System Theory as Global Sociology-Japanese Ramifications of Parsonian and Luhmannian Thought

This article explores various engagements of system theory with Germany and Japan, looking in particular at the theories of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann. Talcott Parsons based his sociological theory on the idea of a system of the values of a given society. Niklas Luhmann’s extended version was based on the idea of self-reproduction (or “autopoiesis”) of social systems within all modernized societies. Two studies have recently re-examined system theory on basis of its engagement with Japan: Günther Distelrath has subjected Parsonian theory on Japanese modernity to a structural revisioning in Die japanische Produktionsweise (1996); and Peter Fuchs has reconciled what he calls the “dividualism” of the Japanese psyche with the Luhmannian theory of functional differentiation in Kommunikation — Japanisch (1995). Distelrath critiques the Parsonian school of thought for giving Japan the status of a backward “follower” of the West. Fuchs, in contrast, endorses the universalist premise of Luhmann’s concept of society and makes Japanese “dividualism” the paradigm of effective modernization. Following on from Fuchs, I argue that system theory has the potential to overcome cultural limitations and become a global sociology. Its theoretical agenda in the twenty-first century includes the refinement of its concepts of the psychical system, the revision of its notion of the public and the mass media, as well as a systematic contribution to environmental protection and ecological communication in a functionally differentiated world society.     

Exegetical explorations: Parsons’ problematic aim

The aim of this article is to encourage ongoing and close exegetical study of sociology’s theoretical texts. Attention is drawn to two instances where Talcott Parsons’ theory project seems to be at odds with itself. Both are related to his “first major synthesis” The Structure of Social Action (1937). The first concerns Parsons’ opening discussion of Crane Brinton’s question “Who now reads Spencer?” Parsons’ discussion of Spencer is examined and then compared and contrasted with what he later wrote in the “Introduction” to the 1961 reprint of Spencer’s The Study of Sociology. The second concerns Parsons’ problematic view of his contribution to social theory’s “secondary literature” and how this relates to his claims about “convergence.” The article notes that Parsons was trying to identify what he believed to be a new norm for social theory. Sociological theory, he believed, would from henceforth have to be formulated in terms of this newly emerging normative frame of reference.     

Fractured weber: A critique of parsons' interpetation

The authors argue that Parsons, through commitment to his “convergence thesis” and to his structural-functionalism coupled with his biological evolutionism, misrepresents Weber. Parsons arbitrarily applies to the Weberian tradition his own criteria biased against history. His general theoretical focus inclines toward the tradition of the functionalist Durkheim and that of the evolutionist Spencer. The authors contend that the later metamorphosis of Parsons' general theory of action into a theory of social systems has resulted in an abstract conception of social reality that is incongrous with Weber's view. The source of the Parsonian bias is further traced in his psychologization of Weber. Finally, it is asserted that Parsons represents a case of a-historicism incompatible with the Weberian tradition, with the consequence that the important contributions of Weber's historical sociology for the understanding of social change in the modern world are lost.     

Exegetical Explorations: Parsons’ Convergence Concept

This is a contribution to the ongoing efforts to interpret the significant contribution to American sociology of Talcott Parsons (1902–1979). The author corrects an implication of his previous article in this journal by drawing attention to the profound impact of evolutionary cosmology upon Parsons’ theoretical presuppositions. This ensured an inner and continuing complexity in his theory of the “social system” from what we can identify as its earliest conceptual beginnings when Parsons was an under-graduate student at Amherst College.     

The theorization of social co-ordinations in differentiated societies: the theory of generalized symbolic media in Parsons,Luhmann and Habermas

The problem of the differentiation of societies is at the core of the sociological imagination about the rise of modernity. In postwar sociology, T. Parsons developed the theory of generalized symbolic media in the mid-1960s to tackle, theoretically and historically, the issue of differentiation. According to him, the interchange media are defined as resources oriented to exchange processes between the subsystems of the social system. Starting with money, Parsons argues that the remaining media (power, influence, and value-commitments) have a set of characteristics defined as common properties for all media. After this first formulation, contemporary theorists such as Niklas Luhmann and Jürgen Habermas have developed and modified the Parsonian theory: Luhmann rejects the idea of interchange and proposes the use of communication; Habermas distinguishes between steering and communication media. In all three cases, the focus of the theory is on the characterization of the strongest dynamics of social co-ordination present in differentiated societies. A major result of these developments is the inclusion of new dimensions on which to conceive the properties of media, not only those of money but also language. Beyond differences, then, it is proposed that there is only one theory of generalized symbolic media which can be understood as a progressive research programme, in Lakatos' terms. Finally, the hand-in-hand evolution between the theory of media and Habermas' and Luhmann's re-conceptualizations on societal differentiation in contemporary societies will also be revealed.     

WEBER AND INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY IN AMERICA

This article examines the role of Weber's methodological writings on verstehende Soziologie in the construction of an American variant of interpretive sociology during the first half of the twentieth century. It thereby illustrates the connections between intellectual appropriation and the academic institutionalization of competing sociological schools. After reviewing Weber's general reception in American sociology, it focuses on the respective relevance of Weber for symbolic interaction, which developed out of the Chicago School; Parsonian action theory; and the phenomenological social theory of Alfred Schutz. Three conclusions emerge. First, the symbolic interactionists and their predecessors operated with the implicit assumption that they did not need Weber. Second, Weber was not only intellectually valuable to Parsons, but also useful in his quest for intellectual hegemony. Finally, Schutz, in offering a third, alternative and competing interpretation of Weber, served to complicate this struggle between the two American sociological schools.     

Exegetical Explorations: Parsons’ Theoretical Faith and Hope in Structural Functional Analysis

This article discusses Talcott Parsons scientific world-view and how his theory gave expression to his more-than-merely theoretical reliance upon insights he gleaned from Whitehead and Weber. He developed “social systems theory” not only with a structural-functional and evolutionary understanding of social action but also saw science, in these terms as well. The article seeks to trace his theory’s reliance upon the system concept which gave his work a persistent focus throughout his scholarly career.     

The Hobbesian Microcosm: On the Dialectics of the Self in Social Theory*

If Parsons is not guilty of holding an over-socialized conception of man, Wrong's critique does apply to the work of the “reality-constructionists” and “symbolic interactionists.” In underemphasizing Mead's “biologic individual” or “I,” contemporary sociological social psychology manages to evade the Hobbesian problem and, hence, amounts to a largely disembodied dialectic. By way of contrast, the compatibility of the Meadian and Freudian perspectives is stressed and the need for further development of a psychoanalytic sociology reaffirmed.     

Durkheim and The Structure of Social Action*

The analysis of Durkheim in The Structure of Social Action is integral to Parsons's discussion of the utilitarian-positivist tradition and the emergence of a voluntaristic theory of action from it. The four “stages” of theoretical argument in Durkheim can be related directly to the four defining elements of the “utilitarian dilemma,” namely empiricism, rationality, atomism, and the randomness of ends. The most questionable aspect of Parsons's argument is the alleged stubbornness of Durkheim's empiricism. On the other hand, much of the criticism of Parsons's argument, by Pope in particular, although also by Scott and Warner, Is either misdirected or itself questionable. The development and conclusions of Durkheim's moral sociology are as Parsons claims, and form a viable basis for a non-positivist theory of action.     

Testing Parsons: Evidence from an Organizational Subunit and Implications for Structural Functional Theorizing*

Talcott Parsons’ ideas are shown to have operational meaning when applied to organizations in two respects. (1) Parsons’ typology of system needs provides a meaningful way of categorizing administrative rules (protocols) developed by the subunit under study, and (2) “phase dominance,” anticipated by structural functionalists, is tested. Our analysis adds to Parsons’ framework (a) by helping to clarify the distinctive (and generally unappreciated) role that can be played by ground‐level administrative units in the process of adaptive change within large and complex organizations, and (b) by informing our understanding of organizational alignment with external societal forces.     

Undergraduate Teaching Environments: Normative Orientations to Teaching Among Faculty in the Higher Educational System*

This paper illustrates that higher education is a system integrated by shared values and is also differentiated according to institutional teaching orientations. This illustration is accomplished through a “visual display” of shared and differentiated teaching goals as faculty reported these in a national survey conducted in 1973. Using these teaching goals, six normative teaching orientations are derived. The six orientations associated with higher educational institutional variation reduce to four types of teaching environments. Relating these environments to each other refiects a system according to the Parsonian AGIL framework.     

Interaction Theory in the Federal Republic of Germany: Development,Current Position,Themes, and Problems

After the end of World War II in West Germany, action and interaction theories and phenomenological sociology occupied only fringe positions. At the end of the 1960s, criticism of the prevalent neopositivistic research methodology, systems theory, and the rapidly spreading critical theory increased. This, coupled with the positive reception given symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology from the United States, caused interaction theories to flourish. Today they are among the four or five main schools of thought in West German sociology. In methodological work, the “interpretative” or “communicative” social research of the time developed the narrative interview and life history method. Group discussion and participant observation were also used for interactionist social research. A survey of the subjects interactionists have covered in their research shows how widely interaction theory has been applied. The main themes of current interaction theory are: (1) conceptualizing the difference between unpremeditated behavior and meaningful action, (2) formulating a theory that covers both “structure” and “action”, and (3) developing an interactionist macro theory. The future of interaction theory is analyzed and assessed optimistically.     

Israel in the Poconos: simulating the nation in a Zionist summer camp

This article develops a theory of simulation as a nation building mechanism by exploring the production of national belonging in Massad, a Jewish-American summer camp that operated in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, between 1941 and 1981. Trying to inspire campers to Zionism, the camp organizers shaped Massad as a “mini Israel.” This simulation engendered national attachments by lending credence to the belief that others, in Israel, experience more authentic national belonging. Rather than tempting campers to imagine the nation as a “horizontal camaraderie” (Anderson 1991), national simulations allow members to account for their distinct and often ambivalent position from within the nation. From this perspective, nation building is not simply a matter of relativizing internal differences and dramatizing differences between the groups that make up the nation and “outsiders.” Instead, nation building also is centrally a matter of creating institutional routines and practices that allow members to account for their differential position from within the nation.     

Qualitätsmanagement in organisierten HandlungssystemenQuality Management in Organized Systems of Action

Despite their prevalence and prominence, quality management in organizations as well as the various discourses on the topic lack theoretical framework and pervasion. The field is dominated by empirical-inductive experiences stemming from the so-called practice on the one hand and by pragmatic-normative suggestions for this practice. In contrast, for the purpose of a theoretically based analysis, we identify four implicit principles as the basal grammar of contemporary strategies of quality management, locate them within the Parsonian scheme of organized action systems, and embed them into the broader context of economy and society. This Parsonian perspective makes us aware of quality management as a one-dimensional imperative for action that in reality is still undermined, however, by subversive quality management practices, following a fifth principle.     

Comment on Abrutyn’s “Time Crunch” Problem in Teaching Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Time for the Dichotomy to become a Trichotomy?

In “Teaching Sociological Theory for a New Century: Contending with the Time Crunch,” Abrutyn argues that it is time to re-think how sociological theory is taught in the university due to time constraints that make it increasingly difficult to cover the expanding canon of sociological theory. In this article I revisit Abrutyn’s position on the state of teaching sociological theory. I analyze sociological theory course syllabi across the discipline to provide further evidence that illustrates the problem of the time crunch. From this investigation I argue that the best strategy to deal with the “time crunch” is to re-think the way theory is taught and add an additional course to current curricula. Only by adding an additional course and trichotomizing the current classical and contemporary dichotomy can the time crunch be corrected.     

STRATEGY AND INTERVENTION VERSUS NONINTERVENTION: A MATTER OF THEORY?*

The question of whether or not intervention and strategy are necessary components of competent therapy is described and related to the metaphorical assumptions of underlying theory. Passive listening and expert interpretations are consequences of psychodynamic theory. Active manipulation of social structure and strategic intervention into feedback are described as consequences of the mechanical assumptions of structural and cybernetic theory. Conversational participation and non intervention are described as necessary consequences of hermeneutic and linguistic approaches to therapy. It is concluded that different theoretical assumptions yield different conclusions regarding the nature of therapy and human problems. From this perspective the question of Intervention Versus Non-Intervention is more a matter of the theory held than a question to be answered in terms of the “right” or “adequate” thing to do or not do.     

Moments in Laplanche's Theory of Sexuality

This paper is a brief introduction to some of Laplanche's thinking, as well as a commentary on his essay that is published here. Some salient issues in Laplanche's theory are introduced, such as the decentering of the subject and the prioritizing of the other, the postulation of the “reality of the message,” in which gestures from the other both signify and excite/seduce, and an enlarged meaning of seduction. The child's translation of the enigmatic messages conveyed by the adult is a process of being seduced into building interiority and subjectivity. In effect, the present paper proposes not only that “otherness” constitutes the subject, but that an “asymmetrical intersubjectivity” is what enables the transition from instinct to drive and the creation of paradoxical human sexuality. In a meditation that illuminates significant issues in American feminist and psychoanalytic theory, Laplanche's essay analyzes and distinguishes three interrelated terms, gender, sex, and “the sexual” (“le sexual”), or so-called “infantile sexuality”, the latter documenting a Freudian and French emphasis on an additional, counter-realistic, counter-adaptational, and counter-social conception of sexuality. What stands out in this paper no less than “le sexual” is the use of the term “gender” by a French psychoanalyst, who is at once nodding in acknowledgment to contemporary American thinking, and enlisting the concept of gender to reaffirm its “intimate enemy,” infantile sexuality, “le sexual.” Laplanche sees the American-conceived couple sex/gender as a “formidable tool against the Freudian discovery.” Formidableness is what is common to gender and to infantile sexuality, in that both concepts resist and destroy the clear-cut biological/anatomical “destiny” of sex. Both pertain to cultural/acquired/constructed aspects of sexuality; both are phantasmatic and both subvert sexual role divisions. But gender is organized by, hence possibly subordinate to, sex. Laplanche acknowledges gender yet at the same time he makes it dependent on sexuality and thereby “downgrades” it in favor of the inarticulate, perverse, subversive, untameable aspect of human sexuality—“le sexual”, infantile sexuality—which remains outside and in excess of gender.     

The five careers of the biological metaphor in economic theory

The paper distinguishes among five different roles which the biological metaphor has played, or could play, in economic theory. First, the “selfish-gene” metaphor shows that non-human agents allocate scarce resources and behave non-selfishly according to rationality optimization—not different from how neoclassical theory models human choice. Second, the “ecological influx” metaphor examines the prowess of the non-human/human agent to produce surplus (net product), which differs from rationality optimization. Third, the “genotype” metaphor casts light on how the technology/institution scheme informs the development and behavior of organization. Fourth, the “organism” metaphor illuminates the order of organizations such as firms and states. Fifth, the “ecosystem” metaphor explicates the order of markets, which differs from the order of organizations.     

How Can Three Questions on Modernity Be Answered? The World-System Theory and Japanese Experiences

This article addresses three questions on modernity. Can “the premodern” and “the modern” be differentiated in the historical process? If they can, what is the relationship between “the premodern” and “the modern”? And what will become of these relationships in the future? This article attempts to answer these questions by criticizing the world-system theory and considering some of the experiences of the modernization process in Japan. The world-system theory has tried to relativize social theories from advanced societies in the global perspective. However, the world-system, born during the long 16th century, was defined from the start as modern and capitalist. Therefore, logically this theory cannot adequately grasp the modernization process. To overcome this challenge, this article first accepts the differentiation between “the premodern” and “the modern” and defines modern society as one in which “the modern” is not exclusive but dominant. Second, this article turns to some of the Japanese experiences of “modernization”, particularly in industrial relations. This article asserts that a Japanese-style society tends to keep “the premodern” over a longer term and to replace “modern” relations with “the premodern” ones in management. The author defined this process as informalization. Third, this article stresses that since the late 1990s with globalization, informalization is no longer derived from original “premodern” relations, which are nowadays reproduced by capital. An example of this is the “black company.” This article notes, finally, that capitalism is likely to reproduce premodern forms for its duration.