have become an important theme for contemporary sociological theory, entwined with more and more robust empirical analytical techniques. They help to explain everything from transmission of diseases to chances for upward mobility. Networks, in this sense, are distinct from categories. Sociologists had long studied whether people were male or female, old or young, and native born or immigrants. All these categories correlate with social inequality and opportunities, and all are important. But, networks focus more on specific positions in webs of relationships. Not just male or female, but head of household or not. Not just old or young, but boss or employee. Not just native or immigrant, but connected to local elites or only to others in disadvantaged populations. Harrison White’s work showed that networks and categories had distinct effects but also that the strongest groups were those in which category and network coincided.
The social bases for agency were challenged by the rising prominence of neoliberal economic ideology. This is the view that social policy should be guided entirely by the preferences and interests of individuals, especially individual owners of property. It is closely related to the classical liberalism that so appalled Karl Polanyi (excerpted in Classical Sociological Theory) when it led economists to endorse cutting welfare benefits to those who lost their jobs because of technological change that benefitted the wealthy. In 1987, the neoliberal UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher captured the notion so starkly that she inadvertently caricatured it, saying: “there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”2 Needless to say, this view was not widespread among sociologists.
Contemporary sociological theorists analyzing markets generally side with Polanyi and emphasize what he called “embeddedness.” Markets are not an escape from society but very much a part of it. Take applying for a job. This is an action, and it may build on earlier actions like acquiring educational credentials. But, as Mark Granovetter (excerpted here) showed, social networks shape who has access to information about new job openings. Those with friends and family in good jobs have an advantage. Their social relationships combine with their individual initiative to give them greater agency to realize their goals.
Neither structure nor agency is simply the “right” point of view. They are both important dimensions of social life. But, they are difficult to reconcile. This became a major focus for sociological theory. It is not enough simply to say “balance.” It is important to see how categories and relationships are constructed out of meaningful action as well as how they constrain us as structures. It is important to see that structures not only constrain us but also empower us to get jobs or launch social movements. Anthony Giddens (excerpted here) called for “new rules of sociological method” designed to reconcile the two perspectives.
There is also more to social life than structures and actions – even actions with lots of agency. There are, for example, institutions. Whether we speak of family or religion or business corporations, institutions are a combination of structure, patterned ways of action, and cultural meanings. Families can be larger or smaller, for example, and the (structural) trend has been toward fewer children. Family members do not act randomly toward each other but take up more or less common roles (patterned ways of action). At least in principle, parents provide for children, secure their education, make sure they have medical care, and so forth. And families are products of culture. Are they formed of arranged marriages or love matches? How many children couples think they should have or at what age they should have them are views reproduced in culture not merely among individuals. So too how strongly children feel they should care for aging parents.
Specific families, or religious organizations, or business corporations all learn from each other. As Walter Power and Paul Dimaggio (excerpted here) argue, they both imitate and adapt to each other within fields. In essence, families look at other families to see how they should behave. But, they cannott look at all families; they look at those in the same country, and probably class, region, and religion. Likewise, business organizations in an industry will resemble each other more and more. This is not necessarily a matter of conscious choice. It is a matter of what possible actions or structures seem sensible, something that may be partly materially objective but is largely a matter of shared culture. The result is what they call “institutional isomorphism.” Companies in the same industry or schools competing for the same students come to look like each other. As Powell and Dimaggio make clear, following Max Weber, this need not be either the result of happy functional integration or of coercive power. It is a pattern produced out of individual actions that in the aggregate become social pressures. Likewise, as Granovetter argues, there are many individual decisions in markets, but they are not the whole story. Markets are embedded in social institutions.
Power and Inequality
Pursuit of stability and prosperity were dominant concerns in the decades after World War II and the Great Depression. Functionalist sociology was dominant partly because it spoke to the desire for social order and gradual improvement. And, in fact, the years after 1945 saw a great deal of orderly progress, building new institutions, and improving social conditions. In France, they came to be called “les trente glorieuses” – the thirty glorious years. In the United States, it was “the postwar boom.”
This was an era of building state institutions to provide social support – education, health care, social security, public media, and more. It was an era of relative cooperation between capital and labor. These still had competing interests, of course, but for a time they found negotiated solutions within the frame of “organized capitalism,” based largely on public regulation to avoid disruptive confrontations.3 Nonetheless, for all the eras achieved, there were internal tensions or even contradictions. These became drivers for transformations – including in sociological theory.
Sociologists had always been attentive to power, inequality and difference, but during the period of functionalist dominance after World War II, theoretical emphasis fell overwhelmingly on social integration, consensus, and factors that held society together. When Parsons and other functionalists used the word “power,” for example, the emphasis was on the overall capacity of a society, the “systemic” character of social life, and the extent to which social organization fit together so that every feature was necessary to the whole. But, Parsons was less concerned with the ways in which some people wielded power over others and the extent to which such domination shaped social organization.4
A new generation of theorists criticized the implicit conservatism in this. They saw functionalist sociology as too supportive of the existing social structure, too focused on achieving stability. While Parsons drew widely on earlier sociological theory, he sidestepped Marx. The new generation looked for different classics largely to help them analyze the inequalities and conflicts they saw in contemporary society. Interest in Parsons declined, and there was new attention to Marx.
Sociological theory was also reshaped by new readings of the classics. While Parsons’ interpretation of Weber emphasized legitimate authority, the new generation focused on Weber’s critical analyses of oppressive rationalization. They integrated this with Marx’s early writings about alienation in the experience of work as much as his mature theory of capitalism as a system. There was a renewal of interest in Adorno, Hokheimer, and other critical theorists who analyzed how social psychology and the construction of knowledge entwined to support authority and close off paths to liberation in modern society. Herbert Marcuse, for example, saw the new consumer capitalism as basic to a “one-dimensional society” that stifled creativity.
More and more sociological theorists presented a model of society in which tensions and struggles were basic and unity was largely maintained by power.5 Environmentalists condemned exhaustion of resources, dumping of waste, and damaging side effects of new products. Sociologists of gender argued that better kitchen appliances did not compensate for consigning women to work in the domestic sphere. Sociologists of race pointed to inequalities in education, housing, and other dimensions of what were supposedly well-integrated societies. Many younger sociologists identified
