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His approach does, however, bear some principle limits of functionalism<\/b> in explaining social processes (of which conflict is a central one): functionalist theory is ahistorical in the sense that it is unable to account for social change other than by functional breakdown or external interference.<\/p>\n
This was the main criticism Ralf Dahrendorf raised against the functionalist approach to conflict in particular, and against static structural-functionalist models of society in general (Dahrendorf 1986: 272). It was Dahrendorf, who in his scathing criticism of what he saw as utopian blindness to social change, brought back power, rule and, essentially, the competitive rule-making and rule-breaking human being into a theory of conflict-driven differentiation of social society<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\u201eWenn organische Systeme aufh\u00f6ren zu funktionieren, h\u00f6ren sie auf organische Systeme zu sein, wenn soziale Systeme aufh\u00f6ren zu funktionieren, werden sie andere soziale Systeme. In diesem Sinn ist Wandel die Essenz der sozialen Realit\u00e4t, Stabilit\u00e4t ihr pathologischer Sonderfall\u201c (Dahrendorf 1986: 240).<\/p>\n
To Dahrendorf the normal state of society was one of dispute over norms, competition for resources and conflict about the best organisational answers to existing problems, all rooted in one universal aspect of the human condition: the fact of uncertainty<\/b>. To him, sociology that seeks to explain social cohesion in consensus and equilibrium was looking for an imaginary utopia, resembling the stasis of a totalitarian police state. Dahrendorf therefore explicitly disregarded research into what keeps society together; rather, he was concerned with what drives society on (Dahrendorf 1979: 109).<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
A number of authors picked up from where Coser and Dahrendorf ended the discussion on the universal function (Coser) or principle constitutive force (Dahrendorf) of conflict for society or, respectively, for the process of social change.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
One line of thought seeks to place conflict firmly in the fabric of a very special type of politically constituted society: modern, complex, rule of law based liberal democracies<\/b>. Authors like Albert Hirschman, Helmut Dubiel and Marcel Gauchet share, if not explicitly, Dahrendorf\u2019s main concerns by questioning the functionality of normative or moral consensus<\/b> as social glue of democratic, liberal societies. Rather, they put forward the proposition that through particular ways of institutionalising<\/b> unavoidable social conflict<\/b> as constitutive part of the political and economic system, social cohesion<\/b> is achieved and sustained (cf. Hirschman 1994; Dubiel 1992; Gauchet 1990).<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
The relationship between conflict and institutions is plausible but inconsistent: Conflict can disrupt established relations and fragment society; at the same time conflict can form and connect social units and enable the dynamic adaptation of social order. Institutional rules that inform social interaction can be followed or broken, the latter leading to normative conflicts. Sets of institutional rules can contradict each other and cause conflict. Furthermore, institutions and their distributive consequences for actors, social groups and different strata of society can be questioned and contested.<\/p>\n
Hence, there is a strong and ambivalent relationship<\/b> between these two social phenomena: conflicts make and break institutions; institutions cause and contain conflicts.<\/p>\n
Institution-centred conflict theory predicts that specialised institutions<\/b>, processing a wide range of conflicts via procedures, are conducive to dynamic social order, i.e. makes the institutional framework of society more reliable and hence enables selective change that is not disruptive (does not fragment) society as a whole (cf. Eckert 2004; Z\u00fcrcher 2004; Dubiel 1992).<\/p>\n
According to this theoretical assumption it is not the causes of conflict that explain the impact of conflict on social order, stability and change. Rather, it is a question of specialised institutions that are able to process conflicts from alternative confrontations<\/b> (or: zero sum games) and the denial of the right of the opponent to be party to the conflict, into more predictable, rule based social action<\/b> (Koehler 2013).<\/p>\n
This rule-based mode of conflict processing is what Elwert identified as procedure<\/b> (Elwert 2004), Luhmann demonstrated how it generates legitimacy<\/b> (Luhmann 1983) and Hirschman, calling it the more-or-less approach<\/b> to conflict, argued that it was at the heart of the cohesion observed in democratic liberal modern societies (Hirschman 1994).<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
The model of conflict processing I draw on to approach the problem of social cohesion and change predicts that acts of power manifest in conflicts about the institutional order go a long way to explain institutional change<\/b> (breakdown, transformation and innovation) while the functional output of institutions<\/b> (the problems they solve) are key to explain institutional continuity<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The expectation from the model of conflict processing is that if a wide range of conflicts is processed via specialised institutions \u2013 procedures \u2013 social cohesion as well as adaptive change is best provided. As long as the core social process \u2013 i.e. dispute about the best, most appropriate social order \u2013 follows reliable and accepted rules, non-disruptive and adaptive institutional change is possible. On the other hand the model predicts that dis-embedded conflicts about the institutional setup of social order would tend towards disruption, fragmentation and violence.<\/p>\n
The fundamental problem procedures need to solve is to regulate conflict processing<\/b> within society in a way that reduces the likelihood of the most destructive forms of collective violence and increases social cohesion. If effective conflict processing protects the functionality of other institutions vital for social order then the question arises of what is protecting the specialised institutions from interference by power?<\/b> It is unlikely that such institutions are self-enforcing by definition. If they are only protected by secondary institutions which they enable to exist in the first place (e.g. power administered through hierarchal arrangements called statehood) they are fragile; and if they are self-enforcing only under very specific social, economic and political environments (e.g. secular modern societies with developed market economies governed by a democratic state enforcing the rules of law) they are rare.<\/p>\n
What follows is that external protection<\/b> is a likely requirement to stabilise this inter-institutional relationship over time and beyond the reach of social control. This highlights the role of operational statehood<\/b> for effective societal conflict processing.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eine Schlussfolgerung hieraus f\u00fcr die Debatte \u00fcber den extern unterst\u00fctzten oder herbeigef\u00fchrten Sturz autorit\u00e4rer Regime als Demokratief\u00f6rderung ist, dass ein erfolgreiches Umstellen von struktureller Stabilit\u00e4t durch reine Machthandlungen, die Konfliktaustagung unerbinden, auf dynamische Stabilit\u00e4t durch demokratische Verfahren, die Konfliktaustragung institutionalisieren, nur dann gelingen kann, wenn diese Umstellung extern unterst\u00fctzt und gesch\u00fctzt werden kann (was wiederum nur unter ganz besonderen Voraussetungen m\u00f6glich ist). Das erkl\u00e4rt zu einem erheblichen Teil die unterschiedlichen Wandlungs-, Zerfalls- und Stagnationsprozesse zwischen autorit\u00e4rer Herrschaft, Demokratisierung und B\u00fcrgerkrieg in Lateinamerika, Europa und der Arabischen Welt der letzten drei Jahrzehnte.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> For an introduction into the intellectual history of system focused and actor focused social theory see Schimank 1996: 205ff..<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 OSCE implemented elections in Kosovo, 2001 Zwei Artikel im SPON f\u00fchrten unl\u00e4ngst zu hitzigen Kommentaren auf einer der B\u00f6ll-Stiftung nahe stehenden Facebook-Seite:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[4,31,29,8],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-commentary","tag-conflict","tag-democracy","tag-institutions","tag-intervention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jkoehler.diskstation.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}