Note: This is the first of a two-part article; the second part will be published a week after this one. This begins by looking at social theory than is built off of a structural paradigm, and I argue it is inadequate; the second part suggests an approach that will explain social change from below. While this is perhaps written more formally than many are used to, I believe with a little effort, most will be able to understand my argument.
Two great waves of social movements from the “bottom” of societies have shaken the world since 1986, including significant protest movements in the United States and Europe (see Scipes, 2022; see also Bevins, 2023).
Although suggesting otherwise, mainstream sociology has no way to describe theoretically the social movements that have emerged from the “bottom” of various societies to do the shaking. And I want to take advantage of this situation to challenge the theoretical basis of established social theory in general.
This article is an effort both to discuss the limitations of established macrosociological theory, which make it impossible to understand theoretically this global-wide upsurge, and to propose a processural model of society called “Polyconflictualism,” which arguably can theoretically explain the rebellions and their resulting consequences, as well as larger macrosociological processes.
In short, as will be seen herein, this paper is a challenge to the structural-based models of society on which mainstream sociology has been built over the past 100 or so years.
ESTABLISHED MACROSOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Sociology is a theoretically based discipline so the issues at hand are critical.
Sociological understandings are said to be based on established theory, in a dialectical process that leads from gathering data on social developments to analyzing what is going on and why, over time, patterns emerge, gathering more data, seeing if the analysis still holds, gathering more data, etc., until sociologists develop theory that allows them to predict accurately future behavior. And then, additional data is gathered to confirm or falsify (reject) previous findings and the theory based on them.
Although writing specifically on development theory, what Jan Nederveen Pieterse says applies to theory in general:
Theory is the critique, revision, and summation of past knowledge in the form of general propositions and the fusion of diverse views and partial knowledges in general frameworks of explanation.
Theory is a meeting place of ideology, politics, and explanation. Framing, defining the field, the rank order of questions, are the business of theory.
Theory is a distillation of reflections on practices in conceptual language so as to connect with past knowledge (Nederveen Pieterse, 2010: 2-3).
Sociology theorizes at three different levels of society: micro, meso and macro—most restrictive and most constrained to the most expansive—yet the discussion herein is focused only on the macrosociological or big-picture level; after all, in this paper, we’re trying to understand developments on a global scale. This is not to say that the analysis herein cannot be extended to either or both of the other levels, but for this article, it’s limited to the macro level.
Macrosociological theory should be required to do at least two things—and perhaps more—but these two things seem essential: (1) a theory needs to accurately represent how any society “operates” on a day-to-day basis—how do people decide what they are going to do in relation to others (not only individual people, but natural, physical, and social environments as well), both those similar to and different from themselves, yet present in a commonly-defined physical area, generally in the same social order?—and how do people respond to changes in context, whether actual or perceived?; and (2) it needs to allow for the possibility of social change and describe how people come to accept, modify, or reject such changes. In other words, any theory should be tested for its ability to accomplish both things, and it seems important that theory should be required to do these two things.
However, to do this, we must recognize that not everyone sees the world the same way; as discussed below, there are at least two major ways that people understand the world—and most people are not consciously aware of these different understandings. People individually gather information and knowledge through their experiences—generally these are inchoate and unsystematic processes that develop as they proceed through life—and act upon understandings of “society” that they unconsciously assemble in their minds. These understandings are communicated to others at various times in their lives; these understandings can be congruent or contradictory from one another. These unconscious assemblages are not necessarily wrong; they are generally unsystematic, and they are not usually subject to conscious systematization. In many cases, they remain inchoate. And I argue that most people assume that everyone else—especially those who live in a similar social situation—sees the world similarly to them.
Sociology, as an intellectual tradition and current discipline, tries to organize thinking about social processes and systematizes such. It overwhelmingly focuses on group interactions and social processes at any one time, although it tries to recognize how changes in social context affect these social relationships. In my opinion, the best sociology is that which recognizes the historicity of the social processes so that one can understand how they have developed over time, joining with contemporary developments and, ultimately, suggesting how they might develop in the future; sociology focuses on more than just contemporary events.
To help enable all of this, sociology has created macrosociological theory to explain how social processes “work” in the broadest, most expansive arenas of study; to date, this has generally been understood to be the nation-state, although developments since the 1960s have included regionalization and globalization (Nederveen Pieterse, 2010: 1; see also, among numerous others, McCoy, 2017, 2021; Bevins, 2023; Scipes, 2023), expanding our respective fields of study.
Theories or Models of Society?
There are said to be two macrosociological “theories” by which mainstream sociologists understand particular societies: structural functionalism and conflict theory. In reality, there is not one structural functional theory, nor is there just one conflict theory. In fact, this author thinks these “theories” are better described as different models of society, suggestions to help us to understand how a society generally operates at a theoretical level, and not specific theories as to how they actually operate. Accordingly, herein, I’m going to replace the word “theory” with the term “model (s) of society.”
I argue that understanding these models of society is crucial. The importance of recognizing that there are different models is the effect on our understanding: if one views a social situation through one model, it will give you a different understanding of what you are seeing than if you use the other model.
A quick example: if one is driving home and the road is blocked by protestors (for whatever reason), how one understands social relations within society will affect how she/he views the protest: one using a structural functionalist model—seeing society as basically “one big happy family,” where no “group” has more power than any other—will tend to see the protest at very least as a “disruption,” something undesirable. Contrarily, one who uses a structural conflict model—seeing society being unequal and with one “group” having power over others—and supports those in the less-powerful position, will tend to appreciate the protestors: right on! Again, the model chosen will effect one’s understanding.
As said, sociology has developed two general theoretical approaches at the macrosociological level: structural functional and structural conflict models. Because their differences are generally recognized, we begin with differences and then consider similarities, which are almost never recognized. It is argued here that both must recognized as “unities.”
Differences
While a structural functional model generally sees any society as a unified whole, they see it comprised of a number of socially constructed categories, and these categories have roughly comparable decision-making power within each society. Thus, a structural functional model foregrounds equality and cooperation in social relations between these categories.
Each societal member can be placed into at least one category; because it sees society as a “unity,” no one in any society exists outside of one of these categories.
This model argues that each of these categories serves a particular “function” in society, such as the health function, the education function, the political function, the economic function, etc. The argument for the importance of each of these functions is “shown” by their long period of existence in a society; obviously each category meets some kind of social need. Within any particular society, these categories are seen as generally equal in social importance; accordingly, no one category predominates. Thus, since each category has roughly equal social decision-making power, the concept of power is generally downplayed or ignored in these analyses. In this model, social change is very slow, as people in the categories across the social order must come to general consensus before change can take place.
A structural conflict model is based on a radically different perspective: it also sees society as a unified whole but, instead of seeing each of the categories serving a social good and being basically equal, as do the structural functionalists, a conflict model sees societies being structured unequally between those with power and resources, and those without; this is a have/have-not model, and social well-being is limited to those more powerful. Accordingly, the interests of one “category” are seen as antagonistic to those of the other; therefore, they are said to be conflictual. Social change can be rapid. The first great theorist from this perspective was Karl Marx, who analyzed society on the basis of “class struggle” between two social “classes,” the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, theorizing that an analysis of the production relations and the “class struggle” emerging from within any social order was key to understanding it.
However, while Marx’ theoretical analysis (and its various iterations) predominated in critical social theory circles for approximately 100 years, it came under sustained critical challenge in the late 1960s-early ‘70s. Others, also using a structural conflict model, argued there were better perspectives from which to understand any society. First, some theorists argued that understanding race relations was key to understanding a society (Carmichael and Hamilton, 1967, basing their understanding off the work of W.E.B. DuBois; see Zuckerman, ed., 2004). Then, an even more sustained challenge came from feminists, who argued that gender relations were key to understanding a society (Firestone, 1970; see Ferguson, 2017). And finally, an international approach—beginning with dependency theory and then surpassed by the more sophisticated World Systems Theory of Immanuel Wallerstein (Moghadam, 2020: 4)—based on imperial relations between developed and developing countries was advanced. So, the debate that emerged from the 1960s was not between those who saw society as being generally equal or unequal—over time, that was generally conceded to be the latter—but over which set of conflictual relations were primarily the most important in trying to understand an entire society.
The problem with these structural conflict approaches is that while each had its strengths and weaknesses, none could adequately explain all of the existing power relations in any society, although each suggested they could do so. Theorists then got creative, and started combining these approaches to overcome these weaknesses, so we got socialist feminism or feminist socialism (depending on the author and the aspect being prioritized), and Patricia Hill Collins combined production, racial and gender analyses in the first edition of her path-breaking Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 1990); by her second edition, she had all four—production, racial, gender and imperial relations—combined for their overall explanatory power (Collins, 2000).
The latest iteration in this process has been the theory of intersectionality. This theory recognizes that there is not just one form of oppression, so that we must consider all forms of oppressive relations and their interactions, and recognize that the “key contradiction” varies by situation (Crenshaw, 1989; see also Coaston, 2019).
The problem not addressed, however, is that each of these approaches accepts a unified relationship between the established social order and the responses to it. However, this “structural unification” cannot account for people who are dissatisfied with the social order and who insist on going beyond the limits of the established social order.
What about Max Weber? While Weber is recognized for his concept of verstehen (roughly, to understand), he, too, builds off a structural model, although he gives it his significant cultural twist. Writing later than Marx and seeing particularly Western societies as developing considerably further beyond Marx’ two “classes,” his is a more sophisticated approach than is Marx’. Yet Weber and his followers run into the problem of how does his three-category model of class-status-party operate in reality? Those whose sociology is based on Weber’s work can provide excellent analyses, but they cannot adequately provide a theoretical understanding of how the social order, in fact, “operates.”
Weber, nonetheless, contributed a concept central to this discussion: power. According to Weber, “In general, we understand by ‘power’ the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participants in this action” (Gerth and Mills, eds., 1946: 180). This issue is further discussed below.
Nothing said above is terribly controversial, as a look at almost any Introductory to Sociology textbook will confirm, although varying on details. However, while sociology has long recognized the differences between structural functionalist and structural conflict models of society, it has tended to ignore their similarities.
It is their similarities that allow them to be placed in a common, structural paradigm.
Similarities
Both of these models share three commonalities: (1) they see that all members of a social order can be placed in one “socially-constructed category”—whether any one of the functionalist categories, or larger social categories such as capitalist/worker, male/female, whites/people of color, heterosexual/homosexual, etc.; (2) they see one particular relationship between two categories as primarily determining the entire social order; and (3) that this key relationship is rigid and holds in all times and all places.
Social categories are therefore crucial to both of these models because specific location within the social structure is said to determine subsequent social behavior of people in any category. Thus, placement of individuals and ultimately groups into particular social categories is critical, making this a categorical approach.
Accordingly, further attention must be focused on these socially constructed categories. To be seen as viable, it is argued that they must meet three requirements; if any one is not met, then the concept is invalidated. To “work” as a social category, all members must (a) share a common world view; (b) they must always treat other category members with respect; and (c) they must always act in solidarity with other category members. Without any one of these—much less all three—the category is exploded, invalidated. To continue….
Let’s take the category of “women,” and do a simple thought experiment. Do all women share a common world view? The answer is obvious: no. Do all women always treat other women with respect? Unfortunately, no. Do all women always act in solidarity with other category members? Obviously not.
But what about other categories? Do these hold for African Americans? For LGBQT+ members? For disabled people? Once we recognize that there must be some commonality for a category to “work,” we see that none of them work; the concept of socially constructed social categories is invalid, and therefore, is negated: the theories which are based on these categories simply are not valid.
And so, to take this further, even if the categories were to hold—for sake of argument—so what? Sociologists have “morphed” the term “describe” into “determine.” In other words, it is legitimate to describe a bunch of people who share some commonalities: Latinos, for example, can be delineated from “Anglos” (whites) and from African Americans; that’s legitimate. However, it is not legitimate to argue that all people in a particular category—in this case, Latinos—act as a result of their particular categorization; in other words, I argue that categorization does not determine behavior: if one Latino scratches a hip at 8:00 am, this does not mean that all Latinos will scratch their hip at 8:00 am. A simple “example,” perhaps, but an essential one: categorization does not determine behavior.
The point being made here is that any model of society based on socially constructed categories is invalid; the concept simply cannot hold the weight.
To synthesize: neither structural functionalist nor structural conflict models can accurately represent collective human behavior in a social order because they are based on social categories that, once examined, fail to do what they claim to be able to do; as said, they simply cannot hold the weight. They both fail requirement #1, presented above, that a macrosociological theory needs to be able to accurately represent how any society “operates” on a day-to-day basis—how do people decide what they are going to do in relation to others, both those similar to and different from themselves, yet present in a commonly-defined physical area in the same general social order, and how do people respond to changes in context, whether actual or perceived?
Further, I argue that neither model can adequately explain social change—see requirement #2. While they can explain how men have dominated women throughout history; they cannot explain the processes that have taken place in social orders around the world since the late 1960s-early ‘70s, by which women have become generally—although not yet completely—equal with men; and similarly, they cannot explain the processes by which people of color globally have changed their positions vis-à-vis white-skinned people. Nor can either explain how people come to accept, modify, or reject such changes.
So, it is argued here—whether you see the inadequacies of social categories on which these established theories are based or you do not accept the idea that social location determines behavior, or both—that neither model in the structural paradigm can adequately represent social behavior within a society/social order, nor can they adequately explain social change, which includes the massive social changes referred to in the beginning of this paper that have taken place since the mid-1980s, much less over a longer period of time. Might there be another model of society/paradigm that can better do these things?
To be continued in Part 2, which will be published one week after Part 1.
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All URLs were operational as of August 18, 2025.
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