Etapa de Integración

In this second part of the chapter, I argue that Parsonian sociology is responsible for the rise of technical concepts of society. It is Parsons who seems to have produced the transition from a loosely defined idea of society to more clearly defined concepts of society. In scrutinising how a more formal definition of society took form, it is

necessary to look at sociology’s attempts at theorising nation-states vis-à-vis the abstract concepts that Parsonian sociology developed to refer to societies, those of ‘modern society’ and ‘social system’. The argument, then, is that these are the three concepts with which sociology has made its more formal representation of society since the 1950s. Each of these terms has had its own emphasis, proved its adequacy for different theoretical and empirical tasks and developed a history of its own within (and outside) the discipline. A straightforward definition of society can help to clarify some of the issues at stake. To Parsons (1969b: 295), the concept of society

[H]as tended to refer to the highest-order social system, one which fulfills the prerequisites of a level of order that permits a relatively complete and stable development, within its boundaries, of all the important types of structure and process with which the analyst of social systems is concerned. Perhaps the Aristotelian concept of self-sufficiency has served as the fundamental model

Later in the same page, Parsons argues that in this understanding of the idea of society what is especially relevant is the question of

[T]he relation between a pattern of normative order and the effective control of action within a territorial area. In terms of the structure of complex societies, this refers to the relation between political organization, on the one hand, and a legal system, on the other (…) there can be no certainty of implementation of a normative order, unless the employment of physical force can be controlled – and controlled within a territorial area – because force must be applied to the object in the place where it is located

This definition, being relatively similar to some others (Parsons 1961: 33 and 43; 1966: 9-10; 1977a: 156; 1977b: 182), has a number of points that deserve comment. First, it begins by relating the term society to the concept of social system, and more specifically to the ‘highest-order’ type of social system. This means that the idea of society is to be reserved for those special forms of social relations that possess the quality of being stable and clearly bounded. Second, in that sense, it is made clear that for the purposes of sociology as a scientific discipline, the idea of society has to be related to other less abstract and more manageable concepts. It is not only the concept of social system that is explicitly mentioned in the quotation, but also, with the emphasis on the control of a territorial area, there is reference to the nation-state: society to be ‘operationalised’ into these more ‘scientific’ concepts. Third, it is argued that a territory is an important dimension to consider for any idea of society, although by no means the most important one. In fact, that reference to the territory is specific to the capacity of exercising power upon that territory (the political dimension) and to some form of legitimacy through which that capacity is actually implemented (the legal system). Fourth, the quotation also refers to the functional differentiation that is at the base of this relationship between the political and the legal systems, so in this sense society is also connected with the concept of modern society. The consequence to be drawn from this is that Parsons was consistent in using the idea of society

through more clearly defined and, he also thought, empirically more profitable concepts.

My admittedly unconventional reading of Parsons in this part of the chapter is that he could not and did not mean only the nation-state when he used the idea of society. He could not do so because the level of abstraction at which ‘society’ operates made that connection a too narrow one; it curtailed some of the dimensions of the idea of society

I just introduced in the last two quotations. An exact equation between society and the nation-state was also inadequate in what refers to the actual conditions of social integration of nation-states – as we saw in the previous section of the chapter. My argument here is that Parsons used the idea of society via the concepts of social system, nation-state and modern society.69 As a comprehensive reconstruction of these three concepts is beyond the limits of my thesis, in what follows I would like to explore the connection between Parsons’ use of society and each of these three concepts.

The concept of ‘social system’ is probably the key concept in Parsonian sociology. Social systems are not merely an addition of individual perspectives, but rather an emergent field of enquiry (Parsons 1977b: 196).70 Social systems are, for Parsons (1977a, 1961: 43), systems of interaction, of which the society is the one that comprises the highest complexity in its internal and external relations, historical specificity and self-sufficiency. Systems were thought of as the most abstract analytical tool with which sociology defines not only its object of enquiry but also the dimensions to be studied within that object. The concept of social system also refers to the dimensions on which social analyses have to be focused; through the concept of the social system a unit for sociological analysis becomes clearly defined so it allows the sociologist to compare different but analogous units. In fact, as just said, Parsons argues explicitly that for sociology the concepts of society and social system have to

69 _{This way of referring the definition of one category to others, in order to create a close}

theoretical system, is quite consistent with the way in which Parsons thought a science must proceed to progress (Parsons 1962: 320-3; Münch 1987; Alexander 1978).

70 _{Parsons’ (1967b, c, 1977c) definitive conceptualisation of the social system is based on his} theory of generalised symbolic media. For an interpretation of Parsons’ AGIL model beyond the idea of the nation-state see Chernilo (2002).

be defined in relation to one another; ‘society’ being a very special case of social system.

The issue of self-sufficiency deserves some further comments because surely it is one that can be interpreted in a methodologically nationalistic way. By self-sufficiency, Parsons understands ‘the capacity of the system, gained through both its internal organization and resources and its access to inputs from its environments, to function autonomously in implementing its normative culture, particularly its values, but also its norms and collective goals’ (Parsons 1977b: 182). More concretely, Parsons’ (1971: 8-10) conceptualisation of self-sufficiency comprises the institutionalisation of: [1] a level solidarity upon which membership can be found; [2] an adequate control over the economic-technological relations; [3] ‘roles’ as standardised forms of collective organisation; [4] a generalised cultural system that can legitimate a normative order and satisfy all different functional requirements; and [5] an adequate control over the motivational forces of the members of society. It seems to me that this list reflects that Parsons’ idea of self-sufficiency takes the nation-state as its reference point only to a certain extent, particularly in dimensions 1, 2 and 3. At the same time, however, dimensions 4 and 5 correspond to a cultural level which can only take ‘the West’ as its appropriate framework; the values and normative orientations that Parsons has in mind here – moral universalism, democracy, the rule of law – are independent from the nation-state. Furthermore, we can place these reflections into their historical context. In relation to the economy, the question of trying to achieve some form of ‘economic autarchy’ was already a key preoccupation during the inter-war period and later the Cold War (Aron 1967: 100-5; Hall 2003: 13; Hobsbawm 1995: 94-102). At the ideological level, the opposition between ‘liberalism’ and ‘fascism’, or between ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’, regarded the values of these different ‘cultural systems’

as though fully self-contained. We need to remember, again, that Parsons’ geopolitical understanding of the Cold War was one in which blocs, rather than individual states, were the major actors. If his self-sufficiency argument were to find empirical application either economically or normatively, then, it could perfectly do so in relation to these bigger units.

Nation-states are a more ‘concrete’ representation of the idea of society, and it is here that Parsons’ arguments give space to a methodologically nationalistic interpretation of his sociology. Indeed, Parsons (1961: 46; Parsons and Smelser 1956: 8-9) was explicit in that the nation-state is the most important historical representation of modern societies. Parsons (1969a: 254-8) regarded the rise of the nation as evolutionary achievement because it provides the basis for constructing a modern idea of community. Also, from the 1950s onwards, the analogy between society and nation- state started to coincide with a number of important historical processes in which the idea of national society was indeed reinforced: the expansion of the nation-state form throughout the world (Africa); the implementation of the Marshall and strong welfare- state programmes in Western Europe; a major expansion of the internal market in the US; the successful cycle of the ‘developmental states’ in the Asian Tigers, and the implementation of modernisation programmes in Latin America. Moreover, the national organisation of sociology also grew during this time: the number of sociologists and of sociology programs grew massively in the context of the state’s demand for sociologists (Buxton 1985: 97-164). Yet, we need to keep in mind the arguments that were introduced in the previous section of this chapter. On the one hand, the fact that the early Parsons saw nation-states in contrast to totalitarian regimes; on the other hand, the question that Parsons’ interest on nation-states took the form of a critique of methodological nationalism.

‘Modern society’ is the third form with which Parsons (1966, 1971) refers to the idea of society. As argued in the previous section, Parsons original concept of modern society corresponds broadly to the idea of ‘the West’. The question is complicated further, however, by the use of the term in the singular and the plural. This is clearly presented in the very first page of Parsons’ work devoted to these issues

The thesis underlying this volume (…) is that the modern type of society has emerged in a single evolutionary arena, the West, which is essentially the area of Europe that fell heir to the western half of the Roman Empire north of the Mediterranean. The society of Western Christendom, then provided the base from which what we shall call the “system” of modern societies “took off”. Whether or not there is justification for treating medieval Western Christendom as a single society, the succeeding territorial states – and the cultural heritages that we call national – developed to such an extent that, for the modern period, the whole complex can be viewed only as a system of societies (Parsons 1971: 1)

As we have said already, there is one sense in which Parsons preferred the use of the term in the singular and with the definitive article, ‘the modern society’, so that he could stress its meaning as the most abstract cultural and social framework that surrounds the development of the West. But there is also the use of term in the plural, which is in fact not far from the nation-state. In this second employment, I think, the aim was to highlight the differences that can be found within the area of ‘Western Christendom’. ‘Modern societies’ would then be those that have followed the route of the Western development, societies whose differences represent only historical

variations within a single civilisational trajectory and it is in this sense that Parsons talks about ‘the system of modern societies’. If one takes Parsons’ connection between the idea of Western civilisation and modern society seriously, and therefore society is used in this sense to describe the long-term development of the West, ‘modern societies’ and ‘the system of modern societies’ would certainly include nation-states but it would also have to incorporate other forms of socio-political organisation like, Empires, colonies, city-states and indeed totalitarian regimes.

There is still another sense in which Parsons defines his concept of modern society, now in relation to the thesis of the functional differentiation. In Parsons’ theoretical

description of the historical development of the modern society there are three successive revolutions through which the societal community, which is responsible for the processes of integration in the system (Parsons 1977b: 201), becomes differentiated from other societal subsystems. The Greek concept of ‘Polis’, and also the nation, would be historical representations of this concept of societal community. As concerned with the problem of integration, the question of ‘solidarity’ turns to be crucial: it is solidarity which holds the societal community together (Parsons 1961: 56), the modern form of this solidarity being attached to T.H Marshall’s concept of citizenship (Parsons 1977b: 182, Mayhew 1982: 47-8).71 The differentiation of the societal community was first related to an ‘economic revolution’ that occurred in Britain in the late eighteenth century and that differentiated the societal community from a truly capitalist economy. There was also a second ‘political revolution’, which took place in the US and France at roughly the same time, which meant the transition

71 _{This is why Parsons named this subsystem as a form of community, which is so crucial a}

term in the sociological tradition (Parsons 1967a; 1967c; Cohen and Arato 1993: 117 – 139; Gerhardt 2001).

from absolutist states to some form of democratic regimes; this political revolution differentiates the political system from the societal community. Finally, there was a third ‘educational revolution’, which consisted in successive ways of alphabetisation, expansion of general education and above all the growth of tertiary education. This last revolution was first completed in the US, by about the mid-twentieth century (Parsons and Platt 1973: Introduction).

We can see that these three revolutions are the major evolutionary achievement of the modern society. Here, again, the tension between the use of the term in the singular and in the plural comes to the fore as the idea of modern societies can only make sense within the framework of the modern society as one single civilisational development. Theoretically, modern societies are an abstract representation of what core Western European societies tend to highlight of themselves and also of what novel or peripheral societies were expected to achieve. Normatively, the concept of modern society emphasises the desirability and necessity of social integration, and it implies a relatively high degree of moral and cultural consensus and homogeneity. Historically, the modern society is a long-term process that began with the cultural changes brought about by the Renaissance. The modern society has proved to be one core concept for theoretically oriented sociology, as many of the subsequent sociological formulations about the defining characteristics of social change have had to relate, positively or critically, to the idea of modern society. 72

72 _{What remains true is that conceptualisations such as ‘Post-industrial society’ (Bell 1974,}

Touraine 1971), ‘Post-modern society’ (Kumar 1995), ‘Risk society’ (Beck 1992), ‘Information society’ (Castells 1996-8), ‘Global society’ (Albrow 1996) and ‘World society’ (Luhmann 1977) all must come to terms, explicitly or implicitly, with the concept of modern society. P. Wagner (2001a) has recently argued that the decline in the use of the concept of ‘modern society’ has to do with the fact that it lacks a more critical insight into the functioning

In terms of the connections between the three definitions of society, it seems to me that, analytically, the concept of social system prevails over the other two, as in understanding the formation of modern societies and nation-states Parsons had to make reference to the functional differentiation of social systems. Modern society, on the contrary, is more open a category for historical analysis as it focuses on general criteria to understand the most abstract features of the development of the West and its expansion since the fifteenth century. The nation-state, finally, has little theoretical value and analytical role in Parsons’ sociology; his sociology of the nation-state requires the other two definitions of society because ‘the nation’ – through the idea of citizenship – was only used to represent a modern form of community. My argument here, then, is not that Parsons did not use the concept of society in relation to the nation-state, obviously he did, but that this connection was always subordinate to the other uses of society as social system and modern society. The connections between society and these latter two notions, plus the fact that Parsons’ sociology of the nation- state was subordinated to his more general theoretical developments should prevent us from reading Parsons’ reflections on society and nation-states in a methodologically nationalistic fashion.

Conclusion

Institutionally as well as theoretically, Parsons is the central figure of sociology’s modernist period, so the analysis of his work should tell us something of the broader tendencies in the sociology of that time. The thesis that nation-state is equated to of these societies as it idealises the trajectory by which they have arrived to their current stage of development.

society in Parsonian sociology has proved to be, at best, only partly true; that argument overstates its case by neglecting alternative uses of society that neither coincide with the nation-state nor are geographically based. Yet, it can certainly be seen that Parsons is partly responsible for a methodologically nationalistic reading of his work as he held high hopes on nationally organised democracies. Indeed, Parsons’ political agenda was strongly in favour of ‘liberal-democratic’ nation-states. But, in the same way as I argued throughout the part on classical sociology, I do not think that Parsons’ political nationalism translates into methodological nationalism; the mediations between his political views and sociological work are more complex and subtle than any suggestion of instrumental utilisation of sociology from politics. The seriousness of Parsons’ political preference for nation-states led him to take nation-states also very seriously. Parsons needed to produce a complex understanding of the position of nation-states in modernity but methodological nationalism, on the contrary, simplifies and distorts the historical development and main features of nation-states.

I think I can now spell out the major arguments of Parsons’ sociology of the nation- state. Firstly, there is the co-existence argument. I have shown that Parsons compared and contrasted the nation-state with totalitarian regimes, especially Nazi Germany, and