Sociology

Sociology

Dahrendorf conflict theory

Ralf Dahrendorf was a German-British sociologist, political scientist, philosopher and liberal politician. He was an expert on the class division in modern society. He was considered an influential thinker of his generation. He served as director in many leading universities of the world which includes London Scholl of Economics, University of Oxford and St. Antony College. He also served as professor for sociology in many universities of Germany and United Kingdome. He also served as research professor in the research center of Berlin Social Science (Douglas, 2008).

During his life time, he served a lot in the field of sociology and developed conflict theory. This theory was the combination of Marxism and structural functionalism. According to Dahrendorf, capitalism has been through many changes after Marx developed the conflict theory. According to the new capitalism system which is also referred as post capitalism; it is characterized by fluid system of power relations and multiple class structure. This system involves around the complex system of inequality. From Dahrendorf's point of view post, capitalist society has institutionalized conflicts of class at economic and states spheres (Douglas, 2008).

The example of this can be taken as now class conflicts have been familiar to collective bargaining, unions, legislation and court systems. So in short now the class conflict of Marx is no longer relevant. The conflict theory of Dahrendorf is almost an opposite view of functionalism. According to the conflict theory, every society is subject to change on some points. In every social system, there is a conflict and dissension. There are also many societal elements that contribute in conflict and dissension (Douglas, 2008).

It is believed that the orders come from the higher level and power is very significant factor in the social order. Dahrendorf believes that consensus and conflict theory both are necessary because both reflects the parts of society. Conflict theory focuses on conflict interest that holds the society. on the other hand, consensus theory focuses on value integration in the society. His motive was not to combine the two theories he only wanted to understand that how conflict work in societies. According to him the theory of Marx can be updated according to the current requirements and situation of the world. He also rejected some of the aspects of Marx's like two class systems (William, 2009).

The world keeps on changing, so the theories also need to change according to the modernity of the world. Marx was focused on the property ownership, but then afterwards the joint stock companies started to take place. the theory was not focused on the control of economic production in the modern world. Dahrendorf took this thing from a different point of view. According to him authority is related to positions and not with individuals. He also focuses on the role of authority in the societies. In this, he saw the involving of superordinates and subordinates trying to occupy the positions in the societies. This is also called as imperative association of coordinates. The conflict theorists says that coercion ...