Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._4

sized the continuous professional interaction between these institutional leaders and the frequent exchange of top personnel between major corporations, the military, and the executive branch of government. Another factor contributing to the relative homogeneity of the power elite was their common experience at the apex of bureaucratic institutions. The skills, status, and even personality type required for success were similar in each sphere, reflecting their similarity of organizational structure (Mills 1956, p. 15).

The other side of Mills’s conception of the power elite was that of mass society. The same social processes that had concentrated political power had created a society of increasingly fragmented individuals whose lives and interests were shaped for them from above. Information filtered selectively through bureaucratized institutions of mass education and the mass media, which became more susceptible to elite manipulation as they became more centralized. The media emphasized entertainment and consumption over information and critique. Educational institutions had developed into sites of large-scale vocational training rather than havens for the development of critical thought and an informed citizenry necessary for democratic politics (Mills 1956, chap. 13).

Mills’s work became the touchstone for debates about the structure of power in the United States that have continued to this day. Pluralists argue that he exaggerated the unity of functional elites and neglected the influence of the electoral process and interest group competition. From the other direction, neo-Marxist and other class-theo- retical analysts have been critical of the Millsian model for not acknowledging the extent to which political power is shaped by dominant economic interests (see the debates collected in Domhoff and Ballard 1968). A key question in these disputes concerns the degree of elite cohesion. How much consensus (or competition) between elites is required to support an elite (or pluralist) model? What is the extent of elite competition? Is there a hierarchy of elites, with a ruling class or ‘‘power elite’’ on top, or a ‘‘polyarchy’’ (Dahl 1971) of diverse institutional powers? Elite theorists acknowledge that individuals with different skills and constituencies hold leadership positions in a variety of institutions such as prestigious universities, private foundations, major civic organizations,

and the media (see Dye 1995). Pluralists view these institutions as relatively autonomous sources of societal influence. Although one may identify ‘‘strategic elites,’’ or influential leaders, in a variety of fields (Keller 1963), they see no overall cohesion or uniform coordination of policy within a single ruling group. However, those defending an elite perspective argue that disagreements over particular interests occur within a general elite consensus on basic ideology and acceptable policy. Developing Mills’s arguments, elite theorists have studied avariety of coordinating mechanisms that foster elite cohesion, such as private school ties, social networks, shared membership in policy planning organizations, and the general recruitment process in which future leaders are instilled with attitudes conducive to maintaining the existing structure of power (see Prewitt and Stone 1973; Marger 1987; Bottomore 1993; Dye 1995; Domhoff 1998). Some who work in this tradition go further than Mills in emphasizing the prominence of class interests and corporate power over the political process and other institutions in capitalist societies (Miliband 1969; Useem 1983; Domhoff 1990, 1998). Indeed, the distinction between ‘‘elite’’ and ‘‘class ‘‘analysis disappears in many such works (on the similarities and differences, see Marger 1987). From this perspective, prestigious Ivy League universities may harbor intellectuals critical of the existing power structure, that but only those academics with ‘‘acceptable’’ views are selected as advisers to political elites in turn must maintain acceptable levels of business confidence and campaign fi- nance to remain in power.

In a similar vein, all parties agree that in a modern democratic system, the ‘‘elite,’’ however defined, must pay some attention to the ‘‘masses.’’ The question is, How much attention must be paid, and how do public preferences impose themselves on elites? Pluralists hold that the public has a significant influence on elite decision making through voting, public opinion, and the threat of social protest. From a different starting point, some class-based analysts note the role of working class mobilization or the effects of other nonelite social movements, such as the civil rights movement, that force changes in the polity and society (Piven and Cloward 1977). By contrast, those who emphasize elite power tend to leave little room for the influence of nonelites in promoting major social change. Change is viewed as the result of

elite mobilization, intraelite conflict, or the circulation of elites. Mills, for example, viewed the major societal decisions in the United States as the product of elite decision making, while more specific, localized issues were more likely to be negotiated at the ‘‘middle levels’’ of power. Domhoff (1998) considers major policy formation processes by looking at the ‘‘agenda-setting’’ power of elites, noting that while pluralistic interest group competition does occur on specific issues, the general parameters of public discourse and public policy are set in advance and behind the scenes through organizations such as policy planning groups and presidential task forces that bring elites together to build a consensus on major policy issues before specific proposals enter the formal legislative process. Other elite theorists point out that even in periods of mass mobilization over policy issues, the power of elites over the public agenda allows public sentiment to be deflected or diffused by temporary measures or by redirecting public attention to peripheral issues (Prewitt and Stone 1973, pp. 107–108).

MODERNIZATION, MERITOCRACY, AND

ELITE RECRUITMENT

The dominant view of elites in the 1950s developed out of the structural functionalism of Parsons (1940; 1951) and the ‘‘end-of-ideology’’ arguments that appeared around that time (see Waxman 1968). This perspective, which is popular again today, holds that with the emergence of modern industrial societies and liberal democracy, elites increasingly represent a stratum of talented individuals filling important positions of leadership in dominant institutions (see especially Keller 1963; see also Mannheim 1940; Aron 1950). Variations on this theme point to a ‘‘New Class’’ of ‘‘knowledge’’ workers in ‘‘postindustrial’’ managerial and information-based professions and a proliferation of new institutional elites that transcend the old hierarchies of caste and class (Keller 1963; Bell 1974). From this perspective, modern elites are functionally necessary in a society of complex organizations and increasingly specialized occupations. Echoing Davis and Moore’s (1945) functionalist theory of stratification, status and material rewards are seen to reflect the high skill and social responsibility required for those positions. The legitimacy of functional elites is supported to the

extent that relatively equal opportunities to attain those positions are available to all talented and motivated individuals.

The validity of this ‘‘meritocracy’’ model of power is directly related to the issue of elite recruitment and the extent to which positions of power are open to nonelites. Once again, at one level there is general agreement among all parties on the relative openness of modern societies in comparison to traditional systems in which elite ‘‘recruitment’’ often was based on birth. In contemporary societies, differentiation fostered a proliferation of institutional elites requiring specific talents and skills in a variety of fields (see Keller 1963). However, beyond this empirical fact, the questions of contention are: (1) How much openness is there? and (2) Does it matter?

The first question has been the subject of much research in stratification and will be dealt with only briefly here. The meritocracy model assumes equal opportunity for individuals, but considerable research has challenged this assumption. For example, if elite positions are based on merit, educational institutions must provide avenues for mobility and equal opportunity for talented individuals from nonelite backgrounds, but a basic criticism of functionalist theories of stratification is that existing structures of inequality create barriers to nonelite achievement (see Tumin 1953). Beyond the obvious inequality of economic resources and formal educational institutions, the work of Bourdieu and others (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977; DiMaggio and Mohr 1985) has shown how the unequal distribution of ‘‘cultural capital’’ among groups in different locations in the class structure contributes to the reproduction of inequality in a variety of subtle ways. This research also points to the difficulty in assessing differences in ‘‘talent’’ among individuals or groups, since indicators such as ‘‘intelligence,’’ cultural appreciation, and political knowledge may reflect a preexisting distribution of cultural resources.

A more fundamental question regarding the openness of elite recruitment is: Does it matter? First, if the concern is the overall structure of power, as it was for Mills and most elite theorists, the success of a few upwardly mobile individuals from the lower strata does not affect the analysis: Power still may be concentrated in a few in key

positions. Second, elite recruitment from the lower ranks does not necessarily affect the content of elite decision making, given the selection process involved in the rise of ‘‘talented’’ individuals into elite positions. Most analysts agree that in modern societies, attainment of elite positions often requires a degree of talent, effort, and achievement, but elite theorists argue that those who make it to the top are selected for specific orientations that are compatible with existing structures of power. Those from privileged backgrounds, with access to economic, social, or cultural capital, have a definite advantage, but it is possible for nonelites people who possess the right attitudes and skills to rise into positions of power. This maintains the existing structure of power while providing legitimating examples of individual success. Limited avenues for mobility also provide a mechanism for the co-optation of promising leaders from below, as Pareto and Mosca would recognize (see the discussions of elite recruitment in Prewitt and Stone 1973; Marger 1987; Bottomore 1993; Dye 1995; Domhoff 1998).

ELITES AND DEMOCRACY

There have been a number of modifications of both ‘‘elite’’ and ‘‘pluralist’’ theory that have brought the two closer together. The work of Weber, Michels, and others influenced later theorists who viewed the concentration of power in modern institutions as necessary. From this vantage point, the issue was not whether broad ‘‘democratic’’ participation in political, economic, and other institutions was possible (it was not) but whether the interests of nonelites could be preserved in the face of modern bureaucratic organization. Democratic elitism represented a refinement of pluralist assumptions that redefined democracy in a manner congruent with elite rule. Given the inevitable concentration of power in modern societies, the central problem became: What legitimates elite rule or preserves elite ‘‘accountability’’? The traditional answer of conservative elitists had been the ‘‘virtue,’’ ‘‘character,’’ or inward convictions of elite leaders in comparison to the selfish and undisciplined masses. In this tradition, with adherents from Plato to Pareto, elites have a stronger commitment to the ‘‘public interest’’ than do the ‘‘people’’ (Prewitt and Stone 1973, pp. 188–196). The meritocracy model represents a contempo-

rary variation of this viewpoint: Modern institutions require skilled leadership, and this means that institutional elites are increasingly likely to be selected on the basis of superior talent.

Another source of public accountability important for ‘‘democratic elitists’’ is elite competition for electoral support. Political elites must compete for votes in formal democracies, and this acts as a broad restraint on their actions. However, once in office, elite decision makers are relatively free to act as they see fit as long as their actions remain within acceptable limits. In a well-known formulation by Schumpeter (1942), elite rule is preserved both by superior talent and by the general mass apathy that he saw as functional for political rule. For Schumpeter (1942, pp. 269–296) and other conservative advocates of democratic elitism, the efficiency of modern representative governments depends on the ‘‘people’’ selecting their leaders and then leaving them alone. Note that the definition of ‘‘democracy’’ has been transformed from an emphasis on maximum public participation in political life to an assertion of the functional necessity of nonparticipation. Far from government ‘‘by the people,’’ democracy is now defined as a procedure for the selection of political elites. This underscores the difficulty in weighing empirical claims concerning ‘‘democratic’’ representation made by competing theories, given the radically divergent definitions of the key concept. Classical theories of democracy emphasized the importance of political participation as an end in itself, one that was necessary for the creation of political citizens capable of democratic self-rule (Pateman 1970). Critics of conservative elitism such as Bottomore (1993, p. 95) wonder if ‘‘a person can live in a condition of complete and unalterable subordination for much of the time, and yet acquire the habits of responsible choice and self government which political democracy calls for.’’ This issue is muddier for the fact that many critical elite theorists are ambivalent about the possibilities for participatory democracy in modern society. If elite rule is undesirable, it would seem necessary to provide an alternative. Mills held up participatory democracy as an ideal from which to judge the contemporary United States in his concept of ‘‘publics’’ (1956, pp. 302– 304), but he was not very clear about how that ideal could be implemented in modern ‘‘mass society.’’ Other critical elite theorists seem to have accepted

the classical argument for the inevitability of elite rule in modern, bureaucratically organized socities (see Prewitt and Stone 1973; Marger 1987; Burton and Higley 1987). For these critics, the only option to a ‘‘democracy’’ of mass apathy is one in which political institutions and decision-making elites are as open as possible to public scrutiny by a truly informed electorate.

LIMITATIONS OF THE ELITE PARADIGM

The elite paradigm—and by extension the ‘‘elitismpluralism’’ debate as it usually is formulated—fo- cuses on the leaders of large-scale organizations and organized institutions. Power is based on command over organizational resources; the elites are those in positions of organized power. While there are other ways to conceptualize elites, this is the dominant model in the social sciences today (see Marger 1987; Burton and Higley 1987; Dye 1995). Most scholars agree that power is concentrated in such organizations. The disagreements occur over whether there is a unified ‘‘ruling elite’’ above and beyond these multiple institutional elites that characterize all modern societies.

This controversy has led to much fruitful research and theoretical debate, but the ‘‘elitistpluralist’’ framework is less adequate for dealing with other dimensions of societal power. For example, many of the social and cultural processes involved in the reproduction of class, gender, and racial inequality cannot be encompassed within an organizational paradigm. This includes socialization processes and everyday practices within the family, school, and workplace that reproduce the hegemony of a dominant culture. Further, it is possible to map the formal leadership structure of educational institutions, research foundations, and media organizations without explaining the content of their decisions. One might ask: Elite power, yes, but power for what? With its emphasis on the power of individuals within organizations, the elite paradigm neglects many structural and cultural forces that constrain those organizations and the elites within them. For example, how do global economic conditions and the imperative of ‘‘business confidence’’ constrain the decisions of political and economic elites? How are the ideologies and cultural practices that govern gender relations reproduced in the boardroom or the executive

mansion? These questions are significant, because without them it is difficult to explain why elites make the decisions they do or why some societal interests are better represented than others are in the decision-making process. It is necessary to consider elites and the organizations they command in their larger social and cultural context.

This issue was highlighted many years ago in debates over the ‘‘managerial revolution thesis.’’ This was an argument that modern corporations are different from traditional capitalist enterprises because of their separation of ownership from management. Managers were seen to have aims different from those of capitalists, reflecting their organizational position. They were more interested in long-term growth, stability, labor peace, and good community relations—good manage- ment—and less concerned with profit maximization (Berle and Means 1932; Burnham 1941) The simple but fundamental weakness in such an argument was that managers—the ‘‘elites’’ who wield organizational power in modern corporations— were still constrained by the imperatives of the market and capital accumulation. Time has shown that their ability to act ‘‘managerially’’ reflected a brief postwar period of U.S. dominance in the world economy. Global competition has since required that corporate elites act more like representatives of capital.

The same might be said about political elites as well, which brings one back to the issue of the relationship between political power and class interest. Recent debates in political sociology over the degree to which state institutions, governing officials, and policy intellectuals are ‘‘relatively autonomous’’ from the constraints of class interest or other societal pressures have again brought into focus the relationship between political power and economic interest (see Skocpol 1985; Jessop 1990). Class theorists have argued that the decisions of political elites are shaped not only by the superior resources of a dominant class but also by the structural constraints on the state in a market economy (see Block 1977; Lindbloom 1977). Others have traced a clear class bias and pro-capital selectivity inherent in the very institutions of modern states and the dominant political discourse ( Jessop 1990). Parallel arguments have been made by feminists who hold that patriarchal domination is embedded in the very structure of the state (e.g.,

MacKinnon 1989). These lines of inquiry do not negate the importance of research on elites, but they lead one to ask questions about the larger social forces that shape their decisions.

REFERENCES

Jessop, Bob 1990 State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in their Place. University Park: Penn State University Press.

Keller, Suzanne 1963 Beyond the Ruling Class: Strategic Elites in Modern Society. New York: Random House.

Lindbloom, Charles 1977 Politics and Markets. New York:

Basic Books.

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Bell, Daniel 1974 The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books.

MacKinnon, Catherine 1989 Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Mannheim, Karl 1940 Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. London: Kegan Paul.

Berle, A. A., and G. C. Means 1932 The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New York: Macmillan.

Marger, Martin N. 1987 Elites and Masses: An Introduction to Political Sociology. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.

Block, Fred 1977 ‘‘The Ruling Class Does Not Rule.’’

Socialist Revolution 7(3):6–28.

Bottomore Tom 1993. Elites and Society. London: Routledge.

Bourdieu, Pierre 1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

———, and J. C. Passeron 1977 Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture. Beverley Hills, Calif.: Sage.

Burnham, James 1941 The Managerial Revolution. New

York: Day.

Burton, Michael G., and John Higley 1987 ‘‘Invitation to Elite Theory.’’ In G. William Domhoff and Thomas Dye, eds., Power Elites and Organizations. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publications pp. 219–238.

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10(2): 242–249.

DiMaggio, Paul, and John Mohr 1985 ‘‘Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment, and Marital Selection.’’ American Journal of Sociology 90: 1231–1261.

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———1998 Who Rules America? Power and Politics in the Year 2000. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield.

———and Hoyt B. Ballard, eds. 1968 C. Wright Mills and the Power Elite. Boston: Beacon Press.

Dye, Thomas 1995 Who’s Running America? The Clinton Years. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Field, G. Lowell, and John Higley 1980 Elitism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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York: Dover.

Miliband, Ralph 1969 The State in Capitalist Society. New York: Basic Books.

Mills, C. Wright 1956 The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Graw-Hill.

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Harcourt Brace.

Parsons, Talcott 1940 ‘‘An Analytical Approach to the Theory of Social Stratification.’’ American Journal of Sociology 45:841–862

1951 The Social System. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.

Pateman, Carole 1970 Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Piven, Frances, and Richard Cloward 1977 Poor People’s Movements. New York: Random House.

Prewitt, Kenneth, and Alan Stone 1973 The Ruling Elites. New York: Harper & Row.

Riesman, David 1950 The Lonely Crowd. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper Colophon.

Skocpol, Theda 1985 ‘‘Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research.’’ In Peter Evans, Dietrich Reuschemeyer, and Theda Skocopol, eds. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Truman, David B. 1951 The Governmental Process. New

York: Random House.

Tumin, Melvin, 1953 ‘‘Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis.’’ American Sociological Review

18: 387–393.

Useem, Michael 1983 The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and the U.K. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Weber, Max, (1921) 1968. Economy and Society, vols. Berkeley: University of California Press.

PATRICK AKARD

SOCIAL BELONGING

THE DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN

INVOLVEMENT

It is necessary to distinguish four different dimensions or states in the involvement of individuals in the context of human relations: territorial location, ecological participation, social belonging, and cultural conformity (Pollini 1990) (Figure 1). Territorial location, as Weber showed in his famous sociological analysis of the medieval European city (Weber 1921) does not involve any form of social relation among the individuals of a population in a particular territorial area. This dimension was subsequently defined by Parsons as one of the three primary relational criteria, with the other two being biological position and temporal location (Parsons 1959, pp. 89–96).

Unlike territorial location, ecological participation involves some sort of reciprocal relationality among the individual members of a human population, whether settled in the same territorial area or not. To use the terminology of human and social ecology in reference to nonsymbolic social relations, recalling Mead’s well-known distinction (Mead 1934), ecological participation involves a specific form of interdependence among individuals (‘‘symbiosis’’) (Park 1936, 1939) that is distinctly different from social interaction (Quinn 1939). For Parsons, the ecological system is ‘‘a state of mutually oriented interdependence of a plurality of actors who are not integrated by bonds of solidarity to form a collectivity but who are objects to one another’’ (1959, p. 93). Thus, instrumentally, the customers of a commercial firm, the participants in a market, and the antagonists in a struggle, and expressively, a network of purely personal friendships and the inhabitants of a neighborhood or district in a modern metropolis are paradigmatic examples of the dimension of participation in networks of ecological interaction or

in purely ecological systems. Parsons defined the state of ecological participation as a secondary relational criterion.

Social belonging refers to the state in which an individual, by assuming a role, is characterized by inclusion in the social collectivity, which is exclusively a Gemeinschaft, according to Weber (Weber 1922, 136), and which is a Gemeinschaft (an organization or association), according to Parsons (Parsons 1959, p. 100). In this frame of reference, the dimension of social belonging relates to any form of social collectivity, whether predominantly expressive (nonrational in Weber’s terms) or predominantly instrumental. Strictly speaking, the status of belonging concerns only the symbolic dimension of human and social relations and interactions (Durkheim 1912; Pareto 1916; Weber 1921, 1922; Mead 1934; Park 1939; Parsons 1959; Merton 1963; Shils 1975). Parsons defines it as a secondary relational criterion.

Cultural conformity is symbolic in character. This dimension differs from social belonging in that it involves the sharing by individuals of value systems and therefore of attitudes of ‘‘consensus’’ as defined by Weber (Weber 1913) as well as, though not necessarily, conformism (Parsons 1959). The distinction between social belonging and cultural conformity demonstrates that belonging to a collectivity can be compatible with the exercise of internal opposition; thus, social membership does not exclude the possibility of disagreement, especially in regard to value orientations.

The distinction between social belonging and cultural conformity also has been drawn by Robert K. Merton, who expressly asserts the noncoincidence between membership groups and reference groups. The latter groups constitute a focus of reference toward which a certain degree of positive orientation is shown rather than being an already-estab- lished social bond that is manifest in the interactions among the individual members of a group (the membership group).

On the basis of the distinction between ecological participation and social belonging—both of which are secondary relational criteria, according to Parsons—it is possible to use the findings of human ecology and sociological analysis to differentiate between attachment to the community and belonging to the Gemeinschaft. Whereas attach-

ment to the community involves the ecological concept of community defined as ‘‘a) a population, territorially organized; b) more or less completely rooted in the soil it occupies; c) its individual units living in a relationship of mutual interdependence that is symbiotic rather than societal’’ (Park 1936, p. 148), the belonging to the Gemeinschaft concerns that sociological concept of Gemeinschaft as defined by Toennies (1887), Weber (Vergemeinschaftung) (1922), and Parsons (1959), although for Parsons as well as for some others, social belonging concerns not Gemeinschaft alone but any social collectivity and the social collectivity qua talis.

THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL BELONGING

The distinction between attachment to the ecological community and belonging to the social collectivity (particularly the Gemeinschaft) introduces the fundamental question of the structure of social belonging and the relations among its main components, which from an analytic and multidimensional perspective include attachment. Using Parsons’s scheme of reference, together with the contributions of other sociologists, the structure of social belonging can be described by

starting from the relations among the four chief components that define it as such: attachment, loyalty, solidarity, and the sense of affinity or we-feeling

(Figure 2).

Attachment is a form of investment or ‘‘cathexis’’ (from the Freudian term Besetzung, denoting the relationship between emotional energy and an object) in a social object (the collectivity in this case), where ‘‘cathexis’’ refers to ‘‘the significance of ego’s relation to the object or objects in question for the gratification-deprivation balance of his personality’’ (Parsons 1959, p. 17). Attachment involves an ‘‘orientation to alter in which the paramount focus of cathective-evaluative significance is in alter’s attitudes’’ (Parsons 1959, p. 213), where ‘‘the relation to alter is the source, not merely of discrete, unorganized, ad hoc gratifications for ego, but of an organized system of gratifications which include expectations of the future continuance and development of alter’s gratificatory significance’’ (Parsons 1959, p. 77).

When attachment is organized into a symbolic pattern, particularly a pattern of expressive symbols whose meaning’s shared between ego and alter, become values—in other words, when they serve as a criterion or standard for selection (or an

Figure 2

appreciative criterion in this case, which concerns expressive symbolism) among the alternatives of orientation that are intrinsically available in the situation—loyalty arises (Parsons 1959, p. 77). In the case of social belonging, loyalty defines the relation between ego as a subject and the collectivity as social object of which the ego is a member. Besides being the social object of attachment, the social collectivity thus becomes the object of loyalty as well. This raises the question of the trust the collectivity requires and the individual grants.

Along with attachment and loyalty, social belonging involves the solidarity of the collectivity. Solidarity, which ‘‘involves going a step beyond ‘loyalty,’’’ is defined by Parsons as ‘‘the institutionalized integration of collectivity,’’ and it is distinguished from loyalty because it entails that ‘‘collec- tivity-orientation converts this ‘propensity’ into an institutionalized obbligation of the role-expecta- tion. Then whether the actor ‘feels like it’ or not, he is obligated to act in certain ways and risks the application of negative sanctions if he does not’’ (Parsons 1959, p. 98).

The final component that defines the structure of social belonging is what has been called the ‘‘sense of affinity’’ (Shils 1975) or the ‘‘we-feeling’’ (MacIver and page 1949, p. 5ff). (Weber treated belonging in terms of Zusammengehoerigkeit, or ‘‘subjective feeling of the parties, whether affectual or traditional, that they belong together’’) (Weber 1922, p. 136). Although this component can be considered the final outcome of attachment, loyalty and solidarity, it also can be viewed as the component that controls and legitimates the others and therefore performs the function of pattern maintenance in the system of social belonging. It may include, at least in part, two of the factors that

Merton states constitute a collectivity as a social group: people’s definition of themselves as ‘‘members’’ of the group and definition by others as ‘‘belonging to the group,’’ with the others, including fellow members and nonmembers (Merton 1963).

In short, social belonging is constituted by the relations of interdependence among the dimensions of attachment, loyalty, solidarity, and sense of affinity, according to paths that extend from attachment to a sense of affinity or we-feeling and back, passing through the intermediate components of loyalty and solidarity.

From the point of view of the collectivity as a social system, belonging is the dimension that can be called a ‘‘residue,’’ to use Pareto’s term. A residue is the relatively constant symbolic-social element that can be deduced from the symboliclinguistic expressions (or nonlogicoexperimental theories) associated with the nonlogical actions of associated individuals and that performs a function of ‘‘persistence of aggregates’’ maintain the equilibrium of the system. This equilibrium is characterized by the interdependence relations among the residues of various classes, genera, and specie, and between these and the system’s other ‘‘internal’ elements,’’ such as derivations, interests and social heterogeneity, and which is the circulation among the parts (Pareto 1916; Pollini 1987).

In regards to attachment, Shils, adopting a concrete rather than an analytic perspective, has drawn up a typology of four kinds of attachment that can be compared with the notions presented here. Shils’s first type of attachment is the primordial attachment that arises among individuals by virtue of ‘‘particularist existential connections’’ (such as the biological bond of kinship) and stable sexual relations or the sharing of a territorial area. It can be compared with the community attachment of human ecology and, more generally, the cathexis in a broad sense involved in ecological participation.

Personal attachment and civil attachment operate at different levels of the process of social structuring. They are distinctive of the social belonging defined by the ‘‘emerging’’ components of loyalty, solidarity, and the we-feeling.

Sacred attachment is grounded in beliefs and therefore also in notions of truth, justice, good-

ness, and beauty. It mainly but not exclusively includes cultural conformity and a consensus on beliefs, although it gives rise to a social community that Shils views as a community of believers (Shils 1961).

SOCIAL BELONGING AND ITS RELATIONS WITH OTHER COMPONENTS OF HUMAN ACTION

This discussion of the structure of social belonging and its main components has identified a number of elements by which it is constituted and conditioned. By adding further elements of fundamental importance, we may outline a complete frame of reference which social belonging involves interrelations among the following subsystems or ‘‘complexes’’: the ecological complex of territorial location and ecological interaction, the mental complex of the identity of the personality, the social complex of the solidarity of the collectivity, and the cultural complex of expressive and evaluative symbolism (Figure 3).

Starting from territorial location and ecological interaction, central importance is assumed by the relationship between the identity of the personality and the solidarity of the collectivity, both of which stand in relation to the complex of expressive and evaluative symbolism. It is the latter factor in particular that, through internalization and institutionalization, characterizes personal identity and collective solidarity (Durkheim 1912), of which the personal identity involves the process by which the symbolic complex is acknowledged and the collective solidarity later involves the process by which it is represented.

The process by which the social collectivity relates to the individual person can be called the process of inclusion, while the mental process by which a person comes to be inducted in a collectivity may be called the mechanism of identification, or the mechanism by which a person learns ‘‘to play a role complementary to those of other members in accord with the pattern of values governing the collectivity’’ (Parsons 1958, p. 91). In other words, identification is ‘‘motivational ‘acceptance’— at levels of ‘deep’ motivational ‘commitment’—of membership in collective systems’’ (Parsons 1970, p. 356).

From the point of view of the personality, the multiple social belongings or even belonging to

multiple collectivities or social circles so distinctive of the individual condition today are inevitable components of an identity (Parsons 1968, p. 21), to the point where the perception of personal individuality is determined by membership in a collectivity or social circle (first sociological a priori) (Simmel 1890, 1908). However, just as the individual as a member of society (a social person) is determined not wholly by the fact that she/he is a member of society but also by the fact that she or he is ‘‘not socialized’’ (second sociological a priori) (Simmel 1890, 1908), identity marks out ‘‘the individual autonomy relative to any role and collectivity membership’’ (Parsons 1968, p. 20).

Simmel defined the relations between individual identity and belonging to social circles on the basis of the following principles:

1.A positive correlation exists between the development of personal identity and the widening of the social circle of belonging.

2.There is a positive correlation between the increased extension of the social circle and the centrifugal tendency of the individual toward other circles.

3.The individual belongs to an intermediate social circle that fosters the individualization of identity even in very large communities.

4.The determinacy of personal identity increases in direct proportion to belonging to other social circles.

5.The determinacy of individual identity is positively correlated with the dispersion and diffusion of the multiple social circles of belonging rather than with their overlapping, concentration and coincidence.

6.The shared belonging of several individuals to the same social circle may not be incompatible with their single and distinct belonging to other competing and conflicting circles.

7.The modern form of belonging displays voluntary and autonomous, rather than coercive and heteronomous, belonging to a social circle or circles.

8.In the modern age, the totalizing and globalizing nature of belonging to a single and all-encompassing social circle tends

Figure 3

to give way to the functional feature of belonging to multiple social circles (Simmel 1890, 1908).

A person’s role as member of the collectivity, which is acquired by means of the mechanism of identification by which social belongings come to constitute inevitable components of personal identity, entails acknowledgment and internalization by the individual personality of the symbolic complex. This is both the foundation of the social collectivity and its representation. According to Durkheim, for whom the social group is defined by the symbolic complex and especially by the totemic symbol (Durkheim 1912), and according to Parsons, for whom expressive symbolism involves not only individual members or units (in that it is shared by each of them) but the entire collectivity constituted as a social object by symbolic social interaction, membership in the social collectivity is not expressed and represented only by the symbolic complex and by distinct symbols and emblems. More important, it is reinforced, developed, and augmented by them, in particular by participation in specific symbolic actions and rituals such as ceremonies, celebrations, gatherings, and meetings and by the projection of shared

value sentiments into individual members, especially those who assume the role of chief or leader and thus symbolically embody shared value patterns (Parsons 1959, pp. 395–399). Thus, ritual participation does not only express and manifest belonging to the collectivity and group; it also strengthens and develops this belonging, in particular the component of it denominated we-feel- ing or sense of affinity.

MEMBERSHIP AND NONMEMBERSHIP

GROUPS

On the basis of the theory of the reference group, Merton has examined the limiting condition of nonmembership, which he defines as a positive orientation toward groups that, although not belonged to, are nevertheless reference groups. It is thus possible to identify a diversified set of nonmembership features that depend on the one hand on the nonmember’s attitudes toward membership and on the other hand on possession of the qualities necessary for membership established by the group. Merton uses these two distinct dimensions to draw up a typology of a nonmembership group that includes a variety of forms and condi-