We shall discuss the ideas of Durkheim, Tocqueville and pluralists on the nature of the state – civil society relationship. In sociology, there are two broad schools of thought:

• Conflict School – emphasises politics of divisions and exploitation (as evident in the works of Marx and Weber)
• Consensus School - - emphasises politics of harmony and unity; it argues that permanence and stability in society are achieved through social institutions.

Durkheim, Tocqueville and pluralists share the same conviction that power is dispersed between multiple actors, and the state is less influential in its ability to assert control on civil society. Social order is negotiated and arrived through consensus rather than conflict.

For Marx, capitalism is inherently evil and needs to be overthrown. For Durkheim, society is a moral order with a system of norms and values. Society is threaten by social change; i.e., modernisation causing fragmentation among groups, and individualisation. Durkheim argues that social institutions can rejuvenate the moral order.

There are several elements to society:

i) social norms and laws guide behaviour and thinking in the larger society; however, rules have become fragmented and weaker.

ii) institutions (such as education and religion) guide norms and behaviour in the society. For instance, education not only teaches reading, writing and arithmetic, but also the basic rules of society and discipline. Religion is another significant institution that provides shared values. The failure of institutions to ‘educate’ leads to high rates of deviance.

iii) symbols and rituals: common symbols (e.g., flags, national songs and special historical or mythical figures) unite and sustain societies; and rituals (e.g., ceremonies to mark the end of war or independence) invoke and remind people of symbols, and indeed the regular and periodic coming together of people helps to celebrate themselves as a nation.

iv) division of labour acts an integrative function, cementing and solidifying people together – society as an organ, in which the parts work together to function for the greater whole.

State as an institution represents the whole society; seeks to produce overall agreement and consensus; embodies the ‘general will’; and articulates norms and values of underlying social order.

Durkheim does not regard the power and authority of the state as legitimate nor acting on behalf of any class, but argues that society is the basis of authority, and the state represents its basic operations. Thus, to oppose the state is to act deviantly, opposing the norms of society. The state acts as a police force, ensuring that norms and values are obeyed.

Given the dis-integration of society, the state can act to re-integrate society. However, the state can come to have its own purposes.

How was equality and democracy possible in the US? What were the social and political institutions responsible for this?

• suffrage – equal capacity to influence political order;
• abolition of primogeniture – no inheritance of wealth and privilege;
• court system – all treated with treats and dignity;
• Federal system of government – institutional equality among the states; and
• The Constitution – basic principles (such as right to assembly) enshrined into law.

i) freedom from oppression (particularly from the nobility and the manufactured class). Whereas Rousseau felt that all persons are born free, but are in chains, this was not the case in the US, where all were, initially, immigrants.

ii) voluntary associations – freedom was not sufficient to secure equality. Rather voluntary associations were essential:

• people act with others to secure their freedom; and
• groups engage in causes for political ends.

A strong social infrastructure of voluntary associations (such as political groups, social groups, cooking clubs, women’s organisations, etc) emerged. All these organisations treated their members as equals, and organisations could express their opinions in equal and same measure.

iii) free press and freedom of speech – essential for democracy and equality.

i) ethnicity – inequalities between ethnic groups (e.g., Native and black Americans)

ii) industry and manufacturing can create divisions among people through division of labour, occupational groups and social classes.

iii) equality is its own weakness: all policies are governed by the majority (as all are equal) so that the majority rules, yet this is the ‘tyranny of the majority’, as the concerns of the minorities are ignored, neglected and unheard and not listened to.

Neo-consensualists (such as Lipset, Parsons and Bellah) draw on the ideas of Durkheim and Tocqueville, in particular the concept of civil society, civil institutions, civil religion and civic activities. Recent contributions includes works from Coleman and Putnam, whose ideas on ‘social capital’ and ‘trust’ have greatly further understanding of how governments can become more effective by incorporating and developing the civil society.

In the post-1945 period, political sociologists sympathetic to liberalism attempted to restate and update its central tenets. Pluralism aims to describe actual power relationships in liberal society, as well as normatively approving of supposedly democratic nature of these relationships. Pluralists argue that power is not dominated by a minority, but instead power is spread throughout society, with no one sectional interest dominant, and with each power source being balanced by a countervailing force. For pluralists, the political process in liberal societies cannot be reduced to questions of the ownership of the means of production (as in Marxism) or to an unequal distribution of psychological characteristics, or organisational skills (as in elite theory).

Dahl argues that a democratic system, with a free civil society based on basic rights, allows for all interests to organise politically, thereby ensuring that no-one group always prevails. As in liberal thought, the state is seen both as a mediator between clashes of interests, and as a reflection of the general consensus that underpins civil society. Pluralism also shares with liberalism the view that civil society must be free from excessive interference from the state, which should at all times respond to the needs and demands that originate within civil society.

Dahl does not claim, however, that in a plural system the majority rules. Instead, polyarchy prevails: in a liberal democracy, government by minority (as in oligarchies) is replaced by government by minorities. Pluralists stress the importance of political participation in a network of groups and associations.

However, classical pluralism is criticised for being an ideological justification for the inequalities of the capitalist system, rather than a realistic account of the relationship between the state and civil society. First, social changes in the 1960s exposed the lack of consensus assumed by pluralists to underpin political systems like the US. Many social movements (such as feminists, minority ethnicity groups, ecologists) campaigned for greater inclusion. To be sure, the political system was dominated by white, middle-class males.

Second, pluralism is criticised for underplaying the inequality between interest groups, particularly in regard to the kind of economic resources necessary to exercise power. Business and financial interests possess the economic and institutional structures to organise themselves into influential groups. The business groups and professional associations possess resources and skills (such as technical advice) with which to trade with the state. Excluded groups lack these tradeable skills, and therefore of little interest to powerful economic and political forces.

Neo-pluralists have recognised the structural constraints upon the participation of certain groups, and the inequality between the interest groups, especially when it comes to economic issues. However, the neo-pluralists maintain that there is still a degree of plurality on other policy areas.

Elite pluralists have developed a position that is close in some respects to the democratic elitism of Schumpeter. Elite pluralists argue that liberal society is democratic because even though elites do dominate individual parties and pressure groups, and despite the fact that some elites are more powerful than others, there is no single coherent ruling class. Elites are therefore forced to compromise with other powerful groups, and to seek support from as wide a social base as possible to lend democratic weight to their interests. In addition, the state is seen as fragmented into various ‘policy communities’ through which influential interest groups can help shape policy in consultation with government and bureaucratic elites.

However, elite pluralism is criticised by advocates of direct participation, who argue for participation by all members of society as the only way to guarantee that all voices in civil society are heard. Also pluralism does not place policy-making into the context of prevailing ideologies of civil societies. They also fail to give sufficient consideration to the constraints that economic conditions place upon the options of policy communities – constraints that may in times of crisis restrict or negate the influence of less powerful groups.

The principal weakness of Marxism, elitism and pluralism is their treatment of the state. Pluralism suffers from being society-centred theory and Marxism fails to give sufficient weight to the state as an actor in its own right – Marxism can be described as a society-centred or class-centred theory. Elitism acknowledges the importance of the state, but because of its concentration upon the supposed individualised nature of elites, it has seriously underplayed important issues such as the state’s role as an institution of violence, its relationship to economic forces, and the interaction between states. Weberian ideas can be regarded as state-centred theory. Nevertheless, the state requires more theoretical attention.

However, this does not mean that we should shift from society-centred theories to purely state-centred theories. Rather, we should strive to achieve a balance approach in understanding and explaining the nature of the state – civil society relationship.