Ralf Dahrendorf's dialectical conflict theory

1. Dahrendorf and his works

Ralf Dahrendorf (1929–2009) was a German-British sociologist and politician, later Director of the London School of Economics and a member of the House of Lords. His theory is set out in Soziale Klassen und Klassenkonflikt in der industriellen Gesellschaft (1957), revised in English as Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (1959), and in the essays “Out of Utopia: Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis” (American Journal of Sociology, 1958) and “Toward a Theory of Social Conflict” (1958). The label “dialectical” is Jonathan Turner’s: Dahrendorf’s model is one in which every structure generates its own opposition, which produces change, which produces a new structure.

2. The two faces of society

In “Out of Utopia” Dahrendorf argued that Parsons’s social system resembled the utopias of literature: stable, harmonious, without history. Society has two faces, and sociology needs two models.

Neither is complete; but for explaining change the coercion model is the one required. He did not reject functionalism outright; he treated the two as complementary.

3. Critique of Marx

Dahrendorf argued that capitalism had changed since Marx wrote, in ways that falsified the property-based theory of class:

• Decomposition of capital: the joint-stock company separated ownership (shareholders) from control (managers).
• Decomposition of labour: the working class split into skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled with different interests.
• Growth of a new middle class of salaried employees.
• Increased social mobility and the extension of citizenship rights.
• Institutionalisation of class conflict through unions, collective bargaining and labour courts.

He called this post-capitalist society. Classes still exist, but they rest on authority, not ownership.

4. Authority and imperatively coordinated associations

Following Weber, Dahrendorf distinguishes power (attached to the personality of an individual) from authority (legitimate power attached to a social position or role). Authority is found in every imperatively coordinated association (ICA, from Weber’s Herrschaftsverband): a factory, a university, a church, the State, a trade union. In every ICA:

1. positions are divided into those that command and those that obey: a dichotomy, not a gradation;
2. authority is a zero-sum relationship: what one side has, the other lacks;
3. the two sets of positions have opposed interests: the dominant in preserving the existing distribution, the subordinate in changing it.

A person may be in authority in one ICA (a manager at work) and subordinate in another (a member of a congregation). Society is a plurality of ICAs, not one great class divide.

5. From latent interests to conflict groups

• Latent interests: interests attached to positions, unconscious, expected of occupants whether or not they know them.
• Manifest interests: latent interests that have become conscious goals.
• Quasi-groups: aggregates of occupants of positions with identical latent interests; the recruiting field of conflict groups.
• Interest groups: organised groups with a structure, programme and members, pursuing manifest interests (a union, a party). These are the real agents of conflict.

Conditions of organisation

Whether a quasi-group becomes an interest group depends on:

1. Technical conditions: leadership (a founder, an organiser) and an ideology or charter.
2. Political conditions: freedom of association; a repressive State prevents organisation.
3. Social conditions: geographical concentration, ease of communication, and recruitment patterns that bring members together.

6. Intensity and violence of conflict

Dahrendorf separates two variables.

Intensity (the energy and involvement of the parties) is greater when:

• conflicts in different ICAs are superimposed (the same people are subordinate at work, in politics and in religion) rather than dissociated;
• the distribution of authority coincides with the distribution of other rewards (income, prestige);
• social mobility between dominant and subordinate positions is low.

Violence (the weapons chosen, from discussion to civil war) is greater when:

• conditions of organisation are absent;
• subordinates suffer absolute rather than relative deprivation;
• conflict is not regulated. Effective regulation requires recognition of the conflict as legitimate, organisation of the parties, and agreed rules of the game (conciliation, mediation, arbitration).

The structural change that results may be rapid or gradual, radical or limited, and varies with the intensity and violence of the conflict.

7. Criticism

• Authority dichotomy is too simple: in large organisations authority runs in many grades.
• Mirror image of functionalism: Peter Weingart and Turner argue it shares functionalism’s structural, macro approach and simply reverses its emphasis.
• Origins of authority are left unexplained, and economic inequality is underplayed.
• Not fully dialectical: it does not explain how the new structure emerges from the old.

How this is examined

“Discuss the dialectical conflict theory of Ralph Dahrendorf” (10 marks, October 2023 and April 2022): start with “Out of Utopia” and the two faces, the critique of Marx, ICAs and authority, quasi-groups and interest groups, conditions of organisation, intensity and violence, criticism. The six-mark note (August 2024) compresses this to authority, ICAs, the move from latent to manifest interests, and regulation.