International Sociology

The terms, society and development, are two of the most common, most ambiguous, and most deceptive words in the sociological lexicon. 'Society' is closely identified with 'state'. 'Development' is closely identified with 'evolution'. Using an empirical analysis of the problems surrounding any discussion of two 'societies'- Germany and Puerto Rico - it is argued that the 'boundaries' of these 'societies' turn out to be redefined constantly, with changing political fortunes, and consequently offer no solid basis for the analysis of social processes. If there is any 'society' that has 'developed' in modem times, it can only have been that of the world-system.

Contrary to the views of some Marxists, we are firmly convinced that social mobility is not a 'bourgeois problematic'. We believe that, given certain preconditions, mobility processes may contribute significantly to the effective functioning of a socialist socio-economic system. In this respect they have great potential but the effective utilization of that potential is problematic.

Rationality as both key to and highly problematic in modern social organisation is a central topic for sociology which veers between analysing it at the levels of social action and social system. A Marxist interactionist approach shows that analysis of action must lead to concern for social relations and processes. Both the rationality and irrationality of social subjects are variously limited or expanded by the social environment, which in turn operates as a system of social relations in which sub systems contribute to the rationality of the societal system. Moving between these levels reveals the processual character of social rationality and adds to the understand ing of contemporary qualitative change in society and the contradictions which are involved.

The emergence of the Three Worlds eventuated in the crystallization of three expectancies. While the First World gave birth to liberal expectancy and the Second World to radical expectancy, the Third World latched its faith to nationalist expectancy. Not only have these expectancies not come true, the possibility of their realisation in the manner in which they were conceptualised remains utterly bleak. Invariably primordial collectivism of the cultural mainstream is defined as nationalism, while the collective aspirations of dominated or marginalised collectivities are labelled as anti-national or at best sub-national. It is suggested in this paper that cultural pluralism should be the cornerstone on which authentic nation- building can be attempted. In contemporary India the juxtaposition of insiders and outsiders and the processes of expansionism and exclusivism are widespread. The leading bases of categorising collectivities as insiders/outsiders are religion, caste, tribe, language and region. Through expansionism the dominant collectivity attempts to assimilate all those social collectivities defined as insiders into the cultural mainstream thereby threatening their socio-cultural identity which may lead to culturocide. Through the process of exclusivism the very belongingness of outsiders to the nation-state is questioned, which alienates them. It is argued that India cannot build an authentic nation-state by establishing the dominance of a cultural mainstream reducing the numerous collectivities of the periphery to the status of marginals. India should have a nation-state with multiple cultural centres.

The green movement in Western Europe is analysed from three angles. Ideologically it is seen as a movement concerned with all the cracks in the Western social formation, its economy, its security system, its basic structures, its way of life, including its excesses. As such the movement serves as an umbrella movement for a number of partial movements, the most important ones being the ecology, women's and peace movements. However, the Green Movement depends for its success on its ability to give equal primacy to all constituent movements, not declaring that one is more important than the others. Historically the movement can be seen as the last in a series of four transformations of the classical Western social formation, the first being the struggle of the state against the church, the second of the bourgeoisie to rule the state and the third, the working class to get access to the structure created by the preceding transformations. Finally, the movement is characterised sociologically through the recruitment profiles, in terms of motivations and capabilities, and an effort is made to explore why the movement is so weak in France and so strong in Germany and the Nordic countries.

In this paper I offer a new interpretation of the development of Durkheim's thought. Rather than linear progress, Durkheim's scientific career presented a distinctive circularity. Although always interested in a 'structural' theory, from the beginning of his work Durkheim sought a structural theory which would decisively differ from the materialist emphasis on coercion. In the first part of his career, however, Durkheim was unable to conceptualise such subjective structure in a satisfactory way. As a result, in his early writings between 1885 and 1893, Durkheim's theorising was incredibly unstable. Starting from an idealism he moved eventually to a materialism. The Division of Labour (1893) contains within itself all these unstable solutions, and even by the time of its publication Durkheim indicated an intense dissatisfaction with the result. Over the next three years he rewrote his theory in a fundamentally subjectivist way. Although throughout this period theoretical issues per se were uppermost in Durkheim's mind, so was the critical reception of his work. I examine the social and intellectual context of Durkheim's France, particularly a series of little known reviews of his first works, to establish this critical milieu, and I demonstrate how sensitive Durkheim was to these criticisms in this decisive period of theoretical change.