Rational-Choice Models of Political Behavior vs. Functionalist and Conformist Theories

1969 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Harsanyi
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
Individual Behavior ◽  
The Other ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Socialization Process ◽  
The Social

After a virtual neglect for several decades, in the last twenty years renewed interest has been shown in a general theory of social behavior. Most of this theoretical work has depended on two main postulates. One is the functionalist (sometimes called structural-functional) approach to the explanation of social institutions, based on the assumption that the social institutions of a given society can best be understood in terms of their social functions, that is, in terms of the contributions they make to the maintenance of social systems as a whole. For lack of an established technical term, we shall call the other postulate the conformist approach to the explanation of individual behavior: it is based on the assumption that uniformities of individual behavior in a given society can best be understood in terms of certain commonly accepted social values, which most members of the society tend to internalize during their socialization process.

Sexual Ontology and Group Marriage

Philosophy ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 58 (224) ◽  
pp. 215-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. L. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Other ◽  
Unmarried Mother ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

Philosophers of earlier ages have usually spent time in considering thenature of marital, and in general familial, duty. Paley devotes an entire book to those ‘relative duties which result from the constitution of the sexes’,1 a book notable on the one hand for its humanity and on the other for Paley‘s strange refusal to acknowledge that the evils for which he condemns any breach of pure monogamy are in large part the result of the fact that such breaches are generally condemned. In a society where an unmarried mother is ruined no decent male should put a woman in such danger: but why precisely should social feeling be so severe? Marriage, the monogamist would say, must be defended at all costs, for it is a centrally important institution of our society. Political community was, in the past, understood as emerging from or imposed upon families, or similar associations. The struggle to establish the state was a struggle against families, clans and clubs; the state, once established, rested upon the social institutions to which it gave legal backing.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela T. Ragusa
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Sandra Harding ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Over Time

Epistemology is the concept used to describe ways of knowing. In other words, how you know what you know. Sociologists have been interested in how knowledge is produced since the discipline was founded in the 19th Century. How we come to know our world and make sense of it are influenced by social institutions, individual attitudes and behaviors, and our demographic position within the social order. The social order is an historical product which continues to change over time. To facilitate our learning from our socio-historical experiences, sociologists frequently turn to ideas expressed by social theorists. Social theory, whether classical or contemporary, may thus be employed to help us make sense of changes in our social and material world. Although technology is arguably as ancient as our first ancestors, as the chapters in this book reveal, the characteristics of and communications within our postindustrial society vary greatly from those which occurred in the age of modernity. This introductory chapter identifies a few well-known social theorists who have historically attempted to explain how and why social systems, at macro and micro levels, change over time. Next, it contextualizes communication as a cultural product, arguing the best way to examine the topic is from multiple, local perspectives. In the feminist tradition of postmodernist Sandra Harding, it implores us to consider the premise and source of the knowledge sources we use and espouse while communicating and interacting in specific ways and environments. Finally, grounded in the systemic backdrop of social inequality, this chapter encourages readers to begin the task of critical thinking and reflecting about how each of us, as individuals and members of local communities, nations and the world, assuage or reproduces the structurally-derived inequalities which the globalization of communication and technical systems and interacting in a global environment manifests.

FROM MYSHKIN TO MARXISM: THE ROLE OF DOSTOEVSKY RECEPTION IN LUKÁCS'S REVOLUTIONARY ETHICS

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 927-960 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD WESTERMAN
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Political Ethics ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
Spiritual Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

For European literati of the early twentieth century, Fyodor Dostoevsky represented a mythically Russian spirituality in contrast to a soulless, rationalized West. One such enthusiast was Georg Lukács, who in 1915 began a never-completed book about Dostoevsky's work, a model of spiritual community that could redeem a fallen world. Though framing his analysis in the language and themes of broader Dostoevsky reception, Lukács used this idiom innovatively to go beyond the reactionary implications this model might connote. Highlighting similarities with Max Weber's account of political ethics, I argue that Lukács developed an ethic derived from his reading of Dostoevsky, which focused on the idea of a hero defined by an ability to resolve the specific ethical dilemma of adherence to duty and moral law on the one hand, and, on the other, the need to restore spontaneous human community at a time when the social institutions embodying such laws had fallen into decay. Crucially, he deployed the same framework after his conversion to Marxism to justify revolutionary terror. However different his position from Dostoevsky's, it was through engagement with these novels that Lukács not only clarified his thought but also came to identify Lenin as a Dostoevskyan hero figure.

scholarly journals The Other Side of Taxation: Extraction and Social Institutions in the Developing World

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 277-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Lust ◽  
Lise Rakner
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
Resource Mobilization ◽  
The Other ◽  
Fiscal Sociology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
State Taxation

The fiscal sociology literature views the state at the heart of development, but in most developing countries, formal taxation is limited. Instead, local residents make substantial contributions outside the state to the provision of public goods. That is, they engage in what we call social extraction rather than state taxation. This article conceptualizes social extraction and the social institutions that drive extraction. Furthermore, it considers variations in the content of social institutions, and it proposes research agendas that allow us to understand how social institutions impact resource mobilization and development at the community level. It draws lessons from a large, cross-disciplinary literature that includes work in anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology, and political science.

scholarly journals Functions of bibliosphere. Part 1

2016 ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkady Sokolov
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Library Studies ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Character

The author introduces theoretical, technological and sociological interpretations of the human category “function”. The functional approach in library studies, bibliography, and bibliology is explored. The common character of the essential functions of the social institutions within the bibliological sphere is revealed.

scholarly journals Structural violence and the 1962-1963 tuberculosis epidemic in Eskimo Point, N.W.T.

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank James Tester ◽  
Paule McNicoll ◽  
Quyen Tran
Keyword(s):  
Structural Violence ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Hudson Bay ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Harm ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arctic Coast

In the winter of 1962-1963, an epidemic of tuberculosis broke out in Eskimo Point, an Inuit community on the west coast of Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic. The outbreak was made possible by bad living conditions, among the worst ever documented in the history of the Canadian Arctic. The epidemic reveals the intersection of social attitudes, the economic logic of a postwar Canadian welfare state, and the difficult transition being made by Inuit moving from tents, igloos, and land-based camps to settlements along the Arctic coast. It is a case of “structural violence” where rules, policies, and social institutions operate in ways that cause physical and psychological harm to people lacking the power and/or resources necessary to changing the social systems and conditions in which they live. Both individuals and entire communities are affected. With regard to past—and present—Inuit housing conditions, we invoke the concept of structural violence to stress the importance of identifying and speaking about public health problems as a violation of internationally recognised human rights.

scholarly journals When Justice Fails: Jurisdiction and Imprecation in Ancient Egypt and the near East

1992 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Assmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Near East ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
The Other ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

In this comparative study of ancient belief and practice, the Egyptian evidence is analysed first, then placed in the wider context of the Near East. It is argued that, while laws and curses are both ways of preventing damage by threatening potential evildoers with punishment, the difference lies in the fact that in the one case punishment is to be enforced by social institutions, in the other by divine agents. Curses take over where laws are bound to fail, as when crimes remain undetected and when the law itself is broken or abandoned. The law addresses the potential transgressor, the curse the potential law-changer who may distort or neglect the law. The law protects the social order, the curse protects the law. These points are illustrated by extensive quotation from Egyptian and Near Eastern texts.

scholarly journals The Austrian School of Economics and Ordoliberalism – Socio-Economic Order

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-121
Author(s):  
Anna Jurczuk ◽  
Michał Moszyński ◽  
Piotr Pysz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Eclectic Approach ◽  
The Social

Abstract The scientific aim of the paper is to juxtapose the views on economic order developed by the leading representatives of two schools of liberal thinking – German ordoliberal Walter Eucken and the Austrian economist Friedrich August von Hayek. The first scholar opted for deliberately constructed competitive economic order, the second one advocates for allowing the social institutions to emerge and evolve spontaneously. The analysis proves the similarity of both theories in regard to the significance of principles of an economic order and the importance of competition for maintaining individual freedom. On the other hand some differences in the areas of sources of rules, institutional change, and the role of the state, induce their complementarity. Developing an intellectual basis for economic policy requires an eclectic approach combining two analysed perspectives.

scholarly journals The non-linear dynamics of meaning processing in social systems

2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loet Leydesdorff
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Linear Dynamics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Anticipatory Systems

Social order cannot be considered as a stable phenomenon because it contains an order of reproduced expectations. When the expectations operate upon one another, they generate a non-linear dynamics that processes meaning. Specific meaning can be stabilized, for example, in social institutions, but all meaning arises from a horizon of possible meanings. Using Luhmann's social systems theory and Rosen's theory of anticipatory systems, I submit equations for modeling the processing of meaning in inter-human communication. First, a self-referential system can use a model of itself for the anticipation. Under the condition of functional differentiation, the social system can be expected to entertain a set of models; each model can also contain a model of the other models. Two anticipatory mechanisms are then possible: one transversal between the models and a longitudinal one providing the modeled systems with meaning from the perspective of hindsight. A system containing two anticipatory mechanisms can become hyper-incursive. Without decision-making, however, a hyper-incursive system would be overloaded with uncertainty. Under this pressure, informed decisions tend to replace the `natural preferences' of agents, and an order of cultural expectations can increasingly be shaped.

Perubahan Sosial Masyarakat Akibat Konversi Minyak Tanah Ke LPG di Kelurahan Tanjungpinang Barat

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Indrati Sri Suciati ◽  
Suryaningsih ◽  
Emmy Solina
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Sampled Data ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Basic Set ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Behavior

Social changes are any changes in social institutions within a society, which affect the social system, including the values, attitudes and behavior patterns among groups in society. Pressure on the definition is the basic set of social institutions as human beings, the changes which then affect other social systems. Based on preliminary observations of this LPG conversion program apparently was sudden and unplanned comprehensively. Framework will be operationalized concept refers to the opinion Selo Soemardjan and Bertrand which state that social change affects the social system, where the elements of the social system, namely beliefs, feelings and thoughts, goals, rules / norms, status/ role and facilities. Qualitative research with a qualitative descriptive design format, which aims to describe, to tell a variety of conditions, situations and phenomena of social realities that exist in society. Sampled data were collected through interviews with informants as many as 14 people. From the research results can be concluded that the kerosene to LPG in the Village of West Tanjungpinang has given the change to more efficient public spending among others so survival is more assured, the pattern of behavior among members of the public is more awake, environmental sustainability is maintained by the reduction of air pollution so as to create of a society that is more practical, efficient and effective

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document