimum
Wages Act etc.).
 In most cases since the industrial units do not come under the purview of the Factories
Act, the working conditions mostly remain unregulated.

Previous Years Questions:

1. What is ‗reserve army of labour‘? Present the position of feminist scholars on this.
(2019) (10 marks)
2. What is informal labour? Discuss the need for and challenges in regulating informal
labour in post – industrial society. (2019) (20 marks)
3. What is labour commitment? Discuss with reference to studies of manufacturing
industry. (2018) (20 marks)
4. What do you understand by ‗informalisation of labour‘? Write your answer with
special reference to India. (2017) (10 marks)
5. Globalization has pushed the labour into informal organization of work. Substantiate
your answer with suitable examples. (2016) (20 marks)
6. Examine the social impact of globalisation of labour and society. (2013) (20 marks)

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Additional Notes:

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Additional Notes:

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Unit No: 7

Unit Name: Politics and Society

Chapter: (a) Sociological theories of power:

 Power, according to sociologist Max Weber, is the ability to achieve goals with or
without the society‘s support of those goals.
 Weber defines power as the chance of a man or number of men to realize their own
will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating
in the action. This is a constant – sum concept of power and implies that power
holders use it to further their own interests. He suggested three sources of authority:
o Charismatic authority – describes the devotion felt by subordinates towards a
leader who is believed to have exceptional qualities, which are seen as
supernatural, super – human or at least exceptional compared to lesser mortals.
Such leaders are able to sway and control their followers by direct emotional
appeals that excite devotion and strong loyalties.
o Traditional authority – it rests upon a belief in the rightness of established
customs and traditions. Those in authority command obedience on the basis of
their traditional status, which is usually inherited. Their subordinates are
controlled by feelings of loyalty and obligation to long – established positions
of power.
o Rational – legal authority – based on the acceptance of a set of impersonal
rules. Those possess authority are able to issue commands and have them
obeyed because others accept the legal framework that supports their
authority. The rules on which their authority is based are rational in the sense
that they are consciously constructed for the attainment of a particular goal
and they specify the means by which that goal is to be attained.
 These categories are ‗ideal types‘ and each defines a ‗pure‘ form of authority. In any
particular example, authority may stem from two or sources. A perfect example of
any one type is unlikely.
 Weber‘s concept of class, status and party along with his analysis of state and
bureaucracy are the centre of his concept of power. Each grouping is focused around
or oriented towards power as an independent point of conflict. Eac represents an
aspect of a basis for power.
 Dowse and Hughes state that politics is about ―power‖, politics occur when there are
differentials in power. Thus, any social relationship that involves power differentials
is political.
 Steven Lukes has put forward a radical view of power as an alternative. He argues
that power has 3 dimensions or faces rather than just one.
o Decision making – where different individuals or groups express different
policy preferences and influence making of decisions over various issues.
o Non – decision making – power may be used to prevent certain issues from
being discussed, or decisions about them from being taken. From this POV,
individuals or group exercising power do so by preventing those who take

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 decisions from considering all the possible alternative sources of action, or by
limiting the range of decisions they are allowed to take.
o Shaping desires – manipulating the wishes and desires of social groups. A
social group may be persuaded to accept, or even to desire, a situation that is
harmful to them.
 Thus, Lakes defines as ‗A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner
contrary to B‘s interest‘ – power is exercised over those who are harmed by its use,
whether they are aware they being harmed or not.

Various theoretical perspectives on power:

 Weber – power as a constant sum game in which one exercise power at expense of
other. – Describes 3 bases of power – traditional, charisma and legal rational.
 Functionalists see power rested with society and as a ‗variable sum game‘. They argue
that as collective welfare increases in society, the amount of power held by society
also increases. Power is not possessed by individuals, but society. According to
Parsons, since it is very difficult for society to exercise power itself, social position
are created which are functionally more important and power is exercised through
them. Power is used in society to achieve collective goals this benefits everyone and
everyone wins and there are no ‗winning elites‘ or ‗losing masses‘. This further forms
the basis for cooperation and reciprocity in society which is essential for maintenance
of wellbeing of society.
 Marxists see power not in form of authority but in form of ‗coercion‘ – of the haves
over the have not. It is not a societal resource as claimed by functionalists held in trust
by those in authority, but is rather used by dominant groups. Their interests are in
direct conflict with those of who are subjected to power. From Marxian perspective,
source of power is economic infrastructure, but it extends beyond economic
infrastructure and extends to all other aspects of life as well. Though the ruled class
accepts the power of ruling class, but it is due to a false consciousness. Only way to
return power to the people involves communal ownership of FOP and it is possible
only through revolution.
 Elite theories are the foremost theories of power. They broadly fall into two categories
– Classical elite theories (Mosca, Pareto, C W Mills) and Pluralistic elite theores
(Mannheim, Schumpster, Anthony Downs and Robert Dahl)

Theories:

Functional Perspective:

 Parsons assumes the value consensus is essential for the survival of social system.
From shared values derive collection goals. Ex: Materialism is a value from which
collective goals like economic expansion and higher living standards stem.
 Since all members of society share goals, power will generally be used in the
furtherance of collective goals. As a result, both sides of power relationship will
benefit and everybody will gain by the arrangement.

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  The exercise of power usually means that everybody wins. This forms a basis for the
cooperation and reciprocity that Parsons considered essential for the maintenance and
well – being of society. This view is known as variable – sum concept of power.
 Parsons regards power differentials as necessary for the effective pursuit of collective
goals. If members of society pool their efforts and resources, they are more likely to
realize their shared goals than if they operate as individuals. Cooperation on a large
scale requires organization and direction, which necessitates position of command.
Therefore, some granted the power to direct others and this power takes form of
authority. It is regarded as legitimate as it is seen to further collective goals.
 In a democracy, Parsons says that political support should be conceived of as
generalized grant of power which, if it leads to electional success, puts elected
leadership in a position analogous to a banker. The ‗deposits‘ of power made by
constituents are revocable, if not at will, at the next election. Thus, power residues
ultimately with members of society as a whole.

Critique:

 Parsons has failed to appreciate that power is frequently used to further interests
rather than to benefit society as a whole.
 His theory sounds like rationalization promoted by the power – holders to justify their
use of power.

Liberal perspective:

 The liberal theory of power dates back to writings of the social contract theorists such
as Hobbes and Locke. These thinkers argued that society had risen out of voluntary
agreement, or a social contract, made by individuals who recognized that only the
establishment of sovereign power could safeguard them from the insecurity, disorder
or brutality of the ‗state of nature‘.
 Here state is a neutral arbiter amongst competition groups and individuals in society
capable of protecting each citizen from the encroachment of his or her fellow citizens.
 The state is therefore neutral entity, acting in the interests of all representing what can
be called the ‗common good‘ or ‗public interest‘.
 The liberal theory has been elaborated by modern writers into a pluralist theory of
state. Pluralist theory argues that political power is dispersed amongst a wide variety
of social groups rather than elite of ruling class.
 It is decentralized widely shared, diffused and fragmented deriving from many
sources, Arnold Rose, Peter Bentley, Robert Dahl, Parsons, Neil Smelser are some of
key pluralist theorists.
 According to pluralist perspective, competition between two or more political parties
is an essential feature of representative government. According to them, interest
groups and pressure groups representing various interests play a major role in
affecting the decision – making process of state.

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  Pluralists believe that a rough equality exists amongst organized groups and interests
in that each enjoys some measure of access to government and government is
prepared to listen impartially to all.
 They calm that competition for office between political parties provides the electorate
with an opportunity to select its leaders and a means of influencing government
policy.
 Pluralist theory explains the origin of liberal democratic state.
 For pluralists, state represents institutionalized power, an authority and it is in the
supreme guardian of representative democracy in the modern society. The primary
task of state is to balance of interests of a multitude of competing groups, represents
interests of society as a whole and coordinating other major institutions.
 They view the state itself as a set of competing and conflicting institutions rather than
a monolithic entity which exerts its power over the rest of the society.
 They argue that power exists only in situations of observable conflict and that
people‘s interests are simply what these over preferences reveal.

Pluralist Perspective:

Classical Pluralism:

 Pluralists concentrate on the will of individuals or groups to achieve particular ends.

The wishes that people have are then compared to actual decisions taken by a
government. The group whose wishes appear to be carried out are held to possess
greater power than those who oppose them.
 Pluralism as a theory claims to explain the nature and distribution of power in western
democratic societies. Classical pluralism, the original form of this perspective,
believes that power ultimately derives from the population as a whole.
 They accept that the government and state in a Western democracy act in the interest
of that society and according to the wishes of its members. The state‘s exercise of
power is legitimate as it is based upon acceptance and cooperation of the population.
 However, pluralists accept the constant sum concept of power. They deny that
democratic societies have all – embracing value consensus. They do not accept that
members of society share common interests or values in relation to every issue.
 They believe industrial society is increasingly differentiated into a variety of social
groups and sectional interests, and with the increasingly specialized DOL, the number
and diversity of occupational groups steadily grow, and these groups may put
conflicting requests to the government. However, they deny that any single group
dominates.
 Alexis de Tocqueville believed that democracy would become unworkable if one
division in society came to dominate all others. Such a situation could lead to a
tyranny of the majority and interests and wishes of the minority could be totally
disregarded.
 To pluralists, the state is seen as an ‗honest broker‘ that takes account of all conflict
demands made on it by different sections of society. Pluralists argue that every group,
over a period of time, has its interests reflected in governmental decisions, but

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 because of the divisions within of society, it is not possible for the state to satisfy
everyone all the time. As Raymond Aron says, ‗government becomes a business of
compromise.‘
 In Who Governs?, Robert Dahl investigated local politics in New Haven, Connecticut,
USA wich proved that major decisions were taken in consultation with various
interest groups and policies acceptable all parties were arrived at. A study by Wyn
Grant and David Marsh on pressure groups influence in Britain also found the same.

Critique:

 They concentrate only on the first face of power – decision making. John Urry
believes that pluralists ignore the possibility that some have power to prevent certain
issues from reaching point of decision. As a result of this non – decision making, only
safe decisions may be taken – decisions that do not fundamentally alter the basic
structure of capitalist societies. Even interest groups may influence safe decisions, and
this fosters the illusion of real participation and helps to create the myth that society is
democratic.
 Pluralists also do not take account of possibility that the preferences expressed by the
majority might themselves have been manipulated by those with real power – as
stated in the third face of power by Steven Lukes. Ex: those who control media or the
education system can play a part in shaping individuals‘ attitudes and opinions.
 Westergaard and Resler argue that ‗power is visible only through its consequences‘.
Government legislation, May thus, fail to have its intended effect. Ex: many schemes
for the poor, but little redistribution of wealth have been seen and income inequality is
on the rise.
 Some evidence also suggests that some interest groups have more influence over
government decisions than others. Decision making does not always appear to support
the view that power is equally distributed among all groups in society, or that the state
acts impartially as an ‗honest broker‘.
 Colin Crouch argues that evidence suggests that TNCs have far greater influence on
government than other groups. Also, not all sections of the society are represented by
a group which has any power. Ex: unemployed, refugees, asylum seekers.

Elite Pluralism:

 These theories see the western societies as basically democratic, the government as a
process of compromise and agree that power is widely dispersed.
 However, they do not accept that all members of society have exactly the same
amount of power and they do not focus exclusively on the first face of power. They
see ‗elites‘, the leaders of groups, as the main participants in decision making. They
see the possibility that, at least temporarily, some interests may not be represented.

Critique:

 They raise doubt about the very basic pluralist view that power is widely dispersed in
western societies.

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  While they note the existence of elite leaders, they fail to discuss the possibility that
these elites monopolize power and use it in their own interests. Furthermore, certain
elites may have much greater power than other elites. Also, they do not discuss the
power of some members of society to influence the wishes of others.
 Pluralism and elite pluralism both see healthy democracy as one in which large
number of people are involved in politics, either through participation in political
parties or pressure groups, or through voting. However, declining voter turnout, party
memberships and group participation question this view.

Elite Perspective:

 It sees power in society as being monopolized by a small minority or elite. It sees

society as divided into two main groups: a ruling minority who exercise power
through the state, and ruled.
 Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca saw elite rule as inevitable and dismissed the
possibility of a proletarian revolution leading to the establishment of a communist
society. Neither saw it as desirable that any attempt should be made to end the elite
rule. Both agreed that that basis of elite rule was the superior personal qualities of
those who made up the elites.
 Pareto believed that elites possessed more cunning or intelligence, while Mosca saw
them as having more organizational ability. Apart from the personal qualities of its
members, elite owes its power to its internal organization. It forms a united and
cohesive minority in the face of an unorganized and fragmented mass. In Mosca‘s
words, ―the power of minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the
majority.‖
 The elite take major decisions that affect society, even in so called democracies. Elite
theorists picture the majority as apathetic and unconcerned with major issues of the
day. The mass of the population is largely controlled and manipulated by elite,
passively accepting the propaganda that justifies elite rule.
 Pareto believed that history consisted of one type of elite replacing another, a process
he called the circulation of elites. He identified two types of elite: cunning foxes, and
strong decisive lions. Each type had their weaknesses, meaning the other type would
eventually supersede them.
 Mosca argued that different qualities would create elites in different sorts of society,
but that even democracies would be dominated by elites. He accepted that
democracies were more open than other sorts of society, but believed that
representative democracy still allowed a small group to take control of the reins of
power and rule over the disorganized mass of the population.
 Michels provided support for this by his study of socialist parties in Europe. He found
that all tended to develop dominant elite at the top of their organization even though
all were advocating a socialist ideology that claimed that power should be widely
spread. Michels called this iron law of oligarchy, a tendency for political parties to
become bureaucratic and concentrate power in hands of a few.

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Critique:

 Pareto‘s view of elites has been criticized for placing undue emphasis on
psychological characteristics. Not many accept that elites should necessarily be seen
as superior to other groups in society. Cudworth and McGovern point out that some
theorists, including Weber, have been more optimistic that the electorate can exercise
some control over politicians in a democracy.
 C. Wright Mills presented a less ambitious and less wide – ranging version of elite
theory limited to the American society in the 1950s. Mills did not believe that elite
rule was inevitable; in fact, he saw it as a fairly recent development in the USA.
 Unlike Pareto, who accepted the domination of the masses by elites, Mills roundly
condemned it. Since he saw elite rule as based on the exploitation of the masses, he
adopted a conflict version of elite theory. Because elites and masses had different
interests, this created potential for conflict between two groups.
 Mills explained elite rule in institutional rather than psychological term. He argued
that the structure of institutions was such that those at the top of the institutional
hierarchy largely monopolized power. Certain institutions occupied key pivotal
positions in society and elite comprised those who held command posts in those
institutions. He identified three key institutions:
o The major corporations
o The military
o The federal government
 In practice, however, the interests and activities of the elites were sufficiently similar
and interconnected to form a single ruling majority, which Mills termed the power
elite. Thus, the power elite involved the ‗coincidence of economic, military and
political power‘.
 However, thinks had not always been so. The power elite owed its dominance to a
change in the ‗institutional landscape‘. In the 19th century, economic power was
fragmented among a multitude of small businesses. By the 1950s it was concentrated
in the hands of a few hundred giant corporations which together hold the keys to
economic decision.
 Political power was similarly fragmented and localized state legislatures had
considerable independence. Their authority was now eroded by federal government
and political power became increasingly centralized. Similar centralization happened
in the military organization.
 These developments led to the centralization of decision – making power. The
cohesiveness of the power elite was strengthened by the similar social background of
its members and the interchange and overlapping of personnel among the three elites.
As a result, they tended to share similar values and sympathies, which provided a
basis for mutual trust and cooperation. Also within the power elite, there was frequent
interchange of personnel between the three elites. They have ‗unprecedented power
and unaccountability‘ and dominate the American society.
 In Mills‘ analysis, the bulk of the population was picturized as a passive and quiescent
mass controlled by the power elite that subjected it to ‗instruments of psychic

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 management and manipulation‘. Excluded from the command posts of power, the
‗man in the mass‘ was told what to think, what to feel, what to do and what to hope
for by a mass media directed by the elite. Unconcerned with the major issues of the
day, ‗he‘ was preoccupied with ‗his‘ personal world of work, leisure, family and
neighbourhood. Free from popular control, the power elite pursued its own concerns, -
power and self – aggrandizement.

Marxist perspective:

 Marxist perspectives see power as concentrated in the hands of a minority in society

and are used to further interests of the powerful.
 According to Marx and Engels, power is concentrated in hands of those who have
economic control within a society. The source of power lies in the economic
infrastructure. In all class – divided societies, the MOP are owned and controlled by
ruling class. This provides the basis of its dominance. Hence, the only way to return
power to the people involves communal ownership of the MOP and in a communist
society, power would be more equally distributed.
 They believe that in a capitalist society, ruling – class power is used to exploit and
oppress the subject class. This use of power to exploit others is defined as coercion by
Marx. It is seen as an illegitimate use of power since it forces the subject class to
submit to a situation that is against its interests. If ruling – class power is accepted as
legitimate by the subject class, this is an indication of false class consciousness.
 Also, the relationships of domination and subordination in the infrastructure will
largely be reproduced in the superstructure. The state (as part of the superstructure)
reflects the distribution of power in society. The decisions and activities of the state
will favour the interests of the ruling class rather than those of the population as a
whole.
 Engels believed the state was necessary to ‗hold class antagonisms in check‘. The
exploited majority had to be held down to prevent them from asserting their interests
and threatening the position of the ruling class. The simplest way the state could
control the subject class was through the use of force or coercion, and police, the
prisons and army were seen as state – run institutions used to repress the exploited
members of society. Engels described democracies as the ‗highest form of state‘ as all
members of the society appear to have equal political power, which was just an
illusion.
 Marx and Engels did not believe that the state would be a permanent feature of
society. Also, Engels pointed out that in some monarchies of 17th and 18th century
Europe, the landowning aristocracy and the rising bourgeoisie were in opposition to
each other and both were equally powerful. In this situation, the state could take an
independent line, since the warring classes effectively cancelled each other out.
 Ralph Miliband saw state as being run by number of elites who ran central institutions
such as ministers, police, army and top judges. Together they acted largely to defend
the bourgeoisie. All elites shared basic interest in preservation of capitalism and
defence of private property. Many who occupy elite positions are themselves

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 members of bourgeoisie. The other elites will also tend to come from a similar
background as the bourgeoisie and share a similar outlook and follow policies which
support bourgeoisie interest. Even those from working – class backgrounds who make
it into the elite will have to adopted bourgeoisie values to get there.
 Nicos Poulantzas provided an interpretation which places less stress on action of
individuals and more on role of social structure. This is also known as a structuralist
view of the state. He described the state as ‗the factor of cohesion of a social
formation‘. The state was vital for maintaining the stability of the capitalist system.
As a part of superstructure, it would automatically tend to serve the interests of ruling
class. It was not necessary for members of ruling class to occupy elite positions within
the state. The existence of the capitalist system was itself sufficient to ensure that the
state functioned to benefit the ruling class. Similarly, the background of members of
the state elite was of little importance – it was not their class origin but their class
position which determined their behaviour.
 Poulantzas argued that ruling class did not directly govern, but rather its interests were
served through medium of state. As such, the state was relatively autonomous.
However, since the state was shaped by the infrastructure, it was forced to represent
the interests of capitalists. The state required a certain amount of freedom in order to
serve ruling – class interests. If it was staffed by members of bourgeoisie, it might
lose this freedom of action. This is because:
o As a group, the bourgeoisie is not free from internal divisions and conflicts of
interests, and only an autonomous state can represent common interests and
act on behalf of class as a whole.
o Internal wrangling and disagreement among bourgeoisie might weaken its
power and it might fail to present a united front in conflicts with the
proletariat.
o State must have the freedom to make some concessions to subject class to
defuse any radical protests and to contain their demands within the framework
of a capitalist economy.
o It promotes the myth that the state represents society as a whole.
 Poulantzas divided state into two: repressive apparatus – the army, government,
police, tribunals and administration – which exercises coercive power and the
ideological apparatus – the church, political parties, the unions, schools, the mass
media and the family – which is concerned with the manipulation of values and
beliefs, rather than use of force.

Critique:

 Miliband accused Poulantzas of structural super – determinism. Such a theory, he

believed, could not account for the differences between fascist and ‗democratic‘
states within capitalist systems. Also, this theory was not backed by any empirical
evidence. Miliband expressed scepticism about the claim that institutions such as the
family could be seen as part of state. He also argued that theory of relative autonomy
is impossible to prove to disprove.

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  Gramsci believes that the working class does have some power to influence the
actions of the state.

Evidence to support Marxism:

 The effects of decisions – Westergaard and Resler argued that power can only be
measured by its results. If scarce and valued resources are concentrated in the hands
of minority, that group largely monopolizes power in society.
 Concessions to working class – it has been seen that the reforms have left the basic
structure of inequality unchanged, and there has been little redistribution of wealth.
Measures have only served to defuse working – class protest and prevent it from
developing in more radical direction.
 Non – decision making – John Urry, in criticizing Dahl argues that he ignores the
process by which certain issues come to be defined as decisions and other do not.
Only safe decisions that do not, in any fundamental way, challenge the dominant
position of the bourgeoisie are allowed.
 Ideology – Restergaard and Resler argued that ruling – class ideology promotes the
view that private property, profit, the mechanisms of a market economy and the
inequalities which result are reasonable, legitimate, normal and natural. False class
consciousness among the working class has been produced by this. Policies are
justified using the underlying assumption that the interests of capitalists are the same
as the interests of the population as a whole.

Critique of Marxism:

 It could not explain why the state became stronger rather than wither away in
communist countries. Marxists fail to take account of the possibility that there are
sources of power other than wealth.
 Catherine Mackinnon sees the state as reflecting male power rather than power of
capitalism.
 Anthony H.Birch suggests that Marxist evidence shows only that ‗the perceived need
to maintain economic growth places serious constraints on government policy‘.
However, many see economic growth as important and it is plausible to claim that
most of the population benefit from rising living standards.

Neo – Marxist perspective:

 Antonio Gramsci did not believe that economic infrastructure determined to any great
degree what occurred in the super structure of society. He talked of ‗reciprocity
between structure and superstructure‘, although the infrastructure could affect what
took place in the superstructure, the reverse was also possible.
 He divided the superstructure of society into two parts – political society and civil
society. Political society was primarily concerned with the use of force by army,
police and legal system to repress troublesome elements within the population. Civil
society consisted of those institutions normally thought as private, particularly the

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 church, trade unions, mass media and political parties. Gramsci claimed ‗the state =
political society + civil society‘.
 If the ruling class maintained it control by gaining the approval and consent of
members of society, then it had achieved what Gramsci called hegemony. Here, he
stressed the importance of ideas in society. The ruling class only maintained control to
the extent that they could command the beliefs of population through civil society.
However, the state could remain hegemonic only if it was prepared to compromise
and take account of the demands of exploited classes and for three important reasons,
ruling class hegemony could never be complete:
o Historic blocs – both the ruling class and subject classes are divided internally.
Hence, no group on its own could maintain dominance of society.
o Concessions – state always had to make some concessions to the subject class.
o Dual consciousness – some ideas shared by the masses were derived from the
super structure. However, in part, individuals‘ beliefs were also the product of
their activities and experiences. To some extent, they would be able to see
through the capitalist system and realize that their interests lay in changing it.
 For an overthrow of capitalism, Gramsci stated that ‗intellectuals‘ had to emerge
within the subject classes to mould their ideas and form a new historic bloc of the
exploited, capable of overcoming ruling – class hegemony.
 Louis Althusser gives a functionalist interpretation to the Marxian conception of state.
Although he viewed the state as relatively autonomous of the economic base, for him
the state is fully implicated in logic of capitalism MOP requires state to reproduce its
conditions of existence, there is a reciprocal determination between the economic and
political levels.
 Bob Jessop sees the shift towards increased specialisation as a movement to ‗a
globalizing, knowledge – driven economy‘. He states that the economic system
cannot reproduce and regulate itself without some assistance from non – capitalist
institutions like family. Hence, other parts of society are bound to have some
autonomy from the economy. He believes that the state has operational autonomy and
can even be harmful to capitalism.
 Though he does agree, that with increasing globalization, capitalism manages to
exercise ecological dominance. This means that the influence of the capitalist system
over other parts of society is greater than influence of non – capitalist parts of society
over capitalism. He also sees a shift in state policies away from the Keynesian
Welfare state towards the Schumpeterian Workfare Post – national regime. The role
of state shifts away from direct intervention in the economy to creating the conditions
where innovative businesses can thrive.

State – centred theories:

 Eric A. Nordlinger – the state acts independently or autonomously to change society.

o Type 1 state autonomy – occurs when the state has different wishes from those
of major groups in society and implements its preferred policies despite
pressure for it not to do so.

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 o Type 2 state autonomy – occurs when the state is able to persuade opponents
of its policies to change their minds and support the government.
o Type 3 state autonomy – occurs when the state follows policies that are
supported or at least not opposed, by the public or powerful interest groups in
society.
 Theda Skocpol is a strong supporter of what she calls ‗bringing the state back in‘. she
believes that states have considerable autonomy and potential capacity to achieve
their policy goals. These goals are not simply reflective of the demands or interests of
the society or social groups. States can have their own goals and pursue their own
interest, like increasing their own power. The capacity to do so depends on sovereign
territorial integrity, a stable and reliable source of income, low debt, wider tax base,
defence prowess and ability to recruit many of most able and highly educated
members of society into their organizations. A state which undermines its own power
and reduces these capacities is prone to revolution. Ex: France in 1788, China in 1911
and Russia in 1917.
 Michael Foucault distinguishes between the character of modern and classical power.
Disciplinary power as the modern form of domination stands out in sharp contrast
with sovereign power as pre – modern domination. While in the disciplinary model
there is contrasting constitution of actors, the sovereignty model is based on the
givenness of the actors involved.
 His works analyse the link between power and knowledge. It is not possible for power
to be exercised without knowledge. It is impossible for knowledge not to endanger
power. Power, is not to be considered as opposite to reason; but on contrary as
necessary condition for the construction of knowledge. He strongly believes that
power is not possessed but exercised. ‗Power is contextual in nature‘, he states.
 Quite interestingly, he sees power being exercised only when people have some
freedom. People never allow total control and constantly produce resistance and
evasions as people often try to get away from the grasp.
 De Maistre also says that who holds power depends on the context.
 Anthony Giddens sees power as a relationship of dependency and domination. He
distinguishes between powers in the broad sense in the narrow sense. While in the
broad sense, the person has the transformative capacity to directly impact the
consequences, whereas in the narrow sense, the person has capacity to influence the
outcome that essentially depends upon others. In the second case the thrust is on
domination.
 Anarchists condemn the state power and they believe that state and all forms of
political authority are both evil and unnecessary. They view the state as concentrated
form of oppression; it reflects nothing more than the desire of those in power often
loosely referred to as a ruling class, to subordinate others for their own benefits.

Sources of Power:

 Mann (1986) would identify 4 sources of power – ideological, economic, military and
political.

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  Galbraith (1984) classifies 3 sources of power – personality, property and
organisation
 Gerth and Mills: the obedience may rest upon fear, rational calculations of advantage,
lack of energy to do otherwise, loyalty or any other reason.
 Robert Michel and Vilfred Pareto – inherent
 Marx: In economic structure
 Weber: class, status group and party all are sources of power
 Parsons: Value consensus and common goal achievement
 Pluralists like Dahl – everywhere
 Antonio Gramsci – in modern societies bourgeoisie had established hegemony,
ideological leadership domination. Sources of power may be illegal too.
 Others: number, skills and abilities, media, resources, organisations, etc.

Instruments of power:

 Coercive – wins acceptance by threatening, intimidating or inflicting on others with

dire consequences.
 Compensatory – offers the individual a reward or payment sufficiently advantageous
or agreeable so that he (or she) forgoes pursuit of his own preferences to seek the
reward instead.
 Conditioned – this kind of power is achieved by changing the attitude and belief of
the individual or group. Most crucial and pervasive kind of power to the functioning
of modern society.
 Tumin – political affairs, institutional patterning, ensuring life chance and personal
relations.
 CW Mills – segmented elites (Hollywood, Bureaucracy, Church, etc) and system
elites (military, politics and economics)
 Floyd Hunter – study in Atlanta – 50% people said business class is the elite in USA.
 Max Weber – 4 types (social action)
o Zweckrational action or rational action in relation to a goal.
o Wertrational action or rational action in relation to a value.
o Affective action
o Traditional action
 Pierre Bourdieu – 3 controlling classes exist – persons with economic,
capital/symbolic capital, cultural capital.
 Michael Foucault – knowledge is the source of power in the world today – post –
modernist.

Previous Years Questions:

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Unit No: 7

Unit Name: Politics and Society

Chapter: (b) Power elite, bureaucracy, pressure groups and political parties

Power elite:

Introduction:

 C.W.Mills was a sociologist – believed knowledge crucial element of social change –

hugely influential, radical social theorist.
 Known for critiquing academia for its role in reproducing power structures of
domination and repression and even his own discipline for producing sociologists
focused on observation and analysis for its own sake rather than those who strived to
make their work publicly engaged and politically viable.

Brief:

 Best known book ‗The Sociological Imagination, published 1959 – mainstay of

introduction t sociology classes for its clear and compelling articulation of what it
means to see work and think as sociologist –most political important work, increasing
relevance in his 1956 book, the power elite.
 Presented his theory of power and domination for mid-20th century US society; in
wake of cold , WW2 took critical view on rise of bureaucratization, technological
rational and centralization of power; was a social conflict theorist who argued few
individuals within political, military and corporate realms actually held power within
US and decisions made by them resounded lives of Americans.
 Ex: hierarchy of power triangle – (top – executive branch, military and corporate
leaders); middle – interest groups leaders, legislators and local political leaders;
bottom – common masses).
 Argued social force of power elite wasn‘t limited to their decisions and actions within
their roles as politicians and corporate throughout and shaped all institutions in
society; wrote ‗families and churches and schools adapt to modern life; governments
and armies and corporations shape it; and as they do so, they turn lesser institutions
into means for their ends‖.
 What he meant was that by creating conditions of our lives, power elite dictate what
happens in society and other institutions, like family, religion, etc. we have to arrange
accordingly to these conditions.
 Within this view, mass media, which was new phenomenon when Mills wrote in
1950s TV did not become common until after WW2 – plays role of broadcasting the
worldview and values of power elite and in doing so, shrouds them and their power in
false legitimacy.
 Similar to other critical theorists of his day, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and
Herbert Marcuse, Mills believed that power elite had turned the populace into an a

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 political and passive ‗mass society‘, in large part by orienting it toward a consumer
lifestyle that kept it busy with the work spend cycle.
 Wrote the power elite, identifying certain individuals as the ‗national upper class‘ that
own most of the country‘s wealth, run its banks and corporations, are in control of the
universities and mass media and staff some of the highest ranking positions within
government and courts.
 Many power elite theorists argue that there is no such thing as true democracy
because these few individuals have so much power that wishes of average people
aren‘t heard.
 These theorists believe that those at the top are so distant from the average person and
that they are so powerful that there aren‘t any true competitions from them. Thus, they
usually tend to get what they want.

Criticism:

 In democratic American society, theory of power elites seems to be an exaggeration

of influence of power elites; in a developed, aware America democracy, it is not easy
job for authority to do anything against wishes of democracy.
 How C.W.Mills can say that bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not decision of
Americans? If this decision was against wish of common American people then how
that political party got landslide victory in the next general elections.
 In America as Tocqueville said there is no moral right of any individual to rule as it is
free for all and even the common can reach to top post of America. Abraham Lincoln,
Obama, Bobby Jindal are some examples which prove that American society is not
ruled by the elites.
 It seems C.W.Mills got confused with power elites and pressure groups. Elites may
influence the government but they cannot role in democracy because it is based on
taking care of wishes of majority.

Bureaucracy:

Introduction:

 Bureaucracy – organization of non – elected officials of government or organization

who implement rules, laws and functions of institution.
 Bureaucrat – member of bureaucracy and can comprise admin of any organisation of
any size – historically called desk jobs nut modern days they are found in field as well
as in office.
 Public administration – implementation of government policy and an academic
discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this
work.
 Red tape – excessive regulation to formal rules is considered redundant or
bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision – making; usually applied to
governments, corporations and other large organizations; usually includes filling out
paperwork, obtaining licenses, having multiple people or committees approve a

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 decision and various low – level rules that make conducting one‘s affair slower, more
difficult or both; can also include filing and certification requirements, reporting,
investigation, inspection and enforcement practices and procedures.
 The cutting of red tape is a popular electoral and policy promise. In US, number
committees have discussed and debated Red Tape Reduction Acts.

Weberian perspective:

 In his master piece, Economy and Society, Weber described many ideal types of
public administration and governance; critical study of bureaucratization of society
was one of most enduring parts of this work.
 It was Weber who began studies of bureaucracy and whose work to led to
popularization of term; many aspects of modern public administration date back to
him. This is epitomized in the fact that a classic, hierarchically – organized civil
service is still called Weberian civil service.
 Listed following preconditions for emergence of bureaucracy:
o Growth in size and density of population being administered
o The growth in complexity of administrative tasks being carried out and
existence of a monetary economy requiring a more efficient administrative
system.
 As a result of development of technology, a more efficient administration became not
only possible but demanded by the public.
 Accompanying this shift was an increasing democratization and rationalization of
culture. This resulted in public demands for new administrative system that treated all
humans equally.

Weber‟s ideal bureaucracy is characterized by following:

 Hierarchical organization
 Delineated lines of authority with fixed areas of activity
 Action taken o basis of and recorded in written rules
 Bureaucratic officials with expert training
 Rules implemented by neutral officials
 Career advancement by depending on technical qualifications judged by organization,
not individuals.

Marxian perspective:

 According to Weber, bureaucracy is a defining feature of an industrial society,

irrespective of whether it is capitalistic or socialistic. The question as to who owns
MOP is not relevant.
 Marx, look bureaucracy as essential feature of capitalist society; small minority owns
FOP; bureaucracy is tool in hands of this small minority to serve interest of ruling
group.
 Socialist society – FOP are communally owned, can dispense with bureaucracy in
form in which it prevails in a capitalist society. Lenin believed that after dictatorship

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 of proletariat was established in USSR in 1917, there would be a steady decline in
state bureaucracy.
 Conscious of fact that some form bureaucracy was essential but wanted to be
remodelled on lines suggested by Marx and Engels.
o Administrators would be directly appointed and subject to recall at any time.
o Salaries of administrators would be at par with that of an ordinary worker.
o Simplify work to a point where basic literacy and numeracy were sufficient for
their performance.
 Lenin – visualized state of affairs in which there might be mass participation in
administration, since all would necessary skills to participate in administrative
process.
 Solution to eliminate technical hurdles – tasks should be simplified.
 Marx, Engels or Lenin didn‘t give a detailed blue – print of how this system would
work, how democratization of bureaucracy would actually take place.
 It is to be noted that Russian Revolution 1917 was not followed by dismantling of
bureaucratic structure instead there was expansion of bureaucracy.

Conclusion:

 Weber – focused too much on formal structures in organization.

 Peter Blau – study of Federal Law enforcing hierarchies also in bureaucracy to deal
with unforeseen issues.
 Merton – ‗social theory and social structure, 1957‘ says bureaucracy leads to
dysfunctional aspects also as excessive focus on means leads to rigidity and goal
displacement.
 Alvin Gouldner – ‗patterns of industrial bureaucracy, 1954‘ mentions his study of
gypsum plant in USA and contends that bureaucracy exists in varying degree in
different organizations.

Previous Years Questions:

Pressure Groups:

Introduction:

 Concept of pressure groups got its ground from pluralistic theory of power which
emphasize on dispersal of power. It is hallmark of an open society.
 It is defined as voluntary organization meant to voice its own interest or those who
are outside political circumference. In other words, a pressure group is an organized
group of people that aims to influence public opinion or policies/actions of the
government. It acts as a channel of communication between the people and
government.

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Thinker‟s perspective:

 Almond and Coleman – divided pressure groups into 4 types:

o Anomic pressure group: it rests on violation of law to make its demand heard
like ULFA.
o Identity focused group: promotes parochial interest like caste group.
o Institutional pressure group: present in recognized institutions with well-
established reputations like university teachers associations.
o Associational pressure group: association of members of group having same
features in common like bar association.
 Maurice Duverger classified pressure groups into:
o Protective groups – defend interests of a particular section of society.
Membership is usually limited to individuals of a particular section only. Ex:
trade unions, MCI.
o Promotion groups – support a particular cause rather than guarding interests of
a particular social group. Membership is potentially larger and usually more
varied than that of protective groups, since joining requires only commitment
to cause. Ex: PETA.
 Why Grant who supports an elite pluralist position claims:
o Number of pressure groups has greatly expanded and very few interests can
now claim to be unrepresented.
o They now try to influence ‗multiple arenas‘. Ex: UN, EU.
o Some pressure groups try to influence people‘s activities directly rather than
trying to get the government to act.
o There is an increased use of direct action as it helps gain publicity.
o There is an increase in number of pressure groups consulted by government.
 However, it remains true that some groups have greater influence than others.
 According to Giddens, pressure groups are the carriers of democracy. With increased
industrialization, DOL also increased, and thus emerged various sections, with
specialized interests. However, modern democracy demands harmonization of
interests, due to which minority or sectional interest may tend to get ignored. Pressure
groups represent these interests. Their presence shows the existence of pluralism,
making power dispersed and decentralized in political system.
 Samuel Finer characterized them as anonymous empires. For Lambert these are the
unofficial government, which implies that no government can run without taking them
into consideration.
 According to Functionalists, such groups play a constructive role in decision making.
They prepare ground for orderly political participation.
 Conflict theorists argued that although a few organizations work on behalf of poor
and disadvantaged, most of pressure groups represent the vested interests of business
leaders, the lobbies of MNCs, rich professionals and political leaders. They further
assert these powerful lobbies discourage political participation by individual citizens.
Marxists especially these liberal democratic governments disproportionately favour
the interests of well – funded, well organized, pro – capitalist groups.

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  The existence of rival pressure groups, for example supporting or opposing the
increased use of nuclear power, liberalization of abortion regulations or war in Iraq to
ensure both of these controversial issues can be fully debated.
 Richard Heffernan raises possibility that pressure groups activity might reduce itself
to political participation in long term. The failure to get demands accepted can lead to
disappointment, which may in turn increase political disengagement.
 Thomas R. Dye – modern urban institutional societies spawn a multitude of diverse
interest groups. The resulting multiplicity and diversity reduces the likelihood that any
single interest group can determine policy working in all fields.
 Merton – ritualistic bureaucracy – follow means but do not achieve goals – this
spawns public anger and dissatisfaction – spurs rise of pressure groups and civil
society.
 Noam Chomsky – the worst form of autocracy is US democracy.

Types of pressure groups:

 Interest group – based on purpose of group; reflects nature of group‘s goals, the kinds
of people who belong to it and their motivation for joining; sometimes called
sectional, protective groups) that represents particular section of society: workers,
employers, consumers. Features – concerned to protect or advance interests of their
members; membership is limited to particular position. Ex: FICCI, CII, AITUC.
 Cause group – sometimes called promotional, attitude or issue groups based on shared
attitudes or values , rather than the common interests of its members; seek advance
are many and various; range from charity activities, poverty reduction, education and
the environment to human rights, transparency in governance etc. Features – seek to
advice particular ideas or principles; membership opens to all. Ex: Mazdoor Kisan
Shakti Sangatha (seeks to promote transparency in governance by creating pressure
for introduction of RTI to citizens), PETA
 Insiders group – consulted by government on regular basis; operate inside decision
making process; have better chances for creating impact on how policy shapes up as
they are consulted at various stages of policy formulation. Ex: National Advisory
council, CII.
 Outsider groups – not so closely involved with decision makers; kept or chose to
remain at arm‘s length from government; try to exert influence indirectly via mass
media or through public opinion campaigns or mass media. Ex: association for
democratic reforms (ADR) which has been pushing for reforms in way
representatives are elected by citizens of India.
 Local, national and international groups – local group seek to influence local council
decision; national trade groups sometimes are involving in negotiations affecting
wages or working conditions in one particular firm. Political institutions of EU and
MNCs; business pressure groups and large environmental pressure groups may
similarly involve at various times in negotiations at local, national and international.
 Primary pressure groups and secondary pressure groups – although political analysts
are concerned mainly with capacities of pressure groups to exert political influence

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 and with methods by which they attempt to do so. Primary pressure groups are
organisations which involve themselves in political activities designed to influence
public policy whereas secondary pressure groups engage mainly in non – political
activity and involve themselves in actual processes only. Ex: primary pressure groups
– electoral reform society, India against corruption whereas churches and many
charities would be seen as mainly secondary pressure groups.
 Sectional or protective groups – aim to protect interests of their members Ex: trade
union seek to increase living standards of their members, while CII aims to influence
government to adopt policies such as reduction in business taxation or increased
governments grants to industry. Ex: Trade unions, Indian Medical association
 Existence of pressure groups in society is validation of pluralistic Elite theory given
by Robert Dahl, Hunter and others and pressure groups act as multiple power centres
in modern liberal democracies.

Role/Functions of Pressure groups:

 Representation
 Political participation
 Education
 Policy formulation
 Policy implementation

How Pressure groups exert influence?

 Ministers and civil servants

 Parliament
 Political parties
 Public opinion
 Direct action

Rise of pressure groups:

 The growth of cause groups (reasons)

o Increased leisure time
o Higher educational standards
o Changes in gender roles
o Membership of political parties
 The widening of access points through
 Globalization

Decline of pressure groups:

 Based on two developments:

o The end of corporatism. For some, the high point of pressure group influence
came in 1970s. This was called tripartite government or corporatism.
Economy policy was therefore developed through a routine consultation and

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 group bargaining. However, corporatism was dismantled in the 1980s and it
has never been re – established.
o A decline in meaningful and active participation. An alternative explanation of
the decline of pressure groups challenges the idea that recent years have
witnessed an upsurge in group activity. This suggests that while group
membership may have increased, these members have become increasingly
passive.
 Pressure groups and democracy: promotes democracy in number of ways.
 Supplementing electoral democracy: either supplement electoral democracy or they
may have replaced political parties as the main way in which people express their
views and interests:
o Pressure groups keep government in touch with public opinions between
elections.
o Pressure groups give a political voice to minority groups.
o Participation
o Education
o Benefits of competition

How do pressure groups threaten democracy?

 Political inequality
 Non – legitimate power
 ‗behind the scenes‘ influence
 Tyranny of minority

Limitations:

 Though they represent the interests of certain groups, this sometimes make
representative democracy biased in favour of some sections at expense of interests of
other deprived sections.
 Unlike pressure groups of West which are invariably organized to safeguard
economic, social, cultural interests etc, in India, these groups are organized around
religious, regional, caste and ethnic issues.
 Further, lack of resources makes such efforts sporadic and short lived.

Conclusion:

 It is not logical conclusion that political parties have lost their representative character
policy process and now groping in to win support of interest groups. They are still the
most accepted, widely dispersed and territorially represented structures of democracy
which continue to be in advantageous position as frontline representatives of people.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Distinguish between political parties and pressure groups. (2014) (10 marks)
2. Examine role of pressure groups in parliamentary democracy. (2013) (10 marks)

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Political Parties:

 A political party is a team of men seeking to control the governing apparatus by

gaining office in a duly constituted election.
 Weber – political party as ‗an organized structure which promotes candidates, contest
elections for aim of capturing power‘.
 According to Robert Dahl in his ‗Who Governs?, 1961, political parties act as linkage
between government and people and provide a platform for interest articulation and a
conduit for pressure groups.
 Parties not only strive to participation in formation of political opinion but also aspire
to participate in representation of people in parliament.
 Political parties are also defined in terms of ‗serving interests‘.
 Some like Dye and Zeigler term the political parties and election process as means to
divert attention of masses and pacify them. ‗they are for creation of excitement similar
to Roman circuses to divert the attention of masses from true nature of elite rule.
Elections create false illusions that power rests with majority by creating a false
impression of representation.

Why PPs are needed?

 A group of people to constitute a political party must be organized for a political

purpose.
 There should be similarity of principles helping to unite people.
 The political parties should have main aim of attaining political power.
 The parties should use peaceful and legitimate means for attaining political power.
 It becomes necessary for a political party to its main principles in public and make
equally known to the electorates its plans, programs and the course of action which it
is going to follow.
 Political parties are expected to protect and promote the national interests.

Main Functions:

 Have task of propagating their ideas, policies and programs.

 Is to contest and win elections.
 PPs usually follow four main ways for attaining success in their attempt at obtaining
political power.
 Strengthens its organization by holding regular meetings, rallies, training camps,
orientation courses for workers, etc.
 Tries its level best to increase its membership.
 Encourage the electorate and supporters through speeches, programs and other means.
 Also impart political education to the voters.

Multiparty system:

 Multiparty system refers to a political system in which more than two political parties
are functioning.

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Advantages of Multiparty system:

 Provides an opportunity for all shades of opinion to be reflected in legislative house.

 Does not make parliament to become a puppet in hands of cabinet.
 Provides little or no opportunity for the cabinet to become dictatorial in its attitude
and functioning.

Disadvantages of Multiparty system:

 Leads to establishment coalition government; it remains very weak and ineffective.

 Position of PM in a coalition government is very weak.
 Governments are subject to frequent changes, it is difficult to maintain the continuity
in policies. Further indefiniteness characteristics the governmental policies.
 There is a lack of administrative efficiency, because the governments change very
often.
 Encourages political defections and trading in votes. Hence it undermines the political
morality.

Political Parties in India:

Parties at independence:

 Congress (Centrist), Communist (leftist) and Swatantra (rightist); they are all national
parties and issues they catered to were all national issues.

Period of one – party dominance:

 Congress dominated since independence till 1970s. what was reason such high
popularity? It is said it maintained an ‗umbrella character‘ (Ali Ashraf, 1995).
 Tried to build consensus and in process, accommodated various shades of opinions
and interests.
 First non – congress national government came in late in 1970s.

Rise of identity based parties:

 In 60s many regional and sectional interests‘ parties came up led up by pragmatic and
opportunistic leaders.
 A patron – client relationship existed between political parties and sections (caste,
religion, ethnic - identity, region).

Present scenario:

In midst of numerous regional parties with identity political ideologies, we can

recognize three major national parties today:

INC, with a centrist orientation; CPI and CPI(M) with leftist orientation; BJP with a
rightist orientation

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  INC no longer dominates whole gamut of political space; its social base in Hindi
heartland is on decline
 Its ideology is moderate and has some degree of ambiguity which has been strength in
some ways since it draws support from most diverse social groups. Hence, Sudipta
Kaviraj coins name ‗pluralistic nationalism for congress ideology.
 Communist parties have mostly concentrated on working class for political support –
most energetic in building trade union movements; around this core or working class
support, they seek support from other rural and non – proletarian groups; success
limited to only few areas, mostly because working class in India is not cohesive
group.
 Major trade unions of India are ranked as under as per their membership:
o Bharatiya Majdoor Sabha (BMS) affiliated to RSS
o INTUC affiliated to congress
o Hindustan Majdoor singh
o CITU affiliated to CPM
 According to Sudipta Kaviraj, fortunes of BJP are one of most perplexing problems of
modern Indian politics.
 The heterogeneity of Hindu literature and philosophy negates use of fundamental
ideals to mobilise masses.
 BJP draws support from its hostility towards Muslims as a community.
 When it couldn‘t form majority government in centre it mutated Vajpayerian partners
to accommodate coalition partners with varied ideologies to form government; BJP
tried to widen its social base to other groups/particularly urban middle class.
 This has resulted for BJP and in 2014 election under charismatic leadership of Modi
BJP was able to form government with full majority.
 This is first non – congress political party since independence to form government
with full majority, without dependence on any other political party.

Dysfunction of political parties in third world (developing) countries:

 Lack internal democracy, thereby deceiving the very purpose of its creation and
making individual patronage above ideals and principles.
 Prominence of dynastic rule in political parties. As a result the functioning of parties
becomes ascriptive and prescriptive.
 Muscle and money power is criteria during election in third world countries as
altogether marred very purpose of its creation.
 No clear cut ideologies difference between various parties, thereby restricting choice
of public.

Thinkers:

 Anthony Downs – ―A political party is a team of men seeking to control governing

apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election‖.
 Giovanni Sartori – ―any political group identified by an official label that presents at
elections and is capable of placing through election, candidates for public office‖.

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 From classical pluralist perspective, competition between two or more political parties
is an essential feature of representative government.
 Lipset argued that, for efficient government, competition between contenders for
office must result in the granting of ‗effective authority to one group‘ and the
presence of an ‗effective opposition‘ in the granting of ‗effective authority to one
group‘ and the presence of an ‗effective opposition‘ in the legislature as a check on
power of governing party.
 Pluralists claim that political parties in democratic societies are representative for the
following reasons:
o The public directly influences party policy, since, in order to be elected to
govern, parties must reflect wishes and interests of electorate in their
programmes.
o If existing parties do not sufficiently represent sections of society, a new party
will emerge.
o Parties are accountable to electorate, since they will not regain power if they
disregard the opinions and interests of public.
o Parties cannot simply represent a sectional interest since, to be elected to
power, they require the support of various interests in society.
 Robert Mckenzie stated that political parties must not be seen as sole ‗transmission
belts‘ on which political ideas and programmes are conveyed from citizens to
legislature and executive. Policies are moulded and adapted due to various other
factors as well.
 Shifting values, individualization, event society and fragmentation of interests are
some social phenomena that are directly reflected on attitude of citizens towards
political parties. Where social relationships become lost, the commitment with
political parties also gets weaker.
 Change in mass media and way of reporting, growing competition for attention and
audience, as well as extension of ‗investigative‘ journalism have led to new form of
reporting about politics, in which ideas, values and results are less important than
emotionalization, moralization, scandalization and personalization in form
infotainment.
 Jean Jacques Rousseau had created vision that in theory denies legitimacy of conflicts
and defines democracy as identity of government and citizens. This concept does not
accept plurality of parties. They are not regarded as legitimate as they would
inevitable falsify the common will by their particular behaviour. Deviations from the
imposed and mandated common good are not tolerated by this theory.
 Lesler Milbrath – 4 types of political participation in political system – political
apathetic, political spectators, transitional activists, gladiators (with contest elections).
 La Palombara and Myron Weiner, political parties come into being when 2 conditions
exist:
o Attitude if citizens that they have right to influence power.
o Group of elite who want to acquire power through public support.

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Political Socialization:

 Political Socialization can be defined as a process of socializing in political system

through information on political symbols, institutions and procedures and
internalizing value system and ideology supporting system.
 Also process of acquisition of political culture.
 This process works at individual as well as at community level through cultural
transmission. It is one of most important functions of the political system. It is also
part of general socialization which starts at later life.
 2 important components are:
o Inculcation of general values and norms regarding political behaviour and
political matters
o The induction of an individual or some people into a particular party and
learning its ideology and action programmes.
o The role played by mass media is equally important in educating masses and
clearing their views for making informed decisions regarding political affairs.
It plays a very crucial role during elections.
 Paul Hirst has studied interest groups as a symptom of associationalist ethics and
based upon distrust of centralised state for 2 reasons, that state is a compulsory
community although most genuine communities are freely formed, second; it made
omnipotent claims to regulate social life.

Kinds of political parties:

 Cartel party – high stature, less number

 Branch type – mass parties, recruit as many as possible
 Cell type – work in clandestine manner. Ex: Stalin‘s party
 Militia – fascist, strict disciplined, army type

Political modernization:

 It is transformation of political culture is response to changes in social and physical

environment.
 According to Hunington political modernization is a multifaceted process involving
change in all areas of human thought and activity.
 Benjamin Schwartz views political modernization as systematic, sustained and
powerful application of human energies to control man‘s social and physical
environment.
 Claude Welch describes political modernization as process based on rational
utilization of resources and aimed at establishment of modern society.
 The process of modernization of polity leads to emergence of some crucial problems
and challenges faced by political system. It is rooted in changing sources of
legitimation of authority.

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Conclusion:

 Despite all weaknesses of parties and in spite of all challenges, one thing remains
certain:
o Without parties, democracy cannot function.
o In democracy, parties are still most important connecting link between state
and society.
o But indeed they have to adapt to social changes to make sure they are not
swallowed by them.
o Parties carry out a political leadership role that a modern democracy cannot do
without.
o Especially in times of change this political leadership must be responsible and
visible for citizens and connected to interests and demands of citizens.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Distinguish between Political Parties and Pressure Groups. (2014) (10 marks)

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Unit No: 7

Unit Name: Politics and Society

Chapter: (c) Nation, State, Citizenship, Democracy, Civil society, Ideology

Nation, Nationality, State and Nationalism:

 A nation is a nationality which has organized itself into political body either
independent or desiring to be independent; state is territorially organized people.
 Nation is group of people who feel their uniqueness and oneness which are keen to
maintain; if this group of people happen to organise themselves on a particular
territory and desire independence or are independent they form a national state.

Brief:

 Defined as group of people cohesively attached belonging to one race, language,

religion, culture, geographical location and have similar political ambitions and
uniform historical development; definition connotes a narrow meaning, which when
applied to state as a whole eventually create many bad consequences.
 Ex: emergence of many conflicting and separatist activities and related demands,
subsequently state faces many serious problems. Ex: In India, demands of Khalistan,
Kashmir, NE states, etc.
 Thus, the UNO is a union of sovereign states and not of nations. A state may consist
of one nation or more. Similarly, a nation may be split across two or more states.
 Some factors responsible for emergence of nation are – race and kinship, common
religion, common history or tradition, common economic ties. Integration helps state
overcome differences between nations, and in this context, India‘s Unity in Diversity
and America‘s melting pot are best examples.

Thinkers:

 Tagore – I am not against this nation or that nation, but the idea of nation itself.
 Weber – unprecedented fusion of culture and politics in modern world offers main
clue to understanding nation; its differences specific as a social group lies in striving
for territorial political power on basis of shared culture; this symbiosis of culture and
power nation – state resulted in twofold dependency: if state‘s legitimacy increasingly
depended on national appeals in age of mass politics, the nation needed state for
protection of its unique culture.

Conclusion:

 Nation – product of modernization. Idea of nation & ideology of nationalism are seen
as integrative responses to community dissolving effect of industrial capitalism. So
they are by products of industrial capitalism. National fulfils structural requirements
of industrial capitalism & ideology fulfils interest of bourgeoisie.

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  Feudal societies are based on subsistence production. But capitalism requires market
for their products, so, wider markets with common currency, common laws are
required. All this needs to be an organized under single state. Nationalism is a product
of capitalism.

Introduction: (State):

 State refers to a centralized political authority. It is an entire body of institutions

associated with political authority, political executive, civil service, military and
judiciary etc. social order.
 It can otherwise be said that when a group of people are permanently settled on
definite territory and have government of their own, free from any kind of external
control, they constitute a state and it has sovereign power upon its people.
 In modern society, viewing nation and state separately would keep on creating
anomalies. This realization led to thinkers and planners to integrate the two to
understand the real meaning of these two concepts. In this, was the concept that
developed, would understand state in reference to nation and nation in reference to
state as nation – state.
 A nation is a nationality which has organized itself into a political body either
independent or desiring to be independent. The state is territorially organized people.
Nation is a group of people who feel their uniqueness and oneness which they are
keen to maintain. If this group of people happen to organize themselves on a
particular territory and desire independence or are independent, they form a nation –
state.
o Nationality is subjective, statehood is objective
o Nationality is psychological, statehood is political
o Nationality is a condition of mind whereas statehood is a condition of law
o Nationality is a spiritual possession whereas statehood is an enforceable
obligation
o Sovereignty is emphasized as an essential element of state but not of nation.

Thinkers:

 Aristotle defined it as a union of families and villages, for its end, a perfect and self –
sufficing life.
 Greek philosophers have viewed state as a natural and necessary institution coming
out of needs of human beings as a political animal.
 Weber in ‗Politics as a Vocation‘ defined state as human community that successfully
claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.
Thus, state can be said to consist of government or legislature which passes laws, the
bureaucracy or civil service which implements governmental decisions, the police, the
police who are responsible for law enforcement, and the armed forces whose job is to
protect state from external threats.
 Marx says the state is a part of superstructure, controlled by those who own MOP;
believed state to be sort of conspiracy against working class, as wealth of bourgeoisie

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 could be used to ensure that whoever is in power pursues their interests. When the
classless society is established and there is no suppressive function for state, it would
be required only to perform the economic functions and hence, state would wither
away. He calls state a ‗committee managing the affairs of the bourgeoisies‘.
 Durkheim in ―profession ethics and civic morals‘, traced the development of the state
to the DOL in society. As societies became more complex, there occurred the
distinction between governing and governed, which in turn resulted in formation of
state. For him, the function of state was to meditate between different interests and in
particular to protect individual against power of smaller groups. That is how state
protects individuals and balances group interests.
 Hobbes and Locke argued that society had risen out of voluntary agreement, or social
contract, and state is a neutral arbiter amongst competing groups and thus represents
common good. Pluralists believe that state is an honest broker between different
conflicting groups.
 Stateless ‗simple‘ societies are called acephalous or headless societies. EE Evans –
Pritchard described the Nuer society in Africa as headless. It consists 40 separate
tribes, none of which had a head or chief.
 According to MacIver, the state is an association, which acting through law as
promulgated by government, endowed to this end with coercive power, maintains
within a community territorially demarcated universal external conditions of social
order.
 Das and Chaudhary – when a group of people are permanently settled on a definite
territory and have government of their own, free from any kind of external control ,
they constitute a state.
 Georgina Blakeley and Michael Saward say that ‗the state is among other things, an
institutional order that aims to prevent social chaos and make social order‘. It is an
idea based on shared expectations about ordering of social life, a set of organizations,
and a set of practices.
 Gramsci described the state as entire complex of practical and theoretical activities
with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but
manages to maintain the active consent of those over whom it rules. He talked of
reciprocity between structure and super structure.
 Pulantzas says state is relatively autonomous of the bourgeoisie. This helps convince
masses of state‘s impartiality and says that state represents proletariat‘s interests too.
 Harold Laski defined state as – ‗a way of organizing collective life of a society. When
society and there associations and institutes are integrated into a one single unit, it is
termed as state. While nation is an emotional manifestation of a society, state is result
of desire for political unity.
 Romantic view – Amartya Sen – state is a welfare centric which looks after the
welfare needs of every individual.

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The Growth of Nation State – Competition and Conflict theory:

 Nation state was born of competition and conflict. The 100 years‘ war gave rise to 2
rival groups across English Channel each feeling a consciousness of kind – the
English and the French.
 The War of Roses gave rise to a united English nation under the Tudor dictatorship.
 Rivalry in discovery and piracy on high seas cemented national solidarity among
participants – the English, the French, the Portuguese and the Spaniards.
 The American nation was born of conflict.
 Liberty, equality and fraternity of French revolution overran most of Europe and
thereby sowed seeds of national consciousness among the defeated countries.
 The German nation was born of conflict of war with France.
 The Italian nation under Mazzini and Garibaldi came into being as resurgent
movement in protest against Austrian domination.

Citizens cannot fulfil all their needs themselves and depend upon state for at least two
basic functions:

 Collective welfare of community as a whole.

 Maintenance of law and order

State can be classified into three different types:

 Liberal democratic state: these kinds of states have constitutional limitations.

 Totalitarian state: it is highly interventionist state. There is no limit on state power.
State can regulate every aspect of life. Mao in China prescribed of wearing a common
Oliver green dress in whole of china.
 Welfare state: moderately interventionist state which tries to ensure equality to all.
 Development state: here state is interventionist where it is primarily concerned with
development.

Modern nation – states have 3 major characteristics:

 Sovereignty – refers to undisputed rule of state over a given territorial area. Today,
boundaries of states of states are clearly defined in most of cases and state exercises
unquestionable sovereignty over these. This was not case earlier when boundaries
were vague.
 Citizenship – people are given uniform rights for being part of single entity and they
also reciprocate by affirming their loyalties to it.
 Nationalism – individuals also take pride in being part of a national unit.

There can be different types of nations without state:

 When nation state may accept the cultural differences found among its minority or
minorities and allow them a certain amount of active development. These areas have
separate parliament and educational system, but still greater power remains with
larger nation state.

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  In some cases, nation state may allow for a higher degree of autonomy. In Quebec in
Canada, regional political parties have power to take major decisions without actually
being fully dependent.
 There are some other nations without states which completely lack recognition from
larger nation state. In such cases, larger nation state uses force or propaganda in order
to deny recognition to minority. Palestine, Tibet and Kurds in Iraq and Syria are such
examples.

State in modern societies can be described in terms of:

 Ideology – it may be defined as an integrated system of beliefs and symbols which

have an appeal to followers being their rational and objective meaning. It has power
to sway the sentiments of followers. It is accepted as an article of faith. Communism,
religious fundamentalism, ethnicism are some examples of political ideologies of
states.
 Structure – traditional monarchies, totalitarian oligarchies, modernizing oligarchies,
tutelary democracies and political democracies.
 Function – input function: political socialization and recruitment, interest articulation,
interest aggregation, political communication; output functions: rule making, rule
application, rule adjudication
 Political processes
 Basis of legitimacy – according to Weber there are three ways of legitimizing
authority – traditional, charismatic and legal – rational ways in modern states, but we
still do see coups.

Globalization and power of nation – state:

 In ‗The Globalization of World Politics‘, John Baylies and Steve Smith identify a
number a ways in which globalization has led to new era in politics.
o Economic transformation is so fast that it has created a new world politics.
o Electronic communications like internet encourage cross state boundaries.
o Global culture, which is reducing the importance of national culture.
o Homogenization of people and cosmopolitan culture
o Time and space are collapsing
o An emergence of global polity due to transnational social movements, groups
and bodies
o Risk culture
 However they also point out that:
o Globalization is not a new phenomenon
o It has affected rich western societies more than poorer societies, due to lack of
infrastructure
o The effect on the poorer countries is not assessed by the supporters of
globalization
o Negative effects like global terrorism, international drug trade and human
trafficking

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 o Global governance is an illusion as the global institutions are not under
democratic control.
 Leslie Sklair believes states retain some power, but any understanding of global
system must focus primarily upon TNCs. Transnational practices take place in three
main spheres – the economic, the political and culture – ideological. These correspond
to the practices of the transnational corporation, the transnational capitalist class and
the culture – ideology of consumerism. Class polarization and ecological
unsustainability are some of fallouts of this globalization.
 Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson in ‗Globalization in Question‘ believes that
though state‘s capacities have been reduced and changed due to globalization, they
have not been eliminated altogether. The state retains a role as a ‗facilitator and
orchestrator of private economic actors‘. People are less mobile than money, goods or
ideas and state retains the control over regulation of populations.
 David Held and Anthony McGrew in ‗Globalization/Anti – globalization‘ argue that it
is possible distinguish between two types of theorists of globalization – the globalists
and the sceptics. They believe that both positions have some merit, but both are open
to criticism as well. Instead, they argue to adopt a transformationalist stance with
regards of globalization.
 Kevit Bonnett warns that globalization can strengthen local and small – scale
nationalism as a defence.

Introduction: (Nationalism)

 It is an ideology and movement that promotes the interests of a particular nation,

especially with aim of gaining and maintaining nation‘s sovereignty over its
homeland.
 Holds each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference, that a nation is
a natural and ideal basis for polity and that nation is only rightful source of political
power.

Brief:

 Concept of ―Nation – state and Nationalism‖ are relatively modern phenomena

that can be traced back to Treat of Westphalia of 17th century Europe.
o History shows nation – state is not a natural entity but is an artificial
intelligence construction to recognize sovereignty of nation – states.
o While nation is a mental construct reflected in a sense of belonging, state
is a political construct with four elements: territory, population,
government, and sovereignty.
o There can be one nation and two states like Korea or one state and two
nations like Sri Lanka, one state and one nation like Japan and many
nations like India.
 It is a state of mind to make the nation an effective unity and the object of man‘s
supreme loyalty. It has developed in western world and is growing today in other
parts of world.

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  It has prepared way for modern democratic nation states.
 It has extended the area of national liberty and individual freedom.
 Nationalism serves as a source of integration within state but it is dangerous when
it denies that common interest that binds nation to nation. Then it becomes
ethnocentrism or chauvinism which is intolerant or imperialism which seeks
territorial expansion and political domination.
 When nationalism cuts one people from another, it impedes development of
harmonious intergroup of IR and sows seeds of international rivalry and wars.
 In its pure form, nationalism may be binding ideal but in its narrow form it
becomes a cause of serious division between nations.
 Nationalism is a long historical process with strong sentiments attached to it.
 In words of Hayes: nationalism when it becomes synonymous with purest
patriotism will prove a unique blessing to humanity and to world.
 Nationality is psychological disposition or sentiment. According to Zimmerman
nationality like religion is subjective psychological, a condition of mind, a
spiritual possession, a way of feeling, thinking and living.
 Nationality is an instinct. It is a cultural concept.
 It springs from a heritage of memories whether of great achievement and glory of
disaster and suffering.
 MacIver defined nationality as a type of community sentiment created by
historical circumstances and supported by common psychological factors to such
an extent and so strong that those who feel it desire to have common government
peculiarly or exclusively their own.

Two traditions of nationalism:

 Objective – German tradition, where Nation as seen as cultural identity and they share
common language, religion, history, etc.
 Subjective – French tradition, where nations are seen as political communities. Most
modern states fall in this category and have invented traditions to help create an
imagined nation.

Anderson on Nationalism:

 He views nationalism as a metaphysical concept which lies in our collective

imagination.
 He rejects the proposition that nationalism will decline. He attributes three core
features to concept of nationalism:
o It is an imagined community as members of this meta – community never
came face to face and despite prevailing inequalities amongst themselves, they
have a feeling of cohesion.
o It is limited and exclusionary as no nation in the world is global in its nature
and includes some people and excludes the rest of the world.
o The concept also presupposes sovereignty as all nations strive to preserve their
independence and self – governance.

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 o He differentiates nationalism from concept of race as race is based on
classifying groups on basis of fixed biological characteristics and hence, it is a
closed group. Races always try to preserve themselves while nations may seek
to expand themselves.

Nationalism in India:

 India experienced different kinds of nationalism over a period of time. The nascent
Indian nationalism was territorial, anti – colonial and led to creation of a nation – state
through a national movement.
 Its territorial boundaries were defined partly by colonial conquest and administration
and party by strong dynastic states that ruled territory from time to time (Mauryas,
Guptas, Mughals etc. )
 The second major nationalism was a rival to Indian nationalism. This led to creation
of Pakistan.
 Pakistani nationalism was strangely based on religious unity, but territorial disunity.
The result was emergence of breakaway nationalism in 1971 as third nationalism.
 The fourth category is that of aspirant nationalism forces for Khalistan in Punjab and
Azad Kashmir in state of Jammu and Kashmir and Leh, are some of examples.
 Over and above this broad framework, there is no accepted definition of nationalism
in India.
 Revivalist groups associate nationalism with purpoted ancient glory, while liberals
associate it with constitutional values.

Liberalism, Libertarianism, Freedom:

 Liberalism: signals a cluster of political ideals advocated (and put into practice)
within a tradition of political thoughts and political activity. Key liberal themes right
to private property and advocacy of rule of law as well as defence of traditional
freedoms – freedom of speech and artistic expression, freedom of association,
religious freedom. Liberty is not a value neutral concept, it is always normative
always accompanied by positive ethical charge.
 Libertarianism: is the theoretical stance of one who strictly limits the competence of
government to collective defence, the protection of negative rights, rights of non –
interference, and enforcement of contracts.
 Freedom: the concept of freedom is thinner than that of liberty and carries less
evaluative baggage. Hegel dismissed the nation; implicit in utilitarianism that is man
is free to the degree that he can do whatever his inclination led his to desire. In this
way, acceptance of moral requisites is not the acceptance of alien constraint, but is
recognition of rational. Durkheim is emphatic that individual personality is
overwhelmingly influenced by characteristics of form of society in which he exists
and into which he is socialised. Rousseau‘s account, moral freedom is freedom, which
is attained by those who can control their own desires. For Kant, autonomous action
consists in living accordance with laws, which has determined for oneself as possible
for each agent to follow.

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Previous Years Question:

1. Discuss the changing interface between state and civil society in post Independent
India. (2017) (10 marks)
2. Globalization involves deterritorialization. Examine with reference to nation – state.
(2015) (20 marks)

Citizenship:

Introduction:

 Aristotle in his book ‗politics‘ said, man is a social animal and for development of his
personality he needs to participate in affairs of politics.
 Early political thinkers – Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli – limited citizenship based
on wealth, lineage, education, etc.

Brief:

 Hinted at need of citizenship of man and various discourses have been made since on
citizenship.
 Greeks – citizenship – enjoyment of right of sharing in deliberative or judicial office.
 The Romans citizenship guaranteed the right to vote, eligibility for public office, right
to intermarriage, etc.
 Discussed by thinkers like Mill, Bentham – main focus on individual liberty, political
participation and property rights; Green focused on criterion of having good life and
social welfare; T H Marshall viewed citizenship as different parts of how they are all
intertwined. In his famous book ‗citizenship and social class‘ he brings out this points
and views citizenship as dynamic idea. These interpretations point to need
conceptualize citizenship as sociological process.
 Citizenship – not merely enjoying certain rights and guarantees, but also discharging
one‘s duties; desire to contribute in public affairs for improvement of life in political,
cultural and material aspects of life. Without such participation citizenship is
meaningless.
 As Laski puts it, ―the contribution of one‘s instructed judgment to public good.‖
 Defined as legal status of membership of state. With creation of modern state,
citizenship came to signify certain equality with regard to rights and duties of
membership too state; modern state began to administer citizenship.

Thinkers:

T N Marshall:

 Citizenship has been defined as legal status of membership of state. The legal status
of special attachment between the individual and political community. With the
creation of modern state, citizenship came to signify certain equality with regard to
rights and duties of membership of state.

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 The modern state began to administer citizenship. State determines who gets
citizenship, with what associated benefits and what rights and privileges it entails. As
a legal status, citizenship has come to imply a unique, reciprocal and unmediated
relationship between individual and political community. Citizenship, in short, is
nothing less than right to have rights.
 A citizen is a person who enjoys rights and performs his duties in a state. Historically,
the term ‗citizen‘ was linked with rise of a democracy. The demand for democratic
government came up first in few western societies, like England, France and USA.
 Democracy means that everybody should have political rights. When one has political
rights, the right to vote and right to participate in decision making on important
questions facing one‘s society, one is a citizen.
 T H Marshall wrote in detail about citizenship and gave prime importance to class –
struggle in modern states in which he included ideas of Marx and Weber. Marshall
envisages that capitalism has increased class struggle in modern societies; citizenship
in territorial state represented not its elimination, but institutionalization and
conversion of national into nation – states. In ―Citizenship and Social Class‖, he
analysed the development of citizenship as development of civil (right to equality
before law, right to contract, right to property, etc.), political (right to participation in
political process, right to vote, right to contest in election, etc.) And social rights
(linked to welfare states such as US, unemployment allowances, old age pensions,
etc.). These were broadly assigned to 19th, 19thand 20th centuries respectively.
 Introduced concept ‗social rights‘. Social rights are awarded not on basis of class or
need, but rather on the status of citizenship. He claimed that extension of social rights
does not entail destruction of social classes and inequality. In Britain, citizenship was
obtained in 3 stages:
o Urban citizenship (civil) – 18th century – equality before law, individual
freedom, right of speech and religion, right to possess property and to obtain
contracts.
o Political citizenship – 19th century – right to vote and to be voted\
o Social citizenship – 20th century – complete participation of individuals in
state
 Marxists critics point out that Marshall‘s analysis is superficial, as it does not discuss
the right of citizen to control economic production, which they argue is necessary for
sustained shared prosperity.
 From a feminist perspective, the work of Marshall is highly constricted in being
focused on men and ignoring social rights of women and impediments to their
realization.
 Parsons argues that growth of citizenship is a measure of modernization as it is based
on values of universalism and achievement.
 Harold J. Laski opines that every state is recognized by its rights. The state is not only
a sovereign institution liable for citizen‘s discipline, and having power of obeying the
orders. Some additional powers and morality are also instilled in state.
 It has 2 aspects – basis of access of citizenship and quality of citizenship rights – jus
sanguine and jus soli.

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 The way citizens have certain responsibilities towards state; state also has certain
responsibilities towards citizens. Ex: availing them those opportunities necessary for
their physical, mental and moral development. In this way it is a two – way process
which develops and maintains a healthy and balanced society. Global citizenship, dual
citizenship is remoulding the definition of citizenship.

 Nation states – boundaries of nation and state coincide – three major characteristics
are sovereignty, citizenship and nationalism.

 Nations without state – Checnya, Kosovo, Palestine – but also peaceful like Quebec,
Scotland, Wales.
 Mark Smith highlights that time has come now to stress upon the concept of
ecological citizenship in wake of global ecological crisis.
 Transnational citizenship – EU
 Saudi Arabia gave citizenship to Sophia the Robot.
 Global citizenship tries to expand our consciousness as citizens of world. It allow
people to be stakeholder in future of more than one country and culture and in process
tries to obliterate boxed identifies defined by blood and soil. It takes us closer to the
Upanishadic vision of Vasudaiva Kutuumbakam.
 Active citizenship – achievement of rights through social struggle – suffragette
movement.
 Passive citizenship – handed down from above by state – India.
 Bryan Turner – modern citizenship is largely passive as no direct democracy.
 Yasmin Soysal – with even increasing globalization, there is need of more universal
concept of citizenship based on ‗personhood‘.
 The important feature of Marshall‘s theory was his view that there was permanent
tension or contradiction between principles of citizenship and operation of capitalist
market. Capitalism inevitable involves inequalities between social class, while
citizenship involves some redistribution of resources, because of rights, which are
shared equally by all.
 Marshall‘s theory has given rise to many disputes. Critics argue that it is a description
of English experience only, and it is not a comparative analysis of citizenship. It has
an evolutionary and teleological view of inevitable expansion of citizenship, and does
not examine social process, which undermines citizenship. It does not address gender
differences in experience of citizenship. It fails to address other types of citizenship,
such as economic hardship; and it is not clear about causes of expansion of
citizenship. Some sociologists believe that Marshall‘s argument can be rescued from
these criticisms if the original theory is modified.

 Marxists – citizenship as a concept is a myth as there is no equality in a capitalist

society. True equality can only be there if FOP can be collective owned. A capitalist
society can have only classes of citizens – first class and second class of citizens.
 Ramchandra Guha contends that while in West, citizenship was awarded in phased
manner with a demand from below, while in East it was awarded suddenly as

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 countries got independent and hence people often fail to appreciate citizenship rights
and duties.
 Gail Omvedt – citizenship in India has been paradoxical as it theoretically grants
equal rights, but caste dynamics make Dalits lesser citizens when it come for enjoying
of democratic rights. Similar in the case with sexual discrimination. She contends that
patriarchal society thwarts constitutional gains. Similarly poverty is also a great
handicap.
 In recent times, the concept of green citizenship is developing. It has come to be
realized that natural resources are limited and many of them are non – renewable.
 These resources are not only for those citizens who are alive, but also belong equally
to our future generations for whom these resources should be protected.
 Some environmentalists have even gone to extent that trees, animals and water bodies
also should be given rights to avoid deforestation and pollution of water bodies. Right
to safe and healthy environment is another right being added for those citizens who
are alive.

Global citizenship:
 Basically citizenship provides an identity which further gives opportunity for some
evils like regionalism, communalism, etc. to develop.
 Global citizenship can play an important role in abolishing these evils.
 In fact, globalization is creating a cultural uniformity worldwide and this would
further nationality to diminish the identity related with soil and blood.
 With globalization, there is a massive migration of population.
 So, composition of population is becoming heterogeneous.
 Now human rights activists are fighting for assimilation of citizen rights into human
rights.
 Any person, by virtue of being a human being should enjoy certain rights in any part
of world and is now a major issue under consideration.
Dual citizenship:
 Great efforts are made to maintain one‘s cultural identity in dual citizenship which is
an indication of narrow – mindedness.
 In most of cases it is provided for material gains and facilities.
 There is hardly the feeling of love and attachment to soil in it.
 But it can be used to strengthen relation between any two countries.
Citizenship: Rights and Duties:
 Harold j. Laski opines that every state is recognized by its right.
 The state is not only a sovereign institution liable for citizen‘s discipline having
power of obeying the orders but some additional powers and morality are also
instilled in state.

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Conclusion:
 The way citizens have certain responsibilities towards the state; state also has certain
responsibilities towards citizens availing them those opportunities necessary for their
physical, mental and moral development.
 In this way it is a two – way process which develops and maintains a healthy and
balanced society.
Previous Years Question:
1. Discuss T.H.Marhsall‘s views of citizenship. (2014) (10 marks)

Democracy:
Introduction:
 The term ‗democracy‘ has been in use of tradition of western political thought since
ancient times. Democracy signifies rule of people.
 Abraham Lincoln‘s definition of democracy is very close to its literal meaning, it
reads; ‗democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people‘.
 It is an egalitarian form of government in which all citizens of nation together
determine public policy, the laws and actions of their state.
 A given political system is referred to as a democracy if it allows certain
approximation to ideal democracy.
 Although no country has ever granted all its citizens (i.e. including minors) the vote,
most countries today hold regular elections based on egalitarian principles.
 Elements considered essential to democracy include freedom of political expression,
freedom of speech, and freedom of press, so that citizens are adequately informed and
able to vote according to their best interests.
 The term ‗democracy‘ is often used as shorthand for liberal democracy, which may
include elements such as political pluralism, equality before law, the right to petition
elected officials for redress of grievances, due process, civil liberties, human rights
and elements of civil society.
 Democracy is often confused with the republic form of government. In some
definitions of republic, a republic is a form of democracy.
 A purer form is direct democracy (like referendums, plebiscites etc) in which voting
public makes direct decisions or participates directly in political process.
 Elements of direct democracy exist in local level and in exceptions on national level
in many countries, though these systems coexist with representative assemblies.
 Today, most of democracies are also ‗liberal democracies‘ as they offer choice to
citizens regularly in terms of whom they should elect as their rule i.e. the
parliamentary democracy in which the voting public takes part in elections and
chooses politicians to represent them in a legislative assembly.
 The members of assembly then make decisions with majority vote.

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Concept of liberal democracy:
 Is a common form of representative democracy; according to principles of liberal
democracy, elections should be free and fair with presence of multiple and distinct
political parties. Liberal democracies also usually have universal suffrage, granting all
adult citizens right to vote.
 Traces its origins to 18th century Europe, also known as age of Enlightenment; vast
majority states were monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy was not considered in
political theory because of belief that democracies would be unstable and chaotic in
their policies due to the changing whims of people.
 It was further believed that democracy was contrary to human nature, as human
beings were seen to be inherently evil, violent and in need of a strong leader to
restrain their destructive impulses.
 Today they are distinguished from other forms of political system by certain
principles and characteristics i.e. procedure and institutional arrangements.
 Institutions are necessary for realization of principles; without principles, the
institutions might get reduced to mere formality.
 The two must go together. Liberal democracy works on certain principles and certain
mechanisms.
Principles of liberal democracy:
 Government by consent;
 Public accountability;
 Majority rule;
 Recognition of minority rights;
 Constitutional government
Main characteristics of liberal democracy:
 More than one political party freely competing for political power.
 Political offices not confined to any privileged class.
 Periodic election based on universal adult franchise.
 Protection of civil liberties.
 Independence of the Judiciary.
Conditions for successful working of a democracy:
 National sentiment
 Spirit of toleration
 High moral character
 Widespread education
 Economic security and equality
The Enlightenment:
 Conventional views first challenged by small group of Enlightenment intellectuals
who believed that human affairs should be guided by reason and principles of liberty
and equality.

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  Argued all people are created equal and therefore political authority cannot be
justified on basis of so – called noble blood, a supposed privileged connection to God,
or any other characteristic alleged to make one person superior to others. They further
argued that governments exist to serve people, not vice versa, and that laws should
apply to those who govern as well as to the governed, a concept as rule of law.
Reform and Revolution:
 Near end of 18th century, these ideas inspired the American Revolution and French
Revolution which gave birth to liberalism and instituted forms of government that
attempted to apply principles of Enlightenment philosophy in practice.
 The dominions of British Empire became labs for liberal democracy from the mid –
19th century onward.
 Helped move most European countries towards liberal democracy.
 Liberalism ceased fringe opinion and joined political mainstream.
 End of 19th century, liberal democracy was no longer a liberal idea, but an idea
supported by many different ideologies.
 After WW 1 and especially after WW II, liberal democracy achieved dominant
position among theories of government and is now endorsed by vast majority of
political spectrum.
 Francis Fukuyama – ―End of history‘ claims – liberal democracy is inevitable form of
government for all industrial societies. He said this statement, in wake of fall of
communism. This kind of system is waiting to be adopted in China also. It is already
adopted in South Korea which was earlier an authoritarian state.
 Lipset – countries which are characterised by high per capita income, high degree of
industrialization and urbanization, good levels of literacy invariably tended to be a
liberal democracy.
 In societies, where agricultural population is large where functioning of state is
ineffective, they all tended to be non – democratic state. In India, though democracy
is not functioning in the desirable way, at least it survived although with member of
distortions.

 Among all variables, levels of economic development are considered to be one of

most crucial factors. According to Diamond, in his book, ‗Re – Examining,
Democracy‘, he tried to see a correlation between per capita GNP and world banks
ranking in terms of HDI, with smooth functioning of liberal democracy. He found that
all top 17 countries in terms of HDI were liberal democracies, while bottom 11
countries in terms of HDI were non – democratic.
 Eddie Van Halen – empirical study of 172 countries in 1997; argues that democracy
emerges and functions when large masses of population acquire resources that can be
used to force autocratic states to open themselves to universal suffrage and political
rights.
 Pluralists see it a plausible form of governance in modern context where some elites
represent interests of all and are partially controlled by masses through pressure
groups.

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 However, T B Bottomore rejects pluralist view of modern democracies as a
conservative view. According to him, western governments are imperfect realization
of democracies as it permanently excludes many in any form of participation in
government activities. According to him, democracy is much more than ritualistic
regular elections.
 True democracy is the one in which democratic ideals become an established feature
of day to day life which would involve establishing social democracy where people
directly participate in local governments, workers participate in management of their
workplaces and so on. In India, such an experiment is Panchayati Raj Institution.
 Marx saw democracy and capitalism in symbiotic terms as though democracy
espouses equality, still it tolerates inequality in economic and political forms.
 Roberto Michels in his ‗Political Parties‘, 1911‘ considers current form of democracy
as a puppet in a handful of oligarchs. He argues that big nations can never have direct
democracy and representative system leads to concentration of power in hands of few
who exploit situation.
 Alfred Stephan – among basic requirements for democracy ―is the opportunity to
formulate preferences, to signify and to have these preferences weighted adequately in
the conduct of government.‖
 Robert Dahl – for proper functioning of government, it should ensure following
institutional guarantees which include:
o Freedom of association and expression
o The right to vote
o Run for public office
o Free and fair elections
o The right of political leaders to compete for support and votes
o Alternative sources of information
o Policy making institutions dependent on votes
o Other expression of preference
 Jeremy Bentham – liberal democracy as apolitical apparatus that would ensure the
accountability of governors to the governed. For Bentham, both governors and
governed, as human beings, want to maximize their happiness. Governors, who are
endowed with power, may tend to abuse it in their self – interest. Hence, in order to
prevent the abuse of their power, governors should be directly accountable to an
electorate who will frequently check whether their objectives have been reasonably
met.
 Seymour M. Lipset – Democracy in a complete society may be defined as political
system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing
officials, and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of population
to influence major decisions by choosing among contenders for political office.
 Personal power theory – was given by Plato who classified people as commoners,
soldiers and philosopher kings – these qualities are not inborn but developed through
state sponsored education system to weed out 1 and 2. Machiavelli criticizes this as
there is chance for rise of Autocracy as absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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  CW Mills power elite and Weber‘s charismatic power theory still allude to fact that
Plato was correct.
 Joseph M Bassette coined term deliberative democracy and argued that decisions
should not be just be aggregating the votes but by deliberating merits and demerits of
any idea.
 Hobbes, Hobhouse, Plato, Aristotle believed in merits of Autocracy over Democracy.
 JS Mills, Jeremy Bentham advocated democracy due to better rule of law and chance
for civil society to grow up.
 But democracies also banning books and autocracies like Syria are seeing rise of civil
society. Cuba in spite of being an autocracy. Hence, no system is good or bad. ―Every
system is making of people (social action)‖ – Weber
Communities & Network:
 Pluralist: power is widely dispersed, interest groups compete with each for state
favour. Critique: potential for lobbyists to grow strong. Ex: United States.
 Corporatist: power more centralized. A few trusted actors co – operate with each other
and state in formulation of policy. Ex: Labour and Business; Critique: difficult for
new actors to enter field. Ex: Japan
 Dirigisme: power centralized o state. Interest groups informed of decisions but not
consulted during process. Lack capacity to challenge state. Critique: too much power
with state makes it difficult for citizen opinions to be heard. Ex: France.
 Iron triangle: close cooperation between bureaucrats, politicians and businesses.
Threats to democracy:
 Rise of identity politics: issues of identity or threats to identify are becoming an
important issue in elections across democracies.
 Misuse of technology: manipulation of grievances by using psychometric techniques
and use of ‗deep fakes‘ made possible through AI, further enhances threat current
notions of democracy.
 Social unrest: protests in Thailand, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan
 Threats to secularism in Europe: the terrorist attacks, beginning with beheading of
Paris school teacher by as IS supporter, followed by IS violence in Nice, have been
major trigger, raising questions about long – held secular beliefs.
 Terrorism –is resurfacing and with renewed vigour. The Al – Qaeda is again
becoming prominent. The IS has returned with attacks in France – Paris and Nice –
and in Austria (Vienna)
Challenges to democracy in India:
 High polarization
 Rising terrorism threats in J&K aided by Pakistan which pushes for authoritarian
tendencies.
 Border issues with both China and Pakistan
 Protests against CAA and NRC
 Holding of assembly elections in Gilgit – Baltistan by Pakistan.

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  India is being steadily marginalised in Afghanistan, where Taliban took control.
Paradoxes of democracy:
 Voting in non – democratic forces
 Minority losing out to majorities
 The fear of public and disdain of democracy from elites (while publicly claiming to
supporting it)
 Democracy requires more propaganda to convince masses
 Limited time in power means going for short term policies
 Anti – democratic forces undermine democracy using democratic means
 Confusing political ideology with economic ideology
 Democracies may create more effective military
 Weak democracies and hostile oppositions
 Lack of inclusiveness undermines democracy, strengthens extremism.
Democracy as order of society:
 Effective democracy tends to allow a broader range of interests to be considered on a
regular basis.
 Leads to more nuanced and moderate policies and reduces the risk that ineffective
leaders can stay in power for long time.
 Structure of democracy gives every vote an equal amount of weightage; this
encourages equality in a positive way.
 Most nations who focus on democracy are less likely to enter in battles or armed
conflicts.
 While democracy promotes participation of people into political arena, yet the number
of participation in politics is low because:
o Lack of interest
o Distrust
o Iron hand of oligarchy
Current scenario:
Democracy Index prepared by Economist Intelligence Unit (2019 – latest index)
Based on scores
 Full democracy (greater than 8)
 Flawed democracy (greater than 6 and up to 8)
 Hybrid regime ( between 4 and 6)
 Authoritarian regime (equal or less than 4)
 Average global score has fallen from 5.48 to 5.44 in 2019, 4 out five categories (civil
liberties, electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political
participation and political culture) make up global average deteriorated.
 Only 22 democracies as compared to 54 authoritarian regimes and as many flawed
democracies.

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  Almost one – half (48.4%) of world‘s population live in democracy of some sort,
although only 5.7% reside in full democracy, down from 8.9% in 2015 as a result of
US being demoted from full democracy to a flawed democracy in 2015
 68 countries score declined but almost 65 countries score grew comparing 2018.
 Thailand – biggest improvement in score owing to election March 2019, which was
first since military coup d‘etat in May 2014.
 China registered greatest decline because of discrimination against minorities,
especially in Xinjiang and digital surveillance of population.
India‟s performance:
 Fall in score: score down from 7.23 in 2018 to 6.90 in 2019. Lowest since 2006.
 Primary cause: stripping of J&K‘s special status, exclusion of 1.9 million people from
NRC.
 On the CAA, report said that law has enraged large Muslim population, stoked
communal tensions and generated large protests in major cities.
 India‘s score of 7.23 places it in flawed democracy i.e. countries that hold free and
fair elections and where basic civil liberties are respected, but have significant
weaknesses in aspects of democracy, such as problems in governance, an
underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation.
 Comparison with other countries: in Asia and Asutralasia region, India ranks 8th even
behind Taiwan and Timor – Leste.
o The US with a score in 7.96 just below benchmark of full democracy
o Bangladesh (5.88) – flawed democracy
o Pakistan (4.25) – hybrid democracy
o China (2.26) and North Korea (1.08) are categorised as authoritarian regimes.
o Norway Top ranked 9.87 is counted as full democracy. Following are Iceland
(9.58), Sweden (9.39) and New Zealand (9.26). other full democracies include
Germany, UK and France.
Conclusion:
 However, despite its limitations, as Churchill said, it is the worst system of
government except all those which have not been tried till date.
 Democracy has given voice to voiceless by their sheer numbers and today voters
collectively act as effective pressure groups shaping their own lives.
Previous Years Question:
1. Explain democracy as an order of society. What are factors preventing people‘s
participation in politics? (2020) (10 marks)
Civil society:
Introduction:
 Term can be traced through works of Cicero and other Romans to ancient Greek
philosophers; in its classical usage civil society was largely equated with state.

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  According to World Bank ―civil societyrefers to a wide array of organisations:
community groups, non – governmental organisations (NGOs), labour unions,
indigenous groups, charitable organizations, faith – based organisations, professional
associations and foundations.‖
 When mobilized, civil society sometimes comes as third sector after government and
commerce and has power to influence the actions of elected policy – makers and
businesses.
 Civil society – comprises of groups or organizations working in interest of citizens
but operating outside of governmental and for – profit sectors; include civil society,
include labour unions, non – profit organizations, churches and other service agencies
that provide an important service to society but generally ask for very little in return.
 Civil society protects individuals from over dependence on state. It is seen as bulwark
against authoritarianism.
 Playing long role in influencing state‘s policy on social welfare, initiating social
movements by way of creating new norms, identities, institutions.
 Civil society, together with state and market that plays in making of democratic
societies.
Brief:
 John Locke – civil society refers to social space consisting of associations & relating
based on contract & institution of property regulated by law. He also said that civil
society contracted away rights to state, but state so created is not absolute but
answerable to people.
 Civil society, in opposition to state, lays moral foundation of society. Hegel, a
German philosopher in his book ‗philosophy of rights, 1821‘, considers the civil
society as one of moments of ethical life, the other two being family and state. Civil
society is an important stage in transition from unreflective consciousness of family to
conscious ethical life.
 Marx – uses concept of civil society in his critique of Hegel; used as yardstick of
change from feudal to bourgeoisie society. Marx insists from destruction of medieval
society. Previously individuals were part of many different societies such as guilds or
estates each of which had a political role so that there was no separate civil realm. As
they broke down, civil societies rose up where individual became important. The old
bonds of privilege were replaced by selfish needs of atomistic individuals separated
from each other and from the community.
 In Gramscian sense, civil society is terrain where state, people and market interact and
where people wage war against the hegemony of market and state. Marx insists on
separation between state and civil society, Gramsci emphasizes inter – relationship
between the two.
 There is need to view CS as both as structure (of organisation, social and political
space and relationship) and also as process (the ways in which elements of structure
come into being and interrelate).
 Emerging scenario – emphasis increasing roles of civil societies ―to take burden off
the state, by involving citizens and communities in delivery of collective goods‖ and

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 ―on strengthening of abilities and opportunities of civil society and local
communities‖ to ensure process of marginalized in society.
 According to Cohen and Arato, CS gas long been playing a pivotal role in influencing
state‘s policy on social welfare, articulating views on current issues, serving as voice
of constructive debate, providing forum for exchange of new ideas and information,
initiating social movements b way of creating new norms, identities, institutions.
Characteristics of CS:
 First, CS is realm of organised social life that is open, voluntary, self – generating, at
least, partially self – supporting, autonomous from state and bound by legal order or
set of shared rules.
 Second, CS is concerned with public rather than private ends. It is an intermediary
phenomenon, standing between private and public sphere.
 Third, civil society is related to state in some way, but does not seek to control state
nor controlled by it.
 Furth, CS society encompasses pluralism and diversity. It conpasses a vast array of
organisations, formal and informal, including economic, cultural, informational and
educational, interest groups, developmental, issue – oriented and civic groups.
Thinkers:
 Ernest Gellner describes the building blocks of CS as ‗modular man‘ – an individual
who is autonomous yet willing and able to associate.
 A range of political philosophers, from Thomas Paine to George Hegel developed the
notion of CS as a domain parallel to, but separate from state, where citizens associate
according to their own interests and wishes.
 Hegel‘s 19th century notion of CS included market in contrast to contemporary
concepts of CS as a non – profit sector.
 Gramsci revived term post WW2 to portray CS as special nucleus of independent
political activity, a crucial sphere of struggle against tyranny.
 David Held – civil society retains a distinctive character to extent that it is made up of
areas of social life – the domestic world, the economic sphere, cultural activities and
political interaction – which are organized by private or voluntary arrangements
between individuals and groups outside the direct control of state. Robert Putnam
calls CS school of democracy.
 Larry Diamond in his article ―Rethinking civil society‘ says CS plays a significant
role in building and consolidating democracy. In his view, CS performs following
important functions:
o To limit state power
o To empower citizens
o To inculcate and promote the development of democratic attributes amongst
the citizens.
o To provide avenues for political parties and other organizations to articulate,
aggregate and represent their interest.
o To function as a recruiting, informational and leadership generating agency.

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 o To generate public and political support for successful economic and political
reforms.
o Election monitoring
o Strengthening citizens‘ attitudes towards the state.
 In his article, ―civil society and democracy in Global Governance‘, Jan Aart Scholte
makes a comprehensive analysis of these concepts. He identifies 6 areas where civil
society could advance democracy:
o Public Education
o Voice of stakeholders
o Policy inputs
o Transparency of governance
o Public accountability
o Legitimacy
 The civil society should have a larger agenda of democracy as policy of global
governance. The CS not only could promote democracy as home, their impact could
be clearly seen in democratization of global order. Apart from this, the international
concerns for human rights, women rights, rights of disabled and concerns for
environment have great impact on domestic policy formulation and its
implementation too.
 Ex: various development related NGOs and think tanks, who lobby for global debt
relief fund and socially sustainable structural adjustment, have gone on to scrutinize
public finance in national and local governments. Additionally, women‘s movements
have often used international laws and institutions in their favour to democratize state
on gender line. The rights of persons with disability also get impetus form
international concerns for human rights. In all these matter CS can offer a means for
citizens to affirm global governance arrangements.
 Kofi Annan – in modern society, state is incapable to cater all interests. State‘s
cooperation with CS is a must for sustainable world peace. Ex: India has no refugee
policy; the gap is filled by CS.
 Habermas – 3 types of citizens – supra occupy administrative positions in society, sub
use their citizenship rights during emergency, infro not even aware of their rights –
public sphere and private sphere is entering private sphere too, so state not needed CS
converts infra to sub/supra by promoting political organisations among them, thus
expanding horizon of democracy. CS helps increase trust in society.
 McKean – CS promotes mass participation, so it is an invisible government.
Legislature behind legislature. It thus, promotes democracy.
 In certain conditions, civil society can contribute to democratization of authoritarian
regimes and can help sustain a democratic system of governance one it is established.
Ex: Tunisia
Democratic dangers of CS:
 CS activities may essentially pursue democratic purpose.
 CS might draw away from democracy if its effort are poorly planned and designed or
executed.

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  Ill equipped government agencies cannot handle CS inputs.
 The state funding and benefits could corrupt the volunteers of civic organisation.
 Inadequate representation could seriously undermine the very fabric democracy.
 CS concern for global democracy could be insensitive towards local culture.
 It may lack internal democracy.
Dysfunctions of CS:
 Activities of certain CS may threaten democracy. Ex: Al Qaeda, Lashkar – e – taiba
which exists outside state and hinders democracy.
 CS may encroach upon state as to generate consciousness against state. Ex: Kashmiri
CS, Azadi for Kashmir
Critique:
 International grants to CS organizations have seen mixed results.
 Those who idealize CS often talk about citizens‘ engagement without mentioning
conflict.
 CS is essentially 2 fold in nature – private in origin but public in focus. The interests
pursued can be individualistic, or they can be oriented toward religion, race or other
social groupings. In a way that might generate pressure on government and further
lead to societal divisions on parochial lines.
Indian society:
 Many of organisations promote democratic decentralisation, but are controlled by
single person. Some of them suffer from the leadership deficit and revolve around
single charismatic leader.
 Their financial sources are also often shady and there are poor disclosure records in
India.
 In 2016, less than 10% of NGO‘s compiled with requirement of submitting balance
sheets and income – expenditure statements with the Registrar of societies, with
which these are registered.
 In 2016, MHA, denied to renew licenses of few NGO‘s citing security reasons.
Changing interface between state and CS in Post – independent India:
 CS is a space between state, market and family. It can be structural or behavioural. It
involves citizens acting collectively in public sphere to express their interests and
ideas and to achieve mutual goals. It is an association of people putting check and
balance on discourses of state.
 Indian CS started during colonial era. India got freedom in August 1947 and became a
democratic country. However conditions were not created for democracy. Large
number of people were suffering from poverty, hunger and malnourishment. They
needed protection from state rather than power to question the state. GOI initiated
various appeasing policies. Therefore, initially CS was weak in India.
 However, with passage of time, various social movements were initiated in India. Ex:
Protests against inflation & price rise, anti – emergence movements etc. Indian
women also came forward and participated such as anti – rape movements, anti –

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 dowry movements etc. India against corruption movement, protests against Nirbhaya
case, Me too movement etc are most recent examples.
Reasons for growth of CS:
 Developmental failure of government
 Gradual emergence of civil culture
 Advent of information age
 Rise of notion of people – centric governance
 Globalisation and rise of international Ngo movement.
Conclusion:
 Manuel Castells points out that digitally mediated social networks should develop
which can help in emergence of global citizenship which can make globalization
successful in India. Democracy is still retain because of working of society. Wherever
CS is not successful, then that indicates failure of democracy.
 In recent years, there has been a phenomena proliferation of CS based groups over
globe due to increasing penetration of IT.
 It is increasingly easier to mobilise people in very short duration through internet and
mobile phone.
 It has emerged as sphere of active citizenship, where individuals take up social
issues, try to influence the state or make demands, pursue their collective interests or
seek support for a variety of causes.
 At times, the state is beleaguered with legitimisation deficit that jeopardises the
condition of its stability, paving way for arrival of CS.
 The loss in faith in state due to its failures revived interest in CS and it was seen as an
alternative to state in case of soviet disintegration of 1990, national campaign for
people‘s right to information (NCPRI) in 1996, led to coalition organisations, Jan
Lokpal movement of 2011 – 12, Arab spring of 2012 and democracy movement in
Hong Kong in 2014.

Previous Years Questions:

1. What is civil society? Present a note on civil society engagement with S&T policy in
India. (2019) (10 marks)
2. Discuss changing interface between state and civil society in Post – Independent
India. (2017) (10 marks)
3. Evaluate how do civil society and democracy mutually reinforce each other. (20
marks) (2013)
Ideology:
Introduction:
 Word does not have clear definition and is used in variety ways; most common use in
everyday language is to describe, cohesive set of political ideas and beliefs. Ex:
Liberalism, Socialism, Conservatism, etc.)

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  Ideology – lens through which a person views world. Within sociology, it is broadly
understood to refer to sum of total of a person‘s values, belies, assumptions and
expectations.
 Exists within society, within groups and between people; shapes our thoughts, actions,
interaction, along with what happens in society at large.
 Fundamental concept in sociology; study it because it plays such a powerful role in
shaping how a society is organized and how it functions.
 Ideology is directly related to social structure, economic system of production, and
political structure. It both emerges out of these things and shapes them.
Caste ideology:
 Theoretically caste and democracy stand at opposite values in hierarchy and equality
but politics can‘t be isolated from society.
o G S Ghurye argues that caste based associations is strengthening caste
consciousness. These associations act as pressure groups in politics which he
termed as caste patriotism.
o Paul Brass argues at base of India politics that caste plays important role.
Therefore democratic structure is influenced by primordial ties.
o Identity politics and substantialisation of caste used to mobilise votes in
election.
o Emergence of caste based political parties also strengthened caste
consciousness.
o Caste in politics played positive role and therefore sometime deliberately
encouraged. Ex: Rudolph and Rudolph study of social mobility of Shenas to
Nadars.
o Rajni Kothari argued that caste in politics gives voice to powerless.
 However in general caste consciousness in public life has decreased as shown by
Harold Gould study of Rickshaw walla.

Thinkers:
 Marx: Ideology emerges out of a society‘s MOP; approach to ideology was set forth
in his theory of base and superstructure. According to him, superstructure of society,
realm of ideology grows out of base, the realm of production, to reflect interests of
ruling class and justify the status quo that keeps them in power. Marx, then, focused
his theory on concept of a dominant ideology.
 Althusser also talk – talks of ‗hegemonic ideology‘ as imposed ideology by ruling
class. However, Marxists too believe that ideology is essential for social change and
hence instead of capitalist and hegemonic ideology, they advocate socialism and
communism. Marx also terms ideology as central to proletarian revolution.
 Karl Popper – ‗open society and its enemies‘, indicates every ideology is totalitarian
as it is blinded by ideological bias and hence indifferent to plurality of viewpoints.
Hence ideology is antithetical to objectivity. Others even talk of death of ideology in

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 modern money centric economies and assert that it is economics which reigns
supreme over ideology.
 Feminist sociologists argue that patriarchal ideology has led to gender discrimination
in society. Similarly, in Indian society Brahmanical ideology has led to suffering of
depressed classes for ages. For this obvious limitation of a single dominant ideology,
scholars like Amartya Sen call for society with pluralistic and inclusive ideology
which should guide public discourse.
 It rules out personal interest, bias or submission to a particular person, group or
dynasty.
 It signifies a set of coherent ideas – perception of real and ideal from one‘s own
position. It may also be used to make others realize their positions. That is how, in
sphere of world politics, developing nations strive to impress upon advanced nations
to adopt humanist attitudes and policies.
 In realm of political theory, the term ‗ideology‘ is aspired in two contexts:
Ideology as a set of ideas:
 In this sense, ideology is matter of faith, it has no scientific basis. Adherents of an
ideology think that its validity need not be subjected to verification. Different
groups may adhere to different ideologies and hence differences among them are
inevitable.
 When an ideology is used to defend an existing system or to advocate a limited or
radical change in that system, it becomes a part of politics. A political ideology
may lend legitimacy to ruling class or it may involve urge for revolution. An
ideology is action oriented. It presents cause before its adherents and induces them
to fight for that cause and to make sacrifices for its realization. Ex: Nationalism,
Communalism.
Ideology as the science of ideas:
 In this sense, it seeks to determine how ideas are formed, how they are distorted and
how true ideas could be segregated from false ideas.
 In a contemporary sense, the term ‗ideology‘ is applied to set of ideas which are
adopted by a group in order to motivate it for the achievement of predetermined goals.
 Karl Marx in ―Germany Ideology‖ and ―A contribution to the critique of political
economy‖ dwelled on the nature of ideology. According to him, ideology is a
manifestation of false consciousness.
 Marx and Engels held that ideology is an instrument for protecting the interest of the
dominant class.
 However, Lenin argued that it was neutral concept which refers to the political
consciousness of different classes, including, the proletarian class. Proletariats also
need an ideology – the ideology of scientific socialism for their guidance, lest they are
overpowered by the bourgeoisie ideology.
 Karl Mannheim in ―Ideology and Utopia‖ rejects Marx‘s theory of ideology on three
grounds:

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 o Style of though (consciousness) of any group is only directly related to its
interests. There is no direct correlation between its consciousness and its
economic interests.
o All thought (consciousness) is shaped by its social background; hence
Marxism itself is the ideology of a class.
o Apart from classes, other social groups, like different generations, also have a
significant influence upon consciousness.
 He held that false consciousness may be manifested in two forms – ideology and
utopia. Ideology represents the tendency of conservation. It relies on false
consciousness to muster support for maintenance of status quo. On the other hand,
utopia represents impetus to change. It relies on false consciousness by projecting
unrealizable principles to muster support for the forces of change.
 A ruling class makes use of ideology, the opposition may project a utopia. Mannheim
declared that the Marxist vision of classless society was nothing but a utopia. Hence it
also uses false consciousness.
 When ideology is conceived as an instrument of motivating people for the
achievement of predetermined goals, it comes close to totalitarianism. Karl Popper in
―The Open society and its enemies‖ argued that ideology is the characteristic of
totalitarianism; it has nothing to do in an open society.
 Hannah Arendt in ―The origins of Totalitarianism‖ defined totalitarianism as a system
of total domination characterized by ideology and terror.
 Both communist and fascist regimes made ample use of their respective ideologies for
mobilization of their citizens towards the achievement of their respective goals.
End of Ideology:
 In mid – 1950s and 1960s, in western liberal democratic countries, it was declared
age of ideology had come to an end. It was viewed as tool of totalitarianism which
had no place in open societies. It was also believed that at advanced stage of
industrial development, and not by its political ideology. Thus, capitalist and
communist countries were bound to evolve similar characteristics at advanced stage
of their industrial development, irrespective of their ideological differences.
 Daniel Bell sees an increasing dominance of technical elites in the post – industrial
societies, and this change in direction is not affected by any political ideology. Ralf
Dahrendorf sees this as a post – capitalist society where economic and political
conflict which was basis of Marxist theory and ideology has ceased to exist. Lipset
observed that in western democracies of differences between the left and right are no
longer profound. Fukuyama talks about failure of socialism in USSR.
 Rostow asserted that the adoption of different political ideologies played no role in
determining course of economic development in different countries. He built a uni -
dimensional model of economic growth which was applicable to all countries
irrespective of their political ideologies.
 JK Galbraith also observed that a country‘s techno economic structure is shaped by
level of its industrialization, and not by its distinctive political ideology. Immanuel

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 Wallerstein spoke of technology and development dependency, seeing no different
between two political ideologies.
 Raymond Aron claims that ideology is nothing more than ‗opium for the
intellectuals‘ now.
Critique:
 Richard Titmuss observed that the champions of the End of ideology thesis
overlook the problems of monopolistic concentration of economic power, social
disorganization and cultural deprivation within the capitalist system. C. Wright
Mills dubbed them as the advocates of status quo. CB MacPherson asserted that the
champions of this idea make a futile attempt to solve the problem of equitable
distribution within the market society. Samuel P. Huntington in talks of clash of
cultures when the Western model of development was implemented in the African
and Asian countries. He thus advocates the presence of ideology.
 In actual practice, different ideologies will continue to exist as the vehicles of value
systems preferred by different groups. They will be used for motivating people to
achieve the goals cherished by their upholders. They may also be used by some
groups to convince others regarding their rightful claims. Ideologies do not belong
exclusively to the dominant classes; oppressed classes also have their own
ideologies. They cannot be set aside as false consciousness
 Ideologies could serve as meeting ground for like-minded people, instead of
confining themselves to their tribe, caste, religion, region, etc. They may reflect
changing social consciousness on crucial issues.
 Some ideologies have given rise to strong social movements for the emancipation
of various oppressed sections. Some ideologies manifest a deep concern with the
future of humanity.
 An ideology is identified by commitment to a cause. It rules out personal interest,
bias or submission to a particular person, group or dynasty. It signifies a set of
coherent ideas - perception of real and ideal from one‘s own position. It may also
be used to make others realize that position.
 End of ideology debate itself is an Ideology. Ideology may be restricted to
intellectual level, but it does have an identity. It represents one's beliefs and
convictions. Ideology is a process and not just an economic concept vis-a-vis
Socialism and Capitalism.
 Van de Berghe has pointed out that "pluralist societies have often been held
together by a mixture of political coercion and economic interdependence." If
political power can be used to create and preserve unequal social relations, it can
also be used to redress this injustice. Social conflict does indeed have its functions!
However, the very exercise of power in a situation of interdependence requires
some level of value-consensus however general it may be. Otherwise society would
fall into a situation of total conflict, the barbarism of Hobbes' "war of all against
all". Hence the insistence on the need for an ideology to support this

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 interdependence, to contain the conflict, and to provide the value-consensus for a
just and equitable society.
Previous Years Questions:
1. Caste ideology appears to have strengthened democracy. Comment. (2015) (10
marks)
2. Ideology is crucial for social transformation in democracy. Discuss. (2015) (10
marks)

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Unit No: 7

Unit Name: Politics and Society

Chapter: (d) Protest, Agitation, Social movements, collective action, revolution

Protest and Agitation:

 An element of dissatisfaction with existing system can be found in every society –

caused by poverty, social discrimination, exploitation or lack of privilege; people may
develop desire to change the situation by raising their voices against existing order;
this difference of opinion actually reflects a desire for change and social movements
emerge under such situation.
 However, a movement doesn‘t occur suddenly, begins with dissent, moves towards
and finally takes form of social movement.
 Anthropologist Margaret Mead once stated ―never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.‖
 Social protest – form of political expression that seeks to bring about social or
political attitudes and behaviours of the public or policies of an organization or
institution.
 Protests – often take overt form of public displays, demonstration or civil
disobedience but also covet activities such as petitions, boycotts, lobbying and various
online activities.
 Most protests represent collective interests and issues of activist groups, coalitions or
social movements that challenge mainstream institutions; in process they serve
number of important democratic functions, including providing opportunities for
participation and expression for individuals and as potential engine of social change
for communities and nations.
 Communication, whether mass or interpersonal, is a central element in success of
protest group by facilitating information exchange, mobilization, coordination,
integration, identity formation and many other essential functions.
 Term ‗Dissent‘ refers to ideas and activities which are different from those prevailing
in a society at given point of time; differences of opinion and disagreement on certain
issues are bases of dissent. Thus beginning of a movement for a change. Ex: struggle
against inhuman practice of untouchability in India was initiated only when people
who were suffering from this cruelty raised their voices against it.
 Protest and agitation generally specific in nature; dissent expressed openly assume
form of protest and agitation; thus protest and agitation, in order to be meaningful, has
to be supported by dissent in respect of institutional arrangements prevailing in
society at given point of time.
 In fact, consciousness of injustice and deprivation takes place at this stage.
 Accordingly we may say that social sharing of discrimination and deprivation is
starting point of protest and agitation. Dissent expresses dissatisfaction with existing
situation registers disagreement. Protest and agitation, on the other hand, is a formal

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 declaration of dissent and represents a more crystallized state of opposition and
conflict.
 Bowers and Ochs define agitation as ―agitation occurs when people outside normal
decision making establishment advocate significant social change and encounter a
degree of resistance within establishment such as to require more than normal
discursive means of persuasion.
 Agitation is a social process which involves intense activity undertaken by an
individual or group in order to fulfil propose.
 Purpose is central to agitation, unlike opposition which is central in protest. Further
dissatisfaction is also central to agitations, while dissent is central to protests.
 In general, agitation and protest have only subtle differences. While protest is a
reaction to an event which has already occurred, an agitation can also future course
which is seen as desirable or undesirable.
 Agitation is manifested through activities like strikes, mass leave, raasta rook, rioting,
picketing etc.
 It can either be organized or unorganized and is generally non – institutional, but can
be institutional as well Ex: Recent Jaat agitation.
 Unaddressed protests may grow and widen into agitation, social movement, collective
action and political or social revolution.

Protest:

 It is a social process of opposition against any person, group or even wider society. It
may occur at individual or collective level, manifest or latent level and may involve
action or inaction as a tool of protest.
 Opposition is central in protest, while a purpose is central in an agitation. Protest,
thus, pre supposes a prior event, against which, a protest is done. Ex; fast until death
by Mahatma Gandhi against British policies is an instance of individual level protest,
opposition of India against terms of WTO, which are unfavourable for developing
countries is an example of collective protest.
 Protests can also be distinguished on basis of mode of protest. This could be candle
and torch light processions, use of black cloth, street theatres, songs, poetry, violence
and vandalism. Gandhi adopted novel ways such as ahimsa, Satyagraha and his use of
charkha in the freedom movement. While modes adopted by Gandhi were largely
peaceful and non – violent, modes adopted by revolutionaries, Jihadis, Naxalites and
separatists are often violent. In general, agitation and protest have only subtle
differences. While protest is a reaction to an event which has already occurred, an
agitation can be a future course, which is seen as desirable or undesirable.
 In modern societies frequency of protests varies. In democratic societies, freedom of
expression is tolerated and protests are acceptable. Protests also depend on factors like
competition for limited resources, discrimination on basis of gender, caste, religions,
etc. and autocratic behaviour.

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  Protests are also different from social movements which are generally oriented
towards change. However, protests can be used as a tool for the furthering of the
objectives of a social movement.
 Ex: farmers protest against three farm bill in India Anti -Taliban protests in
Afghanistan,


Agitation:

 Like protests, their frequency of occurring is contingent upon the type of structure of
society, culture and political system in place. Both protests and agitations can due to
actual as well as relative deprivation of agitators/protestor or their affiliate groups.
Agitations may also aim to acquire power.
 Further unlike social movements which are marked by degree of organisation as well
as sustenance, agitations are generally spontaneous and ephemral. However both and
agitations can be institutionalised and become social movements. Ex: early protests
against sati system were later transformed into a full – fledged social movement,
leading to passage of legislations and social change as well.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Examine the role of protest movements in changing the status of Dalits in India.
(2016) (10 marks)

Social movements:

 Anderson and Parker – social movement is ―a form of dynamic pluralistic behaviour

which progressively develops structure through time and aims at partial or complete
modification of social order‖
 Lundberg and other define social movement – a voluntary association of people
engaged in concerted efforts to change attitudes, behaviour and social relationships in
a larger society.
 Social movement is effort by an association to bring about change in society – may
also be directed to resist a change. Former called reform movements latter are called
revolutionary movements.
 The following features of social movement may be marked out:
o It is an effort by a group;
o Its aim is to bring or resist a change in society;
o It may be organized or unorganized;
o It may be peaceful or violent;
o Its life is not certain. It may continue for a long period or it may die out soon.
 Charles Tilly – social movements are a major vehicle for ordinary people‘s
participation in public politics.

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  Key processes behind history of social movements – urbanization, industrialization,
universalization of education, scientific revolution and democratization.
 According to Touraine – three important functions
o Mediation – help to relate the individual to larger society. Give each person
chance to participate to express his ideas and play a role in process of social
change.
o Pressure – stimulate formation or organized groups that work systematically to
see that their plans and policies are implemented.
o Clarification of collective consciousness – ideas generate and spread
throughout society.

Theories of social movements:

 Relative Deprivation theory – Emmanuel Stauffer in his book American soldiers

propounded theory. Believes when group of people feel relatively deprived than other
in terms power, privilege and prestige, thus they take mass action to end deprivation.
Ex: Black soldiers in American army were feeling relatively deprived. Naxalite
o Criticism:
 Gurr and Aberley believe that merely relative deprivation is not
enough for social movement because many groups and communities
conditioned their mind that for their deprivation, their luck of god‘s
will is responsible hence they do not overcome in form of social
movement.
 Oscar Lewis believes that in those communities where ‗culture of
poverty‘ is developed, the theory of relative deprivation cannot be
applied.
 M.S.A.Rao believe that unless or until group does not realize that other
groups are responsible for their suffering and they can come out of it
through their mass action, social movement cannot take place.
 Strain theory – Neil J. Smelser believed that stability it social system depends upon
‗value consensus‘ that is, the general agreement in all sections of society about the
desired things in the society. Till the consensus remains the social stability order
remains maintained. Ex: Women‘s movement
o Criticism:
 Smelser is a structural functionalist who seems to be supporting status
quoism because for him new values always bring disturbances in the
society, which may not be true.
 New values cannot essentially bring social movements because many a
time the new values are so powerful and logical that old values simply
become irrelevant and new system emerges on basis of new values
without bringing ups and downs in the society. Ex: Modern education
is enriching new values and generally the reactionary forces in modern
societies have also given up. Hence, it cannot be said that it always
bring strain in social structure.

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  Revitalization theory – Wallace criticized relative deprivation and strain theory by
calling it a negative theory. These two theories believe that only due to wrong reasons
social movement took place in society, whereas Wallace believes social movement
aims at bringing a new social order which will provide more satisfaction to masses.
 He identified 4 stages of social movement: period of cultural stability; period of ups
and downs; period of cultural degeneration; effort for revitalization. It was criticized
for not being anything new; rather it is extension of previous two theories.

Life cycle of social movement:

 Stage 1 reflects social unrest present in society. Collective tension builds up.
 Stage 2 in which collective excitement can be witnessed in the society, where people
feel they have problem in common. Certain social conditions are identified as root
cause of misery and excitement sets in. the movement gains support and a guiding
ideology. Agitation rise everywhere. This period is generally brief and leads quickly
to action.
 Stage 3 is formalization stage, though some movements like migratory movements
may be able to operate without formal organization. Division of work among leaders
and followers. Fund raising is systematized and ideology becomes clearer. The
strategy and tactics for protest and for action are drawn and a moral justification for
having adopted a particular course of action is established.
 Stage 4 is one of institutionalization. The movement crystallizes into a definite
pattern. Efficient bureaucrats replace agitators; buildings, offices are established. The
aim of movement becomes accepted in that society. This period may last indefinitely.
 Stage 5 is one of dissolution. Only some movements achieve full institutionalization.
Some movements end early while some dissolve after the objective has been
achieved.
New social movements:
 Are networks of organizations and unorganized people who work together in loosely
formed coalitions for common purpose.
 Social movements go beyond activities of interest groups.

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  Often do not question legitimacy of regimes. The effects of post-materialism:
 Important changes are occurring on the fringes of the electoral mainstream. The
growing role of women playing in political life.
 A new type of middle-class New Social Movement .
 Examples: The Feminist Movement, the Queer Movement, Civil Rights Movement,
the Peace Movement, the Green Movement. Social Movements:
 Numerous social movements from mid-1960s.
 Instead of pushing for specific changes in public policy emphasize social changes in
identity, lifestyle and culture .
 Emphasize concepts such as identity, culture and the role of the civic sphere.
 More importance is attached to social and cultural concerns, rather than economic or
political considerations. Actors are from a new middle class, instead of from the lower
classes, as was typical of social movements of the industrial economy.
 NSMs consist of informal, loosely organized social networks of supporters rather than
members and tend to be locally-based. Example- feminist movement, the ecology
movement or "greens," the youth movement and the peace movement.
 Social movements considered new in terms of:
o breadth of their goals ○
o kinds of people they attracted ○
o potential for going global
 Promote rights of humanity - Environmental movement and peace movement. •
 Promote rights of particular groups historically excluded from full social participation
- women's movement, LGBT. •
 The main feature of is that they are primarily social and cultural.
 According to Habermas new social movement are the new politics which is about
quality of life, individual self-realization and human rights.
 Are located in civil society or the cultural sphere as a major arena for collective action
rather than instrumental action in the state.
Classifying New Social movements:

Simon Hallsworth identifies 2 types of NSM based the types of issue they promote:
 NSMs which are focused on defending aspects of the natural and social environment -
e.g. environmentalism, the peace movement, animal rights.
 NSMs which are focused on gaining equal rights for minority and marginalized
groups — feminism, civil rights, gay rights, disability rights.
He says that New social movements are based on certain issues. These issues can be of two
types: Promotional and protective.
New features of social movements by Simon Hallsworth

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  Extended definition of what is political to even households, individual prejudices etc.
• No central leadership • Reject bureaucratic structures in favour of more informal
structures
 Anthony Giddens - As modernity has moved into phase what he calls high modernity,
it has 4 features: Capitalism, Industrialism, Surveillance, Military power - Social
movements are of 4 types correspondingly: Labour movements, Ecological
movements, Free speech/democratic movements, Peace movements respectively.
 Animal rights, anti-nuclear groups, civil rights, LGBT movements, disability
environments.
 1960s-1970s - 1st wave of feminism 1980s - organizations - 2nd wave Now - 3rd
wave.
Environmentalism: The 'green' ideas about the relationship between society and nature.
Two types of environmental movement:
 Wilderness Movement - focuses on the health of the planet- the wilderness, forests
and oceans that cannot protect themselves.
 Environmental justice movement- concerned with the environmental hazards and
social and economic inequalities faced by the poor (black community).
 Peace movement – seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or
all wars), minimize inter – human violence in a particular place or type of situation,
and is often linked to goal of achieving world peace. Means to achieve these ends
include advocacy of pacifism, non – violent, resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, peace
camps, etc.

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Causes of social movement:
 Cultural drifts – modern education, removal of untouchability, equality of opportunity

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  Social disorganization – changing society – creates lags because each part changes at
different pace.
 Social injustice –
 Less social movements in more integrated society because less tensions or alienated
groups.
The people who are more susceptible to social movements are those who are:
 Mobile and have little chance to become integrated into life of community
 Not fully accepted and integrated into group and are termed marginal
 Isolated from the community
 Threatened by economic insecurity and loss of social status
 Free from family responsibilities or are estranged from their families
 Maladjusted
 People who are homeless and misfits also join the movement.
Types of social movements:
Horton and Hunt classified as:
 Migratory movements – the Zionist movement, the movement of Jews to Israel was a
migratory social movement. Similarly, the movement of people from East Germany to
West Germany can be called migratory social movement.
 Expressive movements – people face with social system from which they cannot flee
and which they feel powerless to change, the result is an expressive social movement.
 Utopian movements – seeks to create an ideal social system or perfect society – can
only be found in man‘s imagination. Sarvodaya movement can be called a utopian
movement.
 Reform movements – abolish untouchability, dowry system, preserve wildlife
 Revolutionary movement – seeks to overthrow existing system; communist
movements in Soviet Russia and China
 Resistance movements – The D.M.K movement against Hindi
MSA Rao, Gurr and Aberley, etc has also discussed types of social movements:
 Reform movements - Prarthna Samaj, Brahma Samaj, Ramakrishna mission
 Revolution movements - Naxalite
 Reactionary movements – Arya Samaj, Deoban
 Expressive movements – Withdrawal from society. Hippie movement in US
 Migratory movements – Partition in India
 Millennium movement – complete change of society due to heaven‘s interference. Ex:
heaven‘s gate movement in US in 1970s, Falun Gong movement in late 1980s in
China and Japan (they went for mass suicide).
 Redemptive movement – anti materialistic movement. ISKCON, Art of living
 Alternative movement - Anti tabacco movement, Say no to plastics
 Utopian movement – considered non-realistic movement. Communist ideology.

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Role of leadership and Ideology in Social movements:
 Constitute people‘s efforts to organize themselves to light against inequalities,
discrimination and deprivation. Widespread collective mobilization has led to
organized movements with defined ideologies and leaders who have brought
important changes in societies from which they originate:
o Leaders are important for movements because they help clarify the issues and
thus shape the movement.
o They provide guidance to movement.
o They prevent it from becoming a desperate, unruly collection of people.
o Leadership is expected to reflect the views of the people.
o Leaders articulate the views of the participants.
o They present people‘s view in an organized manner.
o How participant attempt to achieve started objectives will be largely
determined by leadership the movement can throw up.
Ideology:
 People follow leader because he represents the ideas before people.
 Ideology plays a role in sustaining the movement.
 It helps in understanding a situation.
 It legitimizes actions perused by the people.
 Ideology makes people understand and justify the implications of their actions.
 Ideology indicates the goals, means and forms of practical activities of social groups
and individuals.
 It supplies the justification for various social, political and moral ideals.
 Ideology distinguishes a social movement from mere instances.
 Leaders operate within ideological framework.
With reference to India:
 Social movements are sustained collective mobilization to resist or bring social
change in society. Social movements are categorized in old and new social
movements based on following parameters:
o Organization goal
o Ideology of movement
o Method of struggle
o Social constituency
 NSMs is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new
movements that have come up in western societies roughly in mid – 1960 (i.e. post-
industrial society) which are claimed to depart significantly from conventional social
movement paradigm.
New in new social movement:
 OSM were based on Marxist ideology which intended to destroy the existing system
and questioned authority of state. NSM never wants to abolish the state. Ex:

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  NSM is inspired by post materialism and is more interested in quality of life. Earlier
movements were interested in subsistence need. Ex: ecological movements like
Chipko movement.
 NSM mare cross country movement while OSM are generally confined with state
boundary. Ex: Farmer movement in India falls under OSM but Human rights
movement (against AFSPA) is cross country movement.
 In OSM, beneficiaries are participants. In NSM, beneficiaries merely sympathizers
and they provide moral and monetary support. Movement is carried out by activists.
 OSM comprised mainly by proletariats. NSM mainly from middle class.
 NSM has sustained source of finance. Even government supports such movements.
OSM constrained in terms of resource.
 The NSM shows dissatisfaction with the predominantly Marxist view that treats social
movements as reflecting a fundamental struggle among classes organized around
economic production.
 They can be interpreted as struggles against the social inequalities, the dominance of
mass media and other features of post – industrial capitalism and welfare state.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Are social movements primordial in means and progressive in agenda? Explain.
(2018) (10 marks)
2. What is new in new social movements? Elaborate your answer with reference with
special reference to India. (2017) (20 marks)
3. What do you understand by social movement? How has the mobilization by
Scheduled Castes helped them in constructing a new identity? (2014) (10 marks)
Collective Action:
 Be defined as people acting together in pursuit of interests they share – Ex: gathering
to demonstrate in support of their cause.
 Some intensely involved; others may lend more passive or irregular support.
 Understood as actions by a group of people with specific goal or objective; involve
either of cooperation, conflict, competition or accommodation in general; either be
organized be organized or unorganized, institutionalized or non – institutionalized.
 Structure of a collective action is also defined by its organization, ideology, goals, and
leadership. Protests, agitations, revolutions, social movements, NGOs, mass
production etc. are some form of collective actions.
 Social movements in Tilly‘s view, tend to develop as a means of mobilizing group
resources either when people have no institutionalized means of making their voices
heard or when their needs are directly repressed by state authorities.
 Typical model varies with historical and cultural circumstances. In today‘s society for
example, most are familiar with forms of demonstrations such as mass marches, large
assemblies or street riots, other types have left modern society such as fights between
villages, machine breaking.

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  Herbert Blumer uses the term collective action to refer to social processes and events
do not reflect existing social structure (laws, conventions and institutions) but which
emerges in a ‗spontaneous‘ way. Classification of forms of collective action:
o Crowd – crowds are emotion. But a crowd is capable of any emotion, not only
negative ones like anger and fear but also joy and happiness.
o Public – Park distinguishes the crown, which expresses a common emotion,
from a public, which discusses a single issue. Thus, a public is not equivalent
to all members of society. To Park and Blumer, there are as many public as
there are issues.
o Mass – it differs from both crowd and the public in that it is defined not by
form of interaction but by efforts of those who us mass media to address an
audience.
o Social movement – they are large, sometimes, informal groupings of
individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues.
In other words, they carry out, resist or undo a social change. They have a life
cycle.
 Protestors can also build on examples taken from other countries; for instance,
guerrilla movements proliferated in various parts of the world once disaffected groups
learned how successful guerrilla actions can be against regular armies.
Revolution:
 Revolutionary movements or revolutions seek to overthrow existing social system and
replace with a new one. The communist revolution in Soviet Russia overthrew Czarist
regime and replaced it with communist system of production and distribution of
goods.
 MacIver – ―when a political regime overthrown by force in order to impose a new
form of government or government which proclaims a new policy on some crucial
issue we may call it revolution.‖ Further says assassination of king or president would
not constitute a revolution if it was inspired by personal motives or were act of small
group of desperados who could not hope to establish an alternative government.
 Revolution different forms like revolt, uprising, rebellion or mutiny in sense that latter
may not have lasting impact of society. Irresistibility and irrevocability are core
features of revolution as revolutions are not sporadic movements and have long
lasting impact.
 Revolutions also associated with positive and desirable human values like
emancipation, liberation, equality etc. may have revivalist or reformatory in spirit as
well, but never conservator in spirit.
 Flourish when reforms are blocked so that revolution remains the only alternative left
people.
 Although, an Oligarchy state ruled by an oligarch or a class is most prone to
revolution, however a democracy is not free from it. In an oligarchy, the people have
no power, their rights are suppressed, and there is coercion and oppression which take
people to revolution.

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  In a democracy, religious, social or economic issues may cause revolution. The earlier
writers like John of Salisbury and Mace Gold held that contract with God is superior
to contract with men and hence paramount over demands of state.
 Religion big emotive issue which can flare up revolution; most important feeling by a
particular group or race that it is not getting its just share in political set up of country
and that only alternative is to achieve autonomy or to be separated from state to which
is coercively bound.
 If such group occupies a determinate territory, such feeling acquires greater force. In
economic sphere division between capital and labour, the owners of MOP and
workers, has fostered much bitterness and revolutionary feeling.
 The capitalists control the government and therefore, the only way of abolishing
capitalism is to get control over government.
 In contrast to oligarchies, democracies are less prone to revolution, in words of
MacIver, ―A truly democratic state is vastly more secure than an oligarchy against
threat of revolution.
 Doubtless, the general will is still most imperfect and underdeveloped, but at least it is
sufficiently real to give it a new character and political authority.
 The formal basis of this authority is no more the division of master and servant but the
unity of agent and principal.
Thinkers:
 Karl Marx believed that the acute oppression by the capitalist in industrial society
will lead to consciousness among the proletariats who will organize themselves to
overthrow capitalism and establish communist society via socialism.
 Lenin believes that merely ‗class consciousness‘ is not enough for revolution and
recognized the importance of intellectual leadership for a successful revolution in
society. He himself led the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
 Mao – Tse Tung supported Cultural Revolution. Without changing the culture, the
purpose of revolution cannot get accomplished.
 Theda Skocpol – a revolution is a fundamental change in political power
organization structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time, when the
population rises up against the current authorities. A revolution leads to a major
process of reform or change.
 Goodwin distinguishes between conservative (reformist_ and radical revolutionary
movements. American or Mexican revolutionary movements belong to first type
and French, Russian and Arab to second.
Conditions for the Rise of Revolutionary movements:
 Mass discontent leading to popular uprisings.
 Dissident political movements with elite participation
 Strong and unifying motivations across major parts of the society.
 A significant political crisis affecting the state reducing its ability or will to deal with
the opposition.
 External support (or at last, lack of interference on behalf of the state).

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Types:
 Limited revolution – state structure is changed but socio – economic aspects are not
drastically altered.
 Revolution from above – elites capture power and drastic social transformation
happens – Meiji
 Development from below – India
 Failed revolution
Social movement Revolution
Scope Its scope is context specific Its scope involves a radical change
Nature Usually a social movement is long Abrupt in nature, though organised, but
drawn, sustained and organised it is sui – generis
Methods Various forms of peace agitations, Usually violent, but can be non – violent
propaganda to violence are used too
Semantics It is a broader term It is a particular type of social movement
Orientation Change in system Change in system
Example Peasant movements in India Arab Spring in Tunisia, French
revolution and Russian Revolution

Terrorism:
 Like revolution, outside law but intends on creating environment of fear and terror.
 Paul Johnson – 4 characteristics of terrorism – bypass established channels of
negotiation, not just by groups but also by state, democracies are most vulnerable to
terrorism, may be a matter of definition.
A form of asymmetric warfare:
 Defined as war with unequal access to technology, modern tactics and innovative
means by small groups to wage war against and win against powerful state and
maximize destruction.
 Since post - modern times terrorism taking new form with silent support from enemy
nations. Soft power used to justify on global level. Ex; Israel mass bombing in gaza
with US support.
 Religious terrorism: fundamentalism, and communalism responsible for religious
terrorism. Ex: Since 1970s rise of Islamic state.
Activities:
 Threatening conspiring or attempting to hijack planes, boats, buses or other vehicles.
 Threatening, conspiring or attempting to commit acts of violence on any protected
persons such as government officials
 Any crime committed with use of weapon or dangerous device with the intent of
crime is determined to be endangerment of public safety or substantial property
damage rather than for ‗mere personal monetary gain‘.

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Characteristics:
 It is against the state or community.
 It has political purpose.
 It is illegal and unlawful.
 It aims an intimidating and creating impact of fear and panic not only for victim but
also for people at large, caused for purpose of coercing or subduing.
 It is accompanied by feeling of impotence and helplessness on part of masses.
 It stops rational thinking.
 It leads to reaction of fight.
 It contains arbitrariness in violence as victims‘ selection is random and indiscriminate.
Objectives:
 Cause the regime to react and also to overreact.
 Mobilise mass support and urge potential sympathisers to greater militancy or
increase the involvement of more people.
 Eliminate opponents and informers and remove threats to movement and also ensure
obedience of followers.
 Give publicity or magnify their cause and strength.
 Show of strength and to demonstrate the incapacity of regime to protect people and
maintain order.
Origin and development:
 Political terrorism as an instrument came to power during French Revolution of 1793.
 The major reasons for terrorism lie in very nature of modern civilisation itself and
inherit in modern industrial system.
o Vulnerability; easy targets
o Highly sophisticated weapons
o Communication and transportation
o Wide audience
Types:
 State terrorism (proxy war)
 Cyber terrorism
 Nuclear terrorism
 Bioterrorism
 Eco – terrorism
 Narco – terrorism
Support base:
 Supporting the ideology or cause
 Agreeing with methodology
 Providing money and material
 Nonviolent participation in rallies
 Supplying arms and ammunition

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  Providing shelter or harbour
 Vocal or written support
 Active participation in movement
 Terrorism in India has attracted more youngsters, particularly unemployed the
misguided and idealistic youth.
Terrorism in India:
 Theocratic state – religious
 Identity crisis – ethno – nationalist
 Class enmity – left – wing terrorism
 Drug trafficking – narco – terrorism
Chief terrorist groups in India:
 Jaish – e – Mohammed
 Lashkar – e – Taiba ( LeT)
 Harkat – ul – Jihad – I – Islami (HUJI)
 Jamaat – ul – Mujahideen
 Maoist (merger of Naxalite groups)
 United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA)
Deadliest attacks in India:
 Mumbai – Maharashtra (1993) – series of bomb explosions at commercial centres and
other landmarks.
 Indian Parliament attack (2001)
 Akshardham – Gujarat (2002) – temple complex
 Mumbai – Maharashtra (2006) seven bomb explosions in local trains
 Samjhuata Blasts (2007) – bomb explosion in two unreserved coaches
 Mumbai (2008) – series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four
days
 Pulwama – Kashmir (2019) – attack on CRPF colony
Causes:
 Socio – economic factors: unemployment, poverty, homelessness, desperation and
lack of opportunity, wrong policies of government, accumulation of wealth in few
hands, deprivation of basic rights and violation of fundamental rights.
 Political factors: economic dissatisfaction, failure of government to control large –
scale immigration, to fulfil demand of economic benefits for sons and daughters of
soil.
 Regional factors – demand for Khalistan, in J & K Muslims associated with various
organisations shifted to terrorism for conflicting objectives, feelings of ethnic
separatedness in the North – East (Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur)
 Religious factors – fundamentalism (ideology of extremists)

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Sociological perspective:
 Merton‘s theory of deviance
 Weber‘s charismatic authority
 Ulrich Beck‘s manufactured risk
 Durkheim‘s anomie
 Marx‘s alienation
 Theory of relative deprivation
Action required to check terrorism:
 All parties should work together to eliminate terrorism.
 Need for stringent laws (India‘s law is too soft to handle terrorism)
 Strengthen our intelligence services
 State governments should act equally (follow up on security alerts)
 Police force needs to be trained properly
 Proper coordination among foreign, home and defence ministry
 Seek cooperation of citizens to get information about terrorists
 Social inclusion – ethnic groups, unprivileged, youth
 Employment opportunities for all
 Security for the informal sector
 Proper implementation of governmental policies
 Curb radicalisation of the youth
 Prevent discrimination based on caste, religion, race, region
 Jobs for migrants along with local people.
Challenges:
 Media trial: altruistic motives of state result in denial or reduced punishment of
accused. Ex: 26/11 hanging of terrorist Ajmal Kasab.
 Religion: Marx observed religion as opium of people. Deep rooted communalist
ideologies need change but accused of religious constraints.
 Financial aid: capitalists, ideology groups, and pressure groups provide aid to
terrorism.
Sovereignty:
 Hinsley – ―sovereignty implies that an idea that there is final and absolute political
authority in political community and that no final and absolute authority exists
elsewhere.
 Thomas Hobbes – social contact by all individuals. Relinquish all powers and rights
to sovereign entity.
 Rosseau – sovereignty of people is when citizens are obligated to nly rules and laws
which they have prescribed for themselves.
Characteristics:
 Absoluteness, exclusiveness, permanence, universality, inalienability, invincible. Can
be internal or external sovereignty.

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Previous Years Questions:
1. How is terrorism a new form of asymmetrical warfare? What are some of the
challenges in trying to win the war on terrorism? (2019) (10 marks)
2. Explain the conditions under which a collective action transforms into a social
movement. (2015) (20 marks)

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Additional notes:

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Unit No: 8

Unit Name: Religion and society

Religion:

 Sociologists study religion as both belief system and social institution. As a belief
system, religion shapes what people think and how they see the world.
 As social institution, religion is a pattern of social action organized around the beliefs
and practise that people develop to answer the questions about the meaning of
existence. As an institution, religion persists over time and has an organizational
structure into which members are socialized.

Sociologists are interested in several questions about religion:

 How are religious beliefs and factors related to other social factors like race, age,
gender and education
 How are religious institutions organized?
 How does religion affect social change?
 What influence does religion have on other social institutions, such as political or
educational institutions?
 Also study religiosity of individuals which is intensity and consistency of practice of a
person‘s faith.

Functions of religion:

Can be seen at two levels – manifest and latent (individual as well as societal level)

 Social change – social change can be brought about by religion by new principles,
new ideology etc. Buddhism and its challenge to orthodoxy of Brahminism is such an
example. According to Weber, it led to rise of capitalism, in his study of American
Evangelical Protestantism, Tocqueville established that it helped the growth of
democratic in America. Tocqueville proposed that Catholicism with modifications
could foster democratic spirit in France.
 Integrative force – as stated by Durkheim, religion unites all those who believe in it.
Especially in a time of crisis, religion acts as a uniting force and acts as an emotional
support.
 Social control – every religion has the concepts of sins, virtues, good and bad. They
guide the behaviour of those who follow the religion. Religious institutions like
temples and church also control the behaviour of individual in different manner.
Issuing of Fatwas is such an example. Festivals and preaching by the religious leaders
also control behaviour.
 Intellectual function – it provides answers to many questions which are not answered
by other bodies of knowledge. Ex: process of life and death.
 Normative role – it is an ensemble of beliefs and practices which often act as moral
guidelines as well. Most of religions in the world have common tenets of peace,
fraternity, love etc.

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  Solace and comforting function – comforting people through illness, death and other
crisis. Malinowski saw religion as assisting the individual to cope with situations of
stress or anxiety.
 Stabilization – religion can change the social order or religion can stabilize social
order. Some sects in past have done this. Ex: Veerashaiva movement led by
Baswesvara in Southern India led to a struggle against the unreasonableness
Brahmins.
 Ritual role – religious conventions and practise also direct marriages, mutual relation
of family members and so on. According to Hindu philosophy, ‗Kama‘ is one of the
Purusharthas.
 Fear of and other religions norms also help in social control.
 Religion can also supplement practical, empirical knowledge. ‗science without
religion is lame, religion without science is blind‘ according to Einstein.

Sociology Vs philosophy Vs theology of religion:

 Sociology of religion does not ask, whether god exists. Rather, sociology of religion
asks, if people believe that God exists. ‗why do they believe‘, ‗how do they come to
believe‘? ‗how do they describe their god?‘ and is there any relationship between their
description of god and social conditions.
 Philosophy has many specializations like metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.
Metaphysics is, broadly put, the study of the abstract. As a metaphysician, a
philosopher or religion has to deduce arguments for and against the existence of God.
Epistemology is a study of the 'basis' of knowledge. Accordingly, as an
epistemologist, a philosopher of religion examines the possibility of knowing God
through various means.
 Theologians are necessarily believers. They believe in the existence of God (in
whatever from it may be) and try to understand the nature of divine beings by
studying the faith of its believers. By analyzing the people's experience of God,
theologians try to understand God and God's plans.

Dysfunctions of Religion:

 Robert Merton introduced the concept of dysfunction. Talking about religion,

instance, he pointed out the dysfunctional features of religion in a multi – religion
society. – become the cause of disorganization and disunity.
 Conflict theorists like Marx also argue that religion acts as opium of masses and
justify the dominant ideology and exploitation.
 Religion hinders social progress and impedes social changes – religion makes people
dogmatic.
 It promotes evil practices.
 Further, religion also leads to communalism.
 It makes an individual fatalist.

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Thinkers:

 Comte called sociology religion of positivism.

 1st stage of his law 3 stages was theological (supernatural being) – it had 3 sub stages
o Fetishism (spirit is present in all inanimate things)
o Polytheism – priests and Gods were formed for the first time.
o Monotheism – single god, some form of rationality emerged for the first time.
nd
 2 stage was metaphysical – about abstract force – supernatural power.
 3rd stage was positivism which began with enlightenment and FR.
 Sacred – encompassed the social community, profane are personal and private.
 Durkheim – Totem – National flag example – he stated the religion is primarily
concerned with three kinds of activities:
o Maintaining a separation between sacred and profane.
o Laying down a system of beliefs for the faithful and
o Setting up a system of rules that forbids certain ways of acting.
 He defined religion ‗as a unified system of beliefs and practices to sacred things, that
is to say, things set apart and forbidden beliefs and practices which unite in one single
moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them‘.
 Bryan Wilson – religion is oration and will be replaced by science.
 Douglas – the present is as religious as past and the past was as secular as the present

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Unit No: 8

Unit Name: Religion and society

Chapter: (a) Sociological theories of religion:

Functionalist Perspective:

 This perspective examines religion in terms of society‘s needs. Society requires a

certain degree of social solidarity, value consensus, harmony and integration between
its parts and religion makes contribution to meeting such functionalist prerequisites.

The Sacred and Profane:

 In ―The elementary forms of religious life‖, Durkheim argued that all societies divide
the world into two categories – the sacred and profane. Religion is based upon this
division. It is a unified system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things – things
that are set apart and forbidden.
 A tree, pebble, anything can be sacred. There is nothing about particular qualities of
these things that make them sacred. Sacred things must be symbols, must represent
something. The relationship between sacred symbols and what they represent helps to
understand the role of religion in society.

Totemism:

 Durkheim called the religion of various clans of Australian aborigines, totemism. It is

the simplest and most basic form of religion according to him. Each clan has a totem,
usually a plant or an animal.
 The totem is symbol of clan and is represented by drawings or churingas made on
wood or stone.
 However, the totem is also the most sacred objects in Aborigine ritual.
 It is ‗the outward and visible form of the totemic principle or god‘. Durkheim argued
that as the totem is at once the symbol of god and of society, in worshipping god,
people are in fact worshipping society.
 Society is real object to religious veneration. Sacred things are considered superior in
power to profane things, and particularly to man. Humans are inferior and dependent
on them.
 This relationship between humanity and sacred things is exactly the relationship
between humanity and society.
 Totems are used because it is easier for a person to visualize and direct his feelings of
awe towards a symbol then towards a complex thing like a clan.

Religion and the „collective conscience‟:

 Durkheim believed that social life was impossible without the shared values and
beliefs that form the collective conscience.

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  In their absence, there would be no social order, social control, social solidarity or
cooperation.
 In short, there would be no society.
 Religion reinforces the collective conscience. Worship of society, provides it greater
power to direct human action. It recognizes the importance of social group and man‘s
dependence upon it.
 Religion thus strengthens the unity of group and promotes social solidarity.
Durkheim also emphasized the importance of collective worship.

Critique:

 He studied only a small number of Aboriginal tribes, hence generalization may be

incorrect; it is more relevant to small, non – literate societies where there is a close
integration of culture and social institutions, and where members share a common
belief and value system.
 He overstates the degree to which the collective conscience permeates and shapes the
behaviour of the society, this is especially seen in multi – faith societies.
 Over stresses social order and continuity instead of social dynamism and
transformation.
 Gives no importance to individual and emotional needs of human beings in seeking
religion.
 Views religion as essentially reductionist, thus rejecting spirituality embedded in it.

Bronislaw Malinowski:

 Magic, Religion and Science – his work in the Trobriand Islands provided with
insights on religion in a small, non – literate society.
 Like Durkheim, he sees religion as reinforcing social norms and values and promoting
social solidarity. However, he does not see religion as reflecting society as a whole or
religious ritual as worship of society.
 He sees religion as being concerned with situations of emotional stress that threaten
social solidarity.

Religion and life crises:

 Anxiety and tension tend to disrupt social life. Situations that produce these emotions
include crises of life such as birth, puberty, marriage and death.
 Death is most disruptive of these events and Malinowski sees the comfort and support
provided to the bereaved as a way to check their emotions.
 It controls the stress and anxiety that might disrupt society.
 Death is socially destructive, and at funeral ceremony the social group unites to
support the bereaved and thus expresses social solidarity which reintegrates society.

Religion, prediction and control:

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  Events that cannot be fully controlled or predicted also produce tension and anxiety
Malinowski noted that such events were surrounded by ritual, which he sees as a form
of religious practice.
 Ex: When the Trobrianders went fishing in calm waters of lagoon where catch was
easy and abundant, there were no rituals attached to it.
 However, when they went fishing in open sea, where the weather was uncertain and
catch was unpredictable, it was preceded by rituals to ensure a good catch and protect
the fishermen.
 Thus, rituals reduce anxiety by providing confidence and a feeling of control. These
rituals are also a social event, where the group unites to deal with situations of stress
and further strengthens the group unity.

Critique:

 He exaggerates the importance of religious rituals in helping people to cope with

situations of stress and uncertianity.
 Tambiah points out those elaborate rituals are also associated with the cultivation of
taro and yams on the Trobriand Islands.
 This is related to the fact these are used by men as payment to their sister‘s husbands.
 Men who fail to do show that they are unable to fulfil significant social obligations.
 These rituals are therefore simply related to the maintenance of prestige in that society
and have little to do with cementing solidarity or dealing with uncertainty and danger.

Talcott Parsons:

Religion and value consensus:

 Parsons argue that human action is directed and controlled by norms provided by the
social system.
 The cultural system provides more general guidelines for action in the form of beliefs,
values and systems of meanings.
 The norms are integrated and patterned by the cultural system‘s values and beliefs.
 Religion is part of cultural system and religious beliefs provide guidelines for human
action and standards against which people‘s conduct can be evaluated.
 Ex: the Ten Commandments demonstrate how many of the norms of the social system
can be integrated by religious beliefs. The commandment ‗Thou shalt not kill‘
integrates diverse norms that direct behaviour which prohibits man slaughter, murder
and euthanasia.

Religion and social order:

 Parsons also sees religion as being addressed to particular problems that occur in all
societies and disrupt social life. These problems fit into two categories. The first
consists of ‗events which individuals cannot foresee and prepare for, or control, or
both‘. One such event is premature death. Here, Parsons sees religion as a mechanism
for adjustment to such events and as a means of restoring the normal pattern of life.

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  The second problem area is that of ‗uncertainty‘. This refers to endeavours in which a
great deal of effort and skill has been invested, but where unknown or uncontrollable
factors can threaten a successful outcome. Ex: inability to predict or control the effect
of weather upon agriculture. Here, religion provides a means of adjusting and coming
to terms with such situations through rituals which act as a ‗tonic to self ‗confidence‘.
 In this way, religion maintains social stability by relieving the tensions and
frustration that could disrupt social order.

Religion and meaning:

 As part of cultural system, religious beliefs give meaning to life and answer ‗man
questions about himself and the world he lives in.‘ social life is full of contradictions
that threaten the meanings people place on life and religion helps to make sense of all
experiences, no matter how meaningless or contradictory they appear.
 Ex: ‗why do men suffer deprivation and pain?‘ ‗why does evil go unpunished?‘
religion provides meaning to events that people do not expect, or feel ought not to
happen and this allows intellectual and emotional adjustment and this adjustment
promotes order and stability in society.

 Radcliffe Brown argues that religious ceremonies, for example, in the form of
communal dancing, promoted unity and harmony and functioned to enhance social
solidarity and the survival of the society. Religious beliefs contained in myths and
legends, he observes, express the social values of the different objects which have
major influence on social life as such as food, weapons, day and night etc. they form
the value consensus around which society is integrated.
 Kingsley Davis argues that religious beliefs form the basis for social valued goals and
a justification of them. Religion provides a common focus for identity and an
unlimited source of rewards and punishments for behaviour.
 Merton, a 20th century functionalist, introduced concept of dysfunction. Talking about
religion, for instance, he pointed out the dysfunctional features of religion in a multi –
religious society. In such a society religion, instead of bringing about solidarity, could
become the cause of disorganization and disunity.
 Odea and Yinger, Joan Davis – contemporary functionalists who talk of ‗personal
experience of god.‘ Thus one is not expected to justify his faith in God and to what
extent in modern society. They believe that transcendental belief, faith in supernatural
force and rituals constitute the essentials ingredients of religion in today‘s world. It
does not have a collective appeal; rather different people find different forms of these
ingredients appealing. However, it is argued that ultimate experience is the same. Path
chosen for divinity is different, but the benefits obtained are similar. Gaps are created
by science and these are filled by religion and vice versa. Thus, religion is functional
and there is a mutual coexistence of religion and science.

Critique of the functionalist approach:

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  It emphasizes the positive contributions of religion to society and tends to ignore its
dysfunctional aspects. With its preoccupation with harmony, integration and
solidarity, functionalism neglects the many instances where religion can be seen as a
divisive and disruptive force. It gives little consideration to hostility between different
religious groups within the same society, or the internal divisions within a community
over religions matters or multiple religious conflicts throughout the history.
 Maintains the status quo, promotes fatalism and pessimism, acts as an obstacle to
progress and development. Hinders promotion of human intellect.
 Secularization:
o What is viewed as secularization in other theories is seen as simply religious
change in functionalist terms. Functionalist theorists argue that religion takes
different forms in apparently secular societies.
o It is more individualized, less tied to religious institutions. The character of
modern industrial differentiated character of religion in a society like USA.
o Although seemingly having little basis for integration, the celebration of
individualism is itself an integrating feature of such diverse religious forms.
Moreover, new and distinctive forms of religion may perform latent functions
for the system by deflecting adherents from critical appraisal of their society
and its distribution of rewards.
 Communism – in anti – religious societies such as some communist states, this
argument cannot hold, but here it is claimed that functional alternatives to traditional
religion operate. Other systems of belief such as communism itself fulfil the same role
as religion. National ceremonies, ritual celebration of communist victories, heroes,
etc., meet the same need for collective rites, which reaffirm common sentiments and
promote enhanced commitment to common goals.

Marxist perspective:

 From Marx‘s POV, religion is form of mystification – a distortion of the real

relationship between people and inanimate objects. Though religion, humans, project
personal characteristics onto the impersonal forces of nature – they create Gods whom
they believe to have control over nature.
 This renders nature potentially open to manipulation by humans, for example through
prayer or sacrifice. To Marx, this is a form of alienation. People create imaginary
beings or forces which stand above them and control their behaviour.
 Marx believed that religion was rooted in societies that alienated and exploited their
members and when such societies were superseded, religion would no longer be
necessary. The proletariat would remove need the need for religion by replacing the
oppressive capitalist society with a communist one.
 Thus, to Marx, religion is an illusion that eases the pain produced by exploitation and
oppression. It is a series of myths that justify and legitimate the subordination of the
subject class and the domination and privilege of the ruling class. It is a distortion of
reality which provides many of the deceptions that form the basis of the ruling class
ideology and false consciousness.

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  In his words, ‗religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a
heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of people.‘ It is
both, an expression of real suffering and a protest against suffering, but it does little to
solve the problem and instead helps to make life more bearable and thus dilutes the
demand for change. It merely stupefies its adherents rather than bringing them true
happiness and fulfilment.
 It cushions the effects of oppression by:
o Promise of ‗salvation from bondage and misery‘ in the afterlife.
o Making poverty more tolerable by offering a reward for suffering and
promising compensation for injustice in the afterlife.
o The hope of supernatural intervention to solve problems on earth.
o Justification of the social order and a person‘s position within it.
 Religion is also an instrument of oppression. It acts as a mechanism of social control,
maintaining the existing system and reinforcing class relationships. By offering an
illusion, it produces a false class consciousness that diverts people‘s attention from
the real source of their oppression and helps to maintain ruling class power.
 The ruling class also adopts religious beliefs but to justify their position both to
themselves and to others. They also often directly support religion to further their
interests.
 The caste system of tradition India, ‗divine right theory‘ that supported the medieval
monarchs of Europe, Egyptian belief that Pharaohs were Gods, slave owners
approving conversion of slaves to Christianity believing it to be a controlling and
gentling influence – are all evidences that support Marxist view of religion in society.

Critique:

 Evidences suggest that religion does not always legitimate power, it is not simply a
justification of alienation or a justification of privilege and it can sometimes provide
an impetus for change. Ex: Protestant ethics and capitalism.
 It does not explain the existence of religion where it does not appear to contribute to
the oppression of a particular class. Nor does it explain why religion might continue
to exist even when oppression has come to an end. Ex: In USSR even under
communism, where state actively discouraged religion and many places of worship
were closed, religion did not completely die out.

Neo – Marxist perspective:

 Fredrick Engels in ‗on the history of early Christianity‘ recognized the active role that
may be played by religion in effecting revolutionary social change. Engels compared
some of early Christian sects that opposed Roman rule to communist and socialist
political movements. He said that while Christianity originated as a way of coping
with exploitation among oppressed groups, it could become source of resistance to the
oppressors and thus a force for change.
 Otto Maduro – places emphasis on the idea that religion has some independence or
‗relative autonomy‘ from the economic system of the bourgeoisie. He believes that

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 members of the clergy can develop revolutionary potential where oppressed members
of population have no outlet for their grievances and can pressurize priests to take up
their cause.

Rational Choice theory:

 R.Stephen Warner argued that a whole new paradigm had emerged in the sociology of
religion. The paradigm assumed that a truly religious society was one in which a
single religion dominated society as a whole and people automatically became
members of dominant church at birth.
 Any departure from this seen as evidence of religious decline. However, this model
did not fit the experience of USA, or even the recent development of religion in other
parts of world, and a new perspective was therefore required.
 From this perspective, the greater the religious pluralism, the more successful religion
was likely to be. The new perspective as rational choice theory.
o It originates from USA and is largely based upon the experience of religion in
USA.
o It assumes that most people are naturally religious.
o It argues that there are rational reasons behind belief in religion – people
believe in religion because there is something in it for them. It thus adopts a
more individualistic stance.
o Religion is seen in similar terms to a market in which individual consumer
choices are important in determining whether a particular religion is successful
or not.
o The overall success of religion depends partly upon the ‗supply – side‘ – that
is, whether consumers of religion have a good selection of alternative products
(religious organizations) to choose from.
o Rational choice theory generally rejects the view that religion is declining.

Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge – Exchange theory:

Human desires:

 They believe that religion helps to meet universal needs. They claim that ‗human
seek what they perceive to be rewards and try to avoid what they perceive to be
costs.‘ This provides a straightforward basis for human decision – making
individuals still face problems:
o Many of the things that people desire, for example wealth and status, are
scarce and cannot be obtained by everybody.
o Some things that people strongly desire may not be available at all. Ex: a
desire for life after death.
 These desires provide basis for religion.

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Compensators:

 They recognize that, Ex: religion might not actually provide people with eternal life,
but what it does offer is a ‗compensator‘. A compensator is a belief that a reward will
be obtained in the distant future or in some other context which cannot be verified. In
the absence of immediate rewards, people are liable to seek compensators instead.

Compensators and the super natural:

 Sometimes individuals want rewards that are so great and so remote from everyday
experience that possibility of gaining them can only be contemplated alongside a blief
in the super natural.
 Example: quest for ‗meaning‘ in life. Only a belief in a god allows one to have
answers to such fundamental questions.
 Thus religion, offers general compensators based on supernatural assumptions.

Religious pluralism and secularization:

 Since religion answers universal questions and its compensators meet universal
human needs, religion can neither disappear nor seriously decline.
 In fact, American society has become characterized by increasing religious pluralism
as people have sought new sources of compensators if their Church becomes less
appealing as a source of compensators.
 It has also been observed majority of people who say they have no religious affiliation
express considerable belief in the mystical and supernatural.
 Hence, they have not lost their need for supernatural compensators. Also, where
agnosticism or atheism existed in one generation, it tended not to be passed down to
succeeding generations.

Critique by Steve Bruce:

 Evidence shows that secularization is indeed taking place. Not all humans are seeking
what religion has to offer.
 Evidence also shows that towns in USA with greater religious pluralism have lower
rates of Church membership, and not the highest rates as the theory predicts.
 He does not believe that in choosing religion, people can behave like consumers. This
is because there is no clear way to compare the costs and benefits of rival beliefs.

Symbolic theory:

 Peter Berger - in sees religion from a phenomenological perspective, as different and

unique for each. Everyone is born with an empty mind into which is injected values,
norms, etiquettes, culture via which we try to relate with the world around us. This
refers to ‗Nomos‘ or norms which are a part of culture and are inherited by
individuals by socialization. These Nomos vary from culture to culture and society to
society.

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  Conformance to these Nomos leads to ‗universality of meaning‘. When we find
someone‘s behaviour not conforming to our Nomos we have a negative perception
about that person. Thus, religion is nothing but a product of one‘s cultural Nomos and
is used to reflect on food, dress, behaviour, etc.
 Respect for differential Nomos is needed to minimize conflicts in a society. Religious
conflicts are a result of differing Nomos.
 Religion is an everyday experience, and driven by Nomos, we go for certain behavior.
This comprises the plausibility structure. It gives direction to life, allows to reflect on
others, carries shared values and can help transmit them to the future generations.
 Thus, religion is a product of Nomos, suing which we go for ‗universality of meaning‘
and this results in plausibility of structure.

David Leckmann – talks about ‗invisble religion.‘ He claims that not visiting the church or
not performing rituals does not mean that a person is irreligious. Religion is a unique
experience for each person. It has not disappeared from individual life, rather the extent to
which it is practiced and present in one‘s life in only known to him or her. This is invisible
religion.

Clifford Geertz – religion is present due to presence of bafflement, sufferings and evils. A
powerful force like God is sought to deal with these problems. Religion is thus present in
hearts and souls and experienced in everyday life.

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Unit No: 8

Unit Name: Religion and society

Chapter: (b) Types of religious practices: animism, monism, pluralism, sects, cults:

Animism:

 Animism refers to the belief that not only humans, but non – human entities are also
spiritual beings or at least embody some kind of a life – principle. Animism
encompasses the belief that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical
(or material) worlds, and souls or spirits exists, not only in humans, but also in
animals, plants, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as
mountains or rivers and other entities of the natural environment.
 Many philosophers such Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas contemplated the possibility
that souls exist in animals, plants and people. However, the currently accepted
definition of animism was only developed in the 19th century, by Sir Edward B. Tylor.
In his book ‗primitive culture‘, Tylor developed ‗the thesis of Animism‘. In this he
defined, ‗animism‘ (from Latin ‗anima‘ which means soul) as ‗a given form of
religion in which man finds the presence of spirit in every object that surrounds him.‘
 According to him, man‘s ideas of spirits primarily originated from his dreams. In his
dreams man, for the first time, encountered his double. He realized that his double or
duplicate is more dynamic and elastic than his own self. He further considered that his
double, though it resembled his body, is far more superior in terms of power than his
body. He believed that the presence of ‗soul‘ in human body is responsible for this
elasticity of images in dreams. Shadow and reflection were other puzzling
phenomena.
 Taking these facts into consideration, primitive mind considered that when man
sleeps, the ‗soul‘ moves out of the body of man ‗temporarily‘ and when he is dead; it
leaves the body ‗permanently‘. According to Tylor, the most ancient form of religion
is animistic practice of ‗Ancestor worship‘. Man believed that after death, his
ancestors exist in form of their souls. These souls may be ‗benevolent‘ or
‗malevolent‘. Realizing this, in order to convert these souls into ‗protecting spirits‘,
man made them ‗periodic offerings‘. In primitive communities this is known as
Ancestor cult and ghost worship.
 According to Tylor. The primitive man was not in condition to distinguish between
animate and inanimate objects. Therefore, he conceived that like ‗life and soul‘
associated with human body, they should be associated with every object both
animate and inanimate. Realizing this he started worshipping rocks, trees, streams,
everything surrounding him extending the notion of soul to all of them. Tylor argues
that religion in the form of animism originated to satisfy man‘s intellectual nature to
meet his need to make sense of death, dreams and visions.
 In this world view, humans are considered a part of nature, rather than superior to, or
separate from it. Rituals are considered essential for survival, as they win the favor of

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 the spirits of one's source of food, shelter, and fertility and ward off malevolent
spirits.
 Contemporary animist traditions include African traditional religions and aboriginal
Guanches in the Canary Island. Teton Sioux of America practice an animistic religion
and perform Ghost Dance ceremony to appease spirits. Shintoism of Japan, is also
highly animistic and spirits of nature, or kami, are believed to exist everywhere. The
New Age movement commonly purports animism in the form of the existence of
nature spirits and fairies. Pitra and Shraddh are also associated with belief in soul of
the ancestors.
 R Marett who put forth the theory of animatism which refers to belief in anything or
anybody who is animate or endowed with life and that life is considered to have
supernatural power or force.

Monism:

 Monism is a religious – philosophical worldview in which all of reality can be

reduced to one ‗thing‘ or ‗substance‘. This view is opposed to dualism (in which all of
reality is reducible to two substances – good and evil, light and darkness, form and
matter, body and soul) and pluralism (all of reality is comprised of multiple
substances).
 Many of the early, pre-Socratic philosophers tried to understand the underlying nature
of the reality that surrounded them. They wanted to determine what everything could
be reduced to. For example, for Thales, the first principle of everything - that from
which everything is derived - was water. For Anaximenes, it was air. For Heraclitus
everything was in constant flux (or change), therefore, all reality was change. While
for, Parmenides, Being or Reality is an unmoving perfect sphere, unchanging,
undivided. Plotinus and Adi Shankara are two other philosophers who have also
preached Monism.
 In metaphysics, the term was first used by Christian Wolff, to denote the
philosophical theories which recognized only a single kind of reality, whether
physical or psychical.
 In the religious-spiritual outlook, Monism is the underlying worldview of those who
hold to a form of Pantheism. Pantheism is the worldview that God is the ultimate
source of being, and that all of reality is a manifestation of this God. Pantheism sees
no real distinction between God and the universe. Plotinus taught that ultimate being
resided in the One. From a series of necessary emanations, out of the One, comes the
Divine Mind (Nous), the World Soul (Psyche), and the material world (Cosmos).
 Monism can also be seen in the scientific realm in naturalistic materialism.
 Broadly speaking, the concept of monism refers to faith in one God, one body of
ritual, one set of ideology and moral doctrines. During the medieval period, religion
offered a foundation to the formation of political state. It was believed that religious
differences all over the world can only glorify the variations in political identity of the
state. For example: Roman Empire emerged as a Christian state. Middle East gave
way to the rise of Islamic states, in the post Egyptian civilization.

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  However, during the 18th century, slave trade, colonialism, expansion of the
territorial boundaries of the state because of warfare gave rise to the emergence of
culturally pluralistic societies. However, the major concern of the state was to
transform multiculturalism into cultural uniformity. It was believed that when a single
religion has monopoly over truth, it helps to effectively reinforce the social norms.
Therefore, the state patronized one religion, permitted missionaries to lure ethnic
minorities to go for religious conversions. As a result, multi ethnic groups, because of
coercion and persuasion became a part of artificially constructed monistic societies.
These monistic societies glorified one sovereign ruler, one ideology, one culture
developing intolerance to cultural distinctions. Monism strengthened religion and
stood opposite to pluralism.
 After the advent of industry, free trade and democracy in Europe, discrimination and
power of the Church reduced, and pluralism replaced the monistic society.
 In a society, where monism is close to the heart, but pluralism becomes the rule of
law, conflict arises. Anti – conversion movements, communal tensions, riots are some
manifestations of a glorified monism challenging a state‘s commitment to ideological
pluralism.
 Monism in philosophy can be defined according to four kinds:
o Idealism, phenomenalism, or mentalistic monism which holds that only mind
is real.
o Neutral monism, which holds that both the mental and physical can be reduced
to some sort of third substance or energy.
o Physicalism or materialism, which holds that only the physical is real, and that
mental can be reduced to the physical.
o Holistic gnoseology, which holds that only a global approach to reality, by
means of global knowledge, is able to get the truth. Holistic gnoseology is
therefore an anti – specialist way to get a supposed deeper and comprehensive
reality.

Pluralism:

 Religious pluralism refers to the belief in two or more religious worldviews as being
equally valid or acceptable. More than mere tolerance, religious pluralism accepts
multiple paths to God or Gods as a possibility and is usually contrasted with
‗excluvism,‘ the idea that there is only true religion or way to know God.
o Pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity.
Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic
between or among them. Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is
not a given; it is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and
relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies
o Pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across
lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not
require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know
anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of

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 religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of
one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that
underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live
today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.
o Pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments. The new
paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our
commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments. It means
holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in
isolation, but in relationship to one another.
o Pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue
and encounter, give and take, criticism and self – criticism. Dialogue means
both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common
understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the
‗table‘ will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to
being at the table – with one‘s commitments.
 While religious pluralism has been in existence since at least the 17th century, the
concept has become more popular since the latter half of the 20th century in Western
Europe and North America. Specifically, the idea of religious ecumenism (religions
working together as one) and the recently popularized interfaith movement have led to
the increased acceptance of religious pluralism in popular culture. Studies by the
Barna Group and others have noted the growth of ideas related to religious pluralism
in American culture in recent years. In many cases, even significant numbers of
people identified as Christians believe there is more than one way to heaven.
 Pluralism is more than the sharing of certain values or agreement on some social
issues. Buddhists and Christians both agree that helping the poor is important, but
such limited concord is not pluralism. Pluralism has to do with lending credence to
competing truth claims and accepting diverse beliefs regarding God and salvation. In
addition, two or more religions can share some doctrinal beliefs yet remain
fundamentally different as belief systems. For example, Muslims and Christians agree
that there is only one God - yet both religions define God differently and hold many
other irreconcilable beliefs.
 The existence of religious pluralism depends on the existence of freedom of religion.
Freedom of religion is when different religions of a particular region possess the same
rights of worship and public expression. Freedom of religion is consequently
weakened when one religion is given rights or privileges denied to others, as in
certain European countries where Roman Catholicism or regional forms of
Protestantism have special status. Religious freedom has not existed at all in some
communist countries where the state restricts or prevents the public expression of
religious belief and may even actively persecute individual religions. Religious
pluralism has existed in the Indian Subcontinent since the rise of Buddhism around
500 BC and has widened in the course of several Muslim settlements (Delhi Sultanate
and the Mughal Empire). In the 8th century, Zoroastrianism established in India as
Zoroastrians fled from Persia to India in large numbers, where they were given

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 refuge. The colonial phase ushered in by the British lasted until 1947 and furthered
conversions to Christianity among low caste Hindus.
 The rise of religious pluralism in the modern West is closely associated with the
Reformation and the Enlightenment. Blackledge and Hunt in advocate that cultural
pluralism is the foundation to the rise of a multi-cultural society. Multi culturalism
according to them is a European concept that did not get much of approval from the
African subcontinent where people preferred to go for ethnic diversity. Cultural
uniformity is as a coercive manner was induced into socialist societies and most of the
Islamic states of middle-east and the search for a homeland for Jews at Israel glorified
the idea of creation of political state on the basis of mono cultural identities. When
Europe went for pluralism this idea did not receive a global endorsement. As a result,
monistic societies went for religious revivalism and consolidation emphasizing on
religious education, religious laws are emerging as the civil laws of the state. Hence a
great ideological difference between monistic and pluralistic societies has been seen.
 In case of pluralistic societies, deprivation and inequality gave way to sectarian
mobilizations. In case of America, blacks got unified as a challenge to the political
doctrine of pluralism during early 19th century that gave rise to the integration of
black immigrants from different parts of the world. Challenge to pluralism comes
from sectarian mobilization from within and the glorification of monistic states from
outside.
 Clifford Geertz in mentions his case study of Indonesia. He found out that their
exposure to Spanish colonialism, Dutch colonialism and subsequently western values,
did not change their commitment to Islamic values. He asserts that the search for
monism is a rebellion and revolution, than simply being a myopic the foundation to
their independence and therefore cultural monism came as a predominant force in
Indonesia.
 Rowena Robinson in ‗sociology of religion in India‘ advocates that Gandhi‘s call for
Ramarajya was greatly driven by a call for implicit monism and explicit pluralism.
Gandhi wanted that Hindus and Muslims should stay together as equal partners to
modern India. But he strongly that Hindu cultural values can offer a right direction to
the people to go for a disciplined life. In a society where monism is close to heart, but
pluralism becomes the rule of law, people driven by emotions will stay committed to
religion. She believes that anti – conversion movements, communal tensions in the
country are the manifestation of glorified monism challenging to state‘s commitment
to pluralistic ideology.
 Amartya Sen in his article ‗secularism in India‘ considers that India‘s pluralism has
always been a doctrine of the state that mostly fails to internalize because of illiteracy,
rural living and commitment to tradition. He believes that these orientations can only
be transformed with the expansion of modern education, rise of modern employment
and expansion of urbanism to rural pockets of Indian society.

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Sect:

 A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political or philosophical belief system, usually an

offshoot of a larger religious group. Ex: ISKCON. The word sect from the Latin
‗secta‘, meaning an organized body oriented towards ‗a course of action or way of
life‘. Sects were originally groups that broke away from the dominant religion
because of a disagreement over the interpretation of the religion.
 Roy Wallis defined sects such as deviant groups that see themselves as uniquely
legitimate. They deviate from society‘s norms or values in a significant way and like
churches, do not accept the right of other religions to claim any authority for their
beliefs.
 Members of sects are predominantly lower class and have usually attained
membership through conversion (initiation procedures for membership). The power
structure in a sect is informal and leaders are untrained and typically chosen by the
members.
 The chief feature of a religious sect is that it is a voluntary association. Young
children cannot usually enter a sect by being baptized. Sects have many beliefs and
practices in common with the parent religion, but are differentiated by a number of
doctrinal differences.
 Sects are concerned with purity of doctrine and with the depth of genuineness of
religiosity. As a result, demands are made upon the member to be an active
participant, even a leader or missionary, as a warrant of his faith.
 Sect is initially leader focused, but it may continue after his demise. Often worship is
characterized by an intensity and open commitment which is lacking in main stream
religion.
 Sects are, in Peter Berger‘s words, ‗in tension with the larger society and closed
against it‘, and their proliferation is an evidence of secularization.
 Belonging to a sect is often the dominant factor in a member‘s life. The organization
of sects tends to be in terms of small face – to – face groups, without a hierarchy of
paid officials and bureaucratic nature.
 Steve Bruce attributes the development of a range of religious institutions, including
sects and cults, to a general process of modernization and secularization. He believes
that the weakness of more conventional institutionalized religions has encouraged
some people to consider less traditional alternatives.
 Weber argues that sects are most likely to arise within groups which are marginal in
society. Members of groups outside the main stream of social life often feel they are
not receiving either the prestige and / or the economic rewards they deserve. One
solution to this problem is a sect based on what Weber calls Theodicy of Dis privilege
Such sects contain an explanation for the dis privilege of their members and promise
them a ‗sense of honour‘ elite in the afterlife or in a future ‗new world‘ on earth.
 However, sects are not confined to the lower strata of the society. For example: the
Christian Science sect has a largely middle-class membership. The concept of relative
deprivation can be applied to members of all social classes. In subjective terms,
certain members of the middle class may feel more deprivation than the poor. Relative

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 deprivation applies to the middle-class Hippy in California who rejects values of
materialism and achievement and seeks fulfillment in Transcendental Meditation. It
applies equally to the unemployed Black American who joins the Black Muslim. Both
experience deprivation in terms of their own particular viewpoints. Many are also
attracted to the communal lifestyle which a sect offers.
 Stark and Bainbridge see sects emerging when more successful members of a religion
try to reduce the amount of tension between religion and the outside world, the less
successful resent and break away.
 Sects tend to arise during a period of rapid social change. In this situation, traditional
norms are disrupted, social relationships tend to lack consistent and coherent meaning
and the traditional ‗universe of meaning‘ is undermined‘. Thus, Bryan Wilson sees the
rise of Methodism as a response by the new urban working class to the chaos and
uncertainty of life in the newly settled industrial areas. He argues that, newly
emergent social groups are, at least in the context of a society in which the religious
view of the world dominates, likely to need and to evolve new patterns of religious
belief to accommodate themselves to their new situation. In a situation of change and
uncertainty, the sect offers the support of a close-knit community organization, well
defined strongly sanctioned norms and values, and a promise of salvation. legitimated
by its religious beliefs.
 H. Richard Niebuhr argues that sects are necessarily short-lived for the following
reasons:
o The fervour and commitment of members cannot be sustained past the first
generation.
o The social marginality and isolation of the group, which was a major factor in
the formation of the sect, may disappear. Example: Sects with an ascetic creed
tend to accumulate wealth which affords them entry into the mainstream of
society.
 The sect then either ceases to exist or develops into a denomination. Its extreme
teachings and rejection of the wider society no longer fit the social situation of its
membership. If it changes into a denomination, its beliefs are modified to fit in with
those of the mainstream of society; it develops a bureaucratic organization with a
hierarchy of paid officials. Example: as the Methodists rose in status during the 19th
century, the strict disciplines of the sect and its opposition to the wider society were
dropped, and it became a denomination. If large number of sects develop in response
to major religions it may lead to conflict and religious intolerance or to the rise of a
tolerant and pluralistic society.

Cult:

 The concept of ‗cult‘ was introduced into sociology in 1932, by Howard Becker, as an
expansion of German theologian Ernst Troeltsch‘s Church – sect typology.
Troeltsch‘s aim was to distinguish between three main types of religious behaviour –
churchly, sectarian and mystical. Becker created four categories out of Troeltsch‘s firs
two by splitting church into ‗ecclesia‘ and ‗denomination‘ and sect into ‗sect‘ and

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 ‗cult‘. Like Troeltsch‘s ‗mystical religion‘, Becker‘s cults were small religious groups
lacking in organization and emphasizing the private nature of personal beliefs.
 Steve Bruce sees cults as a loosely knit group organized around some common
themes and interests but lacking any sharply defined and exclusive belief system. A
cult tends to be more individualistic than other organized forms of religion due to this
lack of a fixed doctrine and they tolerate other beliefs.
 Stark and Bainbridge see cults as a product of cultural importation or cultural
innovation. They divide cults into three types:
o Audience cults - least organized and involve little face-to-face interaction.
Contact maintained through mass media and occasional conferences.
o Client cults – more organized and usually offer ‗services‘ to their followers.
Example - Scientology.
o Cult movements - try to satisfy all the religious needs of their members and do
not permit membership of other faiths.
 The term often highlights smaller religious movements or movements involving
particularly intense religious devotion. The cult is a voluntary organization open to all
who wish to join or participate in it. According to Johnson, ‗in general the cults are
not strict, except in financial matters.‘ Yet it tends to regulate its members as per its
doctrine and system of rituals which are well defined. A cult emphasizes one doctrine
(above all others) or it focuses upon a God or Goddess with certain definite
characteristics.
 Cults often have customers rather than members and these customers may have
relatively little involvement with any organization once they have learnt the rudiments
of the beliefs around which the cult is based. Roy Wallis sees cults as deviant
religious organizations that do not claim to have a monopoly on the truth, they are
pluralistically legitimate.

Characteristics of Cult:

 A cult, also has a high degree of tension with the surrounding society, but its beliefs
are (within the context of that society) new and innovative. It may seek to transform
society but more often concentrate upon creating satisfying group experience.
 Cults are not reactionary or revolutionary, they are revisionary.
 Cult is a supplementation of religion than being a challenge to religion.
 Existence is greatly linked to the life span of the cult leader. He or she is a charismatic
person for his followers.
 Cults are engaged in catering to day-to-day problems of people. Cult may have
inherent contradictions but various questions posed by followers are addressed by the
cult leader.
 Over a period, a cult may develop into a sect. Example: Calvinism to Protestantism.
 In Indian society, according to K.M. Pannikar it was during Mughals rule that
sectarian division among Brahmins was greatly glorified - Shaivism and
Vaishnavism, because Hinduism was losing its great tradition due to loss of political
patronage.

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  If there is distance between people and religion, people endorse various cults.

Origin of cult:

 Jeffery Adden - almost all religions of world including Christianity began as cult.
Sociologists maintain that unlike sects, which are products of religious schism and
therefore maintain continuity with traditional beliefs and practices, cults arise
spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices.
 The social reality of cult is essentially rooted in heroic act. This act is a system of
worship, a complex of feeling and attitudes of symbol (gestures, words, rites and
rituals) and primarily a relationship with sacred object and the world beyond. It
involves co-activity and a social boundary. In it, the relationship between the deity
and clergy is not negligible but secondary.
 Cult seems to flourish in metropolitan centers where culturally heterogenous
populations are thrown together and they widely feel the impact of rapid social
change. It creates a situation of contingency and powerlessness and thus the problem
of adjustment. The cult often meets the need of that situation.

 Supernaturalism postulates the existence of non – personalized supernatural forces

that influence human events.
o These non – personalized forces are called ‗mana‘ which exist in certain
objects
o Other objects have a religious taboo against touching or even looking upon.
 Naturism: according to Max Muller the earliest form of religion was probably worship
in nature. The prayers in Rig Veda convey worship of natural objects in Vedic times.
Expressions such as clouds send rains, the sun rises and sets, the moon orbits the earth
and trees yield fruits convey the beliefs in some inherent power in clouds, sun, moon
and trees.

Religious organization:

 Early theorists like Marx, Weber said religious organizations fall along continuum -
churches at one end, cults at other, sects somewhere in between.
 But the applicability doubtful in non-Christian religions. Example: Bhatt in India
religious groups - mat, marg, sampradaya, sangh, panth, samaj, ashram, akhara, etc.
 Usually out of charismatic leader, leadership vacuum filled by institutionalization.

Church:

 Large well established religious body, normally formal bureaucratic structure,

hierarchy of religious officials, tend to represent conservative face of religion.
 Along with spirituality, develops interests in wealth and temporal power.
 Also establishes interest in social order which legitimizes power, possessions,
privileges and interests.

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  Involvement of church in secular matters often led to conflicts in secular-political
world.
 Church accommodates itself into secular world and more socially inclusive unlike
sects.

Denominations:

 Grow out of sect and sect grows out of Church.

 Howard Becker - a denomination is a sect which has cooled down and become an
institutionalized body rather than an active protest group.
 Johnson - line between Church and Denomination is not very clear. Denomination is
when sect becomes respectful and becomes large in terms of members, includes
middle and upper class.
 Macionis - Denomination is a Church independent of State - Example: Baptists,
Lutheranians.

Roy Wallis Respectable Deviant

Uniquely legitimate Church Sect
Pluralistically legitimate Denomination Cult
 Some cults also help in utilitarian needs – example: Osho guided in their business.

Religious pluralism:

 Steve Bruce - religious pluralism results from a variety of sources and it has
undermined the communal basis of religious orthodoxy as well.
 Peter Berger has linked the growth of the pluralistic beliefs to the growing trend of
modernization and secularization as pluralistic beliefs undermine the one absolute
truth.
 Bryan Wilson - with pluralization of society, religious values become personal values
and no longer remain community values.
 Atul Kohli - the earlier notion that pluralism breeds tolerance is not correct.

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Role of religious sects in India:

 Sects are defined as religious groups that reject the dominant religion or value of
society. Stark and Bainbridge state that sects are formed as an offshoot of existing
religion as a result of division or schism within that religion. Sects can be seen as a
possible response to relative deprivation. These are most likely to invite membership
from the marginal sections of society and present an alternative to the dominant
religion.
 Ray Wallis states that sects are deviant groups which see themselves as uniquely
legitimate. There is high degree of commitment amongst the members of sect. These
are generally closed in nature. People seek salvation in the sense of community
offered by sects. In general, sects tend to arise in a period of rapid social change. In
such a scenario, traditional norms are disrupted and there is scope for rise of new
values. Sects could get converted into full fledged religion or could be short lived.
This depends on the prevailing social conditions and the extent of followers.
 In India, a section of population has been disprivileged and such lower status has been
sanctioned by religion. So, there has been a sense of discontentment. Initially,
Buddhism and Jainism emerged as reaction against Brahminical dominance and they
later developed into full fledged religions. In contemporary times, Arya Samaj,
Nirankaris, Dera Sacha Sauda etc are the examples. Such high increase in religious
organisations has been considered by various scholars as a manifestation of religious
revivalism in contemporary times.

Previous Years Questions:

1. What is sects? Discuss their role in multi – religious societies with empirical
examples. (2018) (20 marks)
2. Elaborate on various types of religious practices prevalent in Indian society. (2017)
(10 marks)
3. Religious pluralism is the order of present day societies. Explain by giving suitable
examples. (2016) (20 marks)
4. Distinguish between sects and cults with illustrations. (2014) (20 marks)

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Unit No: 8

Unit Name: Religion and society

Chapter: (c): Religion in modern society: religion and science, secularization, religious
revivalism, fundamentalism:

Religion and science:

 Religion is a social phenomenon which broadly refers to cultural system of commonly

shared beliefs and rituals that provides a sense of ultimate meaning and purpose by
creating an idea of reality that is sacred, all – encompassing and natural.
 Science is a search for knowledge as well as method for solving problems in a value –
neutral and positivistic ways. Science and religion have intrigued the imagination of
sociologists from the very start. Both religion and science meet at certain places and
depart at some.

Similarities:

 Both are committed towards human values and seek the welfare of the mankind.
 Religion and science are based on logic which strives to interpret through cause and
effect of every phenomenon that takes place in nature.
 Both seek truth and explain what is good for the human being.
 Both believe that their conclusion is right and cannot be denied.
 Both seek universality in their interpretation.

Differences:

 Science deals with the worldly things whereas religion does with other worldly or
abstract phenomena.
 Science seeks proof whereas religion is based on belief.
 Science believes the welfare of humanity in worldly explorations whereas religion in
other worldly affairs.
 Religion controls nature through abstract ideas whereas science controls through
positive knowledge and tools.
 Religion is subjective whereas science is objective.
 Science is a pro – changer of knowledge whereas religion is anti – change.

Science Religion
Science is considered as inquisitive and Religion is considered as imaginative and
deliberative. speculative.
Science drives man to shape his own destiny. Religion pushes man towards fatalism.
Science believes in precision and Religion has no such provisions.
measurement.
Science brings the unknown to the level of Religion often depicts god as beyond the
observable reality. reach of normal human beings.
Science is based on rationality. Religion is based on the belief in sacred.
Science promotes individual innovations, Religion is more collectively oriented.

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though team works are also there.
Scientific knowledge and method are valid Religious principles are accepted within a
universally. particular community only which believes in
those principles.

 Classical evolutionary sociologists see evolution in a series of religion, magic and

science. According to Comte, society moves from a theological stage to positivistic
stage. Religion dominates traditional societies and science dominates modern
societies according to him.
 Durkheim views both religion and science as providing society with its collective
representations. So he doesn‘t see any conflict between the two. In his book ‗magic,
science and religion and other essays, 1954‘ on his experience of Trobriand Islanders
also distinguishes Sacred and Profane and according to Malinowski, science,
including art, craft, and economic activities of Trobriand islanders were cited as
example of profane.
 Desacrillization – supernatural forces are no longer seen as controlling the world,
action is no longer directed by religious belief, and human consciousness has become
secularized.
 Stephan Jay Gould developed the non-overlapping magisterial principle (NOMA). He
claims that one type of human need is a need to understand how nature works. This he
calls the magisterium of science. However, humans also have a drive to give meaning
to their own lives and to find a basis for their moral views. This is covered by the
magisterium of religion. Since meanings and morality are too subjective, and cannot
come from facts, religion can fulfil this purpose without being in direct conflict.
 Peter Berger says that science played a major role in secularization of consciousness.
 Durkheim and Marx both predicted an end of religion with time but though science is
growing we see resurgence in different forms. Ex: A day before the Mars Orbiter
Mission was about to enter Mar‘s orbit, ISRO scientists offered a model of the
artificial satellite at a temple. Thus, religion seems to be fulfilling some higher
purposes for those scientists, who go to temple not as a scientist but as a human being.
 Einstein argues that science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
 Post modernists suggest that societies are moving beyond scientific rationality of
modernity, partly because they have started to mistrust science due to failures and
negative side – effects.
 Religion in its real sense is not conflicting with science. It is only dogma or the
distorted version of religion that conflicts with science. If religion respects and
accepts values of science and is science recognizes accepts the reality and necessity of
religion then there could be no conflict between religion and science.
 Even today, both are complementary as a lot still remains outside the realm of human
knowledge. Due to influence of science, many religions have also rationalised
themselves. Many religious institutions are making ample use of scientific discoveries
to make the reach of religion wider. Television and internet are profusely used by
religious leaders to reach the masses.

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Secularization:

 Secularization is a cultural transition in which religious values are gradually replaced

with non-religious values. In the process, religious figureheads such as church leaders
lose their authority and influence over society.
 In the field of sociology, the term is used to describe societies that have become or are
becoming modernized the features of society such as government, economy, and
schools are more distinct, or less influenced by religion.
 Individual within a society may still practice a religion, but on an individual basis.
Decisions about spiritual matters are personal, familial or cultural, but religion itself
does not have a large impact on society as a whole.
 Wilson (1966) provided a ‗classic‘ definition of secularization which has been widely
adopted by A – level textbook authors, teachers and students for decades. Wilson
(1966) defined secularization as ―the process whereby religious thinking, practices
and institutions lose social significance‖.
 Peter Berger defines secularization as the ―process by which sectors of society and
culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols‖.

Major strands:

 Participation in institutional religion – extent of religion in our life is measured by the

relative importance that we give to religious institutions, which is reflected in
religious places and role these institutions in performance of various events in our life
like solemnisation of marriage and funeral rites etc. some argue that fall in church
attendance is a symbol of secualrisation of society. According to Bryan Wilson in his
religion in a secular society, 1966 – ‗the decline in organised religious participation
indicates a way in which the churches are losing direct influence over ideas and
activities of man‘.
 Disengagement of institutional religion from everyday life – Bryan Wilson writes that
– ‗in secularisation process, various social institutions gradually become distinct from
one another and increasingly free of the matrix of religious assumptions that had
earlier informed, inspired and dominated their operation‘. Today, education, politics
and social welfare are no longer functions of religion. Parsons contradicts this point
and according to him – ‗structural differentiation of institutions is a natural
evolutionary process and it doesn‘t make role of religion less important‘. Due to
differentiated process, religious values become more generalised and they still guide
society and integrate it.
 Societalistaion – Steve Bruce, in hi Secularisation, with the arrival of large
bureaucratic organisations, close knitted integrated societies lose their power as
societalisation happens. In close knitted societies, same religious beliefs are shared by
everyone and are never questioned.
 Increasing religious pluralism – competition among various religious groups has
reduced power of religion. Religious royalties become a matter of convenience for
people. Existence of multiple faiths also runs against belief that religion is the binding
force of society as a single faith is a precondition for social integration. According to

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 Bryan Wilson, in such a situation – ‗Religious values are no longer the values of
whole community.‘ Rising number of sects indicate that dominant religious values
have lost their pre – eminence.
 Secularisation of religious institutions themselves – religious institutions is adapting
themselves to changing conditions. They have recognised that older values like belief
in supernatural, other world and the saviour no longer sound plausible to believers.
They would appear irrational and irrelevant in new societies. Ex: Herberg in his
Protestant Catholic – Jew 1960 highlights that major denominations in USA
increasingly reflect the American way of life rather that word of god.
 Growing individualism – this view argues that religion is no longer an act of
collective worship and individuals today work out their own path of salvation. But
Robert Bellah, in his new religious consciousness and the crisis in modernity, 1976
argues that it doesn‘t show that importance of religion has declined rather its form of
expression has changed.

 In case of India this was different because India never had powerful church or
organised state, and hence there was no question of a need for separation of two.
 Berger defines secularization as the ‗process by which sectors of society and culture
are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols‘. It occurs at
three levels:
o Social – separation of religion and state
o Cultural – arts, literature and philosophy
o Individual – secularization of an individual
 Bryan Wilson – secularization is process by which religious thinking, practice and
institutions lose significance. Ex: marriages being solemnized by courts and decrease
in church attendance. He gives three features of secular society:
o The prevalence of instrumental values
o The prevalence of rational procedures
o The prevalence of technological methods

At institutional level, there are four distinct ways of secularizations:

 Decline in organized religious participation, societaliztaion which signifies that

modern societies are different from close – knit communities of earlier times. They
have different motivations, ideologies and religious values cease to dominate the
ideological sphere.
 Disengagement and differentiation – of the influence of church in the wider societal
institutions.
 Religious pluralism – Berger argues that emergence of denominations weakens the
influence of religion as there is no longer a single ‗universe of meaning‘ provided for
all members of society. The continuing proliferation of sects has also been interpreted
in same way.

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  Secularization of religious institutions – Will Herberg believes that church today
spreads American values and not religious values, while Berger and Luckmann claim
that American church has undergone change in its plausibility structure.
Denominations have undergone internal secularization to survive and prosper in a
secular society.

At general level of beliefs and systems also, there are four trends of secularisation:

 Generalization – Parsons – as religious institutions become increasingly specialized,

their ethics and values, their belief system becomes increasingly generalized.
 Individualism – Robert Bellah – Religion increasingly becomes an individual affair.
 Transformation – Weber – change to secular guides to action – Protestantism.
 De – sacralisation – supernatural forces are no longer as controlling the world.

 Importance of mass media and globalization – through these, secular values transmit
throughout the world and each society adopts its specific secularization process.
Example: India‘s secularization model is different from that of USA.
 Comte believed his third and final stage of societal evolution will include
secularisation

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 Science and secular outlook spread to world through Europe and effect was obvious
in traditional religious societies like Turkey, Japan, etc. Turkey was head of Islamic
societies but became a secular society under Kamal Pasha. In India, socio- religious
movements were largely pragmatic and modern in outlook. As secularization became
stronger, the reactionary movements also became stronger because they believed that
a society deviated from religion is worth nothing which gave birth to religious
fundamentalism and revivalism.
 Revivalism, growth of new sects, theological states, civil religion and growth of
communalism and fundamentalism indicate that modern society and secularization
need not go hand in hand. A study by Kaufman indicates that while church attendance
has decreased, the number of believers has not. Davie, in his ‗religion in modern
Europe, 2000‘, calls this phenomenon as ‗belief without belonging‘. Similarly,
Thomas Luckmann in his ‗The Invisible Religion, 1967‘, also argues that religion is

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 still very much alive though receded from public sphere and he calls it ‗invisible
religion‘.
 Religion is not declining, but is channelled in other directions. Rise of new religious
movements also pose a challenge to secularization thesis. Rising tensions in the
Middle East and West Asia also point out to the act that religion is given no less
importance. So long as religion is perceived as answer to complex questions of life,
secularization of society cannot happen.

Secularism:

 British writer George Jacob Holyoake used the term ‗secularism‘ for the first time.
Secularism is the most crucial of separating of government organizations, and the
individuals required to signify the condition, from religious organizations and
religious dignitaries.
 The idea of secularism furnished the sole reply as the coupling concrete of Indian
social order.
 Thus, an unfaltering and judicious thinking was solicited to wean away open life
from religion. Religion came to be recognized as a particular undertaking with no
impact on country‘s strategies ad choices. This appeared to be the main viable
response regarding multi – religious populace of India.

Secularism being an ideology consists of the following five ideas:

 It stresses on human autonomy. It recognizes individual to be master of his own life.

Human beings are responsible for their own destinies. It places faith on human
rationale, rather than divine guidance.
 It asserts that separation of religion from states and stresses that family relations,
education, morality, knowledge and values are also free from the clutches of religion.
 It puts stress on reason and inquiry.
 Secularism welcomes pluralism and religious toleration. Pluralism of religion is
supported by an attitude of tolerance towards other religions.
 It is no anti – religion.

 Secularism is what binds a democratic nation. Before development takes place or we

become economically strong as a nation, we must ensure internal peace in the country
and draw up a resolution whereby we will do anything and everything to maintain this
peace.
 This peace can only be obtained and preserved by the spreading and sharing of secular
values and value systems.
 Today it is secularism which keeps religious forces at bay who at the first instance
will try to stoke violence and hence communal problems. Secularism also has a large
scope in the upliftment of the religious backward classes and minority groups to make
sure they do not feel alienated from mainstream Indian way of life. We need to ensure

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 that chunk of the overall national development must help in their development too,
thus, removing the sources of religious discord.

Religious revivalism:

 Religious revivalism is a term applied to mass movements which are based upon
intense religious upheaval. Periodic religious revivals which seek to restore
commitment and attachment to the group are a regular sociological feature of
religious traditions.
 Religious revivalism is an extreme form of religious fundamentalism in which
individual or group tries to restore the lost glory of religion in society. They not
merely carry their religious principles in their life rather forces or compels others to
follow religious principles in words and spirit.
 Revivalism happened in 18th century in western world among Methodists. In India
Arya Samaj is one of the most important revivalist movements which were based on
shudhi movement. It aimed at converting Hindus back to fold who had converted to
other religions.
 This had profound impact on Hindu especially lower caste Hindus. They sought to
other religions to improve their social status. They also gave equality to women,
especially in education.
 The famous ‗great awakening‘ refers to a number of periods of religious revival in
American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of
increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and late 20th
century. Each of these ‗Great Awakenings‖ was characterized by widespread revivals
led by evangelical protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a
profound sense of conviction and redemption.

The Hindu revivalism:

 In Bengal this tendency found expression through the leadership of the orthodox
section of the Hindu middle class led by Radhakanto Deb who had founded the
Dharma Sabha in opposition to Ram Mohan Roy‘s Brahma Sabha in 1830.
 A deep sense of pride was roused by religious movements initially. It was fed by
archeological discoveries and the works of Indologists and also by historical studies.
 ―Ancient literature, philosophy, science, law, arts and monuments which had been
buried in oblivion were raised to life, and they enormously enhanced the reputation of
India in the world and the self – respect of the people in their own estimation‖.
 The result was a revulsion against the western culture and religion and an eagerness to
repudiate western superiority of every kind.

New Religious movements:

 A new religious consciousness was emerging, a search for a religious identity which
had a deep religious quality. These new religious movements arose in response to new
social conditions of those times.

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  These movements were based on contemporary ideas of democracy, equality,
youthful zest, new relativism in thinking, and search for self - identity and self –
renewal. Some of new religious and spiritual movements in India include the
International society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), Transcendental
meditation, the art of living movement and Osho Rajneesh movement and so on.

 One view shared by early sociological thinkers was that traditional religion would
become more marginal in modern world. Marx, Durkheim and Weber all believed that
a process of secularization was bound to occur as societies modernized and became
more reliant on science and technology to control and explain the social world.
 The enduring popularity of new religious movements presents a challenge to the
secularization thesis. Opponents of the thesis point to the diversity and dynamism of
new religious movements and argue that religion and spirituality remains a central
facet of modern life.
 Rodney Stark points out that religion are not only providing a source for integration, it
is instrumental for the social division as well. Taking this view point into
consideration one can offer a critic to the Cometian argument that in modern society
use of science will continue to cause of decline of religion.
 In reality religion is a universal force; it appears in different forms in history of
human society, influencing political, social and cultural life of man in a
multidimensional manner.
 Berger notes the growing importance of religion in politics and sees contemporary
societies undergoing re – sacrilization or revivalism.
 Third world countries – only technological component of modernity has been
absorbed. Globalized world has led to return to traditionalism in lot of ways.

Towards the end of first half of 20th century, in 1940s, a tendency across the globe has
been observed, where the role of religion has been re – emphasised. It is observed at
following levels:

 Increased institutional acceptance of religion – this is observed in increasing

attendance at religious places, construction of new religious places (number of
Gurudwaras has gone up many folds in the past 50 years), increase in activities of
sects and cults (like ISKCON).
 Increasing use of religion as a medium – For example, political parties are using
religious support to win elections. There is an increase in fundamentalism with
Iranian revolution in the east. There is a rise of new right protestant groups in US and
establishment of semi – theocratic governments and so on. Meanwhile, in some of
Latin American countries, Christianity has become tool of resistance against
exploitation.
 Growth of invisible or private religion – even where religion seems to lose its hold in
sense of decreasing attendance in church ceremonies, a private religion is seemingly
emerging. In other words, a personal interpretation of religious doctrines is tolerated.

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 Luckmann says that – ‗Religion today is invisible as individuals carry it out in their
private space and not in institutions‘.
 Growth of civil religion – Robert Bellah in his new religious consciousness and the
crisis in modernity, 1976, argued that civic religion is emerging as new form of
religion where, civil symbols and nationalism are accorded the same respect and faith
as of religion.

 Complexities of life, stress, anomie and alienation are leading people to explore peace
in spirituality. Further, religion has also rationalised itself and many religions now
don‘t prescribe strict scriptural messages, but moral guidance. Rising incidence of
communal clashes in west Asia is also an indicator of rising religious fervour.
 Religion has survived because of both, individual and social functions that it performs
and in words of Turner, the secret of survival of religion is ‗Religion is not a cognitive
system, a set of dogmas alone, it is a meaningful experience‘.

Fundamentalism:

 A major trend in contemporary religion is the growth in fundamentalism. On the face

of it, this would seem to be an almost directly contradictory trend to secularization,
but there are significant connections between the two. It is also argued to be a reaction
to globalization. Fundamentalism usually has a religious connotation that indicates
unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs.
 Almond (2003) defined fundamentalism as ―a pattern of religious militancy‖ led by
―self-styled true believers‖ and identified their cause as being directly opposed to
secularization.
 Anthony Giddens, the late modernist, argues that globalization has caused significant
levels of insecurity for people and that fundamentalist religion offers very simple
answers. In a world of confusion and uncertainty, faiths with very clear rules and
absolute truths have proved very attractive.
 Religious fundamentalism in an organized form was started in the US when W.C.
Winderburn realized that deviation from the religion is deteriorating the moral and
ideal principles hence it is important for a healthy society to understand and follow
their religion. He initiated Evangelical movement in which through radio, TV and
other means of media he started practicing the principles of the Bible so that society
can carry the goodness of religion in their day to day life. He realized that
deviation/unawareness from the religion is the cause of divorce, abortion, pre and
extra-marital relation, drug abuse, alcoholism, etc.
 Fundamentalism stresses the infallibility of scripture (e.g. the Bible, the Granths, the
Gita or the Quran) in all matters of faith and doctrine. The believers accept it as a
literal historical record. The result is that sometimes a militant stand is taken by the
followers, often preceded or followed by a desire for a separate homeland. At times,
this too is taken as a prophecy in the scriptures.

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 In the early 1990s, an Islamic radical fundamentalist organization called Al-Qaeda
emerged under the leadership of Osama Bin-Laden who vowed to establish Islamic
supremacy in the world and started giving patronage to all the fundamentalist
movements active worldwide.
 The strength of religious fundamentalism is another indication that secularization has
not triumphed in the modern world. The term fundamentalism can be applied in many
different contexts to describe strict adherence to a set of principles or beliefs.
Religious fundamentalism describes the approach taken by religious groups which
call for the literal interpretation of basic scriptures or tests and believe that the
doctrines which emerge from such readings should be applied to all aspects of social,
economic and political life.
 In India, organizations like VHP, Bajran Dal, Ram Sena are some of the organizations
which are fundamentals and directly or indirectly want to make India Hindu state.
Religious fundamentalism is outdated ideology which is trying to revive itself in
scientific, rational, pragmatic world. They believe that prosperity without purity of
mind will create satanic society; hence religion is more important than the progress.
 One way of religious revival is religious fundamentalism and the concept was
popularised by Cartis Lewis. It was first used in 1910 – 1915 when anonymous
authors published 12 volumes of literature and called them ‗the fundamentals of the
faith‘. The print media used this with reference to conservative protestant group in
North America which were concerned about liberal interpretations of the Bible and
insisted on sticking to the ‗fundamentals‘ of the faith.
 Hunter identifies the following distinctive features of fundamentalism:
o Interprets sacred texts literally.
o Rejects religious pluralism.
o Pursue personal experiences of God‘s presence through spiritual revival.
o Opposes secular humanism, reason or rationalism.
o Endorses conservative political goals.
 TN Madan identifies the following features:
o Affirmation of inspiration, final authority of scriptures.
o Not an original impulse, rather a reaction to what is perceived to be a crisis.
o Intolerance towards dissent.
o Cultural critique of modern societies.
o Appeal to tradition, but in selective manner.
o Pursuit of political power.
o Charismatic leadership.
 Traditionalism and fundamentalism are different. Fundamentalism spills to other
domains like politics. There is an element of activism present in it. It is inward
looking and self – producing. Fundamentalism appears to be traditionalistic but it is
not. There is a sharp boundary between pure inside and polluted outside.

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340
Fundamentalism and communalism:

 Fundamentalism and communalism have certain ideologies elements in common.

Both attack the concept of separation of religion from politics and state. Both oppose
the concept of equal truth in all religions or the unity of different religions. Both
advocate control over education by followers of dominant religion.
o Communalism is often associated with eruption of violence and riot; these
conflagrations may not have any particular goal or aim.
o In a multi – religious society, a fundamentalist tends to be communal, while
communalism is quite often, not fundamentalists. Ex: In India, the Hindi
Mahaabha, the RSS, the Muslim League and the Akali Dal were communal
parties but they are not necessarily fundamentalist.
o Communalist leaders need not be religious leader. Thus, Maulana Maududi,
founder of the Jamati Islam in India was a journalist. K B Hedgewar, founder
of the Rashtriya Sewak Singh, was a physician.
o Similarly, the fundamentalists want to Christianise or Islamise or Hinduise the
whole world. Both the communalists do not necessarily want to convert whole
world and instead they only to communalise their own social community. This
is because, communalism needs a binary (real or created one) opposition to
mobilise its members.

Are all world religions patriarchal?

 There are several ways in which religion can promote patriarchy:

o Through religious scripture/teachings
o Through religious ceremonies and practices
o Through the structure and power – relations of religious organisations

Examples of patriarchy in religion:

 In several religions, women are presented as temptresses who distract men from
serious business of worship. In bible, it is first woman, Eve, who disobeys God and
then goes to tempt Adam and bring about his downfall too.
 Religious texts are full of male gods, male prophets, and male saints. Books are
written by men and interpreted by men.
 In many religions both menstruation and pregnancy are treated as impure or ungodly.
Ex: in Islam women who are menstruating are not allowed to touch Quran. Jean Holm
(1994) suggests that these various restrictions on the participations of women
contribute to the devaluation of women in many contemporary religions.
 Karen Armstrong (1993) argues that it was development of monotheistic religions,
with their all – powerful male Gods (such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which
imbued religion with a patriarchal and sexist core. She points out that various
goddesses and priestesses were replaced with male prophets.
 In many religious teachings across wide range of religions, women are given role of
nurturing, caring and giving birth. While these roles are presented positively and an

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 essential, they reinforce the gender norms in society and the patriarchal power
structures. If women choose not to conform the gender stereotypes, they are not only
deviating from god‘s will too.

 All world religions are inherently patriarchal. The scriptures offer justification for
exploitation and the rituals keep the women subordinate in the structure. But due to
secularisation of religions and modernisation, religion is becoming more
accommodating.

Is religion playing an important role in increasing fundamentalism?

 Fundamentalism is a phenomenon in which religion is considered fundamental to all

other aspects. It stresses the infallibility of a scripture or holy book. There is emphasis
on its literal interpretation and no change is accepted. Religious fundamentalists
believe that only one view i.e. their own view is possible and that is the correct one.
 The phenomenon of fundamentalism is not confined to any one religion but is widely
found amongst different religions. Fundamentalists ask for return to the fundamental
tenets of religion. Fundamentalists do not accept any other religion and there is
tendency to abolish any alternative system. Taliban regime in Afghanistan could be
cited as the most recent example of fundamentalism.

Causes of fundamentalism:

i)Unique text- It provides common ideology to people or believers. Emphasis is given on

literal meaning of text.

ii)Common enemy- There is a tendency to evoke religious sentiments so as to unite people

against common enemy. It is relatively easier to unite people by using religion.

iii)Modernisation- Fundamentalism is anti-science and denies the validity of human

knowledge which is outside the religious realm.

 According to Almond and Appleby, various factors such as modern education,

migration, modern communication system etc are leading to increase in
fundamentalism. For example- Communication system has led to the spread of
modern ideas. However, fundamentalists are also using it for spreading their views.
Social media platforms are used for radicalisation. In addition to it, the conditions of
poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and under development also provide a breeding
ground and tend to make people fall in the trap of fundamentalist ideology.

How is religious revivalism different from communalism? Elaborate with suitable

examples in the Indian context.

Communalism is an ideology that believes in the idea of different communities having

different interests which might be antagonised or in conflict with one another. It can be based
on any common identity such as religion, ethnicity, language etc.

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  In India, communalism has largely manifested itself along the lines of religious
identity. Communalism is largely associated with using religion for the sake of vested
interests. A communal man is the one who does politics in the name of religion. There
is a charismatic leader who can convince common people.
 On the other hand, religious revivalism is altogether different concept. It can be
simply defined as the re-emergence of religion or religion getting re-emphasis in
various domains. Religious revivalism in India can be understood on demand supply
phenomenon. Various sociologists have presented their views. It is broadly associated
with following viewpoints:

i)Narrow view - Fundamentalism come under this view. The phenomenon of

fundamentalism is not confined to any one religion but is widely found amongst different
religions. Fundamentalists ask for return to the fundamental tenets of religion. For example-
Pehlawi dynasty in Iran, Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS etc.

ii)Mild view - There is emphasis on functional aspect. For example- Arya Samaj gave
the slogan-―Go back to Vedas‖.

iii)Broad view - In contemporary times, various sects and cults are making
appearance. For example- Transcendental meditation, ISCKON, Shirdi ke Sai and so on.
Many people are opting for religious conversions.

 In addition to this, religion is also used as a tool for vote bank politics. Though it is
not acceptable according to law yet it is the ground reality. Such a scenario provides
water to the seed of communalism in a secular country. Thus, communalism is only
one aspect whereas religious revivalism in itself is a broad concept.

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Previous Years Questions:

1. Are all world religions patriarchal? Substantiate your answers with examples. (2019)
(20 marks)
2. Discuss the challenges thrown by religious revivalism to a secular nation – state.
(2018) (10 marks)
3. Is religion playing an important role in increasing fundamentalism? Give reasons for
your answer. (2016) (10 marks)
4. How is religious revivalism different from communalism? Elaborate with suitable
examples from the Indian context? (2014) (20 marks)
5. Is religion antithetical to science? Comment. (2013) (10 marks)

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6. Science has empirical means to logical ends and religion has non – empirical means to
logical ends. Comment. (2013) (10 marks)
7. Discuss the factors leading to growing religious revivalism in the contemporary
world. (2012) (20 marks)

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Additional Notes:

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Additional Notes:

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Additional Notes:

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Unit No: 9

Unit Name: Systems of kinship

 Kinship is the most universal and basic of all human relationships and is based on ties
of blood, marriage or adoption. Two basic kinds of kinship ties:
o Those based on blood that trace descent
o Those based on marriage, adoption or other connections
 Consangineal kinship – based on blood relationship meaning the relationship between
parents and children also among immediate siblings – said to be universal to be basic
and universal in relationships.
 Affinal kinship – based on marriage. The relationship between husband and wife.
 Primary kinship – based on direct relations. Individuals or people that are direct
related are said to be primary in nature. Dividing into two:
o Primary consanguineal kinship – refers to that kin which is directly related to
each other by birth.
o Primary affinal kinship – relation that takes place with marriage is said to be
primary affinal kinship. Direct affinal relationship is husband – wife.
 Secondary kinship – alludes to primary kinship. As it were the individuals who are
specifically identified with primary kinship become secondary kinship. Means
relations coming through primary kinship are said to be secondary kinship. Also
called fictive kins especially in societies where mechanical solidarity is high. Ex:
Rural societies. We find evidence of such practice in many tribal and village studies.
In his study of Shamir pet, S C Dube found that unrelated individuals behave like
brothers
 According to Harry Jhonson, kinship has five important bases.
o Sex
o Generation
o Closeness and intimacy
o Blood relations
o Lineage
 Ties are deeper and more extensive in traditional societies as community puts high
premium on such ties. Various institutions which come under ambit of kinship are
family, marriage, lineage, descent, gotra, kula, etc.

Importance of Kinship:

 Kinship is important person and a community‘s well – being.

 At most basic levels, according to sociology group, kinship refers to:
 Descent – socially existing recognized biological relationships between people in
society. Descend from their parents and that biological relationships exist between
parents and children. Descent is used to trace an individual sancestry.
 Lineage – the line from which descent is traced also called ancestry.
 Based on descent and lineage, kinship determines family – line relationships – and
even sets rules on who can marry and with whom, says Puja Mondal in ‗Kinship:

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 Brief Essay on Kinship.‖ Adds that kinship sets guidelines for interactions between
people and defines the proper, acceptable relationship between father and daughter,
brother and sister, or husband and wife, for example. But since kinship also covers
social connections, it has a wider role in society, says sociology group, noting that
kinship:
o Maintains unity, harmony and cooperation among relationships.
o Sets guidelines for communication and interactions among people.
o Defines the rights and obligations of the family and marriage as well as the
system of political power in rural areas or tribal societies, including among
members who are not related by blood or marriage.
o Helps people better understand their relationships with each other.
o Helps people better relate to each other in society kinship, and even societies
together.
 According to anthropologist George Peter Murdock, ―Kinship is a structured system
of relationships in which kin are bound to one another by complex inter locking ties.‖

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Unit No: 9

Unit Name: Systems of kinship

Chapter Name: 9(a) – Family, household, marriage

9(b) – Types and forms of family

Family:

 According to functionalists like George Peter Murdock, in his ‗social structure, 1949‘,
family is viewed as a universal social institutional as it existed in all kinds of societies
from hunting gathering to industrial societies; defines family as ‗the family is a social
group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction –
includes adults of both sexes.
 Due to various changes in structure and functions of family, it is argued that classical
definitions are no longer valid as family today is not limited to adults of opposite
sexes as in case of gay or lesbian marriages and may not reproduce.
 Distinctive features of family according to MacIver and Page are:
o Universality – it is found in all hitherto existing societies.
o Emotional basis for existence of members.
o Limited size – the smallest social unit or kin group.
o Nuclear position in the social structure.
o Responsibility of the members.
o Social regulation.
o The permanent and temporary nature of the family.
 Family is seen as a universal social institution and an inevitable part of society.
Attempts to develop alternative institutions have not been successful. Performs
various essential functions in society like:
o George Murdock enlists 4 universal functions served by family in his ‗social
structure, 1949‘; these functions serve to resolve four major problems of
society.
 Regulate sexual relations
 Controls reproduction
 Accounts for economic survival
 Socializes children
o Parsons – observes that family performs certain basic and irreducible
functions. Primary socialization of children and stabilization of adult
personalities are these functions; modern families are ‗isolated nuclear
families‘ and they evolve as a requirement of industrialization in society as
there is functional relationship between family and economic system of
society.
o Ogburn and Nimcoff state that basic functions of family are – affectionate,
economic, recreation, protective and educational.

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 o Ronald Fletcher in his family and marriage in Britain, 1966 argues that
functions of family have not decreased significantly as a result of
industrialization it has increased and play a decisive role in guiding,
encouraging, and supporting their children. Functions of family can be seen as
individual or manifest functions and societal or latent functions.
 Individual or manifest functions family provide emotional support in modern society
where other kinship bonds are not so strong. Parsons refers it as personality
stabilization.
o Physical security of the young ones and older ones is provided by the family.
o Also provides financial security and placement. Ex: individuals take family
business.
o Sexual gratification and regulation of sexual behaviour.
o Family also provides early learning to individuals and imparts life skills in
individuals.
o Family also provides for social status and identity to individual.
 Societal or latent functions of family are those which are viewed at societal level.
Such Macro functions have been emphasized by Parsons, Durkheim and many others.
o Foremost function of family for society is that of reproduction as it keeps
society alive. It performs the function of member replacement in society and
of its physical maintenance.
o Family also performs function of cultural transmission. Values of society are
transmitted during the process of upbringing.
o Family also carries out primary socialization of children. According to
Parsons, it is one of the basic and irreducible functions of the family.
o Family is also a mechanism of social control. Various sanctions, rules and
punishment given to family members ensure that they adhere to accepted
social norms.
o Family also provides for physical and emotional care for geriatrics and the
disabled.
o Family has also functioned as a unit of economic production. Until recent
times, the family was an important unit of both production and consumption.
Today, family as a functional unit is replaced by many bureaucratic
institutions like schools, old age homes, hospitals, play-schools at least for
secondary function. Further, it can also be dysfunctional as well. Further,
family is also viewed as not so functional by many social thinkers.

Dysfunctions:

 Morgan says in his ‗ Social Theory and the Family, 1975‘ states that ‗Family is
depicted as remarkably harmonious social institution‘. In reality it may not be so.
 Marxian says it breeds notions of conformity. According to David Cooper in his
‗Death of Family, 1972‘ – ‗It is an ideological conditioning device in an exploitative
society‘. He also says it denies individual freedom and is a hindrance in the
development of an individual's self.

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 Edmund Leach in his ‗ A Runaway World?, 1967 ‘ says, modern family is isolated
from larger society and kin and is a storehouse of stress and tension. ‗Parents and
children huddled together in their loneliness take too much out of each other. Parents
fight, children rebel‘.
 Feminists like Margret Benston say that family perpetuates unpaid labor.
 It also legitimizes violence. According to Murray Strauss – ‗Marriage license is a
hitting license‘. Family also legitimizes sexual abuse and violence.
 Norman Bell in their article titled, ‗ The Emotionally Disturbed Child as the Family
Scapegoat, 1968‘, conclude that family is dysfunctional for children as parents use
them as scapegoats to vent out their tensions. Functions of family change with
changing times due to various factors like nuclearization, industrialization, rise of
bureaucratic institutions and so on.

 Apart from its functions, family is understood in terms of structure.

 Traditional family structure has following features:
o Size – Nuclear family, joint family and extended family. Extended family is a
sort of group of several nuclear families and it may be vertically or
horizontally expanded. Joint family may be considered a particular type of
extended family. It is now well acknowledged that extended family was never
a universal feature of traditional society and the argument that industrialization
led to the formation of nuclear family is not true. William Goode in his ‗World
Revolution in Family Patterns, 1963‘argues that extended family were the
types of family of pre-modern society and today, worldwide nuclear family is
emerging as a universal type. However, this has little empirical support as
families are today seen to be more notable for their diverse range of forms.
o Authority relationships – Dominant form is ‗patriarchal‘ form. Eldest male
exercises authority in family, known as Karta in traditionally Hindu family.
Eldest Female exercises authority over all females. Male according to Parsons
have ‗instrumental authority‘, while mothers enjoys ‗emotional authority‘.
o Kinship bonds within family – Conjugal bonds are strong ,but subordinate to
consanguineal bonds. Filial bonds are stronger, but built on respect with
limited interaction in case of father and child. Mother-child bond is, however,
stronger.
o Descent – Matrilineal and patrilineal family structures. In the south and in the
northeast there are examples of matrilineal structures.
o Seniority – it is a source of authority as well as respect.
o Division of labor – it is generally sex based and patriarchal in nature.
o Relationships are enduring and are not severed even upon death
o Rules of relations – various rules like incest taboo, women rearing children etc
guide the kinship relations.
o Ownership patterns – traditionally, ownership of property in traditional joint
property are with adult males and succession line is patrilineal.

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 Increased female labour participation, legislation impacting gender, personal law and
international law, advances in S&T have interacted with the family and have led to
structural changes:
o Conjugal Relations and Authority Structure – Relationship between husband
and wife today is more based on cooperation rather than domination and
women are also playing an increasing role in decision making. According to
Parsons, nuclearization has strengthened conjugal bonds between husband and
wife. Goran Therborn mentioned in his ‗Between Sex and Power, 2004‘ , it is
argued that patriarchal power within family has generally declined over the
20th century. According to him events like – WW1 which led to women
joined the work force, Russian Revolution which promoted the principle of
egalitarianism, feminist movements of 1970s etc.
o Parents-Child Relationship – Both the parents play now in strumentaland
emotional roles.
o Brother Sister Relationship – They are now based on fellowship, based on
equality.
o Greater incidences of divorce – Single Parent Families. According to Duncan
Fletcher people today expect more out of marital relations and hence more
likely to end a relation which would have survived in the past. Edmund Leach
says that emotional stress and tensions are so great that family often fails to
bear it and bonds become fragile. In industrial society, due to rise of functional
alternatives, families perform fewer functions and hence there are fewer bonds
to unite. Nicky Hart says that there are more opportunities to escape today.
According to her, this is best exemplified by the enactment of new Divorce
Law in USA in 1971which led to a spurt in divorce cases.
o Authority of the aged people is decreasing.
o Rise of non-institutionalized features – live-in, single parent family etc.
o Family is becoming more of an individualized affair. Factors that have been
responsible for changes in structure and functions of family and marriage are:
 Industrialization – It leads to small family sizes which are
geographically more mobile. Industrialization also promotes
achievement based status and strengthens conjugal bonds.
 Families are today formed as a result of love marriages. Free selection
of spouse has introduced romantic element in family.
 Legal factors have improved status of women and children. Women
now have more rights. Individuals are now also freer to move
separately. Polygamy is now practiced lesser due to legal restrain on it
in most of the countries.
 In India, Hindu Marriage Act 1955 banned polygamy among Hindus
and it also gives right to divorce to women as well.
 Neolocal trend is replacing patrilocal patterns. Employed new couples
have to move to new places where their jobs are located.
 Emergence of alternatives to family and marriages – Cohabitation or
live-ins, gay and lesbian partnerships and single parent families are

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 new emerging trends. Acceptance to same sex relationship has also
upset the traditional definitions of family. Denmark was the first
country to legalize gay marriages. In India also, Supreme Court has
taken steps to decriminalize homosexuality.
 Individualization and fluidity in relations has led to less durable
bonding. Zygmunt Bauman in his ‗Liquid Love, 2003‘ argues that
modern life is characterized by constant change and lack of lasting
bonds. ● Enlightenment of women – Women resist the compulsions
and atrocities of joint patriarchal family.
 Over population and migration
 Problems of accommodation – A single house becomes insufficient to
accommodate all members of the family.
 Education
 Decline of religious control alters functions of family.
 Role of media
 Urbanization – It also put pressure on joint family.
 State policy – Family planning drives and rhetoric like ‗Hum Do
Humare Do‘.

Functionalist perspective on family:

George Peter Murdock – the universal functions of the functions of society.

 From his analysis of society, Murdock himself argued that family performs four basic
functions in all societies which he termed sexual, reproductive, economic and
educational.
 They are essential for social life since without the sexual and reproductive functions
there would be no members of society, without the economic function (for example,
the provisions and preparation of food) life would cease and without education (a
term Murdock uses for socialisation) there would be no culture. Human society
without culture could not function.
 Clearly, the family does not perform these functions exclusively. However, it makes
important contributions to them all, and no other institutions have yet been devised to
match its efficiency in this respect. Once this is realised, Murdock claimed, ‗the
immense utility of the nuclear family and the basic reason for its universality thus
begin to emerge in strong relief.

Functions for individuals and society:

 The family‘s function for society is inseparable from its functions for its individual
members. It serves both at one way. The sexual function provides a good example of
this.
 Husband and wife have the right of sexual access to each other, and in most societies,
there are rules forbidding or limiting sexual activity outside marriage. This provides

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 sexual gratification for the spouses. It also strengthens the family, since the powerful
and often binding emotions that accompany sexual activities unite husband and wife.
 The sexual function also helps to stabilise society. The rules that largely contain
sexual activity within the family prevent the probable disruptive effects on the social
order that would result if the sex drive allowed ‗free play‘.
 The family thus provides both ‗control and expression‘ of sexual drives, and in doing
so performs important functions, not only for its individual members but also for the
family as an institution and for society as a whole.
 Murdock applied a similar logic to the economic function. He argued that, like sex, it
is most readily and satisfactorily achieved by persons living together. He referred in
glowing terms to the division of labour within the family, whereby the husband
specialises in certain activities, the wife in others. For example, in hunting societies,
men kill animals, which provide meat for their wives to cook and skins for them to
make into clothing. This economic cooperation within the family for society as a
whole but also provides ‗rewarding experiences‘ for the spouses working together,
who ‗cement their union.
 Murdock argued that his analysis provided a ‗conception of the family‘s many – sided
utility and thus of its inevitability‘. He concluded ‗no society has succeeded in finding
an adequate substitute for the nuclear family, to which it might transfer these
functions. It is highly doubtful whether any society will ever succeed in such an
attempt.‘

Criticisms of Murdock:

 Murdock‘s picture of family is rather like the multi – tool, indispensable boy – scout
knife. The family is seen as indispensable to society. Its ‗many sided utility‘ accounts
for its universality and its inevitability.
 In his enthusiasm for the family, however, Murdock did not seriously consider
whether other social institutions could perform its functions and he does note
examine alternativeness to the family.
 D.H.J.Morgan notes in his criticism, Murdock does not state ‗to what extent these
basic functions are inevitably linked with the institution of the nuclear family‘.
 In addition, Murdock‘s description of the family is almost too good to be true. As
Morgan states, Murdock‘s nuclear family is a remarkably harmonious institution.
Husband and wife have an integrated DOL and have good time in bed.

Talcott Parsons – the „basic and irreducible‟ functions of the family:

 Parsons concentrated his analysis on the family in modern American society. Despite
this, his ideas have more general application, since he argued that American family
retains two most basic functions in all societies. These are the ‗primary socialisation
of children‘ and the ‗stabilisation of the adult personalities of the population of the
society‘.
 There are two basic processes involved in primary socialization: the internalization of
society‘s culture and the structuring of the personality. Unless culture is internalized –

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 that is, absorbed and accepted – society would cease to exist, since without shared
norms and values social life would not be possible.
 However, culture is not simply learned, it is ‗internalization as part of personality
structure‘. The child‘s personality is moulded in terms of central values of the culture
to the point where they become a part of him or her.
 Parsons argued that families are ‗factories‘ which produce human personalities. He
believed that they are essential for this purpose since primary socialization requires a
context which provides warmth, security and mutual support. He could conceive of no
institution other than the family that could provide this context.
 Once produced, the personality must be kept stable. This is the second most basic
function of the family: the stabilization of adult personalities. The emphasis here is on
marriage relationship and emotional security the couple provide for each other. This
acts as a counterweight to he stresses and strains of everyday life which tend to make
personality unstable.
 This function is particularly important in Western industrial society, since the nuclear
family is largely isolated from kin. It does not have security one provided by close –
knit extended family. Thus, married couple increasingly look to each other for
emotional support.
 Adult personalities are also stabilized by the parents‘ role in socialisation process.
This allows them to act out ‗childish‘ elements of their own personalities which they
have retained from childhood but which cannot be indulged in adult society.
 Today‘s families are ‗atomistic families‘ which fit well into the demands of the
modern industrial society.

Critique of Parsons:

 Parsons has been accused of idealizing the family with his picture of well – adjusted
children and sympathetic spouses caring for each other‘s every need. It is a typically
optimistic modernist theory which may have little relationship to reality.
 His picture is based largely on the American middle-class family. He largely fails to
explore functional alternatives to the family. He sees socialization as a one-way
process, with the children being pumped full of culture and their personalities being
moulded by powerful parents. He tends to ignore the two way interaction process
between parents and children.
 Parsons sees the family as a distinct institution which is clearly separated from other
aspects of social life. Some contemporary perspectives on the family deny that such
clear-cut boundaries can be established. The family as such cannot therefore be seen
as performing any particular functions on its own in isolation from other institutions.

Isolated nuclear family of Parsons:

 Parsons, in his ‗the social structure of family, 1959‘ – a study of American families,
concluded that isolated nuclear family is family of modern industrial societies because
it doesn‘t form part of wider kinship relations.

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  Argues – functional relation b/w isolated nuclear family and economic system in
industrial societies; evolves to meet needs of new economic system as it requires
geographically mobile family; ceases to be an economic unit of production as it shifts
to factories.
 Define roles of members. Husbands or father play role in bread earning and wives or
mothers play role in rearing children. According to him, though status outside family
is achieved one, it ascribed within family.
 Due to structural isolation, conjugal bond between them strengthened.
 There are many who contend that conclusions of Parsons are simplistic and far from
reality; feminists – that branding of roles for male and female is prejudiced.
 William Goode – growth of nuclear family is not due to industrialisation but is a
result of ideology of nuclear family itself.

Marxist perspective of family:

Friedrich Engels – the origin of family:

 Combined an evolutionary approach with Marxist theory, arguing that, as the MOP
changed, so did the family.
 During the early stages of human evolution, Engels believed that the MOP was
communally owned and family as such did not exist. This era of primitive
communism was characterized by promiscuity. There were no rules limiting sexual
relationships and society was, in effect, the family.
 The monogamous nuclear family developed with the emergence of private property,
in particular the private ownership of the MOP, and the advent of the state. The state
instituted laws to protect the system of private property and to enforce the rules of
monogamous marriage. This form of marriage and the family developed to solve
problem of inheritance of private property.

Evidence for Engel‟s view:

 Engel‘s scheme of evolution of family is much more elaborate than brief outline
described above. It was largely based on ancient society, an interpretation of evolution
of family by 19th century American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan.
 Modern research has suggested that many of details of Engel‘s scheme are incorrect.
For example, monogamous marriage and nuclear family are often found in hunting
and gathering bands.
 Since humanity is lived in hunting and gathering band for vast majority of its
existence, the various forms of group marriage postulated by Engels may well be
figments of his imagination. However, Gough argues that; ‗the general trend of
Engels still appears sound‘. Although nuclear families and monogamous marriage
exist in small scale societies, they form a part of larger kinship group. When
individuals marry they take on a series of duties and obligations to their spouse‘s kin.
 Communities are united by kinship ties and the result is similar to large extended
family.

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Eli Zaretsky – personal life and capitalism:

 Eli Zaretsky analysed developments in the family in – industrial societies from a

Marxist perspective. He argues that family in modern capitalist society creates the
illusion that the ‗private life‘ of the family is quite separate from the economy.
 Before the early 19th century the family was the basic unit of production. For
example, in the early capitalist textile industry, production of cloth took place in home
and involved all family members.
 Only with development of factory workers – based production were work and family
life separated.
 In a society in which work was alienating, Zaretsky claims family was put on a
pedestal because it apparently ‗stood in opposition to the terrible anonymous world of
commerce and industry‘.
 The private life of the family provided opportunities for satisfaction that were
unavailable outside the walls of the home.
 Zaretsky welcomes the increased possibilities for a personal life for the proletariat
offered by reduction in working hours since the 19th century.
 However, he believes the family is unable to provide for the psychological and
personal needs of individuals.
 He says, ‗it simply cannot meet the pressure of being the only refuge in a brutal
society‘.
 The family artificially separates and isolates personal life from other aspects of life. It
might cushion the effects of capitalism but it perpetuates the system and cannot
compensate for general alienation produced by such a society.
 Furthermore, Zaretsky sees family as major prop to the capitalist economy. The
capitalist system is based upon the domestic labour housewives who reproduce future
generations of workers.
 He also believes the family has become vital unit consumption. The family consumes
the products of capitalism and this allows bourgeoisie to continue producing surplus
value.
 To Zaretsky, only socialism will end the artificial separation of family private life and
public life, and produce the possibility of personal fulfilment.

Criticisms:

 Jennifer Somerville argues that Zaretsky, even after the qualification he makes,
exaggerates the importance of the family as a refuge from life in capitalist society.
 She suggests that Zaretsky underestimates ‗the extent of cruelty, violence, incest and
neglect‘ within families.
 He also exaggerates the extent to which family life is separated from work.
 According to Somerville, during early stages of capitalism, most working – class
women had to take paid work in order for the family to survive financially, and
relatively few stayed at home as full time housewives.

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Feminist perspective on the family:

 They challenge the image of family as being based upon cooperation, shared interests
and love, and have tried to show that some members, mostly men, obtain greater
benefits from families than others.

Marxist feminists:

 Margaret Benston stated that the fact that the husband must pay for the production and
upkeep of future labour acts as a strong discipline on his behaviour at work. He
cannot easily withdraw his labour with a wife and children to support. These
responsibilities weaken his bargaining power and commit him to wage labour.
 Fran Ansley sees the emotional support provided by the wife as a safety valve for the
frustration produced in the husband by working in a capitalist system. Rather than
being turned against the system which produced it, this frustration is absorbed by the
comforting wife. In this way the system is not threatened. ‗Wife as a sponge‘.
 David Cooper in saw family as an 'ideological conditioning device' that conditions
children to accept their own exploitation. The family lays down behaviour patterns in
which people submit to those in authority. Children learn to obey their parents, just as
they will obey employers in later life. Every child has the potential to be an artist, a
visionary, or a revolutionary, and to see through ruling class ideology, but this is
stifled by the submission of the self to the demands of the family.
 Diane Feeley argues that structure of family relationships socializes the young to
accept their place in a class stratified society. She claims that family with its
‗authoritarian ideology‘ is designed to teach passivity, not rebellion‘. Thus, children
learn to submit to parental authority and emerge from the family preconditioned to
accept their place in the hierarchy of power and control in capitalist society.

Critique:

 D.H.J.Morgan says the perspective ‗presupposes a traditional model of nuclear family

where there is a married couple with children where the husband is the breadwinner
and where the wife stays at home to deal with the housework‘. This pattern is
becoming less common and the critique of this type of family may therefore be
becoming less important.
 Marxist feminists may therefore exaggerate the harm caused to women by families
and may neglect the effects of non-family relationships (apart from class) on
exploitation within marriage. They also tend to portray female family members as the
passive victims of capitalist and patriarchal exploitation. They ignore the possibility
that women may have fought back against such exploitation and had some success in
changing the nature of family relationships. Furthermore, they are not usually
prepared to concede that there may be positive elements to family life.

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Radical feminists:

 Christine Delphy and Diana Leonard see the family as an economic system. It
involves a particular set of ‗labour relations in which man benefit from and exploit,
the work of women – and sometimes that of their children and other male relatives.‘
 The key to this explanation is that family members work not for themselves but for
the head of the household. Women, in particular, are oppressed, neither because they
are socialized into being passive, nor because they are ideologically conditioned into
subservience but because their work is appropriated within the family.

Empirical Evidence:

 Delphy and Leonard use four main sources to try to back up their claims. Three of
these are studies of British factor workers and their families.
 They use Goldthorpe and Lockwood‘s 1962 study of affkuent workers in Luton in
1970s study of 500 workers and their wives in a Bristol company which made
cardboard packing cases, and a 1980s study of redundant steel workers in Port Talbot,
Wales. They also use data from Christine Delphy‘s own studies of French fanning
families.
 Although the studies did not always contain the data needed to test their theories, they
found support for their arguments in a number of areas. The following are a few
examples:
o In Bristol, the researchers found that husbands did not want their wives to take
paid employment and often discouraged them from doing so. Wives had little
influence on this husband‘s patterns of work.
o In Port Talbot, most men strongly resisted doing housework, even though they
were unemployed. They saw redundancy as a threat to their masculinity and
did not want it further undermine by, doing ‗women‘s jobs in the house. Only
25% of the sample gave more than occasional help with housework and in no
case did husband take – the main burden of housework. The Port Talbot study,
also found that husband usually retained control of the family finances.
o Delphy‘s research revealed that wives‘ labour was vital to the success of
French Farms. Farms owned by bachelors enjoyed considerably less success
than those owned by married men. Nevertheless, wives had little autonomy
and were given ‗arduous, least – valued tasks‘. Wives had very little say in
how farm was running and farms were usually handed down to sons.

Conclusion and summary:

 Delphy and Leonard believe that the family is a patriarchal and hierarchical institution
through which men dominate and exploit women.
 Men are usually the head of household, and it is the head who benefits form the work
that gets done.
 Women provide ‘57 varieties of unpaid service‘ for men, including providing them
with a ‗pliant sexual partner and children if he wants them‘. Wives do sometimes

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 resist their husband‘s dominance – they are not always passive victims but ‗economic
and social constraints‘ make it difficult for women to escape from the patriarchal
family.

Difference feminists:

 Linda Nicholson believes that there is a powerful ideology which gives support to a
positive image of family life. She argues that this ideology only supports certain types
of family while devaluing other types. Nicholson contrasts what she calls the
‗traditional‘ family with ‗alternative‘ families.
 The fact that they have some advantages does not mean that traditional families are
better than alternative types. From Nicholson‘s POV, different types of family suit
different women in different circumstances. She believes that the distinction between
traditional and alternative families should be abandoned. The distinction implies that
traditional families are better, when this is often not true. In any case, the idea of the
traditional family misleadingly implies that such families have long been the norm,
when in fact they have only become popular in recent times, and have never been
totally dominant.
 By the late 1990s so many people lived in alternatives to traditional families that the
idea of the traditional family had become totally outdated. Nicholson therefore
concludes that all types of family and household should be acknowledged and
accepted because they could suit women in different circumstances. She advocates the
celebration of greater choice for people in deciding on their own living arrangements.
 Cheshire Calhoun believes that it is not family life itself that leads to the exploitation
of women, rather it is family life within patriarchal, heterosexual marriages that is the
problem.
 Lesbians who live outside heterosexual families can hardly be directly exploited by
relationships within such families. Indeed, lesbians are uniquely placed to avoid
dependence on men within families. However, Calhoun does believe that they are
disadvantaged by the ideology of the heterosexual family.
 According to Calhoun, gays and lesbians have historically been portrayed as ‗family
outlaws‘. Their sexuality has been seen as threatening to the family. They have been
portrayed as ‗outsiders to the family and as displaying the most virulent forms of
family disrupting behaviour.‘ However, Calhoun believes that the anxiety among
heterosexuals about gays and lesbians has in fact caused by anxiety about the state of
heterosexual nuclear family.
 She concludes that such scapegoating of lesbians and gays is used to disguise the
increasingly frequent departures from the norms of family life by heterosexuals.

 Michael Young and Peter Willmott in their book, The Symmetrical Family, attempt to
trace the development of the family from pre-industrial England to the 1970s. They
suggest that the family has gone through four main stages:
o Stage 1 - the pre-industrial family: The family is a unit of production.

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 o Stage 2 – the early industrial family: individual members were employed as
wage earners. Throughout the 19th century, working-class poverty was
widespread, wages were low and unemployment high. The family responded
to this situation by extending its network to include relatives beyond the
nuclear family. This provided an insurance policy against the insecurity and
hardship of poverty. The extension of the nuclear family was largely
conducted by women who ‗eventually built up an organization in their own
defence and in defence of their children‘. The basic tie was between a mother
and her married daughter, and, in comparison, the conjugal bond (the husband
– wife relationship) was weak. Women created an ‗informal trade union‘
which largely excluded men.
o Stage 3 – the symmetrical family: this family is characterized by ‗the
separation of immediate or nuclear family, from the extended family‘, the
trade union of women is disbanded and the husband returns to family circle.
The conjugal bond is strong and relationships between husband and wife are
increasingly ‗companionate‘. The nuclear family has become a largely self –
contained, self-reliant unit. The transition to this stage was aided by increase
in real wages, welfare state provisions, and increased employment
opportunities for women, increasing geographical mobility, reduced fertility.
 They argue that ‗in its capacity as a consumer the family has also made a crucial
alliance with technology.‘ Industry needs both a market for its goods and a motivated
workforce. The symmetrical family provides both. Workers are motivated to work by
their desire for consumer durable. This desire stems from high value they place on the
family and a privatized lifestyle in the family home. This provides a ready market for
products of industry.
 Young and Willmott found that the home – centred symmetrical family was more
typical of working class than middle class. They argue that members of working class
‗more fully home – centred because they are less fully work – centred‘. Partly as
compensation for boring and uninvolving work, and partly because relatively little
interest and energy are expanded at work, manual workers tend to focus their attention
on family life. Young Willmott therefore sees the nature of work as a major influence
on family life.
 Applying the Principle of Stratified Diffusion to the future (writing in 1973), Young
and Willmott postulated the possible development of a stage 4 family - asymmetrical
family, with more asymmetrical conjugal roles.

 Talcott Parsons argues that the family has become: on the ‗macroscopic levels, almost
completely functionless. It does not itself, except here and there, engage in much
economic production; it is not a significant unit in the political power system; it is not
a major direct agency of integration of the larger society. Its individual members
participate in all these functions, but they do so as individuals, not in their roles as
family members.

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 However, this does not mean that the family is declining in importance - it has simply
become more specialized. Parsons maintained that its role is still vital. By structuring
the personalities of the young and stabilizing the personalities of adults, the family
provides its members with the psychological training and support necessary to meet
the requirements of the social system. Parsons concluded that ‗the family is more
specialized than before, but not in any general sense less important, because society is
dependent more exclusively on it for the performance of certain of its vital functions‘.
Thus loss of certain functions by the family has made its remaining functions more
important.
 N. Dennis argues that impersonal bureaucratic agencies have taken over many of the
family‘s functions. As a result, the warmth and close supportive relationships that
existed when the family performed a large range of functions have largely
disappeared.
 Dennis argues that, in the impersonal setting of modem industrial society, the family
provides the only opportunity ‗to participate in a relationship where people are
perceived and valued as whole persons‘.
 In the Family and Marriage in Britain, Ronald Fletcher argued that not only has the
family retained its functions but those functions have ‗increased in detail and
importance‘. Specialized institutions such as schools and hospitals have added to and
improved the family‘s functions, rather than superseded them. Even though the family
has largely lost its function as a unit of production, he argued that it still maintains a
vital economic function as a unit of consumption.
 State education has added to, rather than removed, the socialization responsibility
since parents are expected to do their best to guide, encourage and support their
children in their educational and occupational choices and careers. Compared to past,
parents are preoccupied with their children‘s health. State health and welfare
provision has provided additional support for the family and made its members more
aware of the importance of health and hygiene in the home.

 Anthony Giddens in ‗The transformation of intimacy‘ argues that pre – modern

relationships in Europe were largely based around ‗economic circumstance‘. People
got married to particular people largely to provide an economic context in which to
produce a family. For the peasantry, life was so hard it ‗was reproduction and forming
economic connections between families.
 However, in the 18th century, the idea of romantic love began to develop. Romantic
novels played an important part in spreading the idea of romantic love. It was also
related to the limitation of family size, which allowed sex to be separated from
pregnancy and childbirth.
 Romantic love contains the idea that people will be attracted to one another and this
attraction will lead to the partners being bound together. In theory, romantic love
should be egalitarian. In practice, however, it has tended to lead to the dominance of
men. For women, dreams of romantic love have all too often led to grim domestic
subjection.

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 Giddens argues that in the most recent phase of modernity, the nature of intimate
relationships has undergone profound changes. Plastic sexuality has developed which
involves sex being freed from its association with childbirth altogether. It is now a
type of leisure pursuit. However, it is not only technological development
(contraceptives) that led to the emergence of plastic sexuality, but crucially the
development of a sense of the self that could be actively chosen. This process can be
described as the growth of social reflexivity. Reflexivity describes the way in which
people reflect upon the institutions that are part of the social world and try to change
them for the better.
 Romantic love is increasingly replaced with confluent love, which lasts only so long
as it benefits the lover. Confluent love is active and contingent. Romantic love meant
that once people had married, they were usually stuck with one another, no matter
how the relationship developed. Now people have more choice: whereas divorce was
previously difficult or impossible to obtain, married people are now no longer bound
to stay together if the relationship does not work.
 Rather than basing relationships on romantic passion, people are increasingly
pursuing the ideal of the pure relationship, in which couples remain because they
choose to do so. As the idea of confluent love becomes consolidated as a real
possibility, the more the idea of finding the Mr. or Mrs. Right recedes and the more
the idea of finding the right relationship becomes crucial. The pure relationship is held
together by the acceptance on the part of each partner that, until further notice each
gains sufficient benefits from the relationship to make its continuance worthwhile.
Each partner in the relationship constantly monitors their concerns to see if they are
deriving sufficient satisfaction from the relationship for it to go on.
 Individualization involves an extension of areas of life in which individuals are
expected to make their own decisions. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Bech – Gernsheim
in ‗Normal Choas of Love‘ say that the proportions of possibilities in life that do not
involve decision making is diminishing, owing to factors like Protestant Ethic,
urbanization, secularization and social geographical mobility.
 If pre – modern societies gave people little choice about their roles in families and
marriages, they did at least provide some stability and certainty. They say nuclear
family seems to offer ‗a sort of refuge in the chilly environment of our affluent,
impersonal, uncertain society, stripped of its tradition and scarred by all kinds of risk.
Love will become more important than ever and equally impossible‘.
 Love offers the promise of an ‗emotional base‘ and a security system‘, which are
absent in the world outside. However, contemporary societies prevent the formation
of such relationships. The apparent greater choice over relationships can create
problems in making them work, and the quest for individual fulfilment by both
partners in a relationship makes it difficult for them to find common ground.
 Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that antagonism, between men and women are on
the rise. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim claim that the battle between the sexes is the
central drama of our times, as evidenced in growth of the marriage counseling
industry, family courts, marital self-help groups and divorce rates. But even though
marriage and family life seem to be flimsier that ever before, they still remain very

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 important to people. Divorce is increasingly common, but rates of remarriage are
high. The birth rate may be declining, but there is a huge demand for fertility
treatment. Fewer people may choose to get married, but the desire to live with
someone as part of a couple is certainly holding steady. What can explain these
competing tendencies?
 They claim that today's battle of the sexes is the clearest possible indication of
'people's hunger for love'. People marry for the sake of love and divorce for the sake
of love; they engage in an endless cycle of hoping, regretting and trying again. While
on the one hand the tensions between men and women are high, there remains a deep
hope and faith in the possibility of finding true love and fulfilment.
 Stephanie Coontz in ‗the way we never were‘ shows that the traditional family was
not so golden after all. It witnessed high death rates, average length of marriage was
only 12 years, most children saw death of at least one parent by 21, there was a strict
authority of parents, and women were meant to be virtuous, while men could be
licentious.

Features of traditional family structure:

 Size – nuclear family, joint family and extended family are the three commonly
understood structural features in terms of size. Extended family is a sort of group of
several nuclear families and it may be vertically or horizontally expanded. Joint
family may be considered a particular type of extended family. It is now well –
acknowledged that extended family was never a universal feature of traditional
society and the argument that industrialisation led to the formation of nuclear family
is not true. William Goode, however, however, in hi ‗world revolution in family
patterns, 1963‘ that extended family was the type of family of pre – modern society
and today, worldwide nuclear family is emerging as universal type. However, this has
little empirical support as families today are seen to be more notable for their diverse
range of forms.
 Authority relationships – dominant form is ‗patriarchal‘ form. The eldest exercises
authority in family and is known as Karta in traditional Hindu family. The eldest
family exercises authority over all females. Male, according to Parsons, have
‗instrumental authority‘, while mothers enjoy ‗emotional authority‘.
 Kinship bonds within family – in traditional families, conjugal bonds are stronger, but
subordinate to consanguine bonds. Filial bonds are stronger, but built on respect with
limited interaction in case of father and child. Mother – child bond is, however,
stronger. As the basis of formation of family changes, and qualitative nature of
kinship bonds also changes. Ex: with advent of love marriages, conjugal bonds are
gaining primacy and display of affection between the spouses is not a taboo in even
traditional societies.
 Descent – on the basis of descent, we can have matrilineal and patrilineal family
structures. In India and even globally, patrilineal descent is the most common form of
descent – based structures. However, in some parts of south India and in Northeast
India there are examples of matrilineal structures as well.

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  Seniority – it is source of authority as well as respect. Societies which are divided on
basis of age – sets, age factor is primary factor in deciding the division of power
within the family structure. Some of African tribes follow this type of familial
organisation. Even in India, the older members command more respect and authority
as compared to younger members.
 DOL – it is generally sex – based and patriarchal in nature. Empirical evidences show
that sexual division remains the primary mode of DOL. Household works are branded
as ‗feminine‘ and ‗masculine‘. Washing utensils is not so masculine a job in most of
traditional parts of Indian society.
 Rules of relations – various rules like incest taboo, women rearing children etc. guide
the kinship relations. These rules vary from society to society. For example, while
cousin is a taboo in most of Northern India, it is not among various tribes, some parts
of South and NE India.
 Ownership pattern – ownership of property in traditional joint family is with adult
males and succession line is patrilineal.

Increased female labour force participation, legislation impacts on gender, personal law
reforms, international migration, advances in S&T including new reproductive
technologies among others, have impacted family and have led to following structural
changes:

 Conjugal relations and authority structure – relationship between husband and wife
today is based more on cooperation rather than domination and women are also
playing an increasing role in decision – making. According to Parsons, nuclearisation
has strengthened conjugal bonds between husband and wife. Young and Willmott, in
their ‗the symmetrical family, 1975‘, saw family in terms of its evolution in 4 stages
from pre – industrialisation to current form. Today, ‗symmetrical relations‘ is a
hallmark of husband and wife relations in modern family and husband – wife relations
are based on companionship. In more recent study by Goran Therborn by title
‗between sex and power, 2004‘, it is argued that patriarchal power within family has
generally declined over the 20th century. According to him events like – WW1 which
led to women joining the work force, Russian Revolution which promoted the
principle of egalitarianism, feminist movements of 1970s, etc – have altered the
gender profiles and hence family structures.
 Parent – child relationships – Mowrer says that children‘s role in decision making is
increasing and families are now rather becoming filliocentric.
 Parental roles – both parents now play instrumental and emotional roles. Parsonian
hypothesis seems to be not so valid today as gender stereotypes are taking a hit with
social and legal reforms. It is no longer an oddity for a father to display affection for
kids. The Victorian values seems to be a thing of past now.
 Brother – sister relationship of divorce – they are now based on fellowship, based on
equality. Cultural notions attached with the role of brother and sisters are weakening
under the modernising influence.

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  Greater incidences of divorce – according to Duncan Fletcher, people today expect
more out of marital relations and hence more likely to end a relation which would
have survived in past. Edmund Leach says that emotional stress and tensions are so
great that family often fails to bear it and conjugal bonds become fragile. In industrial
society, due to rise of functional alternatives, families perform fewer functions and
there are fewer bonds to unite. Nicky Hart says that there are more opportunities to
escape today. According to her, this is best exemplified by enactment of new Divorce
law in USA in 1971 which led to a spurt in divorce cases.
 Authority structure changes – authority of the aged members in family is decreasing.
Individualism and achievements orientation has altered the authority structures within
family.
 Rise of traditionally non – institutionalised features – live – ins, single parent family,
etc. have altered our understanding of family as an institution. Family is no longer the
classically understood institutional comprising individuals of both sexes.

The Symmetrical family:

 Michael Young and Peer Willmott in their decade long study of London families
concluded that family has undergone evolution in three stages – the pre – industrial
family, the early industrial family and the symmetrical family.
 Pre – industrial family also had an equitable DOL and every member participated in
almost all the chores. So, pre – industrial family was also a symmetrical family. Early
– industrial family was different as men started to engage in industrial work and
women took to house chores.
 Symmetrical family is third stage and is largely a self – reliant and self – contained
unit. Marital bonds are stronger and based on compassion.
 In this type of family too, the husband – wife roles are not totally symmetrical and
sexual division of work still remains, but husband and wife significantly share each
other‘s burden.
 Increase in male income, mobility, lower male mortality, lesser children, etc. led to
evolution of this form.

According to Bolsche, money economy has also contributed has also contributed in reduction
of size of family as there is constant negotiation between limited resource and unlimited
desires of members. In many Western countries industrialisation, migration and
modernisation dictated size and form of family, but in India cultural institutions like religion,
caste, etc play an important role.

Some sociologists also argue that family is no longer a cornerstone of society. Some
countries like Netherland have high as 80% of single individuals in the 18 – 45 age – group.
Examples of alternatives like Kibbutz in Israel also raise questions over the universal
existence of family. Some other sociologists argue that family should be replaced by
household as a unit of analysis of household remains a unit of cohabitation despite changing
forms of family.

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Types and forms of family:

 On the basis of residence – matrilocal, patrilocal, duolocal and neolocal are four
broadly classified forms on the basis of residence of married couple. In matrilocal, the
newly – wed couple lives at the bride‘s place. This kind of practice is prevalent
among some matriarchal families of North-eastern India.
 On the basis of authority – matriarchal and patriarchal are the two forms based on
authority. But matriarchal forms are rare. Even in the purportedly matriarchal
societies, males often have considerable authority.
 On the basis of descent or rule of inheritance – matrilineal, patrilineal, ambilineal, etc.
are some forms of the descent – based forms of family. The most common of them is
patrilineal followed by matrilineal. Other forms are rare.
 On the basis of household size – joint household, nuclear household, single person
household, institutional household and so on are some of the commonly observed
classification based on the household.
 On the basis of size – nuclear family (sometimes the term ‗conjugal family‘ is also
used for nuclear family) and extended are two broadest classification. Nuclear family
includes husband, wife and their offspring. When other members also become part of
this family, it becomes an extended family. A joint family is a particular type of
extended family.
 On basis of membership type – yet another distinction is made between the ‗conjugal
family‘ or family by marriage on one hand and ‗consanguine family‘ or family by
blood on the other, based on the membership type of the family.
 The family in which one is born as a child is the ‗family of orientation‘ and the family
in which one is a parent is the ‗family of procreation‘.

 Various other classifications have also been suggested. For example, on the basis of
volatility in the form of family, Anthony Giddens talks about ‗serial monogamy‘ in
modern societies in which a person goes through multiple divorces followed by
multiple marriages and nuclear household are formed in succession.
 In wake of recognition of alternative – sex orientations, family of choice has also
emerged in the context of LGBT community. Similarly, cohabitation without
marriage is also now recognised as a form of family and some countries provide legal
recognition to these new forms of families. Ex: in 2010, Ireland enacted civil
partnership and certain rights and obligations of cohabitants act provide legal
recognition as well as to provide some safeguards to cohabiting couples.

 Empty shell – couple stays together, but no emotional commitment – maximum in

India – spouses live together and remain legally married, but their marriage exists in
name only.
 Dual career families – earlier both in similar profession, now greater diversity.

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  Kotler – 6 pocket syndrome – 1 kid pampered by parents and 2 sets of grandparents.

Changes with Industrial society:

 Kingsley Davis – major items in variation of marital relation: no of spouses;

authority; strength of bond; choice of spouse; residence.
 William Goode – World revolution in family patterns – did global survey of family
institutions:
o Industrialization tends to undermine extended family and larger kinship
groups.
o High geographical mobility decreases frequency and larger kinship groups.
o Many functions performed by family taken over by outside agencies.
o Not just industrialization but western idea of nuclear family further spreading
nuclearism.
o Role bargaining: individual tries to attain best possible bargain in relationship
with others.
 Goran Therborn counters Goode and denies convergence of different family types
into one:
o Families not becoming increasingly similar but varied and diverse patterns
visible.
o Families are ageing due to falling global birth rates.
 Young and Wilmott:
o Stage 1 – symmetrical family in agrarian societies; family unit of production
with family members.
o Stage 2 – asymmetrical in early industrialization disrupted family unit with
men working outside and women at home – strict DOL.
o Stage 3 – symmetrical family – reunites but around family as a consumption.
Men more leisure time and spend with family.
o Stage 4 – asymmetrical family – empty shell and disoriented family because of
too much career orientation.

Marriage and its types:

 It has been generally assumed that the institution of marriage is a universal feature. in
human societies. Although many sociologists and anthropologists have attempted to
provide definitions of marriage, none of them has been satisfactorily and sufficiently
general enough to encompass all its various manifestations. This is because marriage
is a unique institution of human society that has different implications indifferent
cultures. It is a biological fact that marriage is intimately linked to parenthood.
 Malinowski , a legal marriage is one which gives a woman a socially recognized
husband and her children a socially recognized father .Radcliffe-Brown states that
Marriage is a social arrangement by which a child is given a legitimate position in
society determined by parenthood in the social sense.

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  Westermarck it is a relation of one or more men to one or more women which is
recognized by custom or law and involves certain rights and duties both in the case of
parties entering the union and in the case of children born out of this union.
 According to Horton and Hunt marriage is the approved social pattern where by two
or more persons establish a family.
 Edmund Leach argued that the institutions commonly classed as marriage are
concerned with the allocation of a number of distinguishable classes of rights and
hence may serve to do any or some or all of the following.
o To establish the legal father of a woman's children.
o To establish the legal mother of a man's children.
o To give a husband a monopoly of the wife's sexuality.
o To give the wife a monopoly of the husband's sexuality.
o To give the husband partial or monopolistic rights to the wife's domestic and
other labor services.
o To give the wife partial or monopolistic rights to the husband's domestic and
other labor services.
o To give the husband partial or total rights over property belonging or
potentially accruing to the wife.
o To give the wife partial or total rights over property belonging or potentially
accruing to the husband.
o To establish a joint fund of property – partnership for the benefit of the
children of the marriage.
o To establish a socially significant relationship of affinity between the husband
and his wife's brothers.

Types of marriages:

On the basis of number of mates:

 Monogamy is an ideal, widespread and rational type of marriage. It is found in all

civilized societies. Monogamy refers to a marriage of one man with one woman at a
time. This type of marriage is normally unbreakable in nature. It continues till death.
Today the principle of monogamy i.e. one husband and one wife is practised and
emphasised throughout the world. Monogamy is of two types such as serial
Monogamy and non-serial Monogamy.
o Serial Monogamy In serial Monogamous marriage the possibility of
remarriage exists in case of divorce or death. Inspite of his remarriage he
remains to be monogamous.
o Non-serial Monogamy In case of non-serial monogamy the question of
remarriage does not arise by either of the couple. Here a spouse has the same
single spouse throughout his life. However, Monogamy is an ideal or best
form of marriage because of its different advantages which are as follows:
 It is suitable for all society and for all levels of people.
 It provide better sex satisfaction to both husband and wife.
 It promotes better understanding between the spouse.

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  It minimizes jealousy, hatred and quarrels in the family.
 It upholds gender equality and provides equal status to men and
women.
 It provides stable sex-life and stable family life.
 Children are taken proper care by parents.
 It facilitates easy rules of inheritance and succession. Because of the
above advantages Monogamy is considered as the best form of
marriage and is practiced everywhere. The only disadvantages of
Monogamy are divorce which is resulted due to the monogamous
boredom.
 Polygamy is a type of marriage in which there is plurality of partners. It allows a man
to marry more than one woman or a woman to marry more than one man at a time.
Polygamy is of three types such as polygamy, polyandry and endogamy or group
marriage.
o (i) Polygamy is a type of marriage in which a man marries more than one wife
at a time. In this type of marriage each wife has her separate household and the
husband visits them in turn. It was a preferred form of marriage in ancient
Indian society. But now it was not in practice among the majority of the
population. But it is now found among few tribal‘s such as Naga, Gond and
Baiga. Economic and political cause was mainly responsible for polygamy.
Besides man‘s taste for variety, enforced celibacy, Barrenness of women more
women population etc. are some of the cause of polygamy. Polygamy is
further divided into two types such as Sororal polygyny and non- sororal
polygyny.
 Sorroral Polygamy Sorroral is often called as surrogate. The term
surrogate comes from the Latin word ‗sorer‘ which means sister.
Accordingly it refers to a marriage practice in which a man marries the
sisters of his wife at a time or after the death of his wife.
 Non-sororal Polygamy: It is just opposite of the sororal polygamy,
when a man marries several women at a time who are not necessarily
sister to each other it is known as nonsororal polygamy.
 Polyandry Polyandry is a very rare type of marriage in present day. In
this type of marriage a woman marries several men at a time. In the
words of K.M. Kapadia, ―Polyandry is a form of union in which a
woman has more than one husband at a time or in which brothers share
a wife or wives in common. At present it is found among some of the
tribes like toda, khasi and nayars. Polyandry is divided into two types
such as fraternal polyandry and non-fraternal polyandry. (a)Fraternal
Polyandry When several brothers share a common wife it is called
fraternal polyandry. Draupadi‘s marriage to Pandavas is fine example
of fraternal polyandry. The determination of father is associated with
some rituals. At present time this type of marriage is practised by some
tribals like toda and khasi. (b) Non-fraternal Polyandry It is just
opposite of fraternal polyandry. In this type of marriage husbands of a

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 woman is not necessarily brother to each other. This type of marriage
is found among the Nayars of Kerala, Wife goes to spend some time
with each of her husband. So long as a woman lives with one of her
husbands, the others have no claim on her. This mainly happens due to
scarcity of women.
 Endogamy or Group Marriage Endogamy is otherwise known as group marriage. In
this type of marriage a group of men marry a group of women at a time. Every woman
is the wife of every man belonging to the particular groups. Sociologists, like Dr.
Rivers call it as a kind of sexual communism. This type of marriage is found among
some tribes of New Guinea and Africa.

On the basis of choice of mate or the basis of rules of mate selection:

 Endogamy or endogamous marriage Endogamy or endogamous marriage refers to the

marriage within one‘s own group such as within one‘s own caste, sub-caste, varna and
tribe. In other words there are several types of endogamous marriage such as caste
endogamy, sub-caste endogamy, varna endogamy and tribal endogamy.
o Caste endogamy Caste endogamy is a type of endogamous marriage in which
marriage takes place within one‘s own caste. In a caste based society
endogamy is strictly followed. Members of each caste marry within its own
caste group.
o Sub-caste endogamy It is another type of endogamous marriage. In a caste
based society each caste is divided into many subcastes. Like caste each sub-
caste is also an endogamous unit. In sub-caste endogamy marriage takes place
within one‘s sub-caste only.
o Varna endogamy Varna endogamy is another type of endogamous marriage.
In the traditional Indian Society we found the existence of four varnas such as
Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra. In varna endogamy the choice of
mate is restricted to one‘s own varna only.
o Tribal endogamy Tribe is a territorial group. Tribal endogamy is a type of
endogamous married in which the choice of mate is restricted to one‘s own
tribal group. Like caste tribe is also an endogamous unit.
 Exogamy or Exogamous marriage It is just opposite to the endogamy or endogamous
marriage system. It refers to a system of marriage in which an individual has to marry
outside one‘s own group such as gotra, pravara, sapinda or village. This is a sound
marriage system which leads to the creation of healthy and intelligent children.
However there are several forms of exogamy such as:
o Gotra exogamy Gotra refers to clan. Members of a particular gotra or clan
supposed to have close blood relation among themselves. Hence according to
gotra exogamy one has to marry outside one‘s own gotra.
o Pravara exogamy Pravara means siblings. People originating from a common
saint are said to belong to a particular Pravara. According to Pravara exogamy
one has to marry outside one‘s own pravara. Marriage within pravara is
forbidden.

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 o Sapinda exogamy Sapinda means-lineage. People belonging to five
generations from father side and three or seven generation from mother side
are known as sapindas. They believed to belong to a particular pinda. Hence
according to sapinda exogamy marriage within one‘s own sapinda is
forbidden. They are supposed to marry outside one‘s own sapnida.
o (d) Village exogamy According to this principle marriage within one‘s own
village is forbidden each and every society prescribes certain rules relating to
marriage. Some societies put several restrictions on marriage among kins
whereas some other societies allows marriage between a limited number of
kins. Hence in those societies marriage is sanctioned on the basis of preference
or priority. Accordingly socially sanctioned marriage among kins is known as
preferential marriage. In other words on the basis of preference marriage may
be divided into four types such as cross-cousin marriage, parallel cousin
marriage, levirate and sororate.
 Cross-cousin marriage When marriage takes place between one‘s
mother‘s brother‘s daughter/son with father‘s sister‘s son/daughter we
called it as cross cousin marriage. The marriage of Abhimanyu with
Sashikala is an example of this cross-cousin type of marriage. This
type of marriage is supposed to be practised in some parts of Orissa,
Rajasthan, and Maharashtra etc. This type of marriage occur to avoid
payment of high bride price and to maintain one‘s family property.
 Parallel Cousin marriage When marriage takes place between the
children of either two sisters or two brothers it is known as parallel
cousin marriage. This type of marriage is mostly found among
Muslims.
 Levirate It is otherwise known as ‗Devar Vivaha‘. When a woman
marries her husband‘s brother after the death of her husband it is
known as levirate. This type of marriage is found among some tribes
like the Gond, the Munda or the Santal the oran and the Toda etc.
 Sororate It is otherwise known as ‗Sali Vivah‘. When a man marries
his wife‘s sister after the death of his wife or even when the wife is
alive it is called as sororate. This type of marriage is found among
some tribes like the Kharia and the Gond.

Sociologists have classified marriage into Anuloma or Pratiloma:

 Anuloma marriage or Hypergamy When a man of higher caste or varna marries a

woman of lower caste or varna it is called as Anuloma or Hypergamy marriage. In
traditional Indian society hypergamy is known as Anuloma. This was in practice
among the nobles in the past. In Bengal it was found in the form of Kulinism.
 Pratiloma marriage or Hypogamy Pratiloma or hypogamy marriage is just opposite of
Anuloma or hypergamy. When a man of lower caste or status marries a woman of
higher caste or status it is known as pratiloma or hypogamy marriage. This is not an
approved form of marriage. Ancient Hindu law giver a man a lower caste or status

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 marries a woman of higher caste or status it is known as pratiloma or hypogamy
marriage. This is not an approved form of marriage. Ancient Hindu law giver Manu
denounced Pratiloma is still it practice among the people.

Social characteristics of marriage:

 In most societies, marriage is considered a permanent social and legal contract and
relationship between two people that is based on mutual rights and obligations among
the spouses.
 A marriage is often based on a romantic relationship, though this is not always the
case. But regardless, it typically signals a sexual relationship between two people. A
marriage, however, does not simply exist between the married partners, but rather, is
codified as a social institution in legal, economic, social, and spiritual/religious ways.
Because a marriage is recognized by law and by religious institutions, and involves
economic ties between the spouses, dissolution of marriage (annulment or divorce)
must, in turn, involve dissolution of the marriage relationship in all of these realms.
 Typically, the institution of marriage begins with a period of courtship that culminates
in an invitation to marry.
 This is followed by the marriage ceremony, during which mutual rights and
responsibilities may be specifically stated and agreed to. In many places, the state or a
religious authority must sanction a marriage in order for it to be considered valid and
legal. In many societies, including the Western world and the United States, marriage
is widely considered the basis of and foundation for family.
 This is why a marriage is often greeted socially with immediate expectations that the
couple will produce children, and why children that are born outside of marriage are
sometimes branded with the stigma of illegitimacy.

Social characteristics of marriage:

 Marriage has several social functions that are important within the societies and
cultures where the marriage takes place. Most commonly, marriage dictates the roles
that spouses play in each other's lives, in the family, and in society at large. Typically
these roles involve a division of labor between the spouses, such that each is
responsible for different tasks that are necessary within the family.
 American sociologist Talcott Parsons wrote on this topic and outlined a theory of
roles within a marriage and household, wherein wives/mothers play the expressive
role of a caregiver who takes care of socialization and emotional needs of others in
the family, while the husband/father is responsible for the task role of earning money
to support the family.
 In keeping with this thinking, a marriage often serves the function of dictating the
social status of the spouses and the couple, and of creating a hierarchy of power
between the couple. Societies in which the husband/father holds the most power in the
marriage are known as patriarchies.
 Conversely, matriarchal societies are those in which wives/mothers hold the most
power. Marriage also serves the social function of determining family names and lines

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 of familial descent. In the U.S. and much of the Western world, a common practice is
patrilineal descent, meaning the family name follows that of the husband/father.
However, many cultures, including some within Europe and many in Central and
Latin America, follow matrilineal descent.
 Today, it is common for newly married couples to create a hyphenated family name
that preserves the named lineage of both sides, and for children to bear the surnames
of both parents.

Household:

 A household is where one individual or a group of people live together atone address
and share living space. Individuals that live together when sharing accommodation
would be considered a household rather than a family unit.
 The individuals will share the space within the household meaningfully to connect
with one another. Household is more easily explained: a group of people who live
together, regardless of whether there are any kinship ties. Most of these are families,
but (depending on the definition of family) many are not: flat mates (such as students,
working professionals), people living on their own, multiple occupancy homes for
migrant workers, etc.
 Most families live in a household, but not all households are families. The nature of
households has changed considerably. Pre-industrial families lived in large
households but these households comprised of servants or other non-family members
living in the same household. Individuals relate to society through their families and
households.
 When these units add or lose members — or when the household members grow
older, divorce, or marry — there can be profound social and economic consequences.
Divorce can bring financial hardship.
 Marriage can add additional income, as well as stepchildren or mothers-in-law. The
birth of a child can bring new financial expenses, but it also can encourage stability.
Households and families are basic units of analysis in demography.
 They are not the same thing. A household is composed of one or more people who
occupy a housing unit. Not all households contain families. Households consist of two
or more individuals who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption, although they also
may include other unrelated people.
 Nonfamily households consist of people who live alone or who share their residence
with unrelated individuals. Thus, emotional attachment is a core feature of family,
while commensality is a core feature of household. These official definitions do not
necessarily reflect changing attitudes about marriage, childbearing, and the roles of
men and women.
 Households that consist of unmarried couples living together and gay and lesbian
couples, for example, would be counted as nonfamily households even though they
might share many characteristics of a family. If these couples live with children from
their current or a previous relationship, the household moves into the family category.

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 The average size and composition of households are highly sensitive to the age
structure of the population.
 But they also reflect social and economic changes. An economic squeeze may prolong
the time adult children living at home in many western countries; a rise in the divorce
rate may increase the number of single-person households. Relaxed social rules about
marriage may boost the number of unmarried couples setting up house.
 Classical scholars like Morgan, Maine and Kroeber have looked familyas a means to
explain the evolution of human civilization and hence largely ignored its household
dimension. Later the idea of nuclear family by Parsons, William Goode etc. also
emphasized that nuclear family and household are inseparable to each other.
 However, Anthony Giddens argues that phenomenon like ‗ serial monogamy ‘ have
led to break down of concept of family and household being one and the same as
different marriages bring many different relations under a single roof. Further, stay of
members is more transitory than permanent.
 Occupational compulsions in a cosmopolitan culture has separated husband and wife
who often live at different places in different households and meet only on weekends
giving rise to new concepts like ‗ weekend families/marriages.
 A household may also go several changes with time from nuclear to joint etc. In India,
such transformation has been studied by Shah in Gujarat villages in his ‗ Household
Dimension of Family in India, 1973‘ .
 A household may experience progression and/or regression or both on the basis of
birth, adoption and in- and out-marriage, and death, divorce and separation of
members over a period of time. A household in itself is neither joint nor nuclear, but
becomes either of these by virtue of its being under progression and regression in the
process of its developmental phases.

Contemporary Trends:

 During the past few decades profound changes have taken place in U.S. and European
households and families.
 The role of the traditional family has become weaker and new living arrangements
have gained importance.
 Consensual unions are now widely accepted; one-parent families now originate more
in divorce than in widowhood; and solitary householders have become more common.
A further complication is that increasing numbers of couples are cohabiting rather
than being formerly married to each other.
 Co habitation is a household-based concept requiring coresidence and also a sexual
relationship. Other emerging social trends such as increasing numbers of couples ‗
Living-Apart-Together‘ (LAT), i.e. people with a regular partner acknowledged by
friends and relatives, implicitly including asexual relationship, although not co-
resident.
 A tentative estimate suggests that four million people under age 60 in Britain are in a
LAT relationship, very similar to the estimated number cohabiting (and such

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 relationships are known to be relatively common in the Netherlands among older
people).
 Governmental Effort to Promote Family Moreover, with the introduction of programs
of economic liberalization ,governments worldwide have begun to review the costs of
their welfare programs, seeking to restore to families the burden of care (of the young
,of the aged, of the invalided and the handicapped) that the modern state and its
agencies had assumed during several decades of welfarism or socialist construction.
The declaration of a U.N. ‗International Year of the Family‘ in 1994 was an indication
of a growing and world-wide sense of crisis in the institution of the family,
precipitated by the downsizing of welfare programs, as are on tinuing appeals for the
re-institution of ‗family values‘, marital fidel it yand premarital control of abstinence.
Socialization of grandchildren‘s in case of working parents also contributed in healthy
relationship among the family members.
 PRANAM scheme of Assam government is also an effort in this direction.

Regional variations of kinship system in Indian society:

 Kinship system is the way in which relations between individuals and groups are
organized. It is referred to as ―a structured system of statuses and roles and of
relationship in which the kin (primary, secondary, tertiary and distant) are bound to
one another by complex interlocking ties.‖
 India is a diverse country and there are regional variations in kinship system as well.
The kinship features in North and Central India differ from those in South India. Such
regional variations in kinship system are listed as follows:

Zone Area Features

Northern The northern zone consists of Iravati Karve has given some
the Sindhi, important features of
Punjabi, Hindi, the kinship
Bihari, Bengali, organisation of the
Nepali etc northern zone:
language areas. -In these areas, caste endogamy
and clan exogamy
are strictly observed.
-There is patriarchy, patrilocality
and patrilineality.
-Marriage among close kin in not
allowed.
-Kin junior to ego are addressed
by their names and
senior to ego by the
kinship term.
-Girl is supposed to get married
far away and reside
at husband‘s place.
-The duties and behaviour
patterns of the

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 members of different
generations are
strictly regulated.

Central The central zone comprises the The important features of kinship
linguistic regions organisation in
of Rajasthan, central India are:
Madhya Pradesh, -Many castes are divided into
Gujarat and exogamous clans.
Kathiawad, Such clans are also
Maharasthra and arranged in
Odisha. They hierarchical order.
have affinity with -The kinship terminology shows
northern zone. intimacy and
But there are closeness between
pockets of various kin.
Dravidian -The family system in
languages in this Maharashtra is
region. There is patrilineal and
impact of eastern patrilocal but there
zone as well. are some differences
as compared to
northern zone.
-The kinship system of the tribals
in Rajasthan and
Madhya Pradesh is
somewhat different
from that of caste
Hindus.
-Some castes like Marathas and
Kunbis practice
bride-price too
though dowry
system also exists.
Iravati Karwe states that though
the kinship
organisation in the
northern and central
zone is almost
similar yet it can be
described as region
of transition from
the north to south.

Eastern The eastern zone is not In this zone, kinship organisation

compact and also has no single pattern.
geographically -People speaking Mundari
non-contiguous. languages have
Many tribes are patrilineal patrilocal
present in this families. However,

379
 region. joint families are
rare in this zone.
-In Khasis, out of many daughters
only one daughter
inherits the property.
She stays at her
mother‘s house with
her husband.
-Ritual marriage is also prevalent.
-Bride price is very common.
-Among Garos, household is
called ‗Nok‘ and the
daughter who
inherits the property
is called Nokma and
her husband is
referred as Nokram.
Different systems are practiced
amongst different
tribes.

Southern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, The southern zone presents

Tamil Nadu, complicated system
Kerala etc come of kinship
under this zone. organisation.
-Though patrilineal and patrilocal
family is dominant
yet various caste and
communities follow
matrilineal and
matrilocal system.
-There are some castes who
practice polygyny
and there are some
who practice both
polygyny and
polyandry. For
example- Todas.
-In north India, bride takers are
considered superior
than bride givers,
there is no such
difference in South
India.
-Cross cousin marriages and
uncle-niece
marriages are
practiced.
-Kinship terms are different from
those of northern

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 zone.

 All this shows varied patterns in kinship organisation in different regions of India.
One common feature is that kinship in India is influenced by caste or ethnicity. Both
rigidity and flexibility exist side by side in regard to values, norms, behavioural
patterns and practices related to kinship system.

Previous Years Questions:

1. In the light of judicial intervention on ‗Live – in – relationships‘, discuss the future of

marriage and family in India. (2019) (20 marks)
2. What, according to Irawati Karve, are the major differences between North Indian and
South Indian kinship system? (2019) (10 marks) (Refer UNIT 10 IGNOU notes)
3. Distinguish between family and household with reference to the concept of
development of the household. (2018) (20 marks)
4. What are new forms of family in developed societies? Discuss. (2018) (10 marks)
5. Discuss the regional variations of kinship system in Indian society. (2017) (20 marks)
6. Distinguish between family and household as sociological concepts. (2016) (10
marks)
7. Critically examine the functionalist views on the institution of family. How do those
help us in understanding family in present times? (2014) (20 marks)
8. What do you understand by institutionalization of live – in – relationship? (2014) (10
marks)
9. How did the emergence of industrial society change family life in Western Europe?
(2014) (10 marks)
10. Examine the emerging trends in marriage and family as a response to the changes in
economic and social order. (2013) (20 marks)

381
Unit No: 9

Unit Name: Systems of kinship

Chapter Name: 9(c) – Lineage and descent

Lineage:

 A lineage is a descent group that can demonstrate their common descent from known
apical ancestors.
 Unilineal lineages can be matrilineal or patrilineal, depending on whether they are
traced through mothers or fathers, respectively.
 Whether matrilineal or patrilineal descent is considered significant and differs from
culture to culture. Notionally, lineages are exclusive in their membership. In practice,
however, many cultures have methods for bestowing lineage membership on
individuals who are not genetically related to the lineage progenitor.
 The most common of these is adoption, although other forms of fictive kinship are
also used. Lineages are normally corporate, meaning that their members exercise
rights in common and are subject to obligations collectively.
 Lineage structure may be regarded as a branching process, as when two or three
founders of small lineages are represented as brothers or sisters. The groups thus
constitute a single larger lineage in which the smaller groups are segments. This
structure may lend stability to a society; the lineages are considered permanent groups
and thus perpetuate concomitant political and religious relationships over time. In
societies lacking central political authority, territorial groups often organize
themselves around lineages; as these are usually exogamous, or out-marrying,
marriage becomes a means of bringing together otherwise unrelated groups.
 For example – In India lineage is often considered from 3-7 generation on male side
as ours is a patrilineal society. It is sometimes known as Sarika/Sapinda group in
Northern India. In the case of lineage, one can trace one‗s ancestors whereas in
descent one often fails to trace one‗s ancestors and the ancestors could be substituted
by a mythical one symbolizing the origin of one‗s descent.

Descent:

 Descent is the principle whereby a child is socially affiliated with the group of his or
her parents. Descent is a relationship defined by connection to an ancestor (or
ancestress) through a culturally recognized sequence of parent-child links (from father
to son and son's son-patrilineal descent, from mother to daughter and daughter's
daughter-matrilineal descent).
 In other words, descent is the tracing of relationships intergenerationally through real,
putative (acknowledged), or fictive parent-child links. The rules of descent are
important from sociological point of view because only through these rules:
o The name of heritage gets transferred from one generation to other
o It decides the rules of property transfer

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Types of descent (based on rules):

 When descent is reckoned Unilineally, that is, in one line only. The child is affiliated
either with the group of the father, that is, Patrilineal Descent, or with the group of the
mother, that is, Matrilineal Descent.

Patrilineal Descent:

 In 'patriarchal' model of society it has patrilineal descent, patrilocal residence,

inheritance from father to son, and authority in the hands of seniors as against juniors,
and males as against females.
 A number of social practices testify to the fact that a woman's only legitimate roles
are those of wife and mother.
 Spinsterhood and widowhood are inauspicious and unenviable conditions. A girl is
regarded as merely a guest in her natal home and, initially at least, as a rather
threatening outsider in her marital home. The patrilineal systems of the south are not
as markedly patriarchal as those of the north.
 Also a woman after marriage continues to have materially and psychologically
important relations with members of her natal group. And in many other patrilineal
systems, the mother's brothers have significant ritual and social roles in the lives of
their sister's children, and especially tender an affectionate relationship with them.

Matrilineal Descent

 Matrilineal descent systems, of which there are several well-known examples in

southwestern and northeastern India, have their own distinctive characteristics.
Empirically you never find matrilineal systems that are an exact inverse of the
patrilineal-patriarchal model.
 The reason is quite simple: whatever the descent system is matrilineal, patrilineal or
indeed bilateral, authority is usually exercised by males, only in extremely simple
societies one comes across a fair degree of mutual interdependence between males
and females.
 Also, though rights in property might be determined by the principles of matrilineal
descent (for instance, passing from mother to daughter or from mother's brother to
sister's son rather than from father to son as in patrilineal societies), major property is
usually controlled (if not actually owned) by males. For obvious reasons, residence
arrangements are problematic in matrilineal societies.

 Female Primogeniture – Found among the Nayars of Kerala. In this system, their
household known as Tarawad is headed by the eldest female, though the property gets
transferred to all the sisters equally but the name and authority belongs to the eldest
daughter.

383
  Double Descent – In systems of double descent, (Yako of Nigeria, Ashanti of Ghana)
society recognizes both the patrilineage and the matrilineage but assigns to each a
different set of expectations. For example, the inheritance of immovable materials,
such as land, may be the domain of the patrilineage, while the matrilineage controls
the inheritance of movable objects such as livestock.
 Double Unilineal Descent – In this system, the lineage transfers from father to son
and mother to daughter based on lineage, For example, Nuer of Sudan.
 Ambilateral Descent – In ambilateral (e.g. Hawaiian kinship) systems, patrilineal and
matrilineal principles both operate at the societal level, but at the level of the
individual various rules or choices define a person as belonging to either the mother‗s
or the father‗s group i.e. offspring determine their lineage. In this system, the name
and property gets transferred not on any fixed line. It is ambiguous and can be
transferred anyway.
 Bilateral or Cognatic Descent – This descent systems consider kinship of the mother
and the father more or less equally, for example, Eskimo kinship. In practice,
unilineal systems differ radically from bilateral systems. In a matrilineal system, for
example, a person would feel cousin obligations only to the children of his mother‗s
siblings, while in a bilateral system the person is in some sense allied to the children
of both parents‗ siblings.

Functions of Descent groups:

 Unilineal descent groups tend to be 'corporate' in several other senses.

 Their members may often come together for ritual and ceremonial functions, for
instance, for collective worship of lineage gods, totems or ancestors. The descent
group will have a built-in authority structure, with power normally exercised by
senior males, and it may well own corporate property.
 An individual's economic rights and responsibilities will be defined by his or her
position in the descent group. The principle of Complementary Filiation explains the
significant ritual and social roles of the mother's brother(s) in the lives of their sister's
children.

Inheritance rules:

 In India certain types of property pass from father to son, and other types from mother
to daughter. In most parts of India, in the past, immovable property such as land and
housing was inherited only by sons, in the absence of sons except in rare
circumstances by the nearest male relatives on the father's side.
 On the other hand, movable property in the form of cash and jewellery was given to
the daughter at the time of her marriage, a certain amount of jewellery also passing
from the mother-in-law to the daughter-in-law.

Rules of residence:

If a husband and wife set up their own independent home after marriage, as it is usually the
case in modern western society, residence is said to be Neolocal. Where the wife goes to live

384
with the husband in his parents' home, residence is described as Virilocal, Patrilocal, Or
Patrivirilocal, and where the husband moves to live with the wife, it is termed Matrilocal.

Descent systems – additional information:

 The patrilineal descent systems of India have many of the features noted in similar
groups elsewhere. A boy at birth becomes a member of his descent group, and a
coparcener (partner) in a joint estate.
 A girl, by contrast, is only a residual member of her natal group: at marriage she is
incorporated into her husband's descent group and ultimately (i.e. after her death)
offered worship by their male descendants. Residence, as we have already noted, is
usually patrilocal.
 Descent groups can be of various types. Most common is family‗ which is also the
smallest descent group.
 A number of families which are linked by a common ancestor whose identity is
known to form a group called ‗lineage‗.
 A number of lineages linked together with a common ancestor whose identity is not
known is called clan‗ or gotra‗ in case of India and it is exogamous. A number of
clans having a common mythical ancestor form a phratory‗ and it is an endogamous
group. Phratory is sometimes equated with caste in India.

Other matrilineal communities:

 There are many other matrilineal communities in India whose kinship organization is
rather different to that of the Nayars. For instance, the Khasis of Assam are
matrilineal in descent, inheritance and succession, and practice matrilocal residence.
 The youngest daughter is the heiress, and lives in her mother's house alone with their
husbands and their children.
 The older daughter however may move out of the matrilineal household on marriage
and make new nuclear families; their husbands have greater independent authority
than does the husband of the youngest daughter still residing matrilocal.
 The Garo, also of Assam, have yet another arrangement. Marriage is matrilocal for the
husband of the daughter who becomes the head of the household and its manager.
 A rule of preferential cross-cousin marriage ensures that a man is succeeded in this
position by his sister's son in an ongoing alliance relationship between the two linked
lineages.

Previous Years Questions:

1. How do rules of descent and alliance in kinship differ from each other? Illustrate.
(2015) (10 marks)
2. Describe the important of lineage and descent in kinship and family. (2012) (20
marks)

385
Unit No: 9

Unit Name: Systems of kinship

Chapter Name: 9(d) – Patriarchy and Sexual Division of Labour

Patriarchy:

 Patriarchy is most commonly understood as a form of social organization in which

cultural and institutional beliefs and patterns accept, support, and reproduce the
domination over women and younger men by elder or more powerful men.
 Literally the Rule of the fathers, today sociologists view as patriarchal any system that
contributes to the social, cultural, and economic superiority or hegemony of men.
Consequently, sociologists study the manner in which societies have become and
continue to be patriarchal by investigating both social institutions and commonly held
cultural beliefs. At the same time, scholars investigate the consequences of patriarchy,
i.e., differential access to scarce societal resources including power, authority, and
opportunity by gender.
 The origins of patriarchy are closely related to the concept of gender roles, or the set
of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for
individuals of a specific sex. Much work has been devoted to understanding why
women are typically thought to inhabit a domestic role while men are expected to
seek professional satisfaction outside of the home. This division of labor is frequently
mapped onto a social hierarchy in which males‗ freedom to venture outside of the
home and presumed control over women is perceived as superior and dominant.
 Engels referred to it as the earliest system of domination establishing that Patriarchy
is ―the world historical defeat of the female sex. In this sense, it is said that
Patriarchy was a form of political organization that distributed power unequally
between men and women to the detriment of women.
 Patriarchy is defined by Sylvia Walby in her ‗Theorizing Patriarchy, 1990‘ as ‗a
system of social structures and practices in which men dominate and oppress women‗.
According to her, patriarchy operates through multiple structures like – production
relations in the household where women are subjected to unpaid labor, discriminatory
allocation of occupations in the labor market, capture of political power by patriarchs,
male violence which is often patterned and systematic, patriarchal relations in
sexuality which are manifested in sexual double standards for males and females,
patriarchal cultural institutions like education, media and so on.
 Walby distinguishes patriarchy as private patriarchy which is practiced in household
and public patriarchy which is collective response of a patriarchal society to women.
According to Walby, patriarchy is a system of social structures and practices in which
men dominate, oppress and exploit women. She sees patriarchy and capitalism as
distinct systems which interact in different ways, sometimes harmoniously and
sometimes in tension depending on historical conditions. Capitalism, she argues, has
generally benefited from patriarchy through the sexual division of labour. But at other
times, capitalism and patriarchy have been at odds with one another. For example, in

386
 wartime, when women have entered the labour market in great numbers, the interests
of capitalism and patriarchy have not been aligned.
 Prior to the critical work of feminist scholars, many considered patriarchy to be the
natural result of biological difference or rather a truly complementary system based
upon differential inclinations that served to address society‗s need for a division of
labor (Durkheim 1933; Parsons 1956). A more critical analysis of the origins of
patriarchy, however, looks to its cultural and social genesis as located within both
beliefs and specific social institutions.
 Issues including access to economic opportunity and more recently the gendering of
occupations, the glass ceiling (Williams 1992) and sexual harassment have concerned
both activists and scholars. A Parsonsian expression of balance between the public
(economic) sphere and the private (family) sphere argues in favor of men being
primarily active in the public and women in the private. Currently, feminist scholars
and most sociologists dismiss this characterization as patriarchal and focus on the
manner in which the institutions that perpetuate this unequal system are structured.
 Levi Strauss (1967) observed and chronicled the cultural roots of patriarchy and
highlighted a key implicit component, that of the objectification and devaluation of
women by men. More recently, Bernard demonstrated the differential structure of
marriage and family by gender that deterministically reproduces patriarchy.
 The concept of patriarchy has been criticized from both outside and within Feminism.
o The concept itself has been criticized as being too abstract: it is difficult to pin
it down and find specific mechanisms through which it operates.
o Many Feminists argue that Patriarchy exists in all cultures, and thus the
concept itself is too general to be useful, as it fails to take account of how
other factors such as class and ethnicity combine to oppress different women
in different ways.
o Black Feminists have criticized the (mainly) white radical Feminist critique of
the family as patriarchal as many black women see the family as a bulwark
against white racism in society.
o Postmodern Feminism criticizes the concept as it rests on the binary
distinction between men and women, the existence of which is open to
question today.
 A patriarchal structure where a number of factors coincide:
o when descent is reckoned patrilineally
o when inheritance of major property is from father to son
o when residence is patrilocal,
o When authority is concentrated in the hands of senior males
 There is no society on earth whose features are exact reverse of these. For even in
matrilineal, matrilocal systems, which are fairly rare, major property is usually
controlled by males. For this reason, term 'matriarchy', though often found in
literature, is probably a misnomer, and there is no conclusive evidence to support that
matriarchy was a universal early stage in development of kinship systems.

387
Sexual DOL:

 Division of labour denotes ‗any stable organization, coordinating individuals, or

groups carrying out different, but integrated activities‗(Oxford Dictionary of
Sociology, 1994). Coordination is a complex concept. Division of labour could take
place on a number of levels, between different sectors of the economy, between
occupations, or between individual tasks. Modem societies, as a whole, are
characterized by an extensive social division of labour, involving the specialization
and interdependence of whole institutions and social processes.
 The division of labour is based neither on biology nor on simple equality. Another
factor is significant as an element in the husband‗s position and the position of men in
society. Whatever strictly male tasks are, they are defined as more honorific.
 The division is justified by various rationalizations and by moral precepts and these
are part of the socialization experiences of boys and girls in the society. In early
socialization the young begins experience to acquire the values and skills of their
parents.
 With the development of industrialization, however, the division of labour became
more complex than in any type of production system. Work has become divided into
an enormous number of different occupations in which people specialize.

Social aspects of DOL:

 Patriarchy - literally, rule by father, this concept is used to refer to a system that
values men more and gives them power over women. Sexual division of labour is a
system in which all work inside the home is either done by the women of the family,
or organized by them through the domestic helpers.
 From primitive to modem societies, it is found that division of labour Is a universal
phenomenon. Earlier, it was highly based on sex and age, and today in modern times,
it is based on talents. If division of labour in considered a biological concept, then it
will be termed as a sexual division of labour. If it is socially and culturally derived
and decided, then gender-based division of labour.
 Tiger and Fox argue that human behaviour is based on human bio-grammar. The bio-
grammar is a genetically based programme which pre-disposes mankind to behave in
certain ways. Because of this, compared to women, men are more aggressive and
dominant. The differences are partly due to genetics inherited from men's primate
ancestors, and partly due to an adoption of a way of life. Thus, male dominance is a
sex-linked characteristic. Male and female adapted to a sexual division of labour in a
hunting society. Compared to cultural change, genetic change is slow - thus male and
female biogrammar of a hunting society is still in existence. Therefore, the division of
labour is sex based.
 G.P. Murdock finds biological difference between men and women are the basis of
the sexual division of labour in society. He says that men with their superior physical
strength can better undertake the most strenuous tasks. Not handicapped by the
physiological burdens of pregnancy and nursing, men can take on the activities like
hunting, fishing, while women can take on activities of gathering food, cooking,

388
 washing. Murdock surveyed 221 societies ranging from hunting and gathering bands
to modern nation states and found that the sexual division of labour is present in all
societies in his sample.
 Parsons has described two important functions of the isolated nuclear family -
Primary socialization of children and Stabilization of adult personality. Parsons
characterizes women's role in family as expressive - she provides warmth, security
and emotional support to her husband. Male role is instrumental which leads to stress
and anxiety, and the expressive female relieves the tension by providing him with
love, consideration and understanding. Parsons argues that for the family to operate
effectively as a social system there must be a clear-cut division of labour.
 According to John Bowlby, it is essential for mental health and wellbeing that infants
and young children experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with
their mother. His argument implies that there is a genetically based, psychological
need for close and intimate mother-child relationship. Thus, the division of labour is
sex based.
 According to Ann Oakley, "the division of labour on basis of sex is not universal, and,
there is no reason, why it should be". Human cultures are diverse and endlessly
variable. They are the creation of human inventiveness rather than invincible
biological forces. Since human cultures are changing, so there is a change in whole
lifestyles, which eventually changes division of labour in society. While criticizing
Murdock, she says he is biased because he looked at other cultures through both
western and male eyes. Similarly, she attacks Parsons, arguing that the expressive
housewife/mother role is not necessary for the functioning of the family unit. It
merely exists for the convenience of the male. Therefore, she concludes that gender
roles are culturally rather than biologically determined.
 Sherry B. Ortner claims that it is the universal devaluation of women, and not
biology, that ascribes women their status in society. Thus, if this universal evaluation
changed, then the basis for female subordination would be removed. Ortner argues
that women are universally defined as close to nature because their physiology and its
functions are more concerned with the natural processes, surrounding the
reproduction of species. And so, they are entrusted with child care and primary
socialization. They develop more personal and intimate relations with others,
specially their children. By comparison, men have wider range of contacts and less
personal and particular relationships by engaging in politics, warfare and religion.
Thus, men are seen as being more objective and less emotional. In this way, it can be
said that subordination of women is due to the cultural evaluation of their biological
make up.
 Ernestine Friedl provides an explanation for both sexual division of labour and gender
division of labour and supports cultural explanation for this. She tested her hypothesis
by examining hunting and gathering bands and small-scale horticulture societies.
Friedl argues that, the distribution of scarce or irregularly available resource (meat in
hunting society) is the source of power. Those who distribute such resources gain
prestige. Thus, in comparison to females, males are attached with high prestige and
honour. Similarly, in horticulture societies, defending the property requires lot of

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 courage and sacrifices. And so, a greater prestige and honour is attached with it,
which shows the dominance of men. Also, activities with danger are undertaken by
men, as loss of men can still ensure that the population survives, but the loss of
women cannot be adequately compensated.
 Shulasmith Firestone claims that the mothering role is the root cause of sexual
division of labour, and its remove can lead to gender equality.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Define patriarchy. How does patriarchy manifest in interpersonal relations? (2018)

(20 marks)
2. Examine ‗patriarchal bargain; as gendered division of work in contemporary India.
(2017) (10 marks)
3. To what extent is patriarchy a case for the problem of women? Discuss. (2016) (10
marks)
4. Is male authority absent in matrilineal society? Discuss. (2015) (10 marks)

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Unit No: 9

Unit Name: Systems of kinship

Chapter Name: 9(e) – Contemporary Trends:

 Secularization- The declining significance of religion in society could have

contributed to the declining popularity of marriage. For many, marriage is no longer a
religious ceremony, and there is no social stigma associated with cohabitation
(couples living together without being married) which was once thought of as
―living in sin‖. This is further evidenced by the fact that, while there has been some
fluctuation in numbers of marriages, the number of religious ceremonies has
continued to steadily decline.
 Divorce rates- As we shall see, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of
divorces. This could have had the effect of putting people off getting married, as so
many ends in divorce.
 Expenses involved in marriages these days are quite heavy.
 The pure relationship- Anthony Giddens (1995) has written about the quest today for
the perfect relationship which again could put some off getting married if they‗re
always imagining a better relationship is around the corner. The role of marriage has
changed, certainly, as it is all about the perfect relationship rather than the financial
security that particularly women used to use the institution for in earlier periods.
 Women‘s careers- While women in particular may have seen marriage as a necessary
rite of passage from being dependent on one‗s father to having the security of a
husband, this is no longer a relevant concept in modern Britain. Today women expect
to have careers and independent financial security and can therefore afford to delay
marriage and settling down.
 Family structures of some kind are found in every society. Pairing off into formal or
informal marital relationships originated in hunter-gatherer groups to forge networks
of cooperation beyond the immediate family. Intermarriage between groups, tribes, or
clans was often political or strategic and resulted in reciprocal obligations between the
two groups represented by the marital partners. Even so, marital dissolution was not a
serious problem as the obligations resting on marital longevity were not particularly
high.
 One recent trend illustrating the changing nature of families is the rise in prevalence
of single-parent families. While somewhat more common prior to the twentieth
century due to the more frequent deaths of spouses, in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, the nuclear family became the societal norm in most Western
nations.
 Cohabitation is an intimate relationship that includes a common living place and
which exists without the benefit of legal, cultural, or religious sanction. It can be seen
as an alternative form of marriage, in that, in practice, it is similar to marriage, but it
does not receive the same formal recognition by religions, governments, or cultures.
 Gay/lesbian Marriages

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  Voluntary childlessness in women is defined as women of childbearing age who are
fertile and do not intend to have children, women who have chosen sterilization, or
women past childbearing age who were fertile but chose not to have children.
Individuals can also be ―temporarily childless‖ or do not currently have children but
want children in the future. The availability of reliable contraception along with
support provided in old age by systems other than traditional familial ones has made
childlessness an option for some people in developed countries. In most societies and
for most of human history, choosing to be childfree was both difficult and
undesirable. To accomplish the goal of remaining childfree, some individuals undergo
medical sterilization or relinquish their children for adoption.

Trends of modern family in India:

 Decreased control of marriage contract Marriage is the basis of family. In traditional

family the marriage was settled by the parents. The marriage ceremony was based on
the principle of male dominance and female obedience. In modern family people is
less subject to the parental control regarding marital affairs. The marriage is now
settled by the partners themselves. It is the choice of mate by mate usually preceded
by courtship or falling in love. Today more stress is being laid on romantic love but
love is no more sacramental now. Marriage also has become a civil contract rather
than a religious sacrament. It can be dissolved easily at any time as it is settled by
mutual consent of the partner. The authority of religion over the conditions of
marriage has markedly declined. Divorce, desertion and separation are a frequent
occurrence in modern family where as it was a rare phenomenon in traditional family.
 Changes in Relationship of Man and Woman: In modern family the woman is not a
devotee of man but an equal partner in life with equal rights. The husband does not
dictate but only requests to the wife to do a task for him. She is now emancipated of
the man‗s slavery. She can divorce her husband as the husband can divorce her.
Democratic ideas have provided equality and liberty to even women too. As a result
women are not playing domestic role but also economic and political roles. They have
now become property owners and business managers. They have the right to vote and
can actively participate in politics. They are now liberated from the chains of
traditionalism and they are now able to move from the kitchen to the cabinet. They
stand on an equal footing with men. Aggressive leaders of the women‗s liberation
movement have attacked the standard of morality. They are demanding more rights
and liberties in the family, society as well as in the country. Due to the employment
opportunity the women has become an earning member of the family, free to work in
offices, factories, banks and schools etc. This economic independence has increased
her status but has affected her attitude in the family as well as in society.
 Reduced size of family: Due to industrialization and urbanization the family size has
been reduced and parents no longer desire more children rather develop a tendency to
have a smaller family with the help of modern contraceptives. So the reproductive
function of modern family has suffered a setback. However the very survival of the
human race is based on reproduction.

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 Decline of Religious Control The modern family is secular in attitude. The religious
rites of the traditional family such as early prayer, yoga etc. are no longer performed
in modern family. The elders do not read spiritual books such as Ramayana,
Bhagavata rather they watch T.V. They are not interested to celebrate any religious
festivals. Religious sentiments, beliefs and attitudes have come to be disassociated
with the family.
 Filo Centric Family In the modern family, the trend is towards the filo centric family,
where the wishes of children determine the policy of the family. The social control
activities of family over children have been lessened as physical punishment is rarely
awarded to children.
 Parent Youth Conflict Interpersonal conflicts in the family are increasing. An unusual
amount of conflict between parents and their adolescent children are taking place.
Kingsley Davis says, ―The stress and strain in our culture is symptomatic of the
functionless instability of the modern small family
 Separation of Non – essential functions: The modern family has given up many
functions which were performed by the traditional family. Educational, procreation
and care of sick persons functions have been shifted to certain external agencies like
hospitals, maternity homes, nurseries kindergarten and schools etc. Apart from that
the family is no longer an economic unit. More families rely upon prepared and
manufactured goods for consumption. Movies, clubs, gambling centers provide
recreation to people. People leave home for commercialized recreation center, which
has affected the cohesion of family. Protective functions of family have also declined.
Families are no more the place of protection for the physically handicapped, mentally
retarded, aged, diseased, infirm and insane people. Other agencies have taken over
this function. But for the young children it continues to provide physical and
emotional protection. Thus the family has been subjected to profound modifications
of an economic, social and biological nature. The size and functions of the family
have been reduced. It has suffered a change in regard to both its structure and
functions. Its functions have been taken over by several specialized agencies. The
modern family is more individualized and democratic where women enjoy a high
prestige and position and children enjoy more independence as well. From an
institution it has moved towards companionship. Many sociologists have expressed
their grave concern regarding the rapid changes that are taking place in it. Some have
said that ―Family has gone to the digs.‖ While some others lamented that family is
leading towards disorganization. But it would be more appropriate to say that it is
merely seeking to adapt itself to changed conditions.
 Rapoport Et Al argue that diversification of family can happen on any of these
variables:
o Organizational - DOL
o Cultural - multi ethnic, multi religious families
o Class - variations along class structure
o Life course - different types of families can be formed at different life courses
o Cohort - Connections between generations - ageing family
o Sexual diversity (added by Giddens)- homosexuals

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  Families in global context - Giddens - In developing countries, widespread changes
are occurring:
o Spread of western culture
o Development of centralized governments
o Government policies on families
o Reproductive technologies
o Large scale migration from rural to urban
o Employment opportunities away from land
 Goran Therborn identifies some features of diversity common across societies:
o Declining influence of kinship groups
o Trend towards free selection of spouse
o Increasing recognition of women rights
o Higher levels of sexual freedom
o General recognition towards children rights
o Increase acceptance towards same sex partnership
 Macionis states the following reasons for high divorce rates in the West:
o Individualism on the rise
o Economic independence - acquisitive spirit
o Legally easier to get a divorce
o Social acceptance of divorce
o Greater overall prosperity - easier to set individual household
o Measuring scale for marriages is tougher now
 Giddens says that divorce rate does not indicate rejection of a marriage but indicates
to rising expectation from married life. Parsons and Fletcher also second him by
indicating that increased rate of remarriage supports this argument.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Examine the relationship between the contemporary trends in marriage and changing
forms of family. (2017) (20 marks)
2. Discuss the contemporary trends in family as a response to social change in modern
society. (2016) (20 marks)
3. Analyse the contemporary trends in family with examples. (2013) (10 marks)

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Unit No: 10

Unit Name: Social change in Modern Society:

Chapter Name: (a) – Sociological theories of social change:

Evolutionary theories:

 It is generally perceived that social change is greatly engineered by material

conditions of existence. L.H.Morgan in his study of culture and society advocates
how savagery, barbarism and civilization are characterized by different forms of
technologies and subsequent technologies influence the social institutions finally
contributing for social and cultural change.
 Spencer considers that change may be caused by internal factors like biological and
personality factors like biological and personality factors as well as external factors
like geographical factors. Change involves twin processes of differentiation and
integration. Social changes occur through stages of simple – compound – doubly
compound – trebly compound – ethical society. However classical evolutionary
theory has certain limitation.
o It lacked empirical data.
o It involves in sweeping generation
o It presumed only unilineal changes ignoring multilineal changes.
o It ignored process of diffusion in social change
o Progressive ethnocentric bias as they considered that western societies are
progressive whereas eastern societies are under developed.
 Diffusion theory advocates that tech is the greatest indicator of social change. Tech
invented in one place gets radiated to other places. As a result the common
technological character can be found in two societies. However the environmental
conditions demand some changes in the borrowed technological character, as a result
technology variations make one society and culture different from others.
 Marxian theory, Marx in his theory of social change offers credentials to the material
conditions and includes land, machinery and technology. In primitive communism
MOP and FOP are controlled collectively. However in ancient society the growth of
technological complexity, private ownership over land divided the society into 2
classes i.e. owners and non – owners. The dialectical relationship between two classes
is instrumental for social change. The change from one class society to another class
society is a quantitative change whereas change from classless to a class based society
is a qualitative change. The reason behind and change can be attributed is:
o Enormous growth of surplus production
o Search for international marketing. Hence colonialism, exploitation and
profitability.
o Technological sophistication
o Labour loses right over the produce, process of production and thus subjected
to exploitation

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 o Commodification of labour reduces men into the soldiers of private army,
reducing him into a sub human level of existence to suffer from alienation,
pauperization and multiple forms of exploitation.
 Thus the organized mobilization of working class begins integration among various
sections of the working class population whose collective mobilization gives way to
proletarian revolution and emergence of socialism where distribution of benefits will
be on equalitarian basis. The major highlights of change in Marxian theory indicate:
o Social change is directed and purposive
o Social change is intended to gratify class interest and the interest of the whole
society.
o Social change is conditioned, defined and determined by the action of
individuals driven by ideology and interest. The consequence of change will
be determined by the acceptance of other class its tolerance or intolerance to
the action and interest of the former class.
 Therefore Marxian believes that social change is driven and guided by materialistic
interest and ideology/value always supports to materialistic interests of the classes to
make social change an organised and complete process.

Neo Marxist theory:

 Marxian theory is criticized by a large body of Neo – marxist shcolars and

functionalists as well as who advocate that change is greatlydrive by ideology,
organizational character, multiplicity of class interest which are not discussed by
Marxian approach to change.
 Garmsci in his theory of hegemonistic domination advocate how cultural ideology
along with political and economic apparatus justifies the domination of dominants.
 Hence social change should target not only economic change but also cultural and
political transformations.

Weberian theory:

 As a response to Marxian theory multiple theories made appearance in sociology that

how change is greatly a matter of value than fact. If in given society material
conditions are transformed without adequate value transformation then change will
lose its significance and appeal.
 The founder to this tradition is Weber who in his theory of protestant ethics and spirit
of capitalism says that infrastructural support in negotiation with values can only
contribute for social change.
 He asserts that in case of tribal society‘s absence of value and infrastructure, in
oriental societies (India) presence of infrastructure and absence of value stood on the
way of economic transformation growth of capitalism and social change.
 To its contrast in case of West European society ethics inculcated a form of value
essential for economic change.
 As a result value transformation than simple technological transformation contributed
for social change in the history of European societies.

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  Parsons theory developed as a critique to Marxian theory of involving polarized
conflicts and structural break down. He considers that changes are of two types:
o Change in structure
o Change of structure
 Both the forms of changes are regular and routine. Hence parsons never subscribed to
the idea that social revolution could bring about qualitative social change. Being a
modernist be considers that social change may be a product of:
o Organised social policy of the state
o Change in the environmental conditions
o Adaptation to new needs, new culture through communication and migration
 Parsons theory of social change gives importance on multi-dimensional nature of
social change. Contradicting to Marxian unidimensional deterministic theory, Parsons
looks into the empirical and he argues that American model of social change speaks
about change of structure. In capitalistic USA
o Rise of meritocratic values
o Managerial revolution
o Dislinkage between church and state the through rise of democracy
o High degree of occupational mobility
o Growth of individualism and rationality
o Rise of competitive capitalism and corresponding to that growth of nuclear
family largely speaks about change of social structure which is not a product
of class struggle revolution.
 These changes slowly made appearance in different spheres of social life demanding
compliance, adjustment and negotiations by other parts of the society. Change of
structure comes out of new negotiation between different subsystems of the society
who go for self-maintenance on one hand and social change in other hand. He
assumes change of structure is a product of change in structure is regular and
continuous. As a result of it never becomes difficult of structure which brings new
equilibrium at the place of old.
 However parsons theory of social change do not pay any importance to revolution,
social movement, globalization and natural disaster that carries capacity to bring
forward massive changes in very little time offering very little opportunity for
different parts of the society to adjust and negotiate with each other.
 Jeffrey Alexander considers that in many situations norms are dismantled in search of
change what Parsonian theory fails to accept as parson considers that every change is
norm based.
 R.K.Merton considers that Parsonian theory of social change greatly fails to
understand the potential character of change coming out of conflict between
institutionalized means and culturally approved goals.
 Hence Parsonian theory is an utopian theory that emphasizes only on continuity out
rightly ignoring disruption, contradiction, conflict, maladjustment and structural
breakdown that may come out change.

Malintegration theory:

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  Neil J. Smelser - According to Smelser over a period of time incompatibilities may
develop between parts of the social system. This may lead to conflicting pressure of
demands over different sectors of the society.
 For example, in some cases, the opposition between the social group of one kind or
another; in other cases, the system of incompatibilities may cut across group
division.
 These inconsistencies may generate structural strain in the system. Such situation of
structural strain may sometimes lead to collective mobilization and social movement
may emerge to bring about social change. However, structural strain alone is not
enough to generate a change oriented social movement. Other conditions whose
presence are essential are :
o Growth and spread of generalized belief
o Precipitation factors
o Mobilization of participants for action
 According to Merton over a period of time, parts become dysfunctional and these
dysfunctional parts give rise to Mal-integration and maladjustment with the social
system. Mal-integration is manifested in the form of conflict. For the system to
survive, the conflict has to be resolved. Therefore, the dysfunctional parts may be
replaced by its functional alternatives or functional equivalent. This, in turn, would
bring about a partial change in the structure.

Structure Functional theory of Smelser:

 Advocates that in 3rd world countries obligation to kinship, duty toward family,
commitment to ceremonial extravagance are driven by the traditional mode of
orientation. As a result despite the introduction of new technology, new economic
policies no significant economic change has taken place in case of South Asian
countries particularly India.
 Thus, this theory concludes that value and technological transformation should match
the each other to make social change meaningful in the society.

Convergence theory of Wallerstein:

 Says that technological change has enormously contributed for the economic growth
of developed societies. After reaching stage of development, all developed societies
of the world stand committed to common value system.
 Therefore identically they looked into matters like ecological balance, quality health,
poverty eradication, small family, communication revolution and all of them stand
committed to human development.
 Therefore economic development is a means and social development is the ultimate
goal.
 Hence all industrialized societies adhering to common values have been successful in
offering the benefits of economic development to transform the quality of life of
human race.

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Post modern theory:

 Postmodernists see social change beyond integrationconflict debate. They reject grand
theories of social change as proposed by Marx, Durkheim and Parsons. Feminist
sociology is one of the strands of postmodernist sociology. It emphasizes the
centrality of gender in social change.
 According to them, social reality is viewed differently by the two sexes. Rising
awareness of rights, feminization of workforce, women‘s movements are seen as new
dimension of social change.
 Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault laid foundation of ‗post structuralism‘. Foucault
analyzed the emergence of modern institutions like prisons, hospitals and schools as a
sign of increasing surveillance and discipline in society. Postmodern society is not
destined to socialism as Marx had predicted, but is likely to be more multicultural and
diverse that traditional branches of sociology will prove insufficient to account for
social change.
 According to French author Jean Baudrillard , mass media has reversed the Marxist
idea that society is dominated by economic structure, rather it will be now
increasingly controlled by the signs and images which are a creation of mass media.

Conflict theories of social change:

 Hegel spoke of dialectical idealism as a source of social change.

 Marx was inspired by this theory and modified it to dialectical materialism:
o Law of Unity and Conflict of Opposites - there are internal sides, tendencies,
forces of an object or phenomena, which are mutually exclusive but at same
time presuppose each other. Inseparable interconnections of these opposite
tendencies are responsible for the unity of opposites. This contradictoriness is
universal. The opposites coexist and one is inconceivable without other.
However, these opposites cannot coexist peacefully - their contradictory,
mutually exclusive character necessarily causes a struggle between them. It is
important to note that unity of opposites is a necessary condition of conflict,
because it takes place only where opposite sides exist in one object or
phenomenon. This contradiction and conflict of opposites is the main source
of development of matter and consciousness. Development is thus, a struggle
of these opposites.
o The Law of Negation of the Negation - The history of society also consists of
a chain of negations of the old social order by the new. As Raymond Aron
puts it, capitalism is the negation of feudal society, and socialism would be the
negation of capitalism, hence negation of negation.
o The Law of Transition of Quantity into Quality - According to this law,
process of change is not simple or gradual but is a product of quantitative
advances, which result in abstract qualitative changes at a particular moment,
when mature conditions are present. There is never a repetition of occurrences.
This change is always from lower to higher, simpler to complex and
homogeneous to heterogeneous levels of reality.

403
  Coser speaks of positive consequences of conflict. He believes that social solidarity
within a group increases in face of conflict with other groups. This leads to an
improved understanding of opponent, and creates new avenues of interaction, and
thus change in the group. It may also give rise to some unchartered areas of co-
operation between different parties. For example: the emergence of the Red Cross
during WWI. Conflict thus, can be functional, integral and may even lead to
innovation.
 Collins sees conflict as a struggle over legitimacy of authority relations. It is a
constant feature of any society, and hence social change as inevitable, as the interests
of different groups are diverse.
 Dahrendorf says that social conflict is ubiquitous, and hence social change is also
ubiquitous. Every element in the society renders some contribution in this
disintegration and change. Every society is based on coercion by few members, and
this creates political conflict, which leads to change.

Critique:

 Does not explain all changes

 At times, conflict impedes change as there is a fight to maintain the status quo
 There are many dysfunctions of conflict as well

Neo – conflict theories of social change:

 One of the main concerns of neoproducts like music, dance, paintings, etc. to the
masses. As a result, it has made masses passive, who rather than engage with each
other are engaged in consumption of this mass culture. Therefore, the spread of mass
culture has made people intellectually inactive and politically infertile. Habermas and
Adorno are proponents of this idea.
 Herbert Marcuse echoes this view in his concept of alienation of leisure, which results
in creation of false needs.
 Gramsci talks about ideological hegemony. Schools, Churches and media are some
apparatus of this hegemony. To counter this, the working class must develop an
alternative ideology by contradicting dominant hegemony.
 Althusser speaks about state control through both Ideological State Apparatus and
Repressive State Apparatus.

Cyclical theories of social change:

 Cyclical theories of social change focus on the rise and fall of civilizations, attempting
to discover and account for these patterns of growth and decay.
 Oswald Spengler, through a study of 8 civilization, pointed out that the fate of
civilizations was a matter of destiny. Each civilization is like a biological organism
and has a similar life-cycle of birth, maturity, old age and death. Book – decline of
west.
 Pitirim Sorokin, in Social and Cultural D propounds a cyclical theory of social
change. He shows that every social system has a definite cultural stage and a change

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 in it makes changes in the whole social system, which is called social change. He has
illustrated mainly two and overall three cultures:
o Sensate - material and sensual aspects are given importance
o Idealistic - a transitional phase between the two extremes, it has characteristics
of both the ideational and the sensate culture
o Ideational - this culture is spiritual, mystical and indeterminate
 Here sensate and ideational are extreme cultural stages. On reaching any of the
extreme levels, society faces a change in all its institutions. Thus, whole of human
history is a history of cultural dynamics.
o Sorokin believes in the ‗principle of eminent change‘, and that the forces of
change are inherent in the nature of culture itself.
o This is also linked to the ‗principle of limits‘. It states that there are limited
possibilities of change and a limit to the number of alternations that can
develop in a system. When all combinations are complete, repetition occurs.
And hence societies change instead of progressing or decaying.
o The motion of change is irregular and in the form of fluctuations. Hence, the
movement from one stage to the other cannot be predicted.
 Arnold Toynbee in ‗a study of history‘ studied 21 civilizations. He focuses on the key
concepts of challenges and response. He believes that every civilization arises through
double combined factors - the presence of a creative minority and environmental
conditions. Every society faces challenges, at first from the environment, and later
from internal and external enemies. The creative minority devices various means to
deal with these challenges. The nature of responses to these challenges determines the
fate of a society. A society which fails to respond effectively, dies. This may be due to
failure of the creative power of the minority, masses reluctance to follow the
successful elites, thus resulting in a loss of unity, or due to revolt of the external
proletariat. He does not believe that all civilizations will inevitably decay. He has
pointed out that while history is a series of cycles of growth and decay, each new
civilization is able to learn from the mistakes of, and borrow from, the other cultures.

Critique:

 Horton and Hunt state that the cyclical theories fail to explain why different societies
respond differently to change. Ritzer points out that they do not consider socio-
psychological factors, and cast masses as virtual pawns.

Structural Functional theory of social change:

 Despite emphasis on social order and stability, Parsons does not deny the possibility
of social change. It results from specific nature of individual social systems as well as
from the very nature of motivational orientations, which organize action systems of
members in a society.
 The first links social systems to its external boundary conditions, such as ecology,
resources, physical and environmental conditions as well as to historical factors such

405
 as cultural contacts, diffusion of ideas and interests and to social strains arising out of
these historical factors.
 The second relates it to motivational elements in action systems, which are essentially
directional in nature. The direction of orientation of motives and values generates
harmony as well as strain in the social system. The first leads to stability, the second
to change.
 Parsons viewed social change at two levels, firstly, change which emerges from
processes within the social system, and secondly, the processes of change of the social
system itself. A primary factor related to processes of change within the social system
is increase in population, its density and aggregation.
 Factors causing strain towards change are change in demographic factors, change in
physical environment, change in technology, new cultural configuration, development
of new religious ideas. These factors are not exclusive, but work in independent
plurality.
 Cultural factors bring about changes within the social system through a continuous
process of rationalization and traditionalization of values and beliefs. This happens,
gradually, through the moving equilibrium – change does not disturb the social
equilibrium, it alters the state of equilibrium.
 Parsons illustrated the processes of social change within the social system by drawing
examples from the family system. Earlier, family performed the functions of
reproduction, education, socialization, economic, recreational, etc. A process of
differentiation takes place when the society becomes more and more complex.
Different institutions like school, factory take over some of the functions of the
family. New norms, values and beliefs are shaped to integrate the new institutions
with the society.
 Change of the social system can occur through a revolution. But Parsons does not
believe that any revolution can bring about absolute or radical change as predicted by
Marx. It only brings about a certain degree of change as - members starting the
revolution develop their own self-interest or often the goals of a revolution are not
achievable.
 Through the change of the system, the society changes from Archaic (primitive) to
Intermediary (with population increase) to Lead Society (due to education, Industrial
Revolution, French Revolution, etc.) However, this is not an evolutionary theory as a
society does not necessarily pass through all the stages. Hence, this is also known as
Neo-Evolutionary Theory.

Critique: by Pieere L. Van Den Berghe

 Reaction to extra systemic change is not always adjustive

 Change can be revolutionary sudden and profound
 Social structure itself generates change through internal conflicts and contradictions
 Cumulative dysfunction is possible, which can make chaotic revolution inevitable

Theory of cultural lag:

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  The term ' cultural lag ' is often used to describe the state of disequilibrium between
material and non-material aspects of a culture. Ogburn (1886-1959) who coined this
word, explained that ' cultural lag' occurs when parts of a culture that were once in
adjustment with each other change at different rates, and become incompatible with
each other.
 Ogburn (1922) pointed out how the non-material culture(values, beliefs, norms,
family, religion) often lags behind material culture (technology, means of production
output of the economic system). For example, family planning technologies (i.e.
material culture) have advanced, but people take their time to accept them.
 Some sections of the population may reject the very idea of 'family planning' and
believe in having a large family.
 Again, when an event such as increase in population or a depletion in natural
resources cause a strain in society, it takes some time for the society to understand and
absorb the strain and alter its values and institutions to adapt to the change. But in
order to function smoothly, societies adjust to maintain and restore themselves.

Modernity:

 Modernity involves the rise of modern society (secularised societies with an

institutional separation of the state from civil society, a much greater degree of social
and technical division of labour, and the formation of nation-states uniting cultural
and political borders), a rationalistic epistemology, and an individualistic and
objectivistic ontology‖
 Modernity is the term used by sociologists to describe the ―modern‖ period which
began in Europe several hundred years ago. Some of the key features of modern
societies are:
o Economic production is industrial and capitalist, with social class as the main
form of social division. Social classes are based on people‘s social and
economic position. Marx‘s view for instance, was that industrial society
people were divided into two main classes, those who owned businesses and
those who sold their labour to them.
o The growth of cities, or urbanisation. During the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries
thousands of people moved to cities to find work and make their homes.
o A powerful central government and administration, known as a bureaucratic
state. Local and central government have played an ever increasing part in our
lives, the development of compulsory education, public housing and the
welfare state for example.
o People‘s knowledge is derived from scientific and rational thinking rather than
religious faith, magic or superstition. During this period people have looked to
science and logical thinking to explain the world. Natural disasters such as
earthquakes, for example, have tended to be explained scientifically rather
than as an ―act of god‖.

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 o A widely held faith in scientifically based progress. An associated view has
been that the more we trust in science and technological progress, the better
our society will be.

Tradition and Modernity:

 Tradition has a tendency to become entropic and inward looking. This is true of many
local level traditions and sub traditions are stamped out and disappear without leaving
much of a trace.
 The pertinent question here is why does tradition disappear, change, ameliorate or
attempt to coexist with modernity? The fact of the matter is that the vectors or chief
characteristics of a tradition are themselves set to develop, change, or become
stagnant. Thus tradition has many sub traditions and it is these that often linger on,
indefinitely, in various geophysical territories within a specific culture area.

Thinkers on Modernity:

 Karl Marx‘s concern with modernity was in terms of production relations. It was the
objective of the capitalist class to increase its production. More production means
more profit. Capitalism, for him, was ultimately profiteering. Marx, therefore, argued
that for capitalism everything is a commodity. Dance, drama, literature, religion, in
fact, everything in society is a commodity. It is manufactured and sold in the market.
 Max Weber scans a huge literature on domination, religion and other wider areas of
life and comes to the conclusion that rationality is the pervading theme, which
characterizes human actions. He has, therefore, defined modernity as rationality. For
him, in one word, modernity is synonymous with rationality.
 Emile Durkheim had a very intimate encounter with industrialization and
urbanization. He was scared of the impact of modernization. His studies of modern
society brought out very interesting and exciting data. He was a functionalist. He very
strongly believed in the cohesion of society. For him, society is above everything else.
It is par excellence. It is God. Despite all this, society is never static.
 Ferdinand Tonnies characterized key characteristics of simple and modern societies
with the German words Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Gemeinschaft means human
community, and Tonnies said that a sense of community characterizes simple
societies, where family , kin, and community ties are quite strong. As societies grew
and industrialized and as people moved to cities, Tonnies said, social ties weakened
and became more impersonal. Tonnies called this situation a Gesellschaft and found
it dismaying.
 George Simmel is seen as investigating modernity primarily in two major interrelated
sites: the city and the money economy. The city is where modernity is concentrated or
intensified, whereas the money economy involves the diffusion of modernity, its
extension. Thus, for Simmel, modernity consists of city life and the diffusion of
money.

Concept of modernisation:

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  The concept of modernisation emerged as the response of the western social science
to the many challenges faced by the Third World. With the process of political
decolonisation following the Second World War, the new nations were in a hurry to
launch massive programmes of economic development and technical change. The
need for developing new paradigms to shape and order their development programme
was strongly felt. Modernisation was one suc formulation which held out considerable
promise.
 A series of societal changes are implicit in the process of modernisation. Agrarian
societies are characterised by the predominance of ascriptive, particularistic and
diffused patterns; they have stable local groups and limited spatial mobility.
Occupational differentiation is relatively simple and stable; and the stratification
system is deferential and has a diffused impact. The modern industrial society is
characterised by the predominance of universalistic, specific and achievement norms;
a high degree of mobility; a developed occupational system relatively insulated from
other social structures; a class system often based on achievement; and the presence
of functionally specific, non-ascriptive structures and associations. Historically
evolved institutions continuously adapt themselves to the changes dictated by the
phenomenal increase in the human knowledge that has resulted from the control
humanity
has over its environment. Modernisation theory does not clearly spell out its
distributive objectives. The emergence of an implicit egalitarian and participative
ethos does, however, indicate the narrowing of social gaps and promotion of greater
equality as desirable ends.
 Modernisation, as a form of cultural response, involves attributes which are basically
universalistic and evolutionary; they are pan-humanistic, trans-ethnic and non-
ideological. The essential attribute of modernisation is rationality. Rationality
transforms thought processes at the level of the individual and in the process
permeates the entire institutional framework of society. Events and situations are
understood in terms of cause and effects. Strategies of action are determined by
careful means-ends calculations. Rationality begins to characterise all forms of human
interaction and enters into people‘s vision of a new future as well as into their
strivings for the attainment of the objectives they set for themselves. The concomitant
structural changes and value shifts bring about fundamental changes in the entire
cultural ethos.

Conclusion:

Modernity brought with it many blessings to the people including much better health and
economic prospects. However, there are also some problems which have emerged with
modern society e.g. the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during world war II; and
the arms race thereafter. Other problems include environmental degradation e.g. air and water
pollution. Modernity also creates great stress on people and alienation or being without
specific interest in anything (malaise). At the present point the debate is still on whether
modernity is socially positive or not, whether it has proved beneficial or not to world society.

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Cultural lag relevance in recent times:

 The term ‗cultural lag‘ is often used to describe the state of disequilibrium between
material and non-material aspects of a culture.
 Ogburn who coined this word, explained that ‗cultural lag‘ occurs when parts of a
culture that were once in adjustment with each other change at different rates, and
become incompatible with each other.
 Ogburn pointed out how the non-material culture (values, beliefs, norms, family,
religion) often lags behind material culture (technology, means of production output
of the economic system).
 For example, family planning technologies (i.e. material culture) have advanced, but
people take their time to accept them. Some sections of the population may reject the
very idea of ‗family planning‘ and believe in having a large family.
 Again, when an event such as increase in population or a depletion in natural
resources cause a strain in society, it takes some time for the society to understand and
absorb the strain and alter its values and institutions to adapt to the change. But in
order to function smoothly, societies adjust to maintain and restore themselves.
 Critics have pointed out that such view neglects revolutionary changes which are
profound and sudden. Conflict theorists do not assume that societies smoothly evolve
to higher or complex levels. Modern life is full of examples. The feminist movement
has stimulated a reaction from men and women. The liberalisation of sexual mores
has led to open denunciation.
 Values are strongly bound to other aspects of the social system to which they belong;
and change in the value system goes hand in hand with changes in the social system
as a whole. Whether it is the change in the value system that causes social change,
that is, the change of the social system; or it is some other factors which bring about
basic social change, including a change in the value systems - is a question on which
opinion is sharply divided. Thus, theory of ‗cultural lag‘ is relevant to understand
social change.

Social conflict:

 Sociological perspectives fall broadly in the categories of function i.e., consensus-

based, and conflict which is primarily oriented, to explaining the elements of
instability and change. Karl Marx was an important social thinker who systematically
analysed the phenomenon of social conflicts.
 Today conflict theorists insist that conflict is a perennial feature of social life, and that
as a result societies are in a state of constant change.
 They see conflicts involving a broad range of interests and groups. The interests are
economic, political, legal, religious, social and moral.
 Conflicts emerge and continue to persist in social life because things like power,
prestige, wealth and other resources are not equally available to everyone−they are
scarce commodities.

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  Those who have them or who have control over these scarce commodities, will
always try to defend and protect their interests at the expense of others. As a result,
conflict emerges between the groups of opposing interests.

As a cause of social change:

 Conflicts may lead to new forms of social stratification or reinforce existing patterns
of stratification in new ways. Inventories may be introduced as a result of conflict. For
instance
 Conflict between workers and owners/controllers of production, led to the social
invention of trade union.
 Wars between societies led to the development of new techniques of warfare. It was
the same phenomenon of war that led to the social invention regarding peace keeping
institutions, namely United Nations.

As a consequence of social change:

 Due to social change, various changes take place in societal structure and framework.
New classes come into existence and new class relations develop. Such new forces
tend to challenge old order which provides space for conflict in society.
 For example- Industrialisation and subsequent rise of capitalism and imperialism had
resulted in competition for colonial possessions. Such a scenario had resulted into
conflicts among colonial powers which ultimately culminated into world wars.

Conclusion:

 The phenomenon of social conflict is closely interlinked with the phenomenon of

social change, social order and social control. Social conflict is both a cause as well as
a consequence of social change.
 The conflict theorists insist that society can be best understood and analysed in terms
of struggles and strife that occur over the control and acquisition of power, authority,
wealth, prestige and other scarce and desirable resources in society.

Previous Years Questions:

1. How well do you think Tonnies, Durkheim, Weber & Marx predicted the character of
modern society? Critique. (2019) (10 marks)

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2. Is theory of cultural lag valid in present times? Discuss. (2018) (10 marks)
3. Examine any two theories of social change. (2017) (20 marks)
4. Social conflict is both a cause and consequence of social change. Explain. (2016) (10
marks)
5. Explain the relevance of the idea of cultural lag in understanding social change.
(2015) (10 marks)
6. Critically examine the cultural theories of social change with suitable examples.
(2013) (20 marks)
7. Illustrate the conflicts and tensions experienced by societies undergoing social
change. (2013) (20 marks)

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Unit No: 10

Unit Name: Social change in Modern Society:

Chapter Name: (b) – Development and Dependency

 Change is a value-neutral concept whereas development is a value-laden concept.

Only planned and desired changes can be described as development.
 Economic development of a class does not necessarily trickle down to the entire
population. Social development includes satisfaction of basic needs, essential
amenities, physical and mental health, literacy, vocation, social integration and
minimization of disparities.
 Dudley Seers states that development is about creating right conditions. It is the
capacity to attain basic needs, job, equality, participation, adequate educational levels
belonging to a nation.
 David Korten sees justice, sustainability and inclusiveness as components of
development.
 While Amartya Sen equates development to freedom.
 Brundtland Commission on environment and development defined sustainable
development as a development that meets the needs of the present generation without
compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

Dependency theories:

 Classical Economics claimed that development and growth in the first world will lead
to trickle-down effect on the third world countries. Dependency theory rejects this
view. Its main propositions are:
o It differentiates between un-development and under development. Under
development means resources are used in such a manner that it benefits the
dominant. Low income countries are not underdeveloped, rather they are mis-
developed.
o Poor countries are poor due to unequal integration with the system, example:
colonialism, WTO
o Alternative uses of resources are preferable to the resource usage patterns
imposed by dominant states. Example: Cash crop farming for export 4
o National interest can only be satisfied by addressing the needs of the poor
within a society, rather than the satisfaction of corporate or governmental
needs
o Dominance of dominant is maintained not just through external agents but also
through elites of the dependent state
 Solution is self-sufficiency. It does not mean autarky but a controlled integration with
the world.
 Theotonio Dos Santos defined dependency as a historical condition which shapes a
certain structure of the world economy such that it favors some countries to the

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 detriment of others and limits the development possibilities of the subordinate
economics.
 It is a situation in which the economy of a certain group of countries is conditioned by
the development and expansion of another economy, to which their own is subjected.
Its features are:
o Dependency characterizes the international system as comprised of two sets of
states, variously described as dominant/dependent, center/periphery or
metropolitan/satellite. The dominant states are the advanced industrial
References nations in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). The dependent states are those states of Latin America,
Asia, and Africa which have low per capita GNPs and which rely heavily on
the export of a single commodity, or a few commodities, for foreign exchange
earnings.
o The assumption that external forces are of singular importance to the
economic activities within the dependent states. These external forces include
multinational corporations, international commodity markets, foreign
assistance, communications, and any other means by which the advanced
industrialized countries can represent their economic interests abroad.
o The relations between dominant and dependent states are dynamic because the
interactions between the two sets of states tend to not only reinforce but also
intensify the unequal patterns. Moreover, dependency is a very deep-seated
historical process, rooted in the internationalization of capitalism.
 Development and Dependency Theory developed as a Latin American reaction to the
Neo-Classical Model which stated that poor countries are poor due to lack of
technology and the solution lies in trickle-down economics. This view was rejected by
dependency theorists. There are three variants of dependency theory:

Dominant – Dependent theory:

 This developed in the late 1950s under the guidance of the Director of the United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, Raul Prebisch.
 Prebisch‘s initial explanation for the phenomenon was very straight forward - poor
countries exported primary commodities to the rich countries, who then manufactured
products out of those commodities and sold them back to the poorer countries. The
value added by manufacturing a useable product always cost more than the primary
products used to create those products. Therefore, poorer countries would never be
earning enough from their export earnings to pay for their imports. These further
results into BoP Crisis and a Debt Trap which may further diminish the autonomy of
the poor countries.
 Prebisch‘s solution was similarly straight forward: poorer countries should embark on
programs of import substitution so that they need not purchase the manufactured
products from the richer countries. The poorer countries would still sell their primary
products on the world market, but their foreign exchange reserves would not be used
to purchase their manufactures from abroad.

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  Three issues made this policy difficult to follow. The first is that the internal markets
of the poorer countries were not large enough to support the economies of the scale
used by the richer countries to keep their prices low. The second issue concerned the
political will of the poorer countries as to whether a transformation from being
primary products producers was possible or desirable. The final issue revolved round
the extent to which the poorer countries actually had control over their primary
products, particularly in the area of selling those products abroad.

Metro – Satellite mode:

 Most dependency theorists regard international capitalism as the motive force behind
dependency relationships. Andre Gunder Frank in ‗development of
underdevelopment‘ states: historical research demonstrates that contemporary
underdevelopment is in large part the historical product of past and continuing
economic and other relations between the satellite underdeveloped and the now
developed metropolitan countries. Furthermore, these relations are an essential part of
the capitalist system on a world scale as a whole.
 According to this view, the capitalist system has enforced a rigid international
division of labor which is responsible for the underdevelopment of many areas of the
world. The dependent states supply cheap minerals, agricultural commodities, and
cheap labor, and also serve as the repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent
technologies, and manufactured goods. These functions orient the economies of the
dependent states towards the outside: money, goods, and services do flow into
dependent states, but the allocation of these resources is determined by the economic
interests of the dominant states, and not by the economic interests of the dependent
state. This division of labor is ultimately the explanation for poverty and there is little
question but that capitalism regards the division of labor as a necessary condition for
the efficient allocation of resources. The most explicit manifestation of this
characteristic is in the doctrine of ‗comparative advantage.
 This theory also believes that economic and political power are heavily concentrated
and centralized in the industrialized countries. Hence, any distinction between
economic and political power is spurious and governments will take whatever steps
are necessary to protect private economic interests, such as those held by
multinational corporations.
 AG Frank suggests that developing countries should make their own power blocs on
the line of OECD, to break the monopoly of the developed countries. Another option
can be to isolate oneself like erstwhile China and Paraguay. They can also breakaway
at a time when the metropolitan country is weak, in time of war or recession.

World Systems theory:

 In the 1960s international financial and trade systems were beginning to be more
flexible, in which national governments seemed to have less and less influence. In this
changing order, Immanuel Wallerstein felt that there were wider forces that impacted

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 and influenced small and underdeveloped nations and the nation-state level of
analysis was no longer useful to explain conditions in underdeveloped countries.
 New global systems of communications, new world trade mechanisms, the
international financial systems, and transfer of military links were influencing the
world. These factors created their own dynamic at the international level, and at the
same time, they were interacting with internal aspects of each country.
 He argues that the world capitalist economic system is not merely a collection of
independent countries engaged in diplomatic and economic relations with one
another, but must instead be understood as a single unit. This world system is seen as
comprising four overlapping elements:
o A world market for goods and labour
o The division of the population into different economic classes, particularly
capitalists and workers
o An international system of formal and informal political relations and
competition
o The carving up of the world into three unequal economic zones, with the
wealthier zones exploiting the poorer ones
 All countries in the world fall into one of these three zones. They are termed as:
o Core – the most advanced industrial countries, taking a lion‘s share profits in
the world economic system. Political, economic and military powers.
Example: USA, Germany, Japan
o Periphery - low income, largely agricultural countries that are often
manipulated by core countries for their own economic advantage. They export
raw materials and are the market for finished goods of the core, this unequal
trade limiting their economic development. Example: several countries in
Africa, Latin America, Asia
o Semi-Periphery - these countries occupy an intermediate position. They are
semi-industrialized, middle-income countries that extract profit from the
periphery and in turn yield profits to the core. Example: Mexico, Brazil,
Argentina, Chile
 Technology is the central feature of the core proposition. Surplus flow of wealth
occurs from periphery to the core.
 They periphery depends on the core for technology. However, both are dependent on
each other and change in one affects the other as well. Example: Brexit and Syrian
War. Although the world system changes very slowly, it is envisioned that the 21st
century will see a multi polar world with economic power being shared between the
old and the newly developed countries.

Optimistic view of dependency theory:

 Fernando Henrique Cardoso believes that the main problem faced by the undeveloped
countries is the lack of autonomous technology and a developed sector of capital
goods. To develop these, they need to insert themselves into the circuit of
international capitalism. The inflow of foreign investments creates islands of highly

416
 developed modern enterprises in the sea of backwardness and traditionalism. These
islands serve as an example, they educate a skilled working class, train a local
managerial elite, open up opportunities for cooperating subsidiary enterprises and
produce incentives to imitate their economic success.
 Entrepreneurial motivations are born and spread, local middle class slowly arises and
early accumulation of local capital begins. At some stage, these incremental
quantitative changes may produce a qualitative leap and takeoff to indigenous growth
and development, gradually diminishing the dependence.
 The global economic interconnections appear as means towards ultimate
emancipation rather than instruments of continuing subjugation. Examples: Brazil,
Mexico, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong.

Critique of Dependency theories:

 Goldthorpe - fail to explain the rise and fall of Latin American countries - they
developed borrowing technology from USA, but fell due to corruption and political
turmoil. Therefore, dependency model lacks empirical evidence.
 Samir Amin - dependency theory explains problems but fails to provide concrete
solutions.
 They do not provide any substantive empirical evidences to support its arguments.
There are few examples that are provided but many exceptions exist which do not fit
in with their core periphery theory, like the newly emerged industrial countries of
South East Asia.
 Highly abstract and tend to use homogenizing categories such as developed and
underdeveloped, which do not fully capture the variations within these categories.
 They consider ties with multinational corporations as detrimental, while one view has
been that they are important means of transfer of technology.
 They contain Eurocentric biases, for example the assumption that industrialization
and possession of industrial capital are crucial requisites for economic progress. The
inability to think beyond the state as the primary essential agent of economic
development. Also, there is a Eurocentric bias in de-emphasizing of production
undertaken by women, and in not realizing the hazardous implications for the
environment of industrialization.
 They underplay the role of culture, and wrongly treat wealth as a zero-sum game.
They consider only economic factors and are too simplistic and like a protest -
Cultural Globalization Theory
 Cannot explain occasional success stories like Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong,
Argentina and Mexico.

Though on the face of it, dependency theories may not seem to be reflecting contemporary
circumstances and situations, and some of their formulations have been questioned. However,
in the face of growing interconnected economies and political economy, it is worthwhile to
critically evaluate these theories.

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Life chances and life style:

 Life Chances is a theory propounded by famous sociologist Max Weber. This term
embraces the description of opportunities and recourses that one gets to improve the
prevailing condition of one‘s life. Opportunities in this context refer to one‘s ability to
access resources both visible and intangible goods like food, shelter clothes, and
education and health services respectively.
 Weberian‘s theory of life chances is the extension of some of Karl Marx‘s ideas. They
both agreed on the necessity of economic factors in our life but Weber explained this
theory with more detail. For him, social equality and social mobility are very
important aspects to live a prosperous life. Many random factors are affecting our life
chances like age, race, ethnicity or gender but there are certain non-random factors
also.
 These non-random factors are social class, status, caste, political influence and so on.
Undoubtedly, economic factors play a crucial role as it provides resources to grab
more chances in life. We cannot even generalize these aspects for everyone. ―Life
chances‖ is a subjective and abstract term and it gets influenced by social
stratification in many ways.
 This theory stands for goals that are yet to be achieved entirely. We desire many
chances. For Example, if we are born into a rich family then our life chances like are
more as compared to one brought up in a middle-class family. There is also a
difference in their aspirations. Rich class people need more luxurious advantages
while for middle-class strata a normal thing can be a life chance such as a decent job
with a monthly salary INR 50,000. Further, Weber expands it and relates these life
chances with our lifestyle.
 Lifestyle defines our way of living. In the sociological term, lifestyle connects our
habits with several social dimensions. According to psychologist Alfred Adler, the
basic character of a person is established in his/her early childhood. Various factors
affect our lifestyle like economic factors, place of living, our values and preferences,
social status and so on.
 Earlier this study focuses only on social structure and our position in it. But later, it
has been comprehended in detail. Accordingly, the social dimension started
explaining our lifestyle more broadly by using social status as a distinctive element of
status that is strictly connected with prestige. Lifestyle is so important because it is a
visible dimension of our living standards. Our town, work, culture, income, etc. are
sub-parts of a social system only. Many psychological conditions also influence it.
Our attitudes, interests, practices, and principles affect our image in front of others.
There is always our thought process which cannot be ignored. Apart from it, our
actions are also fundamental in explaining our lifestyle. For example, we often use
physical objects like expensive vehicles to articulate our social standards.
 With time the study related to these areas is broadening its horizon. The composition
of culture and tradition always includes the number of life changes that we get in a
lifetime and its results that whether we use them as our lifestyle or not.

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A.G.Frank‟s:

Introduction:

 Andre Gunder Frank was a left-wing economist and political activist who wrote
widely in the fields of economics, social and political history, development studies
and
international relations. A German national, he is best known today for his work on
what he called ‗the development of underdevelopment‘ or ‗dependency theory‘.
He also commented critically on what he called the ‗world system‘ of the 1970s and
1980s that maintained inequality in the world.
 Frank‘s main argument was that in our interconnected, globalised world, some
countries are winners, whilst others are losers. According to dependency theory, the
people of less-developed countries are not to blame for the failure of their societies to
develop. Instead, he suggested that Western nations deliberately failed to develop
these countries. He argued that historically, ‗core‘ nations such as the USA and UK,
who made up the elite ‗metropolis‘, exploited ‗peripheral‘ nations by keeping them as
satellites in a state of dependency and under-development.

Theory of underdevelopment:

 In an article entitled ‗The Development of Underdevelopment‘ which set out his main
thinking, Frank declared:
 Underdevelopment is not due to the survival of archaic institutions and the existence
of capital shortage in regions that have remained isolated from the stream of world
history.
 On the contrary, underdevelopment was and still is generated by the very same
historical process which also generated economic development: the development of
capitalism itself.
 All resources have their own level of capacity to be used by mankind to grab all its
potential for which it has been created.
 But, there are cases when it is being used only by few countries creating a difference
of opinion among nations. This concept has been deeply analyzed by famous
sociologist – Andre Gunder Frank to understand the core importance through his
theory of underdevelopment.
 Frank based his ideas on a close study of the effects of capitalism in history. For
example, in looking at inequality and underdevelopment in Latin America in the
1960s, Frank examined the privileged position of cities in that region that first
emerged during the 16th century conquest by Spain and Portugal.
 The city might seem to be an example of the success of capitalism in the
underdeveloped world. But Frank claimed that the city‘s function at this time was to
economically dominate the indigenous population who lived in surrounding rural
communities. He said that the city was the ‗metropole‘ that dominated the ‗satellites‘
around it. In the same way, these metropoles were themselves satellites to the
domination of the European colonising country.

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  Frank said that over the course of history, this chain of exploitation in the form of a
‗metropolis-satellite‘ relationship has been maintained, so that resources continue to
be taken from satellites and fed back to the dominant metropolis.
 He said that his study of the history of countries like Chile and Brazil backed up this
theory, where the chain of ‗satellite underdevelopment‘ was evident in these
countries‘ relationship with Europe, and within their own domestic economies, where
the ‗satellite metropolis ‗relationship existed at various levels so that the most remote
area of Latin America were part of a chain that existed to benefit capitalist Western
countries.

Basic elements of theory:

 Historical account of the underdeveloped societies.

 Underdevelopment is a result of their relationship with the developed societies.
 Development and underdevelopment are the two aspects of the same system.
 Underdevelopment, dependency and world system are the names of the same theory.
 This is a theory which presents a historical account of the relationship of dependency
of the less developed countries on the rich European ones.

Methodology of the system:

To explain how this theory can be used, theorists argue there are numerous kinds of the
nation:

 The first being core of the core nations: they are the wealthiest and most powerful
nations like the USA;
 The second type can be called the periphery of the core nations: these countries are
developed but have less power on the world stage like Canada;
 The third is the core of periphery nations: these are developing countries that still
have a lot of wealth (THE BRICS NATIONS) but not so much international power
like China;
 The fourth is the periphery of the periphery nations: these are the world‘s poorest
countries with extremely low GDP per capitals like Zimbabwe.
The problem starts with its dependency on other countries. According to the theory,
the international system is one where all countries serve the economic interests of the
core countries.
 The periphery of the periphery countries serves the economic interests of all other
countries.
 The core of the periphery countries serves the economic interests of the periphery of
the core countries and the core of the core countries.
The periphery of the core countries serves the economic interests of the core
countries.

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Frank‟s criticism of others:

 Frank was very critical of the theories of sociology of development and connected
processes of modernization and evolution. Hoselitz has used the Parsonian
modernization pattern variables to explain the process of development in any country.
Frank is convinced that neither developed nor undeveloped societies reveal the
characteristics suggested by Hoselitz or, for that matter, by Parsons.
 Frank also rejects the theory of diffusion, which suggests that the less developed
societies cannot be developed because they are not able to be influenced by the
changes in the developed world due to obstacles to development. Economic
diffusions, according to Frank, do not bring about changes in the Third World. Frank
also criticizes McClelland (1961) and Hagen (1962).
 He is of the view that these scholars have ignored the fact that historical
circumstances lead to the establishment of one world economic system in which the
Third World functions to develop the First World. Though Baran originated the
theory of dependency but for its popularity the credit may be given to Frank.

Criticism of Frank‟s theory:

 Critics of the dependency theory argue that this dependency is exaggerated. They also
say that the theory focuses too much on economic factors and does not take into
consideration the country‘s political, social, cultural and environmental factors that
might be contributing to underdevelopment.
 Critics also argue that dependency theory is very pessimistic and unrealistic. Critics
say that the suggestion that a developing country can disconnect from capitalism and
go its own way is impossible in our globalised economy. However, Frank‘s ideas and
the huge volume of writing that he completed continue to be debated.

Latin American perspective of dependency:

 Dependency theory is a Marxist theory, developed in the 1970s as a criticism of

Modernization theory. Latin American dependency theory is a strand of political-
economic thought that developed out of the UN Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) shortly after World War II.
 Dependency theorists sought to explain persistent levels of under-development in
Latin America by situating national economies within their global economic context.
Notable scholars in this intellectual tradition include Ra l Prebisch, Fernando
Cardoso, and Andre Gunder Frank.
 The best known dependency theorist is Andre Gunder Frank. Underdevelopment is
because the West exploits labour and resources in the developing world. The West
gets rich at the expense of the developing world.
 This is in contrast with the modernization theory which tends to assume that lack of
development is because of internal cultural and economic barriers. Rather than
looking towards country-level characteristics to explain development, as per earlier
theorizations, dependency theory asks that social scientists reorient their analyses to

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 attend to the global economic forces that dictate development disparities both between
and within nation-states.
 According to dependency theorists although colonies have gained political
independence, they are still exploited economically by more developed countries a
situation which Frank describes as Neo-Colonialism. For some dependency theorists,
underdevelopment appears permanent; the only way out of dependency is for an
underdeveloped nation to escape from the global capitalist system and master-servant
relationship with richer countries, taking action itself rather than relying on outside
help.
 Countries need to find alternative pathways to development that protect their fragile
economies from Western Capitalist-Industrialist Capitalism.
 It is important to recognize that the history of colonialism has held some countries
back, and that isolation has worked as a route to development for some nations such
as China.
 However, in today s rapidly changing, ex-colonial world, in which many ex-colonies
are developing successfully and even due to overtake European Nations by 2050
(India and Brazil) it is clear that in the long term Dependency Theory is not sufficient
to explain why some countries are developed and others are developing.

Social dimensions of displacement:

 Our present development process is the one which looks at environment and poor
people as drag on the development process. According to Amartya Sen, we must see
development as the process to increase freedom of human beings.
 Tribals and people in rural areas are the ones who are most affected by displacement
induced by development. Various development projects which induce displacement
are dams, roads, industries, mining etc.
 The problem is not only displacement but also the failure of rehabilitating them. A
study by Walter Fernandes shows that only 18% of tribal people were rehabilitated.
Out of total displaced people, around 50% are tribals. In many cases, they got the land
on paper but not in practice because of local dominance of higher castes.
 The life of tribal people is intrinsically linked with environment and forests. Once
they are displaced, these people lose their natural setting of rivers, forests and are
devoid of minor forest produce. Instead they are pushed into informal sector where
they feel totally alienated. Similar is the case with poor people.
 This is not an inclusive development and would lead to further conflicts in future.
Environment protection itself is a way to increase human freedom. Integrating this in
the developmental process would make it people friendly and all inclusive in nature.

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Previous Years Questions:

1. Differentiate between ‗Life – chances‘ and ‗Life – style‘ with suitable examples.
(2019) (10 marks)
2. Critique A.G.Frank‘s development of underdevelopment. (2019) (10 marks)
3. Social change can be brought about through development. Illustrate from the
contemporary situation of India. (2016) (20 marks)
4. Write a short essay on the Latin American perspective of dependency. (2014) (20
marks)
5. Examine the social dimensions of displacement induced by development. (2013) (10
marks)

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Unit No: 10

Unit Name: Social change in Modern Society:

Chapter Name: (c) – Agents of social change:

 The term social change is used to indicate the changes that take place in human
interactions and interrelations. Society is a web of social relationships and hence
social change means change in the system of social relationships. These are
understood in terms of social processes and social interactions and social
organization.
 Auguste Comte the father of Sociology has posed two problems- the question of
social statics and the question of social dynamics, what is and how it changes. The
sociologists not only outline the structure of the society but also seek to know its
causes also.
 According to Morris Ginsberg social change is a change in the social structure.
Today, most of the sociologists assume that change is a natural, inevitable, ever
present part of life in every society. When we are looking at social change, we are
focusing not in changes in the experiences of an individual, but on variations in social
structures, institutions and social relationships. To understand social change clearly,
here are some definitions of social change.
 M. E. Jones , ―Social change is a term used to describe variations in, or modifications
of, any aspect of social processes, social patterns, social interactions, or social
organizations.‖ Manjumdar, ―Social change may be defined as a new fashion or
mode, either modifying or replacing the old, in the life of the people, or in the
operation of society.‖
 MacIver and Page, ―Social change refers to a process responsive to many types of
changes, to changes in the manmade conditions of life, to changes in the attitudes and
beliefs of men, and to the changes that go beyond the human control to the biological
and the physical nature of things.‖
 Thus, any alteration, difference or modification that takes place in a situation or in an
object through time to time can be called change.
 The term social change is used to indicate the changes that take place in human
interactions and interrelations. Society is a web of social relations and hence social
change obviously means a change in the system of social relationships. Social
relationships are understood in terms of social processes and social interactions and
social organizations. Thus, the term social change is used to describe variations in
social interaction, social processes and social organizations. It includes alterations in
the structure and functions of the society.
 Characteristics of social change: Some important characteristics of social change are
as under Social change is universal It means that social change is not confined to a
particular society or group. It occurs in every society, sociologically speaking an
unchangeable society is considered as a dead society. Thus, no society is free from the
impact of social change.

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 Speed of social change is related to time factor: The speed of social change is not
uniform. It differs from period to period. In modern society the speed of social change
is rapid or faster than traditional society.
 Speed of social change is unequal and comparative: We can argue that speed of social
change is more or less similar in each society. It is slow in traditional society whereas
it is rapid in modern society. In urban areas the speed of social change is faster than
the rural areas. Social change is an essential law Essential law means a law which
occurs and over which we have no control. It may be planned or not, it must occur.
 Social change may be planned or unplanned: Planned changes are those that occur by
some deliberate or conscious effort. On the other hand, unplanned change refers to the
change which occurs without any deliberate effort like earth-quake, war, political
revolution and other natural calamities. Thus, social change occurs both in planned
and unplanned manner.
 Social change may be short term or long term: Some change brings immediate change
which is known as short term change like fashion. But other changes take years to
produce result which is known as long term change. Custom, tradition, folkways,
mores etc. are long term changes.
 Social change lacks definite prediction: Prediction means 'foretelling' in case of social
change we are well aware of various factors but we cannot predict although it is a law.
Definite prediction of social change is not possible, because what will be the result of
social change we cannot say.
 Social change is a community change: Social change does not refer to the change
which occurs in the life of an individual or life pattern of individuals. It is a change
which occurs in the entire community and that change can be called social change
which influences a community form.
 Social change is the result of the interaction of various factors/agents: A single factor
can trigger a particular change but never causes social change. It is always associated
with other factors such as cultural, biological, physical, and technological and others.
It is due to the material interdependence of social phenomenon.
 Geography, population and ecology: These factors are seen to bring about sudden
change or set a limit on social change. Climatic conditions, natural resources, physical
location of country, natural disasters can be important sources of change. A natural
disaster like floods may destroy entire population, force people to migrate to another
place, or make them rebuild their community all over again. Similarly, increase and
decrease in the size of the human population through birth, death or migration can
pose a serious challenge to economic and political institutions. Today, many
geographic alterations and natural disasters are induced by the activities of the
inhabitants of a region. Soil erosion, water and air pollution may become severe
enough to trigger off new norms and laws regarding how to use resources and dispose
of waste products.

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Three basic sources of social change:

 Discovery - A shared human perception of an aspect of reality which already exists. It

is an addition to the world‘s store of verified knowledge. However, it becomes a
factor in social change only when it is put to use, not when it is merely known.
 Inventions - A new combination or a new use of existing knowledge. Inventions can
be material (technology) or social (alphabet, trade union). Each invention may be new
in form (in shape or action), in function (what it does), in meaning (its long-range
consequences) or in principle (the theory or law on which it is based).
 Diffusion - refers to the spread of cultural traits from one group to another. It operates
both within and between societies. It takes place whenever societies come into contact
with each other. Diffusion is a two-way process. The British gave us English; but they
adopted several terms in English from us, for example: Sahib, Juggernaut. Diffusion
is also a selective process. We adopted English language, but not their beef-eating
habits. Diffusion generally involves some modification of the borrowed elements of
culture either in form, function or meaning.

Exogenous and Endogenous origin of change:

In practice, the origin of change, can rarely be assigned wholly to exogenous or endogenous
category. It could be said that in the modern world, the changes taking place in the
developing countries have been stimulated to a large extent, by Western technology
introduced in most cases by colonial rule. But even in such countries, social change has
depended to a great extent upon the activities of various social groups within the society.

Acceptance and Resistance to social change:

Innovations are rarely accepted totally. The specific attitudes and values of the society, the
manifest usefulness of the innovations, the compatibility of the innovations with the existing
culture, vested interests, and the role of change agents are some of the important factors that
affect the degree of acceptance of and resistance to social change.

Some factors that affect direction and rate of change:

 Geography, Population and Ecology - These can bring about sudden changes or set a
limit on social change. Climatic conditions, natural resources, physical location of a
country, natural disasters can be important sources of change. Example: Floods, Birth
Rate, Death Rate, Migration, Soil Erosion, Water and Air Pollution.
 Technology – Ogburn‘s concept of cultural lag. The modern factor, means of
transportation, medicine, surgery, mass media of communications, space and
computers technology etc. have affected the attitudes, values and behaviour of people
across societies.
 Values and Beliefs – Weber‘s PESC. He proposed that some historical situations,
doctrines or ideas may independently affect the direction of social change. Conflict
over incompatible values and beliefs can be an important source of change, example:

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 caste system. Conflicts between group within a society, have been and are a major
source of innovation and change, example: French Revolution
 The role of individuals in social change - It has been pointed out that the contribution
by men of genius and leaders to social change is important. The ‗great men‘ faced a
set of circumstance, and their influence arose in part from their ability to draw out
persuasively the latent aspirations, anxieties and fears of large numbers of people.
They were also charismatic leaders who owed their positions to personal qualities,
and left upon events the mark of their own convictions.
 Bottomore defines social forces as values and tendencies which are resultants of the
interaction of individuals, yet which confront any single individual as something
external to him, and relatively impervious to his individual criticism or influence.
 Technology and Social Change: Empowering people - Kisan Credit Card, Aadhar,
Twitter, Printing Press, Railways; Creating regional imbalances - Smart Cities;
Proletarization due to automation and deskilling; Impact on Family
 Economy and Social Change: Women SHGs, MGNREGA; Land reforms;
,Demonetization
 Culture and Social Change: Sanskritization, Westernization; Religious Revivalism
and Fundamentalism
 Law and Social Change: Abortion Bill, Debate on Euthanasia, Decriminalization of
Suicide, Section 377 of IPC, Reservation, Article 21, A Triple Talaq

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Mass Media:

 Today, we are living in a society where information is everything, it naturally shapes

that we are living in an information society, where the media is the strapping tool of
communication and connectivity.
 The media plays an active role in social and personal life. Societies depend on mass
media, like anything, and they need mass media for everything. A program that has
worked through the media is very important, especially the development of
individual, social and national brands, but at the same time it also encourages them to
commit shocking crimes. Certainly, media has a power to change people and social
capitals.
 The media act as an effective catalyst for social change. The mass media, no doubt,
considered as an fourth pillar of democracy, which command, boast the society and
social elements, are the most significant tools for motivating and discouraging people.
 In the present time of media globalization, media is a backbone of social growth,
where everything works due to information, it is the media that brings all types of
changes and make according to public opinion.
 It creates awareness deep in public. When social Capitals exercise their power and
privileges and do constructive work, the media is always behind. The role of the
media is even more important in highlighting the bad connection between the mafia
and criminal organizations.
 The media also continues to send information to a society aware of rights and
privileges. Because of these media roles, it is very important and was called the fourth
pillar of democracy.
 In a country like India, where poverty and illiteracy are high, society in not at all
balanced, media of different types plays a very vital role especially in the field of
journalism, which catalyses people to act, react and interact in the journalistic
platform for better understanding and allows opportunities to educate, inform and
rehabilitate people‘s minds.
 This allows even illiterate people to explore the world of knowledge and knowledge.
Therefore, media, undoubtedly acts as an catalyst for social change and growth

Previous Years Questions:

1. Assess the role of mass media as an agent of social change. (2017) (10 marks)

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Unit No: 10

Unit Name: Social change in Modern Society:

Chapter Name: (d) – Education and social change:

 The role of education as an agent or instrument of social change and social

development is widely recognized today. When the existing social system or network
of social institutions fails to meet the existing human needs and when new materials
suggest better ways of meeting human needs. Education is more than schooling or
being literate.
 While school is a formal institutional mechanism for imparting formal education,
education as an informal process is ever continuing. It is a social process which
enables and promotes the education and skills, knowledge and the broadening of
personal horizons. It is defined as ‗The process of education comprises cultivation of
distinct qualities and traits through explicit instructions or through implicit inhibition
as part of growing up amidst family members, kin and peer groups‘.
 In traditional societies, educational function was performed by family, but in modern
societies functional alternatives in the form of schools, colleges and other institutions
have come up.
 Further, earlier it was mostly linked to religion, but today it is secular in its character
and is more inclusive in its approach. The invention of the printing press in the year
1423 was a milestone in the history of education. Books and print material now
became readily available and education itself became more broad based and open to
all. It also promoted vernaculars. One consequence of this was the spread of literacy.
Education brings social change by way of affecting existing value systems and
beliefs, creating capacity among the individuals to absorb new ideas, opening up of
avenues for social mobility and so on. Education fosters personal development and
selffulfillment.
 It encourages the individual to develop his or her mental, physical, emotional and
spiritual talents to the full.
 According to Maclver social change takes place as a response to many types of
changes that take place in the social and nonsocial environment. Education can
initiate social changes by bringing about a change in outlook and attitude of man. It
can bring about a change in the pattern of social relationships and thereby it may
cause social changes.
 Francis J Brown remarks that ‗education is a process which brings about changes in
the behavior of society. It is a process which enables every individual to effectively
participate in the activities of society and to make a positive contribution to the
progress of society‘.
 Durkheim says it is an agent of transmission of social norms. By respecting rules in
schools, children learn to respect norms of the society.
 Parsons says schools are ‗society in miniature‘ and education plays a key role in role
allocation in an increasingly specialized industrial economy. In family child is judged
on ‗particularistic standards‘, in schools child learns universal values which are

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 necessary for social integration. Other functions that are performed by the education
are – social control, communication of knowledge, character building, and
development of human resources, contributing to human and economic development.
 Karl Mannheim in his book ― Ideology and Utopia ‖ explained the importance of
education in a society because he believes that education makes an individual capable
of adapting to any new environment and situation. Education transforms society in
two ways:
o It makes individual capable in research, invention, innovation, discovery, etc.
which brings changes in society.
o It prepares the mind of the individual that changes are value hence they should
adapt the changes rather obstructing it. After the industrial revolution it has
been realized that the changes which occurred due to scientific knowledge,
modern education were not detrimental for the society. Hence, the education
for all was propagated which changed European society at a faster rate.
 G.B. Shaw said that education was a factor in Europe which transformed it faster than
other societies. Education deviated individual from the traditions, superstitions,
orthodoxy and made them modern, logical and secular in their outlook. Munis Raza in
his study of Indian educational system identified that:
o Education can only bring/provide social mobility to those who can avail the
better schools and colleges because of their specific economic position and on
this basis, he found that in India the opportunities have been monopolized by
those who enjoy economic privileges.
o He found that the students who come from public school performs better than
government schools because the standard of education at both institutions is
distinguished which creates inequality in society later.
o Amartya Sen also identified the role of education in developing societies and
believed that a modern democratic and egalitarian society cannot be realized
in developing societies unless quality education for all is provided to all
sections of society. Kothari Commission in India called ―education as silent
revolution‖ which can transform the society without disrupting the existing
system.
o S.C. Dubey in his book ―Education and Development‖ believes that without
transforming the mind, social transformation cannot be achieved. He
compared the development of South Korea and North Korea and reached the
conclusion that South Korea emphasized on education whereas North Korea
on armament and the result is South Korea is far ahead in terms of HDI
(Human Development Index), human right establishment and other indices.
 But Robin Fox in her comparative study of Kinship found that modern education is
anti-community sentiment which makes individual selfish and individualistic which
are weakening the responsibility towards the community.
 Its effect can be easily identified by a higher rate of divorce, increasing nuclear family
etc. Commercialization of education has further diluted role of education in social
change as there is now unequal access to quality education based on one‘s class.

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 Children of working class only have ‗working class suited‘ education which offers
only limited avenues.
 According to Paul Willis , working class kids get working class jobs as differential
education leads to differential reproduction of cultural values.
 According to Pierre Bourdieu , education also helps in reproducing ‗cultural capital‘
which is as necessary as social capital and economic capital. Cultural capital
influences acquisition of other capitals as well. Thus, cultural reproduction in schools
in unequal societies also leads to unequal educational attainments. Feminine
perspective also emerged on education in the 1970s.
 According to feminists like McRobbie and Sue Lee, schooling reproduces appropriate
feminine roles in girls. Schools saw their task as preparing girls for family life and
responsibilities and boys for future employment, thus reproducing the gender
stereotypes prevailing in society. Paul Willis also highlights that boys use derogatory
language which is not checked effectively in schools and it promotes aggressive
masculinity.
 There is also alternate Marxist view by likes of Althusser . Althusser in his ‗Ideology
and Ideological State Apparatus, 1972‘ treats education as the most important
‗ideological state apparatus‘ appropriated by the ruling classes to pursue their own
ideas and interests, and it reinforces dominant ideology and thus hinders real social
change in society. It merely leads to reproduction of labor force.
 Thus, education must emphasize social reforms with a similar spirit, perspective and
force as social reform movements like Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Protestantism,
etc. showing more liberalism and openness to modern influences is not sufficient.
Without a renovated program of adult or social education it cannot be done
satisfactorily.
 Similarly, without making education a multipurpose tool, the desired social changes
cannot come up. Our curriculum must really need to get changed and become modern
in real sense.

Indian context:

 Dr. Radha Krishnan: "Education is an agent for social change what is simple societies
was done by the family, the religious, social and political institutions has to be done
by the educational institutions today." According to recent figures, there are 6.9 lakh
educational institutions in India.
 Over 70% of these are primary schools. These are funded by the government,
municipal corporations and private bodies. The largest number of these institutions
are funded and run by the government; however if we look at the figures of those who
gain access to the prestigious institutions for higher education, a majority come from
the small percentage of private schools.
 Education and the Disprivileged - Bhattacharya - "To the extent the previously
disprivileged are brought within the ambit of institutionalized education there are
three modalities of articulation between the system of privileges and the education
system: (a) education reproduces and perpetuates inequalities between the privileged

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 and the disprivileged, or (b) education enables a part of the disprivileged to attain
upward social mobility without affecting privileges as a system, or (c) education plays
an adversarial and even subversive role, challenging privileges or inequality as a
system. The first mode preserves homeostasis, the second submerses homeostasis
through co-optation of the upward mobile, the third proposes metastasis or a
subversion of the regime of privileges"

Innovations in Education at the Grass roots:

 Barefoot College of Tilonia, Rajasthan: In 1972, a group of university students

inspired by Gandhian principles, established The Social Work and Research Centre
(SWRC) under the leadership of Bunker Roy. They set up the Barefoot College in
Tilonia with the mission of tapping local wisdom and initiative in order to empower
the villagers themselves.
 The Barefoot College does not draw on the Role of Education in expertise or
experience of professionals from the formal education system, Social and Human
rather the villagers are encouraged to identify and use their own skills, Development:
o Emerging Perspectives knowledge and practical experience to make provision
for drinking water, health, education, employment, fuel and other' basic needs.
The Barefoot technologists have solar electrified several thousand houses in at
least eight Indian states, installed hand pumps in the Himalayas, and planned
and implemented piped drinking water.
o Apart from the technologists, the Barefoot educators serve as trained pre-
primary and night school teachers. About 3000 boys and girls attend more
than 150 night schools run by the Barefoot educators.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Discuss the issues of access and exclusion in higher education in India. (2019) (10
marks)
2. Education is major source of social mobility in contemporary society. Explain. (2016)
(20 marks)
3. Education helps in perpetuating social and economic inequalities. Critically examine
the statement. (2015) (20 marks)
4. Education is often viewed as an agency of social change. However in reality it could
also reinforce inequalities and conservatism. Discuss. (2014) (20 marks)

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Unit No: 10

Unit Name: Social change in Modern Society:

Chapter Name: (e) – Science, technology and social change:

 The technological factors represent the conditions created by man which have a
profound influence on his life. In the attempt to satisfy his wants, fulfill his needs and
to make his life more comfortable man creates civilization. Technology is a by-
product of civilization. Technology is a systematic knowledge which is put into
practice that is to use tools and run machines to serve human purpose. In utilizing the
products of technology man brings social change. The social effects of technology are
far-reaching. According to Karl Marx even the formation of social relations and
mental conceptions and attitudes are dependent upon technology. He has regarded
technology as a sole explanation of social change.
 W.F Ogburn says technology changes society by changing our environment to which
we in turn adapt. These changes are usually in the material environment and the
adjustment that we make with these changes often modifies customs and social
institutions. Industrial revolution is the first revolution of human history which was
basically a technological revolution. Machines replaced the man as a force of
production which completely changed European society in following manners:
o A feudal agrarian and rural Europe changed into a democratic, industrial and
urban society.
o Extended family changed into nuclear.
o Age and sex based Division of labour changed into skill based Division of
labour. ❖ Primary institutions were replaced by secondary institution.
o Gerontocratic society became youth centric society.
o Religious traditional society converted into secular modern society. These
changes were so drastic and structural that is why it was called a revolution.
 After the industrial revolution even the traditional, developing Third World societies
accepted industrialization as a source of social transformation. Russian society which
was a feudal agrarian society became a modern industrial society just after two five
year plans centred on industry.
 Green revolution in India is one of the examples of how a traditional agrarian society
was transformed into rich progressive agrarian society. The Green revolution was
basically based on the use of modern technology in agriculture which transformed the
affected areas socioeconomically at large level. After 1990, the world has gone
through the IT revolution .
 This not only led towards the concept of global village but also it has reduced cultural
heterogeneity and the world is becoming like a small approachable community. The
impact of science and technology on social change is so multidimensional that it
cannot be explained through fen examples.
 Though he also recognized that the changes due to science and technology are not
positive for the society because the misuse of drugs, arms and knowledge is one of the

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 key concerns but as a theorist he believes a society cannot remain separate from the
influence of science and technology because it is an eminent force of Social Change.

Values and Beliefs

 The role of values in social change has been clearly brought out in Max Weber' s
book the ‗Protestant Ethics and The Spirit of Capitalism‘. Weber proposed that in
some historical situations, doctrines or ideas may independently affect the direction of
social change. He tried to show that the rise of modern capitalism was mainly rooted.

Culture: not only influences our social relationships, it also influences the direction and
character of technological change. It is not only our beliefs and social institutions which
must correspond to the changes in technology but our beliefs and social institutions
determine the use to which the technological inventions will be put in.

Ideological Factors: Political, social and religious ideologies can bring forth radical
changes in social structure and social relationships.

Psychological Factors: Man, by nature, is a lover of change. The inherent tendency to

look for novelty compel man to experiment new ideas which may sometimes results in
the establishment of new social setup. Change in attitude of society towards family
planning, dowry, caste system, women's education etc. which brought about radical
changes in society are primarily psychological in nature.in religious values as contained
in Asiatic Protestantism.

Previous Years Questions:

1. Critically analyse the role of science and technology in bringing about social change.
(2017) (20 marks)
2. How is the increasing use of technology changing the status of women in Indian
society? (2014) (20 marks)
3. Examine science and technology as agents of social change. (2013) (10 marks)

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THANK YOU

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