Followings are the different approaches to the understanding of social structure

Followings are the different approaches to the understanding of social structure:-

1. Structuralism:

Structuralism is a catchall term for a set of explanatory approaches or paradigms in the social sciences that emphasize the causal force of the relations among elements in a system or of emergent properties of their patterning. The character of the elements themselves (beyond what conditions their relations) is viewed as arbitrary and of no explanatory bearing.

Various structural approaches have at times been popular in linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Structuralism of this kind had a deep impact on Marxism and it was developed by the French Philosopher Louis Althusser.

He asserted the total separation between ideology and science and read it in the works of Marx calling it as epistemological break. Structuralism also left a deep impact in psychoanalysis particularly in the work of Jacques Lacan.

The present times have been characterised by a major revolt against structuralism in all these forms. Philosophers have called into question the assumptions and striving of structuralists to constitute a social science in the natural science model. Post-structuralists have highlighted the historical and framework-relative character of the categories employed in social sciences and their inability to be universalized.

Hermeneutics argues how communication is primarily bound to cultural ambiences and deconstructionists expose the assumptions underlying a position and ask the possible outcomes if those assumptions are reversed.

There is a great return of the subject as the seat of consciousness and deliberate pursuit. Structures to the extent they are acknowledged at all art primarily seen as the bites of the constitution of the self rather than makers of the self.

2. Functionalism-

Functionalists, sometimes called as structural-functionalists, underplay individual human initiatives and prefer social structures. The most important representatives of this trend are Emile Durkheim, A.R. Radcliffe Brown and Talcott Parsons.

They see social structures as external to individual actors. These structures vary from one society to the other and largely explain the similarity and differences between one society and another. The behaviour of individuals in social life is to be explained with them in view.

They emphasize careful scrutiny of social facts and identifying the patterns of interaction holding them together. They see in society a normative order that assigns duties and responsibilities, prevents deviant behaviour and ensures value consensus.

3. Marxian-

Marxists have emphasised class-structure as the key to understanding societies. Classes are formed on the basis of the relation of social agents to the means of production and to social produce. In Marxist understanding of class-structure there is an overt emphasis on economic relations. It is expressed in the metaphor of ‘base’ and ‘superstructures’.

While the economy constitutes the base, the political, cultural, ideological and legal spheres form the superstructure. The class structure of a society primarily rests on the relation between two basic classes and the role that other classes play is marked by these basic classes. In a capitalist society, for instance, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the basic classes. There might be other classes such as the peasantry, craftsmen, professionals, landlords etc. but the role that these classes can play is demarcated by the basic classes.

4. Weberian:

Max Weber emphasised a multi-dimentional approach to understand social structures. He attempted to integrate structure and agency, material and normative dimensions. He highlighted the role of the knowing subject and did not see him/her as passive receptacles of the operation of the social structures.

Max Weber distinguished between Power and Authority is legitimate power. Legitimate authority involves an element of voluntary compliance. He identified three sources of authority: traditional, legal-rational and charismatic. Traditional authority is descriptive and inherited; legal-rational authority is based on calculability, intellectualisation and impersonal logic of goal-directed action; and charismatic authority is extraordinary personal power identified in and with a particular individual.

Weber preferred the State, and particularly the bureaucracy as the fountain of power. Power represents action likely to succeed even against opposition and resistance of those to whom it is applied. Bureaucracy embodies legal-rational authority which he saw as undermining other forms of authority such as traditional and charismatic.

He thought that the process of rationalisation, understood as calculability, intellectualisation and impersonal and goal-directed action, are increasingly overtaking human activity. This affects all institutions. He uses the metaphor of iron-cage to denote a situation where concern for means and instruments drives out the concern for human ends.