Reinhard Bendix

Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered

Modernization is a term which became fashionable after World War II. It is useful despite its vagueness because it tends to evoke similar associations in contemporary readers. Their first impulse may be to think of “the modern” in terms of present-day technology with its jet-travel, space exploration, and nuclear power. But the common sense of the word “modern” encompasses the whole era since the eighteenth century when inventions like the steam engine and the spinning jenny provided the initial, technical basis for the industrialization of societies. The economic transformation of England coincided with the movement of independence in the American colonies and the creation of the nation-state in the French revolution. Accordingly, the word “modern” also evokes associations with the democratization of societies, especially the destruction of inherited privilege and the declaration of equal rights of citizenship.

Social stratification and political power

Contemporary studies of political power have often been based on the belief that the major determinants in the struggle for power may be ascertained by analyzing the social stratification of a society. This belief is supported by the following series of more or less tacit assumptions: The ideas and actions of men are conditioned by their social and economic position in society. When large number of individuals occupy a comparable social position, they may be expected to think and act alike. They are likely to share social and economic interests which are promoted—in competition or conflict with other social groups—through political organization and interest-representation. Hence, a study of politics should be concerned with the social composition of the members and leaders of different political organizations; this kind of knowledge will provide a clue to the power which such organizations can exert and to the political goals which their leaders are likely to pursue.I wish to examine the relation between stratification and politics in four respects:(1) How did Marx deal with the problem of social stratification and political power?(2) What insight into the relation between stratification and politics can be gained from retrospective investigations?(3) Does a knowledge of social stratification enable us to understand the development of totalitarian movements and their conquest of power?

Social Mobility and Occupational Career Patterns II. Social Mobility

The Oakland, California, labor-market study reinforces the findings of other studies that social mobility largely goes on within manual and nonmanual occupations rather than between them. A majority of 935 respondents, however, have held occupations in both categories at some time in their careers, though most shifts were temporary. The study also indicates that mobility into the nonmanual group on the part of manual workers is largely movement into self-employment.

Compliant behavior and individual personality.

Propositions in sociology focus on what is true of large numbers of individuals, considered as social groups. Propositions in psychiatry focus on what is true of all men, while the underlying therapeutic evidence always deals with wath is true of the individual. Psychiatric interpretations of collective behavior presuppose a nonexistent integration between the individual and conventional behavior patterns. But the experience of the Nazi regime suggests that people submit to social pressures regardless of their character structure. The mores and folkways of a society are the challenge with which people cope emotionally in a variety of ways.

Social status and social structure : a re-examination of data and interpretations

x < rE HAVE examined the subjective meaning of social class in a VV variety of contexts. We now turn to a more explicit consideration v * of the interrelation between subjective and objective aspects of social class. Warners analysis of a strike in the shoe industry of Yankee City enables us to examine this facet of the problem. A trade union was able to vvin a strike against the major industry of the community, and in so doing gain the support of almost all the workers and of many business men as well. Three volumes were devoted to an analysis of lower-upper class status distinctions, but in the fourth we are shown how this industrial dispute created a solidarity across status lines. This unexpected solidarity is explained by refemng to the shift in the ownership and the control of the shoe industry from Yankee City to Boston and New York.

Social Stratification and the Political Community

In the developing areas of the world new class-relations emerge, as one after another country adopts democratic institutions and initiates industrial growth. In the ‘developing areas’ of Europe a comparable process took place since the French Revolution and during much of the nineteenth century. This essay seeks to enhance our understanding of the modern problem by a re-examination of the European experience with special reference to the relation of social stratification and the political community in the nation-state (i).

Social Mobility and Occupational Career Patterns I. Stability of Jobholding

The job histories of 935 respondents in Oakland, California, reveal that the majority of them have had unstable occupational careers. The findings cast doubt on the assumption that present occupational position is a relatively permanent measure of position in the social hierarchy.

Political Sociology: An essay with special reference to the development of research in the United States of America and Western Europe

i. Department of Sociology and Social Institutions, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. The names are listed alphabetically. The two authors assume equal responsibility for this issue of Current Sociology. A generation ago it was still fashionable to debate whether or not sociology was a general or a special social science. Today, specialization of empirical research has progressed so far that the remaining &dquo;generalists&dquo; are few in number, while ever new fields of &dquo;special study&dquo; are added to the discipline. Political sociology is one of these recent additions. The label is perhaps more novel than the field, since many classic studies in political sociology, such as those of Tocqueville, Bryce, Michels and Weber, came before this period of specialization. But the name was adopted to designate a series of studies which came into prominence in the early 193os and which reflect the social and political upheavals brought about by the Communist revolution, the rise of Fascism and the second world war.

State, Legitimation and “Civil Society”

The concept “civil society” has become a polemical slogan opposed to Communist Party “dictatorship.” Anglo-American in origin, this concept has been translated into German as Zivilgesellschaft and should not be confused with bürger-liche Gesellschaft. The following attempts a conceptual clarification for an easier grasp of contemporary developments, with special emphasis on Germany. “Civil society” is usually brought into relation with the state, which in Max Webers definition combines the monopoly of power with its legitimacy: “A compulsory political organization with continuous operations (politischer Anstaltsbetrieb) will be called a ‘state’ insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order.”

La Sociologie politique

L’expression « sociologie politique » a ete employee pour designer une s6rie d’etudes qui ont commence a prendre une place importante peu apr6s 193o et qui refl6tent, par consequent, les bouleversements sociaux et politiques lies au fascisme, au communisme et a la deuxième guerre mondiale; toutefois, les 6tudes classiques en la mati6re (par exemple, celles de Tocqueville, Bryce, Weber et Michels) sont ant6rieures à ce mouvement. L’attention croissante accord6e aux techniques de la recherche empirique a 6galement donn6 une forte impulsion a la specialisation dans ce domaine. La sociologie politique comprend les 6tudes sur le comportement electoral au sein des collectivites et de la nation, sur la concentration du pouvoir politique, sur les ideologies politiques, sur les partis politiques et autres groupements