School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe Concept of Functional Differentiation and the Logic of Comparative Functionalism: A Study in Sociological Theory( 2020)The concept of functional differentiation is one of sociology’s oldest and most lasting analytic tools, having its roots at the very beginning of the modern discipline. Among both classical and contemporary scholars, one sees a pervasive belief that functional differentiation – broadly understood as the process by which functional distinctions emerge between social units, or as the degree to which social units diverge in their functional orientations – is an especially significant construct in the comparative study of social structure. Despite this prominence, the notion of functional differentiation is currently marred by significant ambiguity, with uncertainty surrounding its meaning, purpose, and general utility in the contemporary discipline. Addressing this confusion, this thesis presents an explicative analysis of the functional differentiation construct, tracing its historical development through the work of four major figures in functionalist sociology: Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Niklas Luhmann. It evaluates the intellectual foundations on which their particular understandings of functional differentiation rest, delineates points of divergence in their respective approaches to ‘differentiation theory’, and considers the enduring problems which have frustrated attempts to translate their ideas into a concrete program of cross-societal comparative research. Through these discussions, it is argued that theorists of functional differentiation have, due to persistent conceptual issues in their understanding of three key terms (society, structure, and function), consistently struggled to provide an adequate empirical interpretation of the differentiation construct, and have, as a result, left us without a satisfying defence of its theoretical or explanatory significance. The thesis thus contributes to a broader critique of the logic of comparative functionalism as a general method in macrosociological inquiry.
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ItemLove in the Luhmannian world: differentiation and dissonance in the semantics of modern intimacy( 2014)One of the most profitable insights to emerge from the numerous debates which surrounded the decline of modernization theory was the understanding that the various social trends associated with the notion of “modernity” need not converge. In response to a concern that the generalized process concepts which had hitherto governed our understanding of modern society (such as “rationalization,” “individualization,” or “secularization”) painted a unilinear, monological picture of social change insensitive not only to regional differences, but to points of tension and dissonance within specific societies themselves, more pluralistic accounts of modernity attempted to highlight that the institutional characteristics, functional imperatives, and symbolic structures of modern societies may prove incompatible with each other, or may at the very least exist in states of disharmony. Despite this insistence, the sociological study of romantic love has largely continued to operate with a conception of society that minimizes the importance of divergent or conflictual trends. Intimate relations, considered by many to be dependent factors within accounts of social change, are often analyzed in light of broader social patterns without due consideration of the ways in which their own internal logic may contradict this attribution. Acknowledging this deficiency, this thesis seeks to build on the insights of differentiation theory by focusing on the ways in which romantic love may both consolidate and contradict the dominant semantic forms and organizational structures of modern society. In line with the theoretical apparatus of Niklas Luhmann, it seeks to present modern love as a self-referential set of social semantics, to analyze the status of intimate systems within contemporary society, and to explore the ways in which an empirical account of romantic relations may be enhanced by the insights of sociological systems theory. In so doing, it argues that love is a phenomenon which demands a multifaceted, pluralistic, and in many ways paradoxical understanding of modernity itself.