School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses

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    The Concept of Functional Differentiation and the Logic of Comparative Functionalism: A Study in Sociological Theory
    Taylor, Mitchell James ( 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.