David Sciulli - Theory of Societal Constitutionalism PDF

Several theories and conceptual frameworks in political science, legal scholarship,
and sociology address issues of governmental authoritarianism, abuses of power,

and corporate crime and professional deviance. The theory of societal constitutionalism offers social scientists an opportunity to isolate instances of social authoritarianism, which is defined as arbitrary exercises of collective power by private
organizations and institutions within a modern civil society. The author argues that
by distinguishing analytically between whether social order within any organization,
institution, or sector of a society is based on actors' demonstrable social control or
on their possible social integration a nation-state's susceptibility to social authoritarianism can be isolated empirically.
Bringing this distinction to the literature and to research, the theory developed in
this book leads to a critical reappraisal of the findings of comparative politics and
also the findings of the sociologies of law, professions, and organizations and occupations. Research findings in these fields that have hitherto appeared unrelated are
now revealed both to explain historical shifts in a nation-state's direction of social
change and to predict contemporary shifts. For instance, certain practices by physicians within hospitals, by chemists within corporations, and by lawyers before the
bar may now be seen to reflect and contribute to shifts toward greater social control
and susceptibility to social authoritarianism. The theory also provides the means to
examine whether these practices can be found either historically or currently in
particular nation-states, whether they are present, for example, in the United States
or Japan as well as in traditionally authoritarian states such as the Soviet Union,
Brazil, and Argentina. The author argues that the presence of social authoritarianism is independent of whether an economy is market-based or centrally controlled
or of whether Western cultural traditions are institutionalized rather than Eastern
or Third World traditions.
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Theory of societal constitutionalism
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Theory of societal constitutionalism

Foundations of a non-Marxist critical theory
David Sciulli
Department of Sociology
Texas A &M University
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First published 1992
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Sciulli, David.
Theory of societal constitutionalism : foundations of a nonMarxist critical theory / David Sciulli.
p.
cm. - (Arnold and Caroline Rose monograph series of the
American Sociological Association)
ISBN 0-521-41040-1
1. Political sociology. 2. Social control. 3. Authoritarianism.
I. Title. II. Series.
JA76.S376
1992
306.2-dc20
91-15690
CIP
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Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical

theory
1.1. Limits of comparative research
1.2. Two issues of societal constitutionalism and an
illustration
1.3. Societal constitutionalism as critical theory
1.4. Acknowledgement
11
15
17
Section I.
21
Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism
Chapter 2. Social integration and social control: the importance

of procedural normative restraints
2.1. Social order and social control
2.2. Social control in the literature
2.3. Conceptual limitations in political sociology?
2.4. Implications of the concept of social integration
Chapter 3. Liberalism and the Weberian Dilemma: from
restraints on government to restraints on civil
society
3.1. Implications of rationalization: drift toward
authoritarianism
3.2. The Weberian Dilemma as negative liberalism
3.3. Unmediated drift as "rationalization"
3.4. Can the Weberian Dilemma be resolved?
3.5. Illustration: "professional integrity" and limits of
Weberian sociology
1
1
23
23
27
33
37
40
41
43
45
46
51
vi
Contents
Chapter 4. Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism:

from internal restraints on government to external
restraints on drift
4.1. Four analytical distinctions and four institutions
of restraint
4.2. The importance of institutions of external
procedural restraint
4.3. Four institutions of restraint: from liberalism to
societal constitutionalism
4.4. Social integration: again, a preliminary definition
Section II.
Origins of the analytical distinctions and conceptual

foundations: retracing steps taken by Habermas,
Fuller, and Parsons
Chapter 5. Societal constitutionalism's grounding against

relativism: from Weber's legal positivism to
Habermas's communication theory
5.1. Taking stock and looking ahead
5.2. Habermas's critique of Weber and later legal
positivism
5.3. Habermas's alternative: communicative action or
procedural reason
Chapter 6. Societal constitutionalism's threshold in practice:
from Fuller's legal theory to societal
constitutionalism
6.1. Procedural legality as irreducible threshold:
Fuller's contribution to the social sciences
6.2. Three foundations of societal constitutionalism:
procedural grounding, procedural threshold,
and procedural formation
Chapter 7. Societal constitutionalism's organizational
manifestation, I: voluntaristic action as a distinct
concept
7.1. The importance of voluntaristic action
7.2. Parsons's point of departure: the normative or
nonrational
7.3. The distinct concept of voluntaristic action
7.4. Three meanings of voluntaristic action
54
54
56
59
83
85
87
87
90
96
107
109
121
131
131
132
134
144
Contents
Chapter 8. Societal constitutionalism's organizational
manifestation, II: from voluntaristic action to
collegial formations
8.1. Again, the possibility of social integration
8.2. The organizational expression of internal
procedural restraints
8.3. The collegial form of organization
8.4. Preliminary proposals for orienting empirical
research
Section III. Implications of the analytical distinctions and
conceptual foundations
Chapter 9. Procedural institutionalization beyond the Western
democracies: three bases of voluntaristic restraint
9.1. Once again, the Weberian Dilemma
9.2. Three bases of voluntaristic restraint
9.3. Institutionalizing collegial formations as public
policy
Chapter 10. External restraints: prospects for reason and
"tradition"
10.1. Why Parsons and Weber distorted restraints
10.2. Are restraints on drift intrinsically
unreasoned?
10.3. Rethinking tradition: lived distinctiveness v.
transferable qualities
10.4. Prospects for "tradition"
vn
150
150
159
164
171
181
183
185
187
205
214
214
224
228
232
Chapter 11. Collegial formations as external procedural

restraints: prospects for a public realm
11.1. Speculations on collegial formations today:
two restraints not institutionalized
11.2. Collegial formations today: institutionalized
restraint beyond left and right
11.3. Unwitting beneficiaries of the collegial form
254
266
Notes
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
271
325
349
355
242
242
1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism

as critical theory
1.1.1. A presupposition and a lacuna

Given the enormous diversity of conceptual frameworks, levels of analysis,
and methodological techniques informing historical and comparative research, many studies may be found that are uncompromisingly critical of
existing Western democracies. At one point, beginning in the early 1960s
and extending through the 1970s, first prominent Latin American theorists
and then American comparativists described basic institutions and practices of Western democracies as intrinsically repressive. They leveled specific criticisms at dependencia, or the impact that these institutions and
practices were having, and had, on Latin America. Yet, their central thesis
was much broader. They insisted that Western democracies perpetuate and
exacerbate inequalities, cross-national and domestic alike, that are both
unjustified and unnecessary.1
Admittedly, it is far more common today for social scientists to attribute
particular social problems to structural or institutional defects of capitalism, or of the welfare state, or, ultimately, of modernity itself. Yet, this too
"radicalizes" these problems. It suggests (but by no means demonstrates)
that these problems are beyond the scope of possible liberal reform because they are reflections of Western institutions' structural defects. The
cumulative effect of these studies is not much different, therefore, from
that of the more strident dependencia school: Basic institutions and practices of existing Western democracies are portrayed as structurally, irreparably, defective. Interest group politics within the United States has been
roundly criticized along these lines for now over three decades (chapter 4).2
The professions have been increasingly criticized in this way since the late
1970s (e.g. Larson 1977; Collins 1979; Parkin 1979; Murphy 1988 for a
review). Related criticisms of both social democracy and neocorporatism in
Scandinavia and Western Europe continue rich traditions of radicalism (see
Popenoe 1988 for an intriguing "reaction").3
Still, radical and critical social scientists in the postwar era share with
1
1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory
their most conservative and apologetic colleagues both a presupposition

and a conceptual lacuna. The presupposition is that:
The very particular political institutions and social practices that characterize existing Western democracies exhaust actors' possibilities anywhere in the world (a) for establishing a nonauthoritarian social order,
and (b) for securing opportunities for social integration as opposed to
social control.
This may be labeled the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
The conceptual lacuna that comparativists also share ultimately prevents
them from methodically questioning this presupposition let alone jettisoning it. This conceptual lacuna is:
The failure to distinguish analytically between (a) a social order that
rests to some extent on heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration and (b) a social order that rests exclusively
or to an increasing extent on their demonstrable social control.
This may be labeled the lacuna of integrative possibilities.
1.1.2. Conceptual limitations, collective prejudices
There is no available social or political theory, nor any available body of
social science research, that can support a presupposition as grand as that
of exhausted possibilities. It is a prejudice. Rather than being a scientific
proposition, or a value-neutral empirical generalization, it is a strictly normative generalization, a comforting ideology. As a presupposition, it typically goes unseen, to say nothing of unargued, by those adopting it. More
often than not, researchers today adopt it by default. Rather than embracing it directly or purposefully because they are convinced it is sound in
itself, they adopt it indirectly or inadvertently because credible conceptual
alternatives do not seem to be available.
What would a credible conceptual alternative to the presupposition of
exhausted possibilities involve? It would provide concepts that can simultaneously (a) inform detailed empirical research, and (b) credibly claim
grounding against normative relativism. This is a tall order for any social
theory to fill. Consider, on the one hand, that Marx's concept of alienation
claims grounding, as does Habermas's concept of communicative action.
Yet, neither concept has informed detailed empirical research.4 Consider,
on the other hand, that social scientists today who are critical of mainstream research in political sociology and who also are critical of existing
Western institutions and practices fail to point to conceptual (and epistemological) limitations within the presupposition of exhausted possibilities
(e.g. Tilly 1983; Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985).5 They do not
operate with concepts that can credibly claim grounding against the presupposition's normative relativism. Instead, they advance their sharpest criticisms of existing Western democracies by radicalizing the mainstream's
relativism, and using the latter against it.
Charles Tilly's most theoretical work provides an excellent example
(1984; also 1985). He refuses to be bothered with distinguishing legitimate
from illegitimate uses of collective force conceptually. He insists instead
that any such distinction is a mere label that is intrinsically normative, and
ultimately ideological (also Black 1984).6 In illustrating why this is so, he
points out that the rise of existing Western democracies followed a path
indistinguishable, in principle, from that of protection rackets. He explicitly insists that Western democracies secured control over their populations
historically in much the same way that organized criminals today secure
control over neighborhood shopkeepers. Existing institutions of Western
democracy are no more "moral" or "legitimate" within Tilly's framework
of concepts, therefore, than the organizations established by rational criminals. Tilly is confident, of course, that this is so iconoclastic that it establishes the value-neutrality of his research in the face of any and all charges
of Europocentrism, including the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
Yet, at a second glance, Tilly fails to provide any concepts that challenge
the presupposition of exhausted possibilities in any way at all, let alone
radically. His easy comparison to protection rackets ironically has quite the
opposite effect: It secures the presupposition's status as an unseen, seemingly incontrovertible collective prejudice. Existing Western democracies
may well have emerged in the manner of protection rackets, but how can
Tilly rebut the facile reply that they happen to be the best protection
rackets possible under modern conditions? Nothing in Tilly's writings suggests why this belief is false or even narrow-minded. Indeed, Tilly's (and
others') failure to tackle the conceptual distinction between legitimate and
illegitimate uses of collective force, or to develop typologies of nonliberal
or nonmarket "democracy," is one reflection of his (and their) more basic
failure: the failure to challenge the presupposition of exhausted possibilities directly with critical concepts that can credibly claim grounding.
Still, the elevation of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities to a
collective prejudice began only in the first third of the twentieth century.
Few of the classical social theorists of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century, for instance, operated with any such presupposition. Yet, these
theorists, too, failed to distinguish social integration from social control,
and, as a result, their works are clearly marked by the lacuna of integrative
possibilities. If the presupposition of exhausted possibilities cannot be
found in their works, and yet this lacuna can, then the former's elevation to
a collective prejudice cannot be traced exclusively to this single factor. Its
elevation must be a product of other factors distinctive to the early twenti-
eth century. A second factor coming into play, beginning in the mid-1920s
and early 1930s, was strictly practical rather than theoretical or conceptual:
This was the international elevation of the "moral" status of Western democracies in the face of unambiguously authoritarian threats from left and
right (Mann 1987).7
This moral elevation, in practice, continued into the immediate postwar
years with the seemingly unrivaled, and unbounded, promise of the United
States. In the context of a dangerously polarized cold war, the presupposition of exhausted possibilities was literally institutionalized within the social
sciences by modernization theory, and then by other developmental theories. Whether viewed macrosociologically or microsociologically, "progress" appeared to be a linear process of maturation, one surprisingly amenable to instrumental and strategic assistance. Even more surprisingly, this
process of maturation was portrayed as more immutable than contingent,
and, for that matter, unaffected by old age (Huntington 1971 on modernization theory's optimism, and Luhmann 1990 on system immutability). The
status of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities as a collective prejudice was simultaneously perpetuated conceptually by functionalists, including Parsons, Merton, and today Niklas Luhmann, and no less by "conflict
theorists" in both Great Britain and the United States, including Rex and
Giddens, and Coser and Collins.8
As America's promise of the immediate postwar years gave way to at
best an uneven performance, second thoughts about the "moral" status and
legitimacy of existing Western democracies were bound to increase. This
began in particular in the mid-1960s, with violent resistance to the civil
rights movement in the United States, early student and Vietnam protests
internationally, and increasing violent crime and urban blight in the United
States. It continued into the 1970s with the oil crisis and sustained recession
across the West, and then through the 1980s with international economic
and cultural competition within the West and seemingly insoluble problems
of drugs, poverty, and displacement in the United States. Today, with processes of democratization and liberalization underway in Eastern Europe
since the fall of 1989, second thoughts about the "moral" status of existing
Western democracies can only accumulate. Without an "evil empire" available to conveniently guarantee Western democracies' "moral" status irrespective of everyday performance, how can they not?
Indeed, are East Europeans embracing Western political and economic
forms today because they are convinced that the latter ensure a nonauthoritarian social order, and also enhance actors' possibilities for social
integration within sectors, industries, and organizations of a modern civil
society? As they zealously adopt Western political and economic forms, do
East Europeans have in mind the permanently marginalized British working class or American underclass, or the increasing rigidity of stratification
LL Limits of comparative research
systems across the West generally, including Scandinavia? Have they considered how neocorporatist peak associations across Western Europe and
Scandinavia have irreversibly altered these forms, in practice, and how
pervasive corporate crime is across the West - even more so in Western
Europe than in the United States (Braithwaite 1984: 32-7)? Or are East
Europeans instead reacting, as best they can at the moment, to systemic
pressures of international economic competition, the unrelenting harshness
of everyday life across the former Eastern bloc, and the West's demonstrated capacity, whatever its faults, to keep government's boot off people's
necks and both to encourage and sate middle class consumerism and possessive individualism? The issue, regardless, is whether the "moral" status of
existing Western democracies can be expected to become more or less
uncertain after the fall of 1989.9
1.1.3. Filling the lacuna: the distinct concept of social integration
As was the case at the turn of the century, the lacuna of integrative possibilities is once again becoming the sole factor preventing comparativists from
exposing the presupposition of exhausted possibilities for what it has always been: a comforting collective prejudice or strictly normative generalization. This lacuna accounts for why this normative generalization implicitly informs the works of social scientists who are endeavoring to be critical
of existing Western institutions and practices. It explains, for instance, why
Latin American researchers such as Henrique Cardoso, or, say, Theotonio
dos Santos further on the left, or Helio Jaguaribe and Guillermo O'Donnell
further on the right, also have failed - like their American, European, and
Scandinavian colleagues - to scrutinize and criticize the presupposition of
exhausted possibilities. The conceptual frameworks currently available to
comparativists contain the lacuna of integrative possibilities at their cores,
and this shields the presupposition from methodical challenges irrespective
of mounting uncertainties, and an increasingly palpable sense of drift.
How did this state of affairs in comparative research come about? With
rare exception (e.g. Philippe Schmitter's use of Tocqueville in 1971), the
most basic ideal types and concepts underlying the theoretical frameworks
available to comparativists today were derived, in one way or another,
from the works of Marx, Durkheim and, particularly, Weber (chapter 3). It
is startling, actually, how persistently theorists and researchers today resort
to Weber's concepts of purposive-rational, value-rational, and substantively rational action (see table 8.1 for alternatives). The problem is that
the lacuna of integrative possibilities riddles all three classic social theorists'
works, and this lacuna has yet to be filled in the many works of their
successors, including the works of the Frankfurt school, and both French
and British structuralist Marxists; as well as the works of Parsonian func-
tionalists, symbolic interactionists, rational-choice theorists, organization

theorists, and both exchange theorists and network analysts. Because the
social integration/social control distinction has never been a topic of debate
within any of these theoretical traditions, the lacuna of integrative possibilities rests quite comfortably at the very base of all of the conceptual frameworks available to comparativists today.
One of the purposes of this volume is to fill the lacuna of integrative
possibilities by distinguishing social integration from social control conceptually. This distinction is also demonstrated to meet both of the requirements of any radical critique of a normative generalization or collective
prejudice: It can credibly claim grounding against normative relativism and
inform detailed empirical research. Because it can credibly claim grounding, the concept of social integration poses an alternative not only to the
relativism of Weberian ideal types but also to the sovereignty of actors'
subjective interests at the center of rational choice theory (Coleman 1986,
1990; Hechter 1987). It also poses an alternative to normative generalizations regarding the supposedly consensual or coercive bases of social order,
as well as to Tilly's relativism in refusing to distinguish legitimate from
illegitimate uses of collective force. Because it is capable of informing
falsifiable and ultimately operationalizable research, the concept of social
integration also poses an alternative to critical concepts of neo-Marxism,
including the concepts of alienation and communicative action.
For present purposes of introduction, the concept of social integration
may be defined preliminarily in the following way:
Heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within any sector, industry, organization, or organizational division of a modern civil society rests on whether they can, at the very
least, recognize and understand in common the shared social duties
being sanctioned there.10
Whenever the social duties being sanctioned within any complex social unit
are incapable of being recognized and understood in common by the actors
and groups affected, social scientists may conclude that their behavioral
conformity - and the resulting "social order" - is reducible to their social
control. At best, these actors and groups are being manipulated; at worst,
they are being coerced. By contrast, whenever the social duties being sanctioned within any complex social unit are at least recognized and understood
(even if not accepted) in common by the actors and groups affected, it is no
longer legitimate for social scientists to assume or assert that their behavioral
conformity - and the resulting "social order" - is reducible to their social
control. Instead, it may rest in some part on their social integration.
The central purpose of this volume is to propose a social theory that
allows social scientists to advance empirical research beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities in two significant respects.
First, it allows them to specify when social integration is a possibility,

in practice, within any sector, industry, organization or organizational
division of a modern civil society. With this, the lacuna of integrative
possibilities is filled conceptually.
Second, it allows them to isolate such possibilities wherever they may
be found, without presupposing from the outset that they are to be
found exclusively within Western democracies. With this, the presupposition of exhausted possibilities is jettisoned conceptually.
Putting this advance differently, the social integration/social control distinction allows social scientists to monitor the following two developments, in
practice, that escape the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. First,
are any Western democracies maintaining their current political institutions
and economic practices, even as manipulation, control, and coercion are
increasing substantially within more and more sectors of their civil societies? Conversely, are selected nation-states of the former Eastern bloc and
the Third World failing to adopt many of these institutions and practices,
even as manipulation, control, and coercion are decreasing substantially
within more and more sectors of their civil societies?
Each of these developments is a practicable rather than hypothetical
possibility. Empirical evidence of each development is likely to be discovered in new primary research and also, ironically, to be found buried in the
literature of comparative politics and comparative political sociology. If
this is the case, then why state each development so provisionally? Why not
turn immediately to concrete examples of each? Due to the lacuna of
integrative possibilities, and then the presupposition of exhausted possibilities resting on it, comparative researchers have yet to convert even unambiguous evidence of either development into discrete accounts amenable to falsification. They instead interpret and present such evidence on the
basis o/the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Thus, the literature
obfuscates and mislabels research findings that already directly challenge
the comforting collective prejudice; it will be shown in time that this is
particularly evident in the literature of corporate crime.
In emphasizing the importance of the direction of social change within
modern nation-states, the theory of societal constitutionalism subordinates
the importance of focusing on forms of government in and of themselves. It
also subordinates the importance that constitutional theorists and liberal
theorists have in the past accorded to the division of powers, the interrelationship between a market economy and a liberal state, and even actors'
"natural rights" and the sovereignty of their subjective interests. The
theory of societal constitutionalism proposes instead that shifts in the direction of social change - shifts between heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups' possible social integration and their demonstrable social control hinge on whether a distinct form of organization is, respectively, present
or absent within a civil society: the collegia! form. The theory of societal
constitutionalism does not propose that the presence of coUegial formations
within a civil society guarantees that heterogeneous actors and competing
groups are integrated rather than controlled. It does propose, however,
that the absence of coUegial formations does indeed guarantee that actors'
behavioral conformity within any complex social unit, and the social order
that results, are both reducible to their social control.11
But what are coUegial formations? And why is their presence so critical
to the direction of social change? Answering these questions is a central
task of this volume, and the concepts needed to do so are introduced in
chapter 4 and fully presented in chapter 8. For now it suffices to say that the
theory of societal constitutionalism offers a framework of analytical concepts that substitutes the social integration/social control distinction for
normative generalizations regarding "democracy," "authoritarianism," or
"social order."
What is wrong, for instance, with the democracy/authoritarianism distinction? "Authoritarianism" is defined residually, against the backdrop of the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities.12 It is ultimately defined by the
absence of the particular political institutions and economic practices of
existing Western democracies (e.g. Hall 1987, Mann 1987). The problem
with this is the narrow-mindedness involved in elevating the latter to the
standard of comparison, whether explicitly or implicitly. This is narrowminded not only because (a) the presupposition is itself a normative generalization, (b) one side of the democracy/authoritarianism distinction is a
mere residual category, and (c) the distinction itself is applicable only to
forms of government rather than to sectors of a civil society. It is narrowminded because it is not possible to apply the democracy/authoritarianism
distinction to shifts in the direction of social change. Yet, is it self-evident
that increases in control and social authoritarianism are restricted, in practice, to the civil societies of the Third World and former Eastern bloc? Is it
self-evident that existing Western democracies are somehow intrinsically
immune from social authoritarianism in every single sector, industry, organization, and organizational division of their civil societies? Exposing these
issues to empirical study in itself challenges the presupposition of exhausted possibilities directly: It moves empirical research into areas of
study obfuscated by this collective prejudice.
1.1.4. Can collective prejudice be attributed to researchers?
Even though empirical researchers today share the lacuna of integrative

possibilities with both classical and contemporary social theorists, it is undeniable that substantive findings in the social sciences have accumulated
over the years. We know far more about deviance, law, corporations, inter-
est associations, political parties, classes, the stratification system, and functional, ethnic, and religious solidarities than the classics ever knew. Researchers' substantive findings not only routinely refute or significantly
amend those of the classic theorist-researchers but also exceed the possible
scope of application of the latter's concepts and ideal types (see Walker and
Cohen 1985 on "scope statements"). The problem is that researchers today
nonetheless continue to present their findings in terms of ideal types and
concepts that, after all is said and done, remain derivatives of the classics'
own. Because substantive findings have gone unmatched by advances in
theory construction,13 the numerous respects in which research today exceeds the scope of application of existing conceptual frameworks in comparative political sociology, and simultaneously calls into question the presupposition of exhausted possibilities, have yet to be appreciated.
Consider the organizations literature. Substantive findings here are routinely reported that exceed the scope of application of Weber's ideal type of
bureaucracy. But too often these findings are left in a catch-all or residual
category: the "nonbureaucratic." They are not placed into, and thereby
illuminated by, positive categories attuned to their own richness and suggestiveness (Perrow 1979 is quite clear about this, but consider also e.g. Scott
1981/1987 and contributions in Zucker 1988). These findings are at times
categorized more positively in terms of Weber's even more basic concepts of
social action: the purposive-rational, the value-rational, and the substantively rational. Yet, as one example, John Meyer's characterization of organizations' "institutionalized environments" is literally hamstrung by such Weberian terminology (Meyer and Rowan 1977, Meyer and Scott 1983). Meyer
is clearly reporting something of great significance when he refers to "rationalized institutional myths" within these environments. But the crude Weberian concepts he employs in presenting hisfindingshopelessly obfuscate
what this might be (see chapter 8 for further discussion). In too many other
instances as well, the classics' concepts turn out to be unnecessary crutches in
the hands of remarkably skillful researchers.
To be sure, when stated bluntly and formally labeled, a great many
comparativists, including Meyer and researchers in other specialties, would
object strenuously to having the presupposition of exhausted possibilities
attributed to their works. These comparativists include, as prominent candidates: Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, and Theda Skocpol; Philippe
Schmitter and Walter Korpi; and S.N. Eisenstadt, Reinhard Bendix, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Neil Smelser. Still, none of these researchers can
demonstrate that their works distinguish social integration from social control, either explicitly or implicitly. And only on this conceptual basis can
comparative study escape the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. For
three interrelated reasons, it is fair to attribute this presupposition to their
works as well as to those of many other researchers:
10

First, there is not a single ideal type of nonliberal "democracy" to be
found in their works, nor in the literature of comparative political
sociology and comparative politics generally.
The comparativists just noted do not explicitly close the door on the possibility of there being a nonliberal "democracy," of course. But by leaving
the latter a residual category, they do so implicitly. This is a good example
of how theory broadly orients research. Even the most richly documented
empirical studies, supported by the most sophisticated methodological techniques, fail ever to yield the conclusion that a modern nation-state is closer
to nonliberal democracy today than it was ten years ago, or twenty years
ago. In short, the meaning or significance of any set of social events is tied
inextricably to researchers' basic concepts and presuppositions (Alexander
1982a). Only alternative concepts at this basic level can possibly allow them
to detect and then overcome distortions of meaning or significance, not
additional empirical studies or methodological advances.14
It is fair to attribute the presupposition of exhausted possibilities to these
researchers' works for two additional, related reasons:
Second, the social integration/social control distinction is collapsed in
all of their works in particular and in the literature generally (Tilly
1984 is one particularly eloquent example). As noted above, it is also
collapsed in the works of classical and contemporary social theorists.15
Third, as a result, an ideal type of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within any unit of a modern civil
society has never been applied to a nation-state that currently lacks
most Western political institutions and economic practices, and that is
unlikely ever to recapitulate all of them (whether, e.g., Brazil or the
Soviet Union, Zaire or the People's Republic of China).
In short, the presupposition of exhausted possibilities does indeed inform: (a) how Moore, Skocpol, and Tilly (and e.g. Alapuro 1987) characterize the direction of revolutionary change, as well as the prospects for
contemporary revolutions, (b) how Schmitter characterizes neocorporatist
arrangements within Western Europe and Latin America, and also prospects for "societal" and "state" neocorporatism, and (c) how Walter Korpi
and others (e.g. John Stephens, Gosta Esping-Anderson, Adam Przeworski, and Leo Panitch) characterize labor movements and social-democratic
parties within Scandinavia, and also prospects for greater egalitarianism.
What is ironic is that these comparativists and others have already published substantive findings that richly contradict the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. The conceptual limitations that these otherwise diverse researchers share literally prevent them, individually and collectively,
from seeing their own findings in this light.
1.2. Two issues of societal constitutionalism and an illustration
11
This volume challenges the presupposition of exhausted possibilities at its

roots. Rather than employing counterintuitive case studies and anecdotal
illustrations drawn from the Third World or the former Eastern bloc, it
challenges the presupposition at its own level. Still, as a point of departure
in this endeavor, it is worthwhile to consider a hypothetical example for
illustrative purposes. This example is referred to throughout this volume as
the theory of societal constitutionalism is presented. In illustrating the first
possibility noted earlier - the possibility of manipulation, control, and coercion increasing within a Western civil society - it is designed to shed light
on why a new conceptual framework is needed in comparative research in
order literally to "see the evidence."16
1.2.1. Illustrating the possibilities: a static example
A young chemist, William, is employed in one of a dozen or so large

research divisions of a major pharmaceutical company. He presents his
supervisor, Scott, with the most recent results of his laboratory analyses.
Taking one look, Scott hands them back, saying: "Look, William, I gave
you one set of compounds to test drawn from a much larger project. Hundreds of man-hours have been invested in this project already. Your results
are not anywhere near the results that we need for your set of compounds.
This could delay the entire project. Worse, it could reduce next year's
budget for our division. Keep in mind that once this project comes on-line,
no one is ever going to take it apart and retest its various sets of compounds
in isolation. Not anyone in government, at the Federal Drug Administration. Not anyone in this firm. Not anyone in any competitor's firm. And,
certainly, not any of your professors in the Chemistry Department of your
Ivy League college. So, be a professional, William. Be a team player and
bring me results we can use. There might even be a bonus in this for both of
us."
As the young chemist walks away, his mind races with three very different considerations. One consideration is how methodical he was in the
laboratory. Because this was his first important assignment, he not only
tested his set of compounds the standard number of times, he doubled the
number of tests. Moreover, he ran some tests at a laboratory station different from his own so that he could test "fresh," outside of the prejudice of
familiar surroundings. He is convinced that it is not possible for him or any
other chemist to run any legitimate test that would yield the results Scott is
expecting. William's only consolation is that the compound he is testing is
by no stretch of the imagination toxic or life-threatening. His greatest fear,
12
however, is that this could change once it is brought into the larger project.
This is not likely. But it is a possibility.
Walking to his laboratory station, William's second consideration is to
appraise his options realistically:
First, he could go to the manager of the division, Dr. Elston, and
explain his situation. But Elston would immediately consult with
Scott, and William would be accused of going over Scott's head.
Elston may not know what is going on, of course, and may appreciate
William's candor. But it might also be the case that it is Elston who is
pressing Scott to get results.
Second, William could discuss the situation informally with colleagues.
But after a year and a half in the division, it is not clear to him who
Scott's eyes and ears are among the chemists, and Scott seems always
to know what is going on.
Third, William could anonymously inform someone at the Federal
Drug Administration or the American Chemical Society. But William
doesn't know a single official in either organization. Even if he did,
neither a governmental agency nor a professional association would
take action against a major pharmaceutical company with a single incident in mind, based strictly on information provided by a single employee - even if the information is scrupulously documented.
Worse, if the FDA got wind of this particular project, the firm's
management would never believe that the tip had been anonymous.
One or two other chemists in other research divisions also may be
testing this compound, of course. But it may also be the case that
William is the only person testing it. He will never know.
Fourth, William could resign on principle: Scott is asking him to act
unprofessionally, and William takes pride in his credentials and skills.
But how will William's career look to prospective employers once he
resigns from one of the better entry-level positions in the entire industry? Who could he approach to recommend him to another firm? His
career literally could end right here with a hasty decision. His marriage
could end as well. What is certain is that his status among his friends
would plummet since they envy his position. What is also certain is
that William has never been attracted to reformers, nor to their
causes.
Even before taking his seat at his station, William knows precisely what his
only "option" is: He will bring Scott the results that Scott is expecting. The
third consideration now looms largest in his mind: What will Scott ask him
to do next? What does it mean to be a professional chemist within a
corporation? Does this sort of thing occur often across the firm's research
13
divisions, or across the research divisions of the industry - or is this an

anomaly?
William would clearly be instructed by John Braithwaite's study of corporate crime in the international pharmaceutical industry. Braithwaite found
(1984: 109) that "data tampering is [so] commonplace" that a realistic
stance by the Federal Drug Administration would be one of "a priori
reservations about the validity of data supplied by industry." Moreover,
Braithwaite reports (1984: 32-37) that American and European executives
in the industry agree that the European industry is "even more corrupt"
than the American.
7.2.2. Implications for both possibilities
William's situation is an illustration of a possible corporate crime. But
more importantly for present purposes, it is designed to illustrate what
would qualify as one bit of empirical evidence of an organization extending social control and contributing to social authoritarianism (see Braithwaite 1985 for a literature review).17 It illustrates an arbitrary exercise of
collective power within a Western civil society. To the extent that Scott is
not acting in isolation but instead on the basis of management's explicit or
implicit instructions, the corporation's collective power is being wielded
arbitrarily. Arbitrary power is defined later in this volume in terms of a
conceptually grounded threshold (chapter 6). The latter allows social scientists to specify when the shared social duties being sanctioned within any
complex social unit are no longer capable, in principle, of being recognized and understood in common by heterogeneous actors and competing
groups. For now, the central point of the illustration may simply be asserted, and left available for further elaboration as the theory of societal
constitutionalism is presented: William's situation illustrates the problem
of arbitrary exercises of collective power within a civil society. This problem goes beyond the issue of corporate crime to illustrate extensions of
social control and increases in a nation-state's susceptibility to social
authoritarianism.
This illustration is designed, actually, to raise issues that speak to both
possibilities posed earlier in the form of questions. The first possibility, just
noted, is that of increasing social authoritarianism within a Western democracy. Comparativists' concepts currently orient them to assume implicitly
that the presence of Western political institutions and economic practices
largely guarantees that, even though corporate crime may riddle certain
industries, increasing social authoritarianism is either not a possibility or
else is ultimately insignificant. Indeed, because many instances of outright
social authoritarianism within Western civil societies are currently labeled
corporate crimes, this distorts the significance of their impact on the direc-
14
tion of social change from the very outset. The presupposition of exhausted
possibilities guarantees this distortion, after all, by conceptual default.
With this in mind, consider that the comparativists noted earlier whose
works were said to illustrate the collective prejudice of the presupposition
of exhausted possibilities might readily refute this charge by answering the
following questions: If the issue of social authoritarianism is significant,
and if comparativists' theoretical frameworks are left open conceptually to
considering the empirical evidence as it stands rather than to prejudging it
by casually accepting the label of corporate crime, then where might one
find case studies that put the empirical evidence in this light? To the extent
that corporate abuses of power are indeed increasing across Western civil
societies, do none of these abuses challenge the presupposition of exhausted possibilities - albeit anecdotally rather than conceptually? Clearly,
William may own property, vote, speak, assemble with others, and either
worship as he prefers or read pornography (or, for that matter, racy criticisms of political and corporate leaders' public and private behavior). Moreover, the press and electronic media all around William are relatively
"free" of government control. But does any of this somehow guarantee
that William is any more integrated, or any less controlled, in his everyday
life than his counterparts in Brazil, the Soviet Union, or France?
Moreover, is it really the case that the vast majority of professionals
within Western civil societies never or seldom experience William's situation within their respective sites of employment? Or is it rather the case
that such situations are only too typical today, and, if anything, are increasing both in their frequency and seriousness all across Western civil societies? Put differently, is the multiplication of such abuses intrinsically insignificant? Or does such a trend provide unambiguous evidence of the decay
of the social infrastructure of a nonauthoritarian direction of social change
under modern conditions?
One purpose of this volume is to demonstrate that these are empirical
rather than speculative or ideological issues. Another purpose is to specify
why comparativists' conceptual frameworks currently prevent them from
seeing these issues in this way. Currently, even should the multiplication of
abuses of power within a Western civil society reach the point where situations such as William's are literally pervasive - and this point might already
have been reached, at least within selected sectors of selected Western civil
societies (Clinard and Yeager 1980; Braithwaite 1985) - comparativists currently have no alternative conceptually. From the outset, they can only
categorize both (a) the (possible) increasing number of such situations within
Western civil societies as well as (b) the (possible) decreasing number of
them within Third World or Eastern civil societies as equally insignificant.
Researchers often demonstrate, of course, that Western democracies are
inegalitarian. For the United States in particular it is an easy matter to
15
show that the gap of disposable income available to upper classes and both
middle and lower classes is increasing rather than decreasing (Gans 1988).
Researchers also often decry "status closure" or "credentialism" (Larson
1977; Collins 1979; Parkin 1979; Murphy 1988). Yet, these same researchers lack the conceptual apparatus necessary to demonstrate that even economically privileged actors within Western democracies are increasingly
being manipulated and controlled. They clearly fail to demonstrate that
this, more than any of the inequalities just noted, contributes directly to
shifts in the direction of social change. It does so by undermining the social
infrastructure of a nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions.18
The second possibility raised earlier in the form of a question is that of
decreasing social authoritarianism within non-Western nation-states. Even
more clearly here, comparativists lack the conceptual apparatus necessary
to recognize and describe prospects for a nonauthoritarian direction of
social change within nation-states that continue to resist adopting all of the
political institutions and economic practices of existing Western democracies. Bringing the same example above to such a nation-state, but now
reversing William's situation, would a multiplication of restraints on such
abuses of collective power within a civil society not contribute in some way
to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change? That is, if William and
other professionals were protected from such encroachments - even as
they could not vote or read popular exposes, and even as the electronic
media in particular remained more monitored by state agencies than is
currently the case in the West - would they be less controlled in significant
ways in their daily lives than their counterparts in the West? Can restraints
on abuses of collective power within a civil society be institutionalized,
both in principle and in practice, quite irrespective of whether all of the
political institutions and economic practices of existing Western democracies are also present within a nation-state?
The multiplication of William's situation within a Western nation-state and

the reduction of such situations within a non-Western nation-state are two
sides of the same conceptual coin, of course. The theory of societal constitutionalism offers comparativists a critical yet decidedly non-Marxist framework of concepts with which to explore each side of this coin methodically.
It is designed to specify those organizations and institutions that contribute
to shifts in any modern nation-state's direction of social change. In this
way, the theory broadens the scope of critical theory beyond Marxists'
critique of ideology and class struggle, and beyond their penchant to apply
critique rather exclusively to advanced capitalism. In truth, the theory of
16
societal constitutionalism severs critique from the Marxist tradition altogether. It endeavors, on the one hand, to pinpoint when specific exercises
of collective power within particular sectors of a civil society remain consistent with heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration. It also endeavors, on the other hand, to pinpoint when specific
exercises of collective power are manifestations of these actors' and groups'
demonstrable social control.
The theory of societal constitutionalism rests in large part on a synthesis
of concepts developed at different levels of analysis and for different purposes by Talcott Parsons, the Harvard sociologist; Lon Fuller, the Harvard
legal theorist; and Jiirgen Habermas, the German critical theorist. Parsons,
Fuller, and Habermas are the most important postwar representatives of
three quite different traditions of social theory, respectively: the functionalist tradition, the common law tradition, and the tradition of critical
theory (as one significant strand of neo-Marxism).
In 1964, with the first edition of The Morality of Law, Fuller systematically formulated for the first time in the long tradition of common-law
theory and practice the most fundamental, general principles underlying
civil opposition to arbitrary government within Anglo-American countries.
With these principles, he held that he had specified a threshold of procedural norms marking the most irreducible basis of the lawful/lawless distinction. But Fuller's principles are more generalizable than this, and more
sociological. His procedural threshold specifies whether heterogeneous actors and competing groups can recognize and understand in common what
the shared social duties are that are being sanctioned within any complex
social unit, and not simply whether a nation-state's positive laws are lawful
or not.
By the late 1960s, Habermas's work also took what he calls a "procedural turn." He developed a communication theory in an effort to specify
when actors' mutual understandings of "speech acts" are either purposefully manipulated or inadvertently "distorted." Habermas proposes that an
admittedly "unreal" or "counterfactual" ideal, that of actors' nondistorted
and nonmanipulated mutual understanding or what he also calls "communicative action" and "procedural reason," replaces Marx's alternative conceptual grounding, the concept of alienation, as well as Weber's most critical
concept, the concept of substantive rationality. Habermas is convinced that
to charge social enterprises with alienating labor or with being substantively nonrational is unnecessarily vague and, ultimately, unnecessarily restricting. Whether his own standard of procedural reason is (a) grounded
against normative relativism, (b) capable of supporting charges that are
simultaneously sharper and broader, and (c) capable of informing detailed
empirical research, are, however, all open questions (chapter 5). What is
not problematic is that a standard of procedural reason can credibly claim
17
conceptual grounding against the relativism of actors' subjective interests

and normative beliefs whereas standards of substantive rationality cannot
(including that underlying Bloom's entire 1987 polemic).
Habermas's communication theory was not available to Fuller, even as
Fuller was familiar with, and at times referred to, the later Wittgenstein's
treatment of language games. Even today, however, Habermas remains
unaware of Fuller's work. The theory of societal constitutionalism demonstrates that their most important contributions may be readily synthesized,
and that this synthesis neither distorts nor reifies either theorist's concepts
(chapter 6). Aside from providing one of two conceptual foundations of the
theory of societal constitutionalism, this first synthesis also yields two proposed contributions to social theory: First, it specifies how Fuller's procedural threshold brings Habermas's purported grounding of procedural reason to detailed empirical research, even as Habermas acknowledges he is
unable to do this himself. Second, it specifies how Habermas's communication theory may ground Fuller's procedural threshold against normative
relativism, even as Fuller was unable to do this himself.
The source of the other conceptual foundation of the theory of societal
constitutionalism is the writings of Talcott Parsons, and in particular his
early references to voluntaristic action (chapter 7), and then his later references to procedural institutions and what he at times called the collegial
form of organization (chapter 8). Parsons's works are not addressed at
great length in this volume, however, because in order properly to demonstrate his contribution to the theory of societal constitutionalism, it is necessary to introduce six quite fundamental reformulations into his most important theoretical contributions. This is accomplished in a separate volume
dedicated exclusively to this task (Sciulli in preparation, a).
Rather than concluding this introduction with a chapter summary, the
following may suffice for now: Basic analytical distinctions underlying the
theory of societal constitutionalism are introduced in the next three chapters, and brief chapter summaries are provided after this, prospectively at
the opening of chapter 5 and then retrospectively at the opening of chapter
11. The reader is forewarned that chapter 4 is one of the most difficult in
the book. I encourage readers to bring criticisms to all of the chapters, but I
ask for particular patience and care when reading this one.19
Social theorists are a curious lot, as are methodologists. For both, criticisms
come to their lips more readily than breath itself. In my view this enriches
collegiality within the academy in the only way that matters. Most sociology departments sense that it is a good thing to keep around at least one
each of these curiosities, and on occasion to tolerate their criticisms. But
18
the best departments appreciate that one of their strengths is that they have
many more of these curiosities around, and that they are encouraged to do
what comes naturally, however annoying this may be at times for everyone
affected.
Over the past two or three years many colleagues have responded critically to chapters of this book in draft, or to the preliminary and partial
arguments that appeared earlier in journals, or else to my own public or
private presentations of the theory. I begin by thanking in particular Ira
Cohen, Dean Gerstein, and Bernard Barber. I thank them not for doing
what theorists do naturally but rather for doing it so skillfully and with such
eloquence and helpfulness. To be questioned by any one of these three
social theorists is to receive simultaneously a high honor and a humbling
experience. To be questioned by all three independently is to feel prepared
to meet any other audience, whether one of social theorists or, possibly,
one of methodologists (to consider a worst case scenario).
At the same time, this book would never have been written, for a great
variety of reasons, if Jeffrey Alexander had not revitalized the enterprise of
social theory in the United States beginning in the early 1980s. I am personally convinced that only Jeff could have accomplished so much at that point
in time. More than anyone else in the 1980s, he has made it easier for all of
us - here and abroad - not only to seek but possibly to secure an audience
in the United States. This is something that his critics would do well to
acknowledge. It does not violate tenets of our curious lot for them to do so.
At the same time, Jeff is not likely to agree with much of the argument
presented below, even as many of these points of disagreement are fruits,
albeit indirect, of his remarkable labors across the last decade. If social
theory's audience is to continue to grow rather than to revert to its sorry
state of the late-1970s, it may well be that open, rigorous, and specific
disagreements are the only means we have to secure it.
There are two other colleagues without whose assistance this book would
never have been written, but now I am referring in the most literal sense to
my personal, material situation of the mid-1980s. Mayer Zald and then
Russell Dynes each offered me a different kind of academic position at
moments most dire. Anyone reading this now who considers this hyperbole
is demonstrating handily that he or she did not know me then. Even now,
with relative "affluence" staring me in the face, with its own special hazards, I suppose, I cannot forget what those moments were like. I have also
learned a great deal from the following colleagues, several of whom have
lambasted my work plenty in the curious manner of our shared lot: First
and foremost, in Washington, D.C., Ruth Wallace, William D'Antonio,
and John McCarthy. Among my former colleagues at the University of
Delaware, Sally Bould and Gerald Turkel in particular. More generally,
Harold Bershady, Frank Adler, Robert Antonio, Denes Nemedi, Birgitta
I A. Acknowledgement
19
Nedelmann, Anna Wessely, Elzbieta Halas, Robert Merton, John Braithwaite, Paul Colomy, David Wilier, Wendell Bell, Donald Levine, John R.
Hall, Michael Hammond, Robert Marsh, David Jacobs, Michael Kennedy,
Carl Klockars, Wallace Dynes, Scott McNall, Frank Lechner, John Meyer,
Mark Mizruchi, Kurt Finsterbusch, Terence Russell, Sheldon Stryker, and
R. Stephen Warner. I also received excellent comments and suggestions
from an anonymous reviewer, from a second reviewer, Karol Soltan, from
two anonymous members of the Rose Monograph Series Board, and from
series editor Teresa Sullivan.
In addition, three graduate students at the University of Delaware were
enormously helpful at various stages in this work's completion; they are
William Lofquist, Patricia Jenkins, and in particular Pan Hao. Their contributions are exemplars of voluntaristic action in the sense that the latter is
defined in this volume.
At home, my greatest debts are to Cynthia Sciulli, Julia and Emilia
Fernandez, Oreste Sciulli, Michael Poli, Joseph Rutkowski, and Kathyrn
Plesivac.
SECTION I
Conceptual foundations of societal

constitutionalism
2. Social integration and social control:

the importance of procedural normative
restraints
It is useful to begin by characterizing social order in positive terms rather

than leaving it a residual category, whether as an antonym of entropy or
randomness (Parsons 1937a: 752; 1968c; Alexander 1978, 1982a, 1987).
Researchers may say that any social unit is ordered when members' behavior typically falls within acknowledged ranges of acceptable behavior. The
latter is that entire set of behavior that other members typically acknowledge is acceptable rather than either exemplary or deviant (see Brennan
and Buchanan 1985: 98-104; Ridgeway and Berger 1986 on expectation
states theory). Indeed, this behavior is so unambiguously acceptable, that,
if anything, the questioning of such behavior by any member of the group
runs a greater risk of being labeled deviant (as, for example, nosey, intrusive, or prelusive) than the behavior questioned.
With this in mind, a staid religious congregation may be ordered at one
moment in time, and then become disordered, as actors' behavior no
longer meets members' acknowledged ranges of expectations regarding
ritual, dress, or donations. Similarly, a criminal motorcycle gang may be
just as ordered in its own way, and then become disordered, as actors'
behavior fails to meet members' acknowledged ranges of expectations regarding, drug-running, tatooing, or fighting. Nudist camps or concentration
camps may be ordered or disordered in their own ways (see Kaplan 1980
for an application to juveniles' behavior).
This view of social order is indeed positive rather than residual, and yet it
is also disconcertingly relativist rather than critical. The point at the moment, however, is not to worry about the substantive activities to which any
particular social unit may be dedicated. The point is that researchers may
legitimately say that a social unit is "ordered" in the sense above irrespective of whether a social unit's substantive ends are virtuous or vicious.1 This
may be said even if manifest coercion (as in concentration camps) explains
why a mass of actors conforms to a handful of power holders' expectations.
This may also be said even if the actors involved are competing zealously
over scarce material and symbolic resources.2
23
24
2. Social integration and social control
In short, the orderliness of any complex social unit cannot be said to rest
on the absence of moments of manifest coercion, interest competition, and
personal anxiety. Nor, for that matter, does it rest on the absence of moments of outright conflict. But it can be said to rest on the absence however temporary - of unambiguous behavioral encroachments against
its members' acknowledged ranges of expectations regarding acceptable
behavior. This may be said irrespective of how distinctive or idiosyncratic
these ranges might be in any given case. Correlatively, the antonym of
social order is by no means entropy, randomness, or even competition and
conflict; it is subjectively unacceptable behavior. When members of a congregation or a gang begin to encroach against acknowledged ranges of
expectations, by no means are they necessarily acting randomly, entropically, or even conflictually. Their behavior is nonetheless subjectively unacceptable to other members, and thereby disorderly. At the same time, a
congregation or a gang engaged in conflict with other social units, or else
riddled internally by its own members' intense competition, may be wellordered: Each actors' behavior may fall within members' acknowledged
ranges of expectations (see note 2).
This strictly relativist definition of social order becomes more difficult to
apply empirically, of course, when researchers move it to more macrosociological units such as social movements, complex organizations, or
national institutions. And yet, evidence may readily be found of heterogeneous actors and competing groups endeavoring independently to restrict
their behavior to what they independently perceive to be the ranges of
expectations acknowledged (or institutionalized) within macrosociological
units.3
Such acts of self-restriction may be attributed to one or both of two
broad sets of mechanisms of social control. First, actors' self-restriction
within a social unit may be attributed to their rational or strategic calculations of their own material and symbolic self-interests. These calculations
may either be made individually by each actor or through networks and
collectivities. They include calculations of how best to reduce or eliminate
any possibility of immediate or eventual physical coercion, monetary loss,
loss of prestige, or loss of future opportunities (Brennan and Buchanan
1985; Coleman 1986, 1988, 1990; and Hechter 1987 revolve around this set
of mechanisms of social control). Second, actors' self-restriction within a
social unit also may be attributed to some prior narrowing of their subjective interests. To attribute social order to a prior narrowing of actors'
subjective interests, however, is to account for social order in terms of
exercises of "coercion" that are now quite subtle, and yet palpable.
These more subtle self-restrictions may be traced to at least three
sources. First, they may be traced to informal mechanisms of social control,4 whether internalized or negotiated in local interactions, as is the case
25
when actors endeavor to avoid shaming (Braithwaite 1989). Second, they

may be traced to either institutional or systemic mechanisms of social control,5 as is the case when actors defer to purportedly "objective" limitations
on their access to material goods and services. Third, and the subtlest selfrestrictions of all, they may be traced to cognitive obstacles that distort
actors' understanding of what is being expected of them, including which of
their own subjective interests are acceptable and which are not.6 Actors
misunderstand just what the scope of behavior actually being sanctioned
within their social units is.7
When actors place unnecessary restrictions on their own behavior, a
social unit's orderliness can no longer be reduced to any combination of
informal, institutional, and systemic sanctions. Instead, social order is tied
in some part to cognitive limitations, and these can be traced to two
sources. On the one hand, actors may misunderstand which shared social
duties are actually being sanctioned with a social unit at any given point in
time (see chapters 3-5 on shared social duties). On the other hand, and
more importantly, certain shared social duties may be intrinsically difficult
for heterogeneous actors and competing groups to recognize and understand in common. This is the case, as examples, when the shared social
duties are: (a) ambiguous in and of themselves, (b) inconsistent with those
being sanctioned within the other social units to which these actors and
groups also belong (whether family, or sites of employment, leisure, or
worship), or, finally, (c) inadvertently (or purposefully) skewed to the
advantage (or disadvantage) of certain sets of actors and groups.
It is not essential at this point to address how researchers can specify in
comparative perspective when shared social duties are themselves intrinsically difficult for any set of heterogeneous actors and competing groups to
recognize and understand in common. This is addressed in time (see chapter 6 on the "threshold of interpretability"). The point at the moment
simply is to propose the possibility, in principle, that heterogeneous actors
and competing groups within complex social units may restrict their own
behavior unnecessarily as a result of either type of cognitive limitation.
When actors experience cognitive limitations, moreover, none of the other
mechanisms of social control comes into play at all. The ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior that they believe are acknowledged or
institutionalized within a social unit are already narrower than the ones
actually being sanctioned, whether informally, institutionally, or systemically. To the extent that this is the case, their self-restriction is more stultifying than any actor or observer can warrant as essential to maintaining social
order.
This issue of unnecessary self-restriction is complicated, and also strictly
sociological rather than social psychological. There is no good reason at
this point to reduce its complexity prematurely in a rush to operationalize
26
concepts. In the first place, actors' self-restrictions may not be purposeful

products of power holders' actions. They may rather be inadvertent products of social change that happen to work to the benefit of power holders;
after all, actors' formulation and articulation of challenges to their authority are being delimited from the outset. In the second place, it is precisely
when they are experiencing cognitive limitations that even the most heterogeneous sets of actors and the most competitive sets of groups may
well accept subjectively, by any number of inconsistent or unwarranted
rationales, that their behavior is a product of their "free will" rather than
of their social control. Actors may never believe for an instant that they
are even modestly constrained or disadvantaged (Etzioni's 1961/1975
"compliance theory," for instance, takes such subjective beliefs at face
value). Indeed, when all of the mechanisms of social control noted above
are operating most effectively, surveys of actors' subjective beliefs are
quite incapable of revealing the latent coercion, manipulation, and selfrestriction that is involved (Dryzek 1988).8
Standing back from all of these possibilities, it may be said with confidence that power holders within any complex social unit - whether a revolutionary social movement or a capitalist corporation - either become
adept at employing purposeful mechanisms of social control and also at
benefiting from unplanned or inadvertent mechanisms of social control, or
else they cease at some point to be power holders. Indeed, social order
within any complex social unit, and certainly within any sector, industry, or
organization of a modern civil society, can rarely be attributed exclusively
to power holders' purposeful designs. It is generally based in some significant part on informal, institutional, and systemic processes, and then, too,
on actors' self-restriction. Consider only the following two reasons why this
is the case.
On the one hand, physical or material sanctions need not be applied
directly by the power holders who are benefiting most from their enforcement. Such sanctions may be applied by professional enforcers whom
power holders no longer control, either directly or indirectly (Weber 1914
20: 214). Or, alternatively, sanctions may be "applied" by an "impersonal"
marketplace, as systemic mechanisms of social control even further removed from power holders' direct or indirect control (Marx 1857-58). On
the other hand, as noted above, heterogeneous actors' subjective interests
and competing groups' immediate material interests may be manipulated,
"distorted," or restricted from the outset. Thus, any given social order is
likely a product of systemic forces of social change (such as rationalization,
commodification, capitalization), structural and institutional obstacles, informal local interactions, and actors' self-restriction - rather than the product of purposefully enforced sanctions alone.
27

2.2.1. Social control sans social integration
The enormous American literature of social control, from Edward A. Ross's

two articles in the first volume set of American Journal of Sociology in 1896
to impressive theoretical efforts by Jack Gibbs (1981) and Donald Black
(1984), may be read as a sustained, collective effort by theorists and researchers alike to fathom the relationship between purposeful and inadvertent
mechanisms of social control. Yet, in recent years there has been a decided
turn, for purposes of operationalization and empirical study, to concentrate
on purposeful mechanisms. Gibbs focuses on these, for instance, and in no
uncertain terms. What is increasingly being lost from sight,firstconceptually
and then empirically, is that many other mechanisms of social control often
work to the benefit of power holders. This remains the case even when
power holders fail to understand (a) that these mechanisms of social control
work to their benefit, (b) how they operate, and (c) how their operation
might be maintained or improved.
Even worse, all of the contributors to this literature collapse instances of
heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration
into their analyses of (largely) purposeful mechanisms of social control.
Indeed, this ongoing reduction, a manifestation of the lacuna of integrative
possibilities, is what opened the way for researchers today to concentrate
more and more one-sidedly on purposeful mechanisms of social control.
Moreover, their longstanding failure to distinguish the possibility of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' social integration from the admittedly greater likelihood of their social control carries at least three other
implications in this context:
First, the possibility of eventually specifying when actors' self-restriction is unnecessary is eliminated by conceptual default. Scheff (1984a),
for instance, asserts that there is unnecessary self-restriction, but then
fails to specify how he knows when this is the case and when it is not (and
his later concept of interpersonal "attunement" [1990] does not help
researchers who are studying exercises of collective power at the macrosociological level).
Second, heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social
integration within any complex social unit is collapsed into the "successful" operation of institutional and systemic mechanisms of social
control, rather than kept distinct conceptually. The very term "integration" is thereby rendered intrinsically apologetic. It refers to situations
in which inadvertent rather than purposeful mechanisms of social con-
28

trol largely account for actors' and groups' behavioral conformity (Parsons 1951, 1968c; Parsons and Platt 1973; Alexander 1978, 1980,
1982a, 1983b, 1987).
Third, sociologists' treatments of social control are rendered decidedly
normative and relativist. They lack any claim to conceptual grounding,
and thereby to critique. Their treatments may well be consistent with
"conflict theory," to be sure, but the latter merely means that sociologists are refusing to consider the possibility that some existing social
orders might be integrative rather than controlling (Collins 1979;
Parkin 1979; Murphy 1988). More typically, sociologists' treatments of
social control are apologetic. They are incapable conceptually of specifying when actors' behavioral conformity is excessive or unnecessary,
other than to point to blatantly "coercive" controls (Etzioni 1961/1975;
Gibbs 1981, 1982; Mayer 1983; Black 1984; Griffiths 1984; along with
Parsons and Alexander).9
2.2.2. The distinct concept of social integration: a preliminary

definition
Morris Janowitz's (1975, 1976) work is particularly influential within the
American literature of social control. His approach is so internally at odds
with itself conceptually, however, that, in a curious way, it exemplifies what
needs to be done in order to distinguish social integration conceptually
from social control. Janowitz fails to appreciate how readily his work falls
victim to the first two implications just noted: He fails to detect when social
control is excessive, other than in cases of manifest coercion. He also
readily collapses the concept of social integration into an otherwise remarkably undifferentiated category of social control. Moreover, his study of the
welfare state (1976) exemplifies yet the third implication - that of relativism. Ironically, it exemplifies both of this implication's manifestations: as
an unsubstantiated "conflict theory" and as an unsubstantiated apologetics.
In his often-cited survey of the literature (1975), Janowitz traces the
concept's evolution from the turn of the century to the 1970s. His thesis
states that the discipline is best advised to return to the concept's earlier,
more robust meaning. By his account, social control originally "referred to
the capacity of a society to regulate itself according to desired principles
and values." The antonym of this early concept was not entropy or randomness, therefore, but rather what Janowitz calls "coercive control." Given
his social control/coercive control distinction, both an unsubstantiated
apologetics and an unsubstantiated conflict theory pervade his subsequent
study of the welfare state (1976). After all, any existing social order whose
power holders do not typically resort to coercive mechanisms of social
22, Social control in the literature
29
control automatically qualifies for inclusion into his otherwise undifferentiated master category. Then, with the concept of social control already
shorn of the limiting case "coercive control," the former concept is rendered into a literal synonym for "social integration." Thus, the two terms
are collapsed into a single concept that is relativistic or intrinsically uncritical. Janowitz's concept of social control permits him simultaneously to
criticize most everything taking place within the welfare state, as he sees
fit, even as he concedes that the welfare state does not rest on manifest
coercion.10
As Janowitz would have it, the earlier, robust concept of social control
was narrowed substantially in the 1950s (by Talcott Parsons, says he).
Earlier references addressed how collectivities' institutionalization of their
members' behavioral conformity contributes to the larger social order
whereas later references concentrated on how individuals' internalization
of norms contributes to the larger social order (see Scott 1971 for a captivating discussion of the latter). Thus, a concept once quintessential^ sociological was narrowed, and rendered social-psychological. Janowitz instructs
sociologists to return to the issue of how larger social units contribute to
social order, or to sustaining national institutions. He is particularly interested in how these units regulate their own memberships without simply
reacting strategically to the state's external threats of sanctions for misbehavior. Rather than instructing sociologists to balance their current treatments of purposeful mechanisms of social control with more methodical
assessments of inadvertent mechanisms of social control, therefore, he
instead calls on them to expand their studies of purposeful mechanisms to
encompass larger social units.
In short, in both his review essay and subsequent study of the welfare
state, Janowitz fails to address the phenomenon of manipulation at all, or
instances when social control cannot be integrative even as it remains
noncoercive. Put differently, by failing to distinguish the concept of social
integration, the concept of social control becomes apologetic or uncritical
at the moment that the discussion turns to systemic, institutional, or informal mechanisms of social control. In this respect, Janowitz's approach to
social control is consistent with that of every other American sociologist
who has used the concept, including those writing before the narrowing of
the 1950s. Still, by distinguishing coercive control from social control, Janowitz at least intimates at times that the latter might be further distinguished
from social integration. He at least intimates that: (a) he would like to
make this distinction himself (but then never did), or else (b) he would
adopt it if it became available. After all, the social control/social integration distinction would at least balance his otherwise one-sided concern
about "coercive control."11
At this early point in the discussion, prior to the presentation of the
30
theory of societal constitutionalism, the distinct concept of social integration may be presented preliminarily by borrowing Janowitz's suggestions
regarding collectivities' self-regulation:12
Heterogeneous actors and competing groups are possibly integrated
rather than demonstrably controlled within any complex social unit
when the shared social duties being sanctioned within it can at least be
recognized and understood by them in common (even if not necessarily accepted by them in common).
Later in this volume it is demonstrated that this concept of social integration is intrinsically critical. It can credibly claim conceptual grounding
against normative relativism. After all, any set of shared social duties that
heterogeneous actors and competing groups can recognize and understand
in common is distinctive (chapter 6). If social scientists can specify when
such a set is being sanctioned within any complex social unit, then they
can credibly claim that it is possibly integrative. This means that social
scientists can specify when a set of shared social duties is capable of being
recognized and understood by such actors and groups in common, irrespective of: (a) the current (and possibly increasing) heterogeneity of
their internalized beliefs and subjective interests, and (b) their current
(and possibly increasing) competition for profits, power, and influence
within economic and political marketplaces.13 Correlatively, any set of
shared social duties that lacks these qualities is demonstrably controlling.
If actors and groups cannot recognize and understand what their shared
social duties are, then, irrespective of anything else that may be said
about their behavioral conformity, it cannot be said to be possibly integrated rather than controlled.
2.2.3. Social control in social theory and political sociology
In the symbolic interactionist literature of "negotiated order" (associated in
particular with works by Anselm Strauss 1978), it is either argued or assumed
that social control rests on individual actors' ongoing, active self-regulation
within particular social situations, and not on norms actors have internalized
(see Maines and Charlton 1985 for a review; and J. Turner 1988 more generally). As one result of this eminently credible position, however, the terms
social control and social integration are employed interchangeably. Whenever interactionists see actors negotiating "definitions of the situation" in the
absence of either manifest rebellion or widespread deviance within any
sector of a civil society, they take this a priori as evidence of actors' social
integration (see Stelling and Bucher 1972: 432 for an influential example
applied to the medical profession). Interactionists correctly move beyond
Durkheim's, Freud's, and Parsons's emphases on actors' internalization of
31
norms, but they lack the conceptual apparatus required to recognize instances of actors' manipulation, latent coercion, and self-restriction, in practice, within any negotiated order (Sciulli 1988b).14
In both political sociology (Janowitz, Zald, Gibbs, Black) and general
social theory (Alexander 1978, 1982a, 1987; Giddens 1979, 1984), social
control also is equated either with actors' passive acquiescence or their
more active "self-regulation."15 In one way or another, successful social
control ultimately is related to a social order's purported "legitimacy,"16
and, following Weber, the latter is treated as a widely shared subjective
belief (Giddens 1979: 101-3; Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 99-100): Subordinates believe subjectively that the acknowledged ranges of expectations
regarding acceptable behavior being sanctioned are themselves rational,
traditional, or habitual (or else purposive-rational, value-rational, or substantively rational). Given Weber's treatment of legitimation, issues of
latent coercion and manipulation, of whether actors' subjective beliefs are
themselves accurate or "distorted," are hastily subordinated to the more
superficial issue discussed at the opening of this chapter: Are authorities
(and the acknowledged ranges of expectations that they sanction) subjectively acceptable to most actors most of the time?
In the literature of political sociology devoted to the state, however,
power holders' purposeful mechanisms of social control as well as structural or systemic mechanisms of social control that work to their favor have
both remained central (see Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985;
Block 1987; Gold, Lo, and Wright 1975; Skocpol 1980; Skocpol and
Amenta 1986 for reviews). By briefly surveying some of the major points
raised in this literature, the importance for comparative research of distinguishing analytically between heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration and their demonstrable social control begins to
come into view.
The capitalist state as instrument of purposeful social control. Ralph
Miliband (1969), G. William Domhoff (1967), and even James O'Connor

(1973), as well as many elite and Marxist theorists more generally, see the
state as capitalists' "instrument." With this, they emphasize the importance
of purposeful mechanisms of social control. They argue that capitalists
consciously maintain social control, first by maintaining their own intraclass solidarity, and then by either directly selecting or else directly
influencing policymakers. This same emphasis on purposeful mechanisms
of social control also explains why sociologists who are far less critical of
the state nonetheless study networks of elite solidarity, whether within
economic institutions such as interlocking directorships (Mizruchi 1982;
Burt 1983; Useem 1984; Mintz and Schwartz 1985) or within social organizations of intra-elite communication, including: private clubs (Domhoff
32
1974), trade associations (Sabato 1985; Laumann and Knoke 1987), and
the mass media (Gans 1979). Elite solidarity is assumed to be central to
social control and thus to social order.
"Instrumental theorists" have difficulties, however, accounting for actions taken by state agencies that turn out, in retrospect, to maintain capitalism but that were actively opposed by many capitalists when they were
being proposed. Capitalists opposed these actions because they were convinced that they jeopardized their most basic material interests.17 The problem, therefore, is that individual capitalists may well maintain intraclass
solidarity, and may also secure routine access to policymakers through
organized groups, if not as a class, and yet they may not have any idea,
either as a class or an identifiable group or coalition within it, how best to
maintain the capitalist system in the face of systemic crises.
The capitalist system as mechanism of inadvertent social control. This is the
problem that Nicos Poulantzas (1973) and other structuralist Marxists (including Louis Althusser) long emphasized, as does Niklas Luhmann today
(1982,1986,1990) and other non-Marxist systems theorists: Informal, institutional and, in particular, systemic mechanisms of social control maintain
the (capitalist) system. Capitalists themselves need not be particularly skillful in coordinating their own activities more purposefully because their
consciousness, or subjective solidarity, is ultimately not a crucial factor in
successful social control. Capitalists also need not dominate the policymaking process, whether directly as a class or indirectly as a set of otherwise competing interest groups. The crucial factors maintaining any ongoing (capitalist) system are systemic. These factors broadly interrelate the
interests of (otherwise diverse) capitalists and the policies of (otherwise
independent) state agencies quite irrespective of whether capitalists establish a shared consciousness or exhibit particular solidarity. Once a (capitalist) system is in place, and once the legitimacy of its basic organizations and
institutions has somehow been secured, whether by means fair or foul
(Tilly 1985), systemic factors are then sufficient to sustain it. Capitalists
themselves need not be particularly skillful in reaping the system's many
advantages (Block 1977 and Therborn 1978; Block 1987 has since evolved
away from this position).
In related approaches, Jiirgen Habermas distinguishes between social
situations in which actors' beliefs are purposefully "manipulated" and those
in which they are more inadvertently or "systematically distorted."18 Michael Useem's (1984) impressive study of the unplanned evolution of corporations within the United States and Great Britain across the twentieth
century - from family capitalism to managerial capitalism and then to institutional capitalism - also demonstrates the increasing importance of systemic mechanisms of social control. Clearly, different sets of elites and
33
power holders have benefited, both historically and today, from systemic
social changes. Just as clearly, none of them controlled these changes or
even necessarily understood their likely implications, even as they benefited from them.
Influentials' competition as mechanism of inadvertent social control. A
third point of view is provided by researchers who retain a radical or

critical intent but who are otherwise wary of orthodox Marxism and all
related instrumentalist and structuralist positions. These researchers argue
that the "causal agents" who initiated policies of the modern welfare
state, for instance, were neither capitalists (and their agents within the
state) nor strictly systemic or structural forces. Instead, the welfare state
was initiated by coalitions of reform-minded capitalists, along with essentially noncapitalist and even anticapitalist political interests within and
around legislatures and governmental agencies. Thus, contingent coalitions of reform-minded capitalists both responded to, and stimulated the
mobilization of, working-class formations and other "progressive" interests within the wider civil society (Fulcher 1987 labels this "labor movement theory").
Given this dynamic process, the policies of the welfare state turned out
over time to perpetuate and revitalize capitalism, even as this was by no
means self-evident to any of the actors comprising the coalitions that
proposed and defended these policies in the heat of political battle. It is
only clear today, in retrospect, that many alternative policies would have
likely precipitated sustained social and economic crises if they had been
adopted instead. The central point of this third approach to the state,
therefore, is not really that the state is "relatively autonomous" from
capitalists' immediate interests. It is rather that shifts in domestic policymaking, both before and after World War II, were tied to the extent and
intensity of working-class mobilization within the United States, on the
Continent, and in Scandinavia.19
What is clear from the discussion above is that the same fundamental
distinction missing from the American literature of social control is missing
as well from the international debate over the state:20 the distinction between instances of demonstrable social control, whether purposeful or inadvertent, and instances of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration.21 Marxists insist, of course, that actors who do
not own or control the means of production cannot possibly be integrated,
irrespective of what their subjective beliefs and interests happen to be.
And, actually, this is a great virtue of Marxism as a tradition of theory and
34
research. After all, actors' subjective beliefs and interests may be informally, institutionally, or systemically narrowed and "distorted" without
actors being aware that this is the case. Moreover, the actors might operate
on the basis of any number of self-restrictions and yet continue to believe
that they are acting freely.
Still, as a tradition of theory and research, Marxism commits contemporary researchers conceptually (including Burawoy 1979; Therborn 1987;
Wright 1985) to account for social order exclusively in terms of actors'
manipulation, latent coercion, or worse - irrespective of any and all evidence to the contrary. Marxists are committed conceptually in this way, for
instance, quite irrespective of how actors happen to be organized within any
sector, industry, or organization of a modern civil society, capitalist or otherwise. Thus, to the extent that the proletariat is not actively engaged in
rebellion against any capitalist society, Marxists have always had no alternative conceptually other than to conclude that workers' behavior is reducible
to manipulation by an instrumental state, systemic mechanisms of social
control, and workers' own self-restriction. There is not a single Marxist
theory of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within modern civil societies, nor can there be.
Even worse, given the conceptual and epistemological limitations of this
remarkably methodical theoretical tradition, there is not a single Marxist
theory of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within any particular organization or institution. This holds true for
labor unions within social democracies, communist parties either within the
West or the former Eastern bloc, Solidarity within Poland, or popular
movements of radical social change within the Third World. Marxists studying either "capitalist states" or "existing communist states" cannot link
their theory to practice today precisely because they never developed a
theory of what integrative institutions and organizations might look like
even under the most favorable material conditions (Therborn 1977 and
Sirianni 1981; Przeworski's 1985 account of social democracy revolves
around the implications of this lacuna). Marx's original notion of the "withering away" of the state and of all other organizational and institutional
forms (Oilman 1977) is as little a theory of possible social integration as his
notion of absolute disalienation is a theory of possible praxis (Sciulli 1984).
At the same time, more mainstream political sociologists, whether critical of existing Western democracies or not (from Barrington Moore,
Charles Tilly, and Theda Skocpol to Seymour Martin Lipset, Rheinhard
Bendix, and even Daniel Bell, to cite only a few prominent examples),
operate within and through conceptual frameworks that recapitulate many
of the same limitations. Like Marxists, they also fail to isolate the organizational and institutional bases of heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups' possible social integration. They instead focus on what they con-
35
sider to be the intrinsic interrelationships between (a) systemic and structural inequalities, (b) either class and status group behavior, and (c) liberal
political forms and economic practices. They lack the concepts to do anything other than to condemn in absolutist terms the extent of manipulation
and latent coercion in advanced societies (Bell 1976; Tilly 1985), or else to
elevate existing Western "freedoms" and "rights" to the standard of comparison (Lipset 1960; Moore 1966; Bendix 1978).22
This is why critical political sociologists working outside of the Marxian
tradition treat Western democratic institutions in terms that are altogether
consistent with this tradition's conceptual framework, even as they then
disagree with Marxists' findings. They treat these institutions conceptually
as sites to which purported "class conflicts" or broader "struggles" for
equality within civil society have been moved (e.g. aside from Tilly and
Skocpol, Katznelson 1978, Wolfe 1978, Quadagno 1988). They thereby
hold that social conflict and the potential for significant social change have
been moved to interest competition within and around governmental agencies, political parties, and peak associations (Janowitz 1976: 75-6; Skocpol
and Amenta 1986: 139-44). Indeed, when a "radical" political sociologist
today refers to "conflict" and "struggle," he usually is referring to robust
debate over policy-making within remarkably stable political institutions
(e.g. Kerbo's subtitle for his stratification textbook, 1983, is "class conflict
in the United States").23
Put differently, purported "conflicts" and "struggles" within existing
Western democracies are essentially policy debates. They are discussions
(and, of course, street demonstrations, too) that are altogether oriented by,
framed within, and mediated by governmental institutions, political party
organizations, and either interest group or peak association coalitions that
are themselves so stable, and so legitimate subjectively, that they escape
serious criticism. Indeed, these institutions, organizations, and coalitions
are typically elevated above any preliminary posing of possible alternatives. For instance, the leaders of working class organizations and other
"progressive" groups within the United States may very well question the
current composition of Congress. They may heartily ridicule the current
conduct of Congress. But, by contrast to the situation in Latin America in
particular, they never - never - question that Congress, as a political institution or agency of government, legitimately engages in law-making.
Across Latin America, this is precisely what is questioned (Anderson
1964 remains the most seminal statement, see chapter 9). What is subjected
to outright political competition and occasional social conflicts is precisely
which agencies and institutions of government, if any, legitimately engage
in law-making as such. This same questioning is underway within the
former Eastern bloc, albeit currently directed to the legitimacy of the
Communist Party apparatus rather than to emerging parliaments. As of
36
this writing, matters are being posed largely within the ideology of the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities, and several Eastern countries
seem primed to pay a dear price for this narrowness. Yet, there is no reason
to believe that Easterners' questioning will or can remain confined in this
way. Nor is there any reason to believe, for that matter, that questioning
within the West will or can remain confined in this way for perpetuity
(Habermas's 1989 tentative remarks). Regardless of how one reads the
writings of critical political sociologists, however, one looks in vain for
concepts that can possibly reveal whether or when questioning of any kind
is moving beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.24
The same political sociologists who concede, however implicitly, that the
political institutions and practices framing "conflicts" and "struggles" within
the West are themselves remarkably stable, go even further in their concessions to the presupposition of exhausted possibilities at the moment that they
turn to the study of the Third World and the East. As noted in chapter 1, they
presuppose that political institutions and economic practices of existing Western democracies utterly exhaust actors' possibilities for nonauthoritarian
social order. They thereby presuppose that Eastern nation-states, for instance, can only become and remain nonauthoritarian by recapitulating the
same political institutions and economic practices that these political sociologists otherwise criticize for being unrepresentative and unresponsive in the
West (eg. Skocpol and Amenta 1986: 136; Laumann and Knoke 1987: 3957; Schmitter in preparation).
Finally, even within the mainstream literature devoted to the study of
social movements, the literature dedicated to studying precisely those social
units that ultimately initiate any possible "emancipatory" social change,
there is also not a single ideal type of heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups' possible social integration within social movements. The resource
mobilization approach, for instance, eliminates this possibility conceptually
(McCarthy and Zald 1977; Oberschall 1973). The same may be said, however, of the core concepts informing more general theories of collective
behavior (Turner and Killian 1957; Smelser 1962), as well as those informing
case studies devoted to the civil rights movement (McAdam 1982; Morris
1984) and the farm workers' movement (Jenkins 1985).
Irrespective of the contributions that the resource mobilization approach
in particular brings to empirical research, and they are considerable, this
approach revolves around premises of rational choice theory, premises no
less materialist than those underlying traditional Marxism (and, for example, Therborn 1987: 249, readily employs rational choice and public choice
premises). The undiscussed assumption of even the most iconoclastic students working within this approach is that movement elites invariably manipulate their mass following. The only issue is whether they do so directly,
through purposeful control of resources (see Olson 1965 and Hechter 1987
2 A, Implications of the concept of social integration
37
for the principles involved), or else indirectly, through ideologies that obfuscate how the movement's material base is secured and distributed.25
In short, even as radical and mainstream political sociologists broaden the

American literature of social control by appreciating the importance of
inadvertent mechanisms, they too fall victim to the lacuna of integrative
possibilities. They too fail to appreciate that the issue of heterogeneous
actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within sectors,
industries, or organizations of a modern civil society is itself "relatively
autonomous" from their strictly material situation. Both in principle and in
practice, the issue is "relatively autonomous" from (a) the class composition of a civil society, (b) the material bases and extent of stratification
more generally (other than the most extreme inequalities), and (c) how
social movements secure their material resources and maintain a mass
following (chapter 11).
At least three questions escape the debate over the state and social
movements as well as the American literature of social control:
First, is it possible for social scientists to demonstrate empirically when
power holders' purposeful exercises of collective power, as well as any
and all inadvertent mechanisms of social control, are being restrained
normatively rather than merely strategically within any sector of a
modern civil society?
Second, is it possible for social scientists to isolate the particular social
movements, institutions, organizations, or subdivisions of organizations that contribute to the social infrastructure of a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change under modern conditions?
Third, is it possible, finally, for social scientists to demonstrate that
there are certain qualities of shared social duties that determine without exception whether heterogeneous actors and competing groups
can possibly be integrated within any complex social unit?26
Put into a more positive statement, these three questions may be converted
into the conditional proposition that follows:
(a) If it is the case that very particular types of social movements,
institutions, and organizations contribute to a social infrastructure of
normative restraint on both purposeful and inadvertent mechanisms of
social control;
And (b) if these restraints are indeed irreducibly necessary to the very
possibility of sustaining a nonauthoritarian direction of social change
under modern conditions, as well as to expanding heterogeneous ac-
38

tors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration within
complex social units;
Then (c) the presence of these normative restraints within any modern
nation-state - Western or Eastern, Northern or Southern - is an issue
independent of whether most Western political institutions and economic practices are otherwise present or not.
Once researchers find these normative restraints within any sector of a

modern civil society, they can no longer legitimately reduce actors' behavioral conformity to any combination of mechanisms of social control. To
distinguish sectors of possible social integration is to expand the breadth of
empirical social and political research considerably. It is to reveal where
conceptual gaps in postwar political sociology have resulted in researchers'
obfuscating significant empirical issues.
The theory of societal constitutionalism proposed in this volume does not
simply demonstrate that a modern nation-state may be relatively egalitarian and yet become more manipulative, controlling, and even coercive than
a nation-state that is more stratified. This was demonstrated in practice,
after all, in the 1920s and 1930s: Were Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or
Stalinist Soviet Union more or less egalitarian than Great Britain, France,
or the United States? The purpose of the theory of societal constitutionalism is rather to reveal when two other developments are also taking
place, in practice:
First, modern nation-states may remain liberal-democratic or become
social-democratic, and yet simultaneously become more manipulative,
controlling, and even coercive within and across more and more sectors, industries, and organizations of their civil societies.
Second, modern nation-states that are neither liberal- nor social-democratic may nonetheless sustain a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change, and expand heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration within more and more sectors, industries,
and organizations of their civil societies.
Put more concretely, neither Brazil nor the Soviet Union, as examples, is
likely ever to recapitulate all or most of the political institutions and economic practices of Western democracies, despite all of the reforms currently
underway within each nation-state. Does this mean, however, that irrespective of the social and institutional changes taking place within either nationstate, comparativists cannot specify whether and when their direction of
social and institutional change is either becoming more or less authoritarian?
Does this mean that comparativists cannot specify whether and when any
social order is indeed based rather exclusively on mechanisms of social
control, and whether and when it is based on heterogeneous actors' and
39
competing groups' possible social integration? Does this also mean, conversely, that as long as Western democracies maintain their current political
institutions and economic practices, comparativists cannot specify whether
and when their direction of social and institutional change is becoming more
manipulative, controlling, and susceptible to social authoritarianism? If
these independent variations can be demonstrated conceptually, and then
operationalized, they may be used to orient detailed comparative studies
that jettison the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
3. Liberalism and the Weberian Dilemma:

from restraints on government to restraints
on civil society
Social theorists, not political theorists or philosophers, most fully appreciated by the mid-nineteenth and then early twentieth century the effects
that systemic pressures of social change were having on government and
civil society. Among social theorists, it was first Karl Marx and then Max
Weber who addressed most methodically modernity's negative effects.
Marx examined these negative effects in terms of the relationship between
capitalism, alienation, and systemic crises, and Weber did so in terms of the
relationship between rationalization, bureaucratization, and authoritarianism.1 In succeeding generations, each theorist responded to dislocations of
industrialization that had been accelerating in Great Britain and Western
Europe since the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, dislocations that affected the United States and Scandinavia later in the century
(Alapuro 1988 on Finland, for instance).
In spite of social theorists' profound analyses of these dislocations, however, constitutional theorists and liberal theorists by no means altered their
portrayals of the liberal state and a market economy. It is understandable,
of course, that those writing before the mid-nineteenth century failed to
address the negative social implications of industrialization. What is curious is that so many influential constitutional theorists and liberal theorists
failed to address social theorists' concerns conceptually far into the twentieth century (from Hobhouse 1911 to Friedrich 1941; Lindsay 1943; Loewenstein 1957; Sartori 1958).2 Today, legal scholars suffer greatly from this
major conceptual limitation of their theoretical traditions. They have difficulty, for instance, assessing whether legal institutions are maintaining their
integrity or are adrift, and increasingly they turn to social theory and social
science for assistance (e.g. Ackerman 1980, Ely 1980, Dworkin 1986). This
begins to explain why major law journals today are often more sociological, philosophical, and economic than juridical (e.g. Yale Law Journal
1988, Pennsylvania Law Review 1982, but also the Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and Michigan journals generally).
The central problem facing those working within constitutional and
Lockean liberal traditions is that their inherited concepts fail to address
manifestations of social authoritarianism. Their concepts fail to address pur40
3.1. Implications of rationalization
41
posefully and inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power by powerful private enterprises within civil society. As was the case with their forebears, today's constitutional and Lockean liberal theorists have difficulty
extending their inherited concepts from the legal individual's relationship to
the state to the legal individual's relationship to powerful organizations
within civil society (Selznick 1969; Evan 1976; Stewart 1987; Buchanan
1989). At best, they may at times extend their concepts to address selected
sets of purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power by private enterprises within a civil society. Yet, a great many mechanisms of social control
escape their attention, and they continue to be most comfortable discussing
arbitrary government. The problem of inadvertently arbitrary exercises of
collective power within a civil society falls entirely outside of the possible
scope of application of their inherited concepts. This is the problem that the
classical social theorists developed conceptually by exploring what Parsons
later called the Hobbesian problem of order, and rejecting the alternative of
Lockean and Smithean complacency. Weber's work is particularly instructive in this regard.
3.1. Implications of rationalization: drift toward authoritarianism
As capitalism was expanding and maturing in the West, Weber's social

theory proved a powerful tool not only for social theorists but also for
researchers - at least until the late 1960s. His concepts greatly influenced
Marxist theory before World War II (Jay 1973, Wellmer 1976), and both
theory and research in American sociology after the war.3 Within Marxism
his work provoked both negative and positive reactions: from Lukacs
(1920-22) and Michels (1911), to the first generation of the Frankfurt
school, and then later to theorists as different as Habermas and Poulantzas.
Within sociology, postwar concerns about "mass society" and even the
"authoritarian personality" bear the imprint of Weber's social theory more
than Marx's. Countless developments within the broad area of political
sociology were in many respects direct responses of one kind or another to
Weber's concepts, including works by Mannheim, Parsons, and Merton
early on, to those by Lipset, Barrington Moore, and Bendix later. The
same may be said of major developments within the area of organizations
research, including works by Selznick, Gouldner, and Blau, and those by
Etzioni and Crozier, and Perrow and Coleman.
Weber saw modernity "fragmenting" traditional societies' nonrational
norms and practices as well as actors' habitual behavior more generally (see
Rudolph and Rudolph 1979 for an influential counterargument).4 The
"fragmentation of meaning" that results is, by his account, much more
likely to culminate in a drift toward authoritarianism than in stable liberaldemocracy. Indeed, the disruptions or dislocations that fascinated him
42
3. Liberalism and the Weberian Dilemma
most were systemic rather than purposeful, and yet he fully appreciated
that systemic social forces are manifested, in practice, by concrete groups
and concrete actors competing for resources, power, and influence. What
intrigued Weber was how this competition is structured within any modern
nation-state, and which substantive goods attract groups' and actors' competition. In his view, where actors' and groups' normative behavior had
once dampened both the extent and intensity of interest competition in
earlier stages of modernity, ongoing disruptions at later stages accelerate
both. Once actors and groups are dislodged from their traditional and
habitual moorings, they adjust their behavior independently to systemic
forces as they compete more immediately within economic and political
marketplaces. As a result, they become incapable of resisting or controlling
the larger drift of social change collectively. This process of fragmentation,
accelerated competition, and accommodation of systemic pressures results,
therefore, in a literal drift of social change (Weber 1914-20: 212-54, 92638; Schluchter 1981: 20-23, 53).5
Looking at the impact on organizations and institutions in particular,
Weber saw all complex social units within all modern nation-states responding in one way or another to at least the following four manifestations of
"drift." These responses are to be found generally, in his view, or quite
irrespective of the many particular qualities that institutions and organizations happen to retain within particular nation-states:
First, the problem of fragmented meaning. Actors' once shared understandings of social events and social practices become differentiated by
function, and then further specialized by task (as Parsons and Smelser
1956 later emphasized).6 This is reflected in the subcultures and occupational factions that may be found within any modern civil society.
Second, the problem of instrumental calculation. Given the fragmentation of actors' "lived" meaning, their most routine agreements increasingly revolve around their independent calculations of instrumental or
strategic "success" (see note 11): Will alternative courses of action
either increase or decrease an enterprise's efficiency or effectiveness,
as measured by quantifiable results? The significance of actors' subjective interests, their social relationships, and their expectations and
aspirations is increasingly tied to such calculations, and to the piecemeal reforms and compromises consistent with them (as Lindblom
1959 later emphasized).
Third, the problem of bureaucratic organization. Again, given the fragmentation of actors' "lived" meaning, all informal mechanisms of social
control become less effective in maintaining social order. Consequently, organizations and institutions rely increasingly on formal social controls. This process - which Maine captured in the phrase "from
43
custom to contract" - is progressive in that formal mechanisms advance where informal mechanisms recede. Put more concretely, bureaucratization advances within enterprises of economic production as well
as agencies of political and legal administration (Hechter 1987 elaborates this).
Fourth, the problem of charismatic leadership. Not all social and political decisions can be reduced to actors' instrumental calculations of
efficiency or effectiveness and the mundane reforms and compromises
surrounding them. When power holders exercise leadership, when
they are innovative, they essentially impose new social duties on actors
(and possibly enliven their aspirations as well) in nonrational ways.
Innovative exercises of collective power might go not only beyond
actors' instrumental calculations of efficiency and effectiveness, but
also beyond their earlier expectations and beliefs.
Taking these four manifestations of systemic drift together, they result in

what may be called the Weberian Dilemma (Dryzek 1987: 424 for the
phrase "Weberian anxiety"). Like Hobbes's view of market society earlier,
Weber's view of social change is quite at odds with Lockean liberals' belief
that a likely outcome of actors' and groups' pursuit of their own subjective
interests within civil society is benign liberal-democracy (see Parsons 1937a
on the "problem of social order" and "Utilitarian Dilemma").7 By Weber's
account, a more likely outcome is for informal social controls to give way:
(a) to intense competition between power holders and social influentials,
then (b) to formal social controls as one faction or another endeavors to
maintain social order, and finally (c) to political (and social) authoritarianism. Weber also pointed out that any effort by social influentials or power
holders to restrain these developments, any effort on their part to gain
collective control over the drift of social change itself, can only accelerate
the outcome just noted. Why? This may be answered by exploring each
side of the Weberian Dilemma in turn: the problem of normatively
unmediated drift, and the problem of placing resilient normative restraints
on drift.
3.2.1. The problem of drift: Weberian pathos v. liberal complacency
By contrast to constitutional theorists and Lockean liberals, Weber clearly
feared that informally mediated competition by essentially self-interested
actors can only culminate in bureaucratization and an authoritarian reaction. For him, it can only culminate in impositions of formal social controls.8
44
Thus, one side of the Weberian Dilemma: If actors' competition for influence, resources, and power within economic and political marketplaces is
not restrained by institutionalized norms that challenge - subordinate - the
sovereignty of actors' subjective interests, then drift is the only outcome
possible. After all, as actors' and groups' competition of subjective interests
becomes further and further detached from any and all shared norms of
mediation and restraint, it can only simultaneously intensify and extend to
more and more areas of social life. Normative fragmentation and bureaucratization extend in tandem, and the inadvertent result is political (and social)
authoritarianism.
Indeed, Weber never accounted conceptually for a more benign outcome
of the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests. Unlike postwar pluralist
theorists (chapter 4), for instance, Weber was not impressed by the idea
that the competition between interest groups (and political parties) for
power and influence is sufficient in itself (a) to ensure a benign "balance"
between actors' subjective interests (Aleinikoff 1987), (b) to sustain meaning among actors, and thereby to allow them (c) to restrain social change
from drifting inadvertently toward its fated outcome. Today, Brennan and
Buchanan conclude their discussion of "constitutional economics" in a similar fit of pathos: "We must come to agree that democratic societies, as they
now operate, will self-destruct, perhaps slowly but nonetheless surely, unless the rules of the political game are changed" (1985: 150; also Hayek
1973-9). What is ironic is that these two hard-headed economists, who
insist throughout their argument that only the sovereignty of subjective
interests provides a proper "model" of the individual behavior that political
and social institutions must be expected to restrain or mediate, see only
one way out of contemporary self-destruction: a new morality or "civic
religion."9 The other side of the Weberian Dilemma, however, speaks to
why this leap into faith cannot succeed in practice.
3.2.2. The problem of nonrational restraints on drift
Even if a set (or sets) of nonrational norms were indeed institutionalized,
and even if this restrained all groups and actors institutionally from competing more immediately in their own subjective interests, this too can have
only one outcome by Weber's account: One particular set of actors or
groups invariably imposes its interests and nonrational beliefs on all others.
Since this is likely to involve a further rationalization of formal social
controls, political (and social) authoritarianism can be expected to result
sooner by this route than if actors and groups had simply acceded more
immediately to drift.
Relatedly, Weber was decidedly inconsistent and ambiguous whenever he
discussed the relationship between (a) purposive-rational action and both
45
(b) value-rational action and (c) substantively rational action (respectively,

Zweckrationalitat, Wertrationalitat} and materielle Rationalitdt).10 He never
explored methodically the implications of the latter two types of social action
somehow resiliently mediating actors' and groups' interest competition. This
is why he failed to account conceptually, or in principle, for the possibility of
a sustained nonauthoritarian response to modernization.
Weber saw no social stratum firmly anchored in Western industrial societies capable
of replacing ethical salvation religions as an institutionalized carrier of ethical rationality and value-rationalization processes. . . . If this trend is not reversed, the rule
of authoritarian force will, according to Weber, inevitably spread and suppress all
political freedoms (Kalberg 1980: 1176).
Brennan and Buchanan (1985) have come to the same conclusion today,
and their call for a civil religion, like Robert Bellah's and Daniel Bell's
earlier, fails to offer a way out of the Weberian Dilemma.
In sum, "rationalization" meant for Weber that immediate - normatively

unmediated - self-interest becomes the only standard of "reason" that heterogeneous actors and competing groups can possibly recognize and understand in common under modern conditions (also Hechter 1987; and
Brennan and Buchanan 1985). Such actors and groups can recognize and
understand quantifiable increases and decreases in efficient production or
effective administration in common even as they remain both fragmented
in their normative beliefs and competitive in their subjective interests (chapter 6).11 What heterogeneous actors and competing groups cannot recognize
and understand in common, by Weber's account, is any standard of reasoned social action beyond the quantifiable outcomes of such strictly instrumental actions (Habermas 1973a; 1977; 1979; 1981a,b).12
Weber appreciated that one result of this approach to rationalization is a
quite narrow standard of "reason." Despite its narrowness, he was nevertheless convinced that this standard offers heterogeneous actors and competing groups the only normative orientation that they are typically capable
of recognizing and understanding in common under modern conditions.
Despite its narrowness, this standard happens to be generalizable within its
scope of application. Actors' behavioral fidelity to, or encroachments
against, this standard of reason may be specified within any modern nationstate or social setting. This is precisely why the idealized behavior of Homo
economicus (Brennan and Buchanan 1985:14) proves so useful in comparative analysis: Evidence of the presence or absence of this behavior escapes
the fragmentation of meaning otherwise affecting social scientists themselves. Still, it must be kept in mind that, by Weber's account, this narrow
46
yet generalizable standard of reason orients actors and groups toward contributing inadvertently to an authoritarian rather than benign outcome.
Weber could understand Lockean liberals' optimism and complacency,
therefore, even as he ridiculed their sophomorism. After all, the unmediated drift of social change likely takes longer to culminate in authoritarianism than any effort by any set of actors to institutionalize a resilient
normative mediation. Weber rejected liberals' optimism and complacency
because he refused, regardless, to posit that a nonauthoritarian social order
is somehow sustained "automatically" on the basis of the sovereignty of
actors' (unmediated) subjective interests itself. He refused to accept any
reference to a "hidden hand," or to actors' "natural identity of interests,"
as somehow accounting mysteriously for a nonauthoritarian direction of
social change under modern conditions.13
Still, Weberians have yet to account for considerable empirical evidence

themselves, including the following two truisms of the late twentieth century: First, not all contemporary nation-states may be categorized as authoritarian a priori.14 Second, systemic pressures of rationalization have
nonetheless clearly intensified as well as extended to encompass more and
more areas of social life. In short, the task facing Weberians today, now
seventy years after Weber's death, is to provide concepts capable of answering either of the following questions:15
(a) Why are all nation-states today not authoritarian, and in particular
the most "advanced" nation-states? After all, the latter have experienced the most extensive and intensive systemic pressures of drift.
(b) Alternatively, why are all nation-states today not more bureaucratic, and thereby more controlling and authoritarian, than they currently are?
With these two questions, the Weberian Dilemma is converted from the
prospective issues that concerned Weber himself into retrospective issues
that today's Weberians cannot avoid addressing. They cannot avoid addressing these issues because the conversion is accomplished using Weber's
concepts alone.
3.4.1. Three points in retrospect: the importance of the "external"
Given the extension and intensification of systemic pressures of rationalization over the past seventy years, there is only one way in which bureaucratization and authoritarianism could have been mediated or restrained any-
47
where in the modern world. Heterogeneous actors and competing groups

had to have institutionalized a set of norms (or alternating sets of norms, if
one considers Pareto's social theory) and then subsequently maintained
their integrity. These norms would have had to remain demonstrably nonrational, literally not-purposive-rational. That is, they would have had to
exhibit over the years a most important quality, a quality revealed by their
status as a residual category: They would have had to remain "outside" of,
or "external" to, the drift of rationalization itself. Only by remaining "external" could heterogeneous actors and competing groups have possibly remained oriented by the same norms in common, even as they otherwise
experienced intensified interest competition and a fragmentation of meaning. Only on the basis of a shared normative orientation, after all, could
they have been capable of resiliently restraining themselves from otherwise
competing more immediately, and thereby contributing to drift.
When actors compete immediately in their own subjective interests, their
behavior may be thought of as "falling within," or being "internal to," the
inadvertent drift toward bureaucratization and authoritarianism that Weber described. Given that this behavior is "internal" to the Weberian Dilemma and Lockean liberalism alike, any and all resilient normative mediations of, or restraints on, it are clearly "external." Since liberalism fails to
address the Weberian Dilemma conceptually, and instead substitutes optimism and complacency for Weber's pathos, this sense of the "external" is
as alien to liberal conceptual frameworks as it is to Weberian conceptual
frameworks.
For instance, Brennan and Buchanan are liberal economists who nonetheless share Weber's pathos. Yet, they adamantly oppose all resilient normative restraints on drift because they clearly see that this challenges the
sovereignty of actors' subjective interests.
The contractarian derives all value from individual participants in the community
and rejects externally defined sources of value, including "natural rights." . . .
[S]ocietal or communitarian influences enter through modifications in the values
that are potentially expressed by the individual and not externally. . . . [Thus], a
contractarian "explanation" of collective order [is that] individuals will be led, by
their own evaluation of alternative prospects, to establish by unanimous agreement
a collectivity, a polity, charged with the performance of specific functions, including, first, the provision of the services of the protective or minimal state and,
second, the possible provision of genuinely collective consumption services. (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 21-2, my emphasis)
Buchanan is opposed to elevating actors' "natural rights" to a resilient
normative restraint on actors' subjective interests, and even Brennan
takes exception to Buchanan's going this far. Thus, the Brennan-Buchanan collaboration nicely recapitulates the tensions riddling liberalism's
Lockean and Hobbesian strands (see chapter 4). Regardless, the point
48
stands that resilient normative restraints on actors' interest competition

within economic and political marketplaces may be labeled external normative restraints.
Even as Weber never addressed them methodically, the very point of his
social theory is that only the institutionalization of external normative
restraints of one kind or another can account for a nonauthoritarian direction of social change despite modern conditions of drift.16 Yet, ironically,
this sense of the "external" is even more alien to Weber's social theory than
it is to liberalism. It raises a distinct problem for today's Weberians precisely because any and all normative restraints on drift are invariably characterized by them as accelerating bureaucratization and the fated outcome.
Still, two points stand up well even within Weber's conceptual framework:
First, nonrational normative restraints of any kind are, by definition,
external to the inadvertent drift of rationalization.
Second, Weber's concern that rationalization culminates in authoritarianism rather than liberal-democracy distinguishes his social theory in
essence from any and all variants of Lockean liberalism.17
Given these two points, a third point comes into view that is more revealing. Even as it is a mere corollary of the first two points, this third point
begins to pose the Weberian Dilemma in such a way that the greatest
limitations of Weber's conceptual framework and of Brennan and Buchanan's "constitutional economics" and both Hechter's and Coleman's
rational choice theories begin to come into view:
Third, if some set (or sets) of nonrational norms had not remained
"external" in the sense just discussed, then, after seventy years of systemic pressures of rationalization, it would be highly unlikely that any
nation-state today could have avoided drifting toward authoritarianism.
Again, the problem that today's Weberians face is that the third point
follows directly from Weber's own conceptual framework itself, and yet it
reveals unambiguously that Weberian social theory is incapable of accounting for considerable empirical evidence to the contrary: Some modern
nation-states have clearly avoided authoritarianism, in practice, into the
late twentieth century. There is also no good reason to believe a priori that
authoritarianism is imminent in every modern nation-state's future.
3.4.2. Three questions in retrospect: an agenda for societal
constitutionalism
The possibility of resolving the Weberian Dilemma conceptually, and
thereby accounting for any possibility of a nonauthoritarian direction of
49
social change in the late twentieth century, hinges on whether the following
two questions can be answered:
First, how could any set of nonrational normative restraints have
remained external in the sense noted above, after seventy years
of actors' self-interested competition within economic and political
marketplaces?
Second, is a single, identifiable set of such nonrational normative
restraints to be found within each and every instance of nonauthoritarian social change in the late twentieth century? Or is the possibility of such a direction of social change contingent on circumstances
altogether particular to each and every nation-state in which it is
found?
If there is such a set, it would constitute the social infrastructure supporting
a nonauthoritarian direction of social change. Put differently, it could credibly claim to ground the nonauthoritarian/authoritarian distinction in comparative perspective.
Looking at the first question, consider the difficulties actors would face
in keeping any set of nonrational normative restraints external to their own
self-interested competition. For instance, power holders in government
and social influential in civil society who are competing for material resources, political power, and social influence would surely also compete
over how any set of purported external normative restraints is interpreted
and then enforced. The debate among jurists in the United States over
"strict obstructionist" interpretations of the Constitution illustrates this
only too well (Ely 1980). Clearly, power holders and social influential
would oppose any and all interpretations that challenged their material
interests. As such challenges accumulated, this would lead eventually to
radical questioning of the restraint's, and the interpreters', very legitimacy.
Each action that power holders and social influential took in their own
material interests would involve their negotiating and renegotiating the
restraints' very "meaning." Whatever "shared meaning" the restraints may
have had when instituted would thereby steadily unravel under such everyday challenges.
This is what Weber so appreciated. Actors within modern nation-states
never develop, let alone sustain, some "natural identity" of subjective
interests. Nor, certainly, do they develop or sustain some shared understanding of substantive norms, whether those of founders' "substantive
intent" or else those of some "civil religion" revolving around the cultural
norms or "sacred" qualities of any lived social fabric. As soon as the "meaning" of any set of purported external normative restraints is brought into
arenas of interest competition, moreover, it simultaneously loses its exter-
50
nal status. It is brought into economic and political marketplaces, and

thereby into the broader drift of social change.
Unfortunately, the Weberian Dilemma does not end here, with an already
seemingly insoluble problem. Continuing with this retrospective portrayal,
but turning now to the second question above, consider the difficulties that
social scientists face in employing the concept of the external. They must
specify some particular set of nonrational normative restraints whose sheer
presence within any modern nation-state somehow accounts for its escaping
authoritarianism in the late twentieth century. Moreover, if any purported
set of external normative restraints turns out, in substance, to favor the
strategic interests of only selected sets of actors and groups, as Weber clearly
expected would be the case, then even if it somehow remained external, in
principle, it would fail to account for a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change in practice. After all, one set of substantive issues - the "meaning" of
the normative restraints themselves - is being suspended from interest competition. This is likely to spawn opposition and outright conflict. Its external
status could only be maintained, therefore, by the favored actors and groups
extending formal mechanisms of social control in an effort to maintain social
order regardless.
Weber failed to explore methodically one possible alternative, however,
an alternative that at least remains consistent with his own conceptual
framework: Those actors and groups expected to oppose the restriction on
interest competition just noted may not rise in opposition because they
have been successfully manipulated. By hypostatizing manipulation and
actors' self-restriction, today's Weberians can offer an explanation for the
presence of nonauthoritarian social orders in the late twentieth century.18
But instead of this leading to sophisticated comparative analyses, it leads to
a great irony. Weberians' only credible explanation for the presence of
nonauthoritarian social orders in the late twentieth century may be reduced
to the following proposition: It is precisely within today's nonauthoritarian
social orders that heterogeneous actors and competing groups are most
successfully manipulated.19
Yet, it may be, finally, that a way of responding to the Weberian Dilemma is beginning to come into view, however tentatively. The Weberian
Dilemma may be resolved without resorting either to Lockean complacency or to an untheorized concept of manipulation if a positive answer can
be provided to yet a third question:
Third, are there external normative restraints, in practice, that (a)
remain "external" to the drift of rationalization in some significant
sense, and simultaneously (b) account for any and all instances of a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change (and actors' possible social
integration) under modern conditions?
3.5. "Professional integrity" and limits of Weberian sociology
51
This volume is dedicated to answering this question. With this, the Weberian Dilemma may be resolved; the questions posed earlier may be
answered; and the lacuna of integrative possibilities may be filled.
3.5. Illustration: "professional integrity" and limits of Weberian
sociology
Social scientists rely on the concept of instrumental or rational action to

determine when social enterprises are becoming more efficient in production or more effective in administration. But as Weber demonstrated so
compellingly, this concept fails to reveal whether the larger direction of
social change is benign or threatening. It clearly fails to reveal whether
heterogeneous actors and competing groups are demonstrably controlled
or possibly integrated.
At this early point in the presentation of the theory of societal constitutionalism, it is best to illustrate the narrowness of the standard of rational
action, as well the problems attending any effort to restrain or mediate
rationalization, with a hypothetical example rather than grappling with the
details of an empirical example: Consider the possibility of leaders of a
professional association opposing the changes being proposed by administrators of universities, hospitals, or corporate research divisions. They do
so because of the effects these changes will have on how professionals are
organized at these sites.
On one side, the administrators' proposal is indeed a rational response to
commercial pressures. In fact, the proposed changes have already proven
to be successful (that is, efficient or effective) within, for example, department stores and insurance companies. On the other side, leaders of the
professional association cite their members' purported fidelity to (nonrational) "norms of professional integrity" as their rationale for opposing
these changes. They insist that their members' professional integrity takes
precedence over the narrow standard of rational action upon which the
administrators are operating. Professionals are not retailers or bean counters, they say in so many words; professionals are rather trained experts
who dedicate their expertise to their clients' (and the larger community's)
"best interests."
Are either the proposed changes or the opposition to them a manifestation of social integration, whether of members within the profession, the
profession within the larger organizations, or the professional association
within the larger civil society? Or, are they instead a manifestation of social
control, again whether of members within the profession, the profession
within the larger organizations, or the professional association within the
larger civil society? The fragmentation of meaning characteristic of modernity renders it impossible for social scientists (or actors) to address such
52
issues methodically using the conceptual frameworks of liberalism or Weberian social theory. Yet, these issues are far from abstract moral dilemmas. They are rather concrete policy problems that surface repeatedly, in a
variety of ways, within all modern nation-states. Only if the notion of
"professional integrity" can be rendered falsifiable and operationalizable,
however, can these issues be addressed by social scientists (to say nothing
of their being resolved by heterogeneous actors and competing groups, in
practice).
Weberians currently dismiss all such issues out of hand as hopelessly
"normative" or "ideological" (Waters 1989, chapter 8). But such labeling
restates the point made in chapter 2 and now in this chapter: These issues,
like so many others in evidence within modern nation-states today, fall
outside of the conceptual frameworks of social control that are currently
available. To employ any of these conceptual frameworks is to label such
issues "normative" a priori.
Consider how the hypothetical case above might be addressed by a Weberian today: On the one hand, the Weberian might reduce the issue of
"professional integrity" to two questions: First, what are actors' and
groups' immediate subjective or material interests? Second, what are their
substantive beliefs regarding the profession's social status and political
influence? In answering these questions, the Weberian reduces association
leaders' claims - that their members' purported fidelity to "professional
integrity" takes precedence over instrumental action - to discovering what
leaders' (or members') particular interests and beliefs are. Whatever these
turn out to be, they invariably comprise only one set of material interests
and substantive beliefs among many others to be found within any civil
society. Association leaders' opposition to administrators' proposals may
thereby be reduced to one of two strategic positions: It may be reduced to
association leaders' own immediate interests and beliefs. Or else it may be
reduced to the immediate interests and beliefs of prominent members
within (or influential constituencies outside of) the professional association
that the leaders are representing, either directly or indirectly. In either
case, it is impossible for the Weberian to demonstrate that association
leaders' opposition rests on any normative standard or "principle" that can
credibly claim precedence over instrumental action.
On the other hand, and an even more reductionist tack, the Weberian
might convert the issue of "professional integrity" to the following question: Is association leaders' opposition rational? Aside from their opposition being reducible to one strategic position or another, the Weberian
might now handily demonstrate that very notion of "professional integrity"
is not rational. Moreover, since the standard of rational action alone appears to Weberians to be generalizable, as a norm of reason that even
heterogeneous actors and competing groups might recognize and under-
3.5. "Professional integrity" and limits of Weberian sociology
53
stand in common under modern conditions, the Weberian can only conclude that the notion of "professional integrity" is devoid of reason altogether. Again, for a Weberian to label the notion of "professional integrity" first nonrational and then unreasoned is for a Weberian to be as
generous to association leaders as he or she can be.
4. Conceptual foundations of societal

constitutionalism: from internal restraints on
government to external restraints on drift
It is only possible to escape the reductionist tacks noted at the end of the
last chapter if a standard of "professional integrity" can be specified that is
normative and yet also exhibits both of the following qualities. First, this
normative standard must be capable of being recognized and understood in
common by heterogeneous actors and competing groups even under modern conditions of drift. Second, this same normative standard must also
qualify as at least possibly reasoned in some sense broader than the admittedly narrow standard of rational or instrumental action. If it turns out that
there are no normative standards of professional integrity available that
exhibit both of these qualities, then whenever professionals endeavor to
maintain their purported "integrity" at the expense of other actors' subjective interests this is reducible to a power play on their part. As contributors
to the "social closure" or "monopoly" approach to professions insist (from
Larson 1977 and Collins 1979 to Murphy 1988 and even Abbott 1988),
professionals are simply influencing power holders to impose on other
actors the costs of whatever special advantages or "protected status" they
are being accorded.
Four analytical distinctions fill the lacuna of integrative possibilities and
open the way to responding directly to the Weberian Dilemma, including
demonstrating that there is indeed a normative standard of "professional
integrity" that exhibits both of the qualities just noted. The purpose of this
chapter is to introduce these analytical distinctions, and in this way to propose a terminology with which to respond to the Weberian Dilemma directly.
4.1. Four analytical distinctions and four institutions of restraint
The first analytical distinction of societal constitutionalism has already

been introduced in the discussion of the lacuna of integrative possibilities.
This is:
First, the distinction between (a) instances of demonstrable social control and (b) instances of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration.
54
4.1. Four analytical distinctions and four institutions of restraint
55
Now three other analytical distinctions may be introduced. Together, they

survey all of the normative and strategic restraints on group competition and
on systemic pressures of drift that are to be found empirically within any
modern social order as such, whether authoritarian or nonauthoritarian.
To anticipate the argument for a moment, one type of normative restraints comes to the fore within this survey that is present empirically only
within flonauthoritarian social orders in particular. This is the type labeled
external procedural restraints. Also coming to the fore is another type of
normative restraints that is present empirically within any instance of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within
any sector, industry, or organization of a civil society. This is the type
labeled internal procedural restraints. This volume is dedicated to (a) distinguishing these two restraints from all others, (b) specifying their analytical
components as procedural norms, and (c) discussing the implications of
their presence or absence within modern nation-states.
Returning to the overview of analytical distinctions, the second addresses the Weberian Dilemma directly by resting on the distinction between (a) the problem of arbitrary government that concerned liberal and
constitutional theory and (b) the problem of drift that concerned Weber
and other classical social theorists. This is:
Second, the distinction between (a) internal restraints on purposeful
exercises of collective power by government (or by "private" enterprises in civil society) and (b) external restraints on inadvertent exercises of collective power that result from the drift of social change.
The key to whether such a distinction can be made, of course, is whether
there are identifiable institutions and norms on which even heterogeneous
actors and competing groups rely, in practice, whenever a civil society
resists systemic pressures of drift toward control and authoritarianism.
Only if such institutions and norms can indeed be found empirically, can the
presence of nonauthoritarian social orders in the late twentieth century be
described and explained in a way that responds directly to the Weberian
Dilemma. It is institutions and norms of external restraint that enable
heterogeneous actors and competing groups to respond collectively to drift,
in practice, despite their own ongoing fragmentation of meaning and functional differentiation. Institutions and norms of internal restraint cannot
assist them in this way since such restraints are by definition caught up in
the drift of social change themselves.
The third analytical distinction of the theory of societal constitutionalism is drawn within each set of restraints. Some internal restraints on
purposeful exercises of collective power are directly substantive whereas
others are procedural mediations. Similarly, some external restraints on
56
4. Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism
drift are directly substantive and others are procedural mediations. Thus,
this results in:
Third, the distinction between (a) normative restraints whose impact
on power holders is immediate or directly substantive, and (b) normative restraints whose impact on power holders is first and foremost a
procedural mediation, and only then substantive.1
Putting the second and third distinctions together, the theory of societal
constitutionalism revolves around the relationship, in practice, between the
following four basic sets of institutions of restraint:
(1) Internal substantive restraints on purposeful exercises of collective
power.
(2) Internal procedural restraints on purposeful exercises of collective
power.
(3) External substantive restraints on inadvertent or systemic exercises
of collective power.
(4) External procedural restraints on inadvertent or systemic exercises
The social integration/social control distinction revolves around whether the
second of these basic sets of restraints is found empirically within any existing sector, industry, or organization of a modern civil society. The nonauthoritarian/authoritarian distinction, in turn, revolves around whether the
fourth of these basic sets of restraints is also found empirically within any
existing social order.
Yet a fourth distinction comes into play as these four basic sets of restraints are discussed below, but it is less important than the first three.
Institutions of internal restraint may be further distinguished. Each may be
subdivided in terms of whether its impact on power holders rests on heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' (a) shared recognition and understanding of nonrational norms, or else on their (b) independent, and more
or less rational, calculations of their own strategic advantages and opportunities (see note 4). By contrast, all external restraints are normative, irrespective of whether they are substantive or procedural; once they are reduced to strategic considerations, they simultaneously lose their status of
being "external" to group competition and systemic drift.
4.2. The importance of institutions of external procedural restraint
It is the presence or absence of institutions and norms of external procedural restraint within a modern civil society that ultimately accounts for
4.2. Institutions of external procedural restraint
57
whether its direction of change is, respectively, (a) nonauthoritarian, and

then possibly integrative, or else (b) one of increasing control and susceptibility to social authoritarianism. This emphasis on the importance of institutions and norms of external procedural restraint is what most essentially
distinguishes societal constitutionalism from governmental constitutionalism and the liberal tradition more generally. On the one hand, it distinguishes societal constitutionalism from the latter's rather exclusive concern
with arbitrary government. This is why constitutionalists once emphasized
the inviolability of the division of powers, the separation of church and
state, and the public/private distinction more generally, and why today they
tend to emphasize the inviolability of individuals' "natural rights" within
civil society.2 On the other hand, it also distinguishes societal constitutionalism from liberals' preoccupation with extending economic and political competition into more and more areas of social life.
The theory of societal constitutionalism parts company with these traditions by methodically addressing the negative implications of systemic drift
that concerned Weber and other social theorists. Western democratic institutions and practices fail to address these implications, either in principle
or in practice (see the following discussions of pluralism and neocorporatism). This is widely recognized in the literature, from Arendt and
Habermas to Hayek and Buchanan. The most succinct way of putting the
problem is that the sheer presence of these political institutions and market
practices alone fails to account for why control and authoritarianism are
restrained within any modern civil society. After all, Western political institutions and market practices were never designed, either historically or
today, to resiliency restrain rational exercises of collective power by the
leaders of "private" enterprises within civil society.
But even more generally, and as demonstrated in chapter 2, there is no

theoretical tradition institutionalized by existing Western democracies that
distinguishes instances of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration from instances of their demonstrable social control. This distinction moves the theory of societal constitutionalism beyond
liberal and constitutional traditions, and also beyond the conceptual frameworks inherited from the classical social theorists.
The four sets of restraints listed above are discussed in turn in the remainder of this chapter, and table 4.1 helps to visualize their relationship. Still,
some of the examples filling this chart, and even the concept of external
procedural restraints so central to the theory of societal constitutionalism,
is not fully discussed in this chapter. This cannot be accomplished until Lon
Fuller's legal theory (chapter 6) and then the concept of collegial formations (chapter 8) have both been presented. For that matter, even the basic
analytical distinction between internal and external restraints is not really
58
I
Internal Restraints
Table 4.1. Internal and external restraints: societal constitutionalism's

threshold of institutionalization
Strategic
Normative
(IA)
Directly Substantive
Group Competition
Patron-Client
Networks
Religious Proscriptions
Natural Rights
Division of Powers
(IB)
Procedural Mediation
Elections
Rational-Legal
Enforcement
Interpretability of Law
II
External Restraints
Societal
(IIB)
Procedural Mediation
T"
Collegial Formations
(HA)
Directly Substantive
Nationalism
State Religion
Natural Law
National Traditions
Notes: 1. The category of strategic restraints at IIB is left blank because it is

oxymoronic: There are no external procedural restraints that are strictly strategic
rather than normative. A strategic restraint is provided by individual or group
actors' self-interested competition for resources or influence. It is precisely this
competition that defines both the liberal market and Weberian drift, as opposed
to any procedural restraint on them.
2. As noted in the text (page 56), all external restraints are normative. Because
those that are directly substantive are blatantly exclusionary, all of the examples
at IIA are imposed strategically under modern conditions. Nationalism, for instance, is what Arendt (1951) had in mind when coining the phrase "tribal nationalism": In a multicultural, modern society, groups' exclusion is imposed strategically, at extreme costs to all affected. Once natural law tenets or even more
benign national traditions become contested and controversial, rather than remaining unquestioned and unchallenged, they too are upheld strategically. But
because exclusion is more benign in these instances, or less costly to those affected, these tenets and traditions appear to be more normative than strategic.
3. Discussion of each of the sets of categories in table 4.1 may be found in the
following pages:
IA at pages 60-64.
IB at pages 64-67.
IIA at pages 77-79.
IIB at pages 79-83.
4.3. Four institutions of restraint
59
sharpened sufficiently in this chapter to inform empirical research. This is

accomplished only after voluntaristic action has been rendered into a distinct concept (chapter 7).
4.3. Four institutions of restraint: from liberalism to societal
constitutionalism
4.3.1. Institutions of internal restraint: the legacy of Western
democracy
Heterogeneous actors and competing groups rely on institutions of internal

restraint whenever they recognize in common, and then restrain collectively, purposeful exercises of collective power. These same actors and
groups cannot rely on these institutions even to recognize in common, let
alone to restrain collectively, systemic shifts in the direction of change whose
impact is inadvertently controlling and authoritarian. This impact is inadvertent precisely because heterogeneous actors and competing groups fail to
recognize that their own subjective interests are leading them toward increasing both the extent and intensity of their own social control at the
expense of their own prospects for social integration.
The discussion in this first section is dedicated to surveying internal
restraints on purposeful exercises of collective power, many of which existing Western democracies place on arbitrary government. As a result, many
of these restraints are quite familiar: the division of powers; elections and
competing political parties; the competition for political influence between
pluralist interest groups, patron-client networks, or neocorporatist peak
associations; judicial review within common-law countries (chapter 6); and
either religious, traditional, or constitutional proscriptions on the very
scope of governmental power and authority itself.3
These institutions are indeed the major legacy of Western constitutional
traditions, liberal democratic theory, and Western democratic practice.
With the exception of the proscriptions, however, they were all designed
explicitly to accommodate, not resiliency to restrain or mediate, Homo
economicus's self-interested competition within economic (and then political) marketplaces. They are all institutions of internal restraint that fail to
address the Weberian Dilemma. Their significance is not being underestimated by pointing this out. Quite to the contrary, these institutions have
always appealed to liberals precisely because they remain forever ''internal"
in this sense. Western democratic institutions were designed to be forever
//icapable of sustaining any resilient normative obstacles to Homo economicus's self-interested competition within economic (and then political)
marketplaces (Macpherson 1962; Lowi 1969).
60
Thus, rather than Buchanan's railings against "externally defined sources

of value" being idiosyncratic, they are sentiments widely shared by liberal
theorists (and economists) generally (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 21).
Similarly, it is because these institutions were designed to accommodate the
sovereignty of actors' subjective interests that Weber never became much
interested in them. He never discussed them methodically (see chapter 3,
note 3). His central concern was how actors' normatively unmediated competition of subjective interests contributes to drift. It was eminently clear to
him that liberal-democratic institutions are accomplices in drift, and by no
means pose external restraints to it.
Keeping in mind the analytical distinctions of societal constitutionalism
presented above, the institutions on which heterogeneous actors and competing groups rely as internal restraints on purposeful exercises of collective power fall into two broad types:
First, institutions that are directly substantive, whether (a) strictly strategic,4 such as interest group or political party competition, or else (b)
normative, whether religious proscriptions on the scope of governmental power and authority or constitutional reifications of the division of
powers or of actors' "natural rights" in civil society.
Second, institutions that art procedural mediations, whether (a) strictly
strategic, such as elections and the rational enforcement of positive
laws, or else (b) normative - the threshold of interpretability of positive
laws and of shared social duties.
Institutions of internal substantive restraint (IA): "natural rights" (normative) and group competition (strategic). Institutions of internal substantive
restraint include normative restraints, such as religious, constitutional, or

statutory proscriptions on the scope of governmental power and authority.
These restraints often delimit government directly, but they also may do so
indirectly. They may codify that which is inviolably "private," including
property and individuals' "natural rights" (Fellman 1976; Dworkin 1977;
McClosky and Brill 1983). Other normative restraints falling within this
type include: the division of powers, the separation of church and state in
particular,5 and the distinction between the private and the public more
generally (Pennsylvania Law Review 1982).
Still, the single most important institution of internal substantive restraint
on purposeful exercises of collective power in comparative perspective is
today, as always, an institution that is strictly strategic rather than normative. This is the institution of interest group competition, or, alternatively, of
competition between peak associations, patron-client networks, or religious
and ethnic sections. Whereas competitive elections (addressed in the next
section) are not to be found within a great many modern nation-states,6
43. Four institutions of restraint
61
institutionalized group competition for resources, power, and influence may

be found everywhere. It may be found within and around all branches of
government (e.g. pluralist theory, from Truman 1951 to Laumann and
Knoke 1987) ,7 as well as within and around all complex organizations of civil
society (e.g. the power approach to organizations, from Thompson 1967 to
Perrow 1979). Unlike all other institutions of internal substantive restraint,
whether strategic or normative, the sheer presence of group competition is
indeed generalizable, in practice. It may not be formally organized in every
nation-state or organization without exception, but it is nonetheless present
without exception. Everywhere power holders are in fact restrained by the
extent and intensity of strategic opposition that they anticipate their actions
are likely to stimulate among interested parties.8
Even as its sheer presence is generalizable, however, this institution's
impact on power holders, and, of course, on the direction of social change,
is particular. Its impact differs greatly from nation-state to nation-state, and
from complex organization to complex organization. Indeed, the interests
at issue, as well as the number, size, and relative influence of the groups
competing, may change substantially within particular nation-states and
particular organizations over even brief periods of time. Precisely because
this institution's impact is so particular, so subject to change, and yet so
significant, contributors to the literatures of comparative politics and political sociology have endeavored for more than forty years to describe, explain, and predict it. Their ongoing efforts account, for example, for the
debate over pluralism and elitism in the 1950s and 1960s (from Truman
1951 to Lowi 1969), the debate in the late 1960s and early 1970s over the
resilience of ethnic communalism in the Third World and its revival in
Western democracies (Enloe 1973, Connor 1972, 1973), as well as the
ongoing debate initiated in the mid-1970s over neocorporatism, labor mobilization, and social democracy (see Schmitter 1974; Fulcher 1987 for a
succinct review; and Laumann and Knoke 1987 for an assessment in two
U.S. policy domains).
Precisely because its impact is particular, heterogeneous actors and competing groups cannot rely on this institution to recognize in common
whether either of two developments is unfolding in practice. First, the
presence of even robust group competition cannot assist them in recognizing in common the significance of any norms of internal substantive restraint on government (or on private enterprises within civil society), irrespective of what these norms happen to be. After all, one interest group's
support of, for example, a religious or constitutional proscription on the
scope of governmental power and authority may be opposed stridently by
many others. And either side in this dispute might eventually receive an
electoral mandate for its strategic position. The same holds true ultimately
for any group's support of, or opposition to, any and all constitutional and
62
statutory proscriptions on government, including: the division of powers

itself, the separation of church and state, actors' "natural rights" in civil
society, and the private/public distinction more generally. The significance
of resiliency upholding any of these normative restraints in the face of
interest group opposition is not self-evident to actors (or researchers) under modern conditions.
Put in terms of the illustration in chapter 1, William may believe that
Scott is violating either his "natural rights" or other "self-evident" proscriptions against purposeful exercises of power within the corporation, and
many of his fellow chemists might well agree with him. But Scott and
company managers may for their part simply dismiss all of this out of hand
as either a most infantile normative belief on the chemists' part, or else as
an outright power play by professionals - an interest group - within the
corporation. It may also strike them, for that matter, that the chemists'
belief evinces an utter lack of sophistication in grasping longstanding company practices, to say nothing of grasping which groups within the company
currently wield the greatest power and influence (Goldner and Ritti 1967).
Second, and more importantly, competing groups and heterogeneous
actors (including social scientists) cannot rely on the sheer presence of even
robust group competition to recognize in common when exercises of collective power are purposefully arbitrary.9 After all, any action taken by a state
agency, or by a corporation, that the leaders of one interest group condemn
as arbitrary may just as well be supported enthusiastically by the leaders of
many other interest groups. And, once again, either side in this dispute
may eventually secure an electoral mandate. Indeed, the most innovative
policies and programs undertaken by any agency or corporation invariably
test the outer limits of what was once proscribed, what was once labeled
arbitrary.
Looking again at the illustration in chapter 1, William may believe personally that Scott is acting arbitrarily, and, again, other chemists within the
corporation might well agree with him. But Scott is likely to respond that
(a) William is not as fully aware of the company's "real situation" as are
Scott and company executives, and that (b) the company pays the chemists'
salaries and not any chemical association to which they might appeal for
support. Is the company an innovator within its industry or a wielder of
arbitrary collective power? Whatever the answer may be, what is certain is
that the extent of mobilization of interested parties, whether within or
outside of the corporation, cannot reveal what it is.
Within the United States as well as across Scandinavia and Western
Europe, the outer limits of domestic policy-making processes are ceaselessly being tested, adjusted, and readjusted (Luhmann 1986, 1990 revolve
around this). Often particular domestic programs fall somewhere between
what is innovative and what is arbitrary, and perceptions of their impact are
63
typically mixed (Habermas 1989 revolves around this problem). Consider,

as examples, efforts to either retrench or redefine affirmative action (in the
United States) or social welfare policies (in Scandinavia and Western Europe); attempts to institute prayer in public schools; controversies over the
holdings of school and public libraries and over school curricula and school
control; periodic "waves" of police corruption and public outrage (Goldstein 1977); the endless dispute over abortion as well as over health care
generally; and emerging concerns over state governments' water rights,
rights over other natural resources, and ecological policies. Which programs and proposals, if any, increase government's arbitrariness or the
arbitrariness of "private" enterprises within civil society? Again, this is
something that even robust group competition alone cannot reveal unambiguously one way or the other.
What robust group competition does reveal is something quite different: Political or corporate issues once assumed to be settled, and thereby
"removed" from groups' ongoing competition within political marketplaces, may be repoliticized at any moment (again, Luhmann 1990 emphasizes this). This institution's supposed outer limits are never fixed once
and for all but instead are endlessly being expanded or contracted over
time (see Lowi 1969 and Dahl 1982 on the former; Habermas 1989 on the
latter). As interest groups compete strategically, they quite often test
what this institution's supposed normative (or strategic) limits really are.
Indeed, those groups initiating tests may be rewarded in time for being
"innovative." After all, which domestic issues today are unreservedly
removed from politicization within any modern nation-state? Put differently, from which specific areas of social life is the state unreservedly
prohibited from entering, under pressures from interest-group mobilization, either within the United States or any other modern nation-state? Is
there any issue that a modern state is unreservedly prohibited from defining or redefining as "political," as falling within the reach of its own
innovative actions or else those taken by "private" enterprises within its
civil society?
To be sure, institutions of internal substantive restraint also include
longstanding programs of political parties within parliamentary democracies, along with some remarkably stable coalitions of interests within their
civil societies. For instance, once the organizations and institutions of a
welfare state are in place, even President Reagan and Prime Minister
Thatcher experienced formidable strategic obstacles in attempting to sidestep or reverse these domestic policies. This is the case even as each leader
wielded significant electoral strength and interest-group support of his or
her own.10 This is a clear example of the capacity of the institution of robust
interest-group competition to restrain purposeful exercises of collective
power by government, and yet of its inability to reveal whether the pro-
64
posed exercises are arbitrary - or, for that matter, whether normative restraints are arbitrary.
Institutions of internal procedural restraint (IB): elections, legal enforcement (strategic) and legal interpretation (normative). The impact that institu-
tions of internal procedural restraint have on power holders is often more

subtle and indirect than that of institutions of internal substantive restraint.
Yet, the former institutions include strategic restraints which can be rather
direct in their impact, as instrumental or rational procedures. The latter
include, as examples, those procedures designed to render elections most
effective and fair (Przeworski 1986; Przeworski and Sprague 1986), and
also those designed to render law enforcement most effective and predictable (from Holmes 1897 and other American instrumentalists, e.g., Summers 1982 for a review; to Kelsen 1945; Hart 1961; and Luhmann 1972,
1982: 90-121; also see chapters 5-6). Being strictly rational or instrumental, these procedures offer social scientists generalizable standards for the
detailed study of rationalization in comparative perspective: Are elections
in Zaire effective and fair? Is law enforcement in Argentina effective and
predictable?
However, as Weber clearly appreciated, precisely because these procedures are rational rather than normative, they are ultimately caught up in
the drift of rationalization. They cannot resiliency restrain how actors and
groups respond independently to systemic pressures. The theory of societal
constitutionalism adds that these same procedures are also incapable of
assisting heterogeneous actors and competing groups in recognizing, let
alone in restraining, even purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective
power - whether by government or by private enterprises. After all, wielders of arbitrary power may very well be fairly elected, or protected by the
public/private distinction. Their decrees may also be enforced effectively,
and ever so predictably.
The institution of internal procedural restraint most central to the theory
of societal constitutionalism is a strictly normative restraint: a procedural
threshold of interpretability of positive laws in particular and of shared
social duties more generally. This threshold marks whether the positive
laws of any modern nation-state, or the shared social duties sanctioned
within any private enterprise, can possibly be recognized and understood in
common by heterogeneous actors and competing groups. The procedures
comprising this threshold are norms, and thereby decidedly nonrational.
And yet, this procedural threshold marks a standard for comparative research that can credibly claim generalizability: Whether actors and groups
encroach against this threshold, in practice, is an issue that is as amenable
to falsiflable empirical research as the issue of whether they encroach
against the strictly rational procedures of effective elections or effective law
65
enforcement. Are the positive laws of Zaire or Argentina interpretable or

not? Are the shared social duties sanctioned within William's corporation,
or within any private corporation in Japan, any stated-owned corporation
in the Soviet Union, or any work unit in China, interpretable or not?
How can a procedural threshold be simultaneously normative or nonrational and yet generalizable? First, this procedural threshold is indeed
nonrational analytically; it is not reducible to the instrumental means and
quantifiable ends characterizing rational action. This issue is explored at
length in chapter 7, but for now it can only be asserted that if laws or duties
are kept consistent with this procedural threshold, and thereby kept interpretable, this might very well reduce the effectiveness of their enforcement.
Put differently, the institutionalization of this procedural threshold by no
means guarantees that the effectiveness or predictability of enforcement
will be improved. Moreover, even should this prove to be the case in any
particular instance, this would have little to do with why the actors involved
are bothering to keep their laws and duties consistent with the procedural
threshold.
Second, because this procedural threshold is irreducible to interpret ability, both in principle and in practice, it is generalizable even though it is
comprised of nonrational norms. Whenever enforced positive laws or sanctioned social duties encroach against this procedural threshold, they become incapable of being recognized and understood (let alone accepted) by
heterogeneous actors and competing groups in common. They become demonstrably particular and controlling rather than remaining possibly generalizable and integrative.
One of the central points of the theory of societal constitutionalism is
that (a) the procedural norms comprising the threshold of interpretability
of laws and duties are indeed both irreducible and generalizable, and yet
(b) these analytically defined procedural norms are nonetheless a distinct
historical contribution of the common law tradition (chapter 10). Defining
procedural norms analytically that emerged historically at selected places
and times is never an easy matter. Indeed, common-law theorists and jurists, some of the finest minds (and most privileged persons) in the AngloAmerican world, failed for more than four centuries to isolate the analytical principles underlying their ongoing practice. It was not until 1964 that
the procedural norms comprising the threshold of interpretability of positive laws (and shared social duties) were first isolated analytically, by an
American legal theorist born in Hereford, Texas, and raised in southern
California (chapter 6). Lon Fuller demonstrated that a select set of procedural norms is indeed irreducible to legality as such, even as the historical
record and contemporary practices of common-law countries certainly are
not.
The analytical concept of internal procedural restraints on purposeful
66
exercises of collective power is being coined here in order to capture these

norms' irreducibility and generalizability as a procedural threshold. This
concept is designed literally to isolate these procedural norms from the
particularity of any nation-state's historical or contemporary practices of
due process. The theory of societal constitutionalism proposes that this
procedural threshold is as capable of informing critical studies of commonlaw countries as it is of countries of the civil-law world or, for that matter,
of the Islamic-law world. It proposes that this threshold allows social scientists (as well as heterogeneous actors and competing groups) to specify
when any set of shared social duties being sanctioned within any modern
social unit can possibly be recognized and understood in common by the
heterogeneous actors and competing groups who are expected to bear them.
Whether any existing set of laws or duties is consistent with the procedural
threshold indicates, therefore, whether it is recognizable and understandable. But this does not indicate whether heterogeneous actors and competing groups find it acceptable in terms of their subjective interests. As a
result, its consistency with the procedural threshold is an issue independent
of whether law enforcement agencies happen to enforce the set of laws or
duties effectively at any given moment in time.
If heterogeneous actors and competing groups cannot possibly recognize
and understand in common what their shared social duties are, then this
reveals something of great significance about their enforcement, and about
actors' possible subjective acceptance of them and behavioral fidelity to
them. It reveals that effective enforcement, subjective acceptance, and
behavioral fidelity are reducible to actors' demonstrable social control.
Whenever laws and duties encroach against the procedural threshold of
interpretability, social scientists cannot legitimately attribute any part of
the resulting social order to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration. They can attribute it only (a) to the strategic
advantages that certain actors and groups secure over others within economic and political marketplaces and, in turn, (b) to the support that these
actors receive from both informal and formal mechanisms of social control,
including actors' self-restrictions (chapter 2).
Thinking again of William's situation in the illustration in chapter 1, if he
could appeal to institutionalized norms that are capable of securing heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' shared recognition and understanding of what purposeful arbitrariness is, then he could demonstrate, against
Scott's and company executives' resistance, that Scott's demand is indeed
particular and controlling. He could not possibly demonstrate this otherwise. As noted earlier, he could not do so by demonstrating that a significant number of chemists or other interested parties within or outside of the
corporation share his sense of "natural rights" or of "professional integrity"
more directly. Critics may reduce any such shared understanding to profes-
67
sionals' strictly strategic interests, given the fragmentation of meaning and

functional differentiation taking place within any complex social enterprise
(Bucher and Strauss 1961).
This particular institution of internal procedural restraint, the threshold
of interpretability, is critical to the theory of societal constitutionalism. It
can credibly claim grounding against the sovereignty of actors' subjective
interests, including Homo economicus's behavior within economic and political marketplaces.11 It can credibly claim grounding against actors' (and
social scientists') normative relativism and ongoing fragmentation of meaning. To the extent that the social integration/social control distinction is
indeed grounded on procedural norms that are irreducible and generalizable, social scientists may employ it to draw sharp distinctions within ongoing social and political practice.
For instance, social scientists may employ the social integration/social
control distinction to specify when the outcomes of interest-group competition are themselves extending or intensifying social control - even as these
outcomes secure popular support and possibly an electoral mandate. The
central issue is not whether the outcomes are popular or consistent with
actors' subjective interests but whether they increase power holders' behavioral encroachments against the integrity of the procedural threshold. This
issue is independent of whether interest-group competition within a particular nation-state is more or less robust than in others.
Yet, even resilient internal normative restraints on power holders' purposeful exercises of collective power remain incapable of assisting heterogeneous
actors and competing groups in recognizing (or restraining) inadvertently
arbitrary exercises of collective power. The latter include those exercises of
collective power that are indeed instrumentally and strategically rational
responses to competitive pressures, and that nonetheless contribute inadvertently to the drift of social change, as Weber warned.
Excursus: the contemporary crisis of internal restraints
Pluralism's critique of normative restraints. American pluralist theorists
insisted as early as the turn of this century (Bentley 1908) that, more than
any other institution of restraint, the robustness of interest group competition ensures democratic government under modern conditions. Pluralist
theory essentially revolves around three assumptions (Lowi 1969), the first
being the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests:
First, it is assumed that actors' subjective interests can never be

opposed to, or incompatible with, the public interest unless they
entail a violation of existing positive law. Yet, any law may be
changed in the political marketplace, including, ultimately, interpreta-
68
4, Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism

tions of the Constitution (on the latter, see Horowitz 1977; Ely 1980;
Aleinikoffl987).
Second, being sovereign, it is assumed that all subjective interests
within civil society have about equal status (Brennan and Buchanan
1985: 37), even as they are certainly not assumed to be equal in
financing and power, or in organizational and leadership skills. What
is assumed is that no moral ordering may be drawn among subjective
interests a priori; all ordering is strictly strategic, or tied exclusively
to the outcomes of groups' competition for influence within political
marketplaces.
Third, it is assumed that government secures actors' subjective consent, or legitimacy, for existing positive laws by ceaselessly accommodating the outcomes of group competition rather than by endeavoring
to uphold any principle independent of these outcomes. Existing positive laws, along with courts' interpretations of them, ultimately mirror
the ongoing balance of power between competing subjective interests.
Beyond this, "the state's" role is reducible to that of a referee that
dutifully enforces existing, ever-negotiable, "rules of the game."12
More than a century earlier, liberal theorists had emphasized the interrelationship between a relatively unfettered economic marketplace and a liberal state. They had similarly deemphasized the importance of institutionalized norms and nonrational restraints framing actors' conduct within the
marketplace (Adam Smith's thoughts on "laws and institutions" notwithstanding, e.g. Buchanan 1989: 57-67).
Indeed, pluralist theory and liberal theory rest together on three assumptions (Lowi 1969) that Marx, Weber, and other major social theorists considered remarkably naive:
First, both theories assume that every individual or interest group, in
isolation, is the best judge of his or their own subjective interests,
and that these interests are ultimately given or random. Because
actors' subjective interests are sovereign, and a strictly "private" matter, they are beyond any "external" warrant or justification. As a
result, they can only be treated as given or random. It is impossible
to tell if they are reasoned (Buchanan 1989: 37-40, 61-2; Brennan
and Buchanan 1985: 21-8, 37-9, 46-66; Hechter 1987: 31-3, 184-5).
Second, both theories assume that the outcomes of actors' normatively
unmediated, or merely informally mediated, competition within political and economic marketplaces are typically if not intrinsically benign.13
Third, both theories assume that should arbitrary government ever
result somehow from these outcomes, individuals comprising a "con-
69
stituent force" within civil society are certain to recognize this subjectively, each in isolation. As long as economic and political marketplaces
are kept "free," or unencumbered by de jure obstacles to actors articulating their subjective interests, such a "constituent force" can be relied
on to mobilize whenever necessary in order to uphold valued "rules of
the game." In this way, governmental authoritarianism is either prevented or corrected (Truman 1951; Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 22,
26-32, 51, also 5-7).14
More than merely benign, therefore, actors' normatively unmediated or
informally mediated competition over subjective interests within economic
and political marketplaces is for liberals and pluralists alike positively virtuous: It fosters individual diversity and innovativeness, economic and political adaptability, and ethnic and cultural tolerance (see Hall 1987 for a statement; McClosky and Brill 1983 for an unsuccessful effort to document this in
survey research). These theorists acknowledge, of course, that particular
sets of actors and groups benefit most from robust interest competition.
They also acknowledge that neither systemic nor informal mechanisms of
social control are ever displaced entirely by the impersonal sanctions of
political and economic marketplaces (chapter 2; Buchanan 1989: 32-5 on
"norms" and customs; Hechter 1987: 62-73 on direct reinforcement, differential association, and reciprocity).
What is surprising is that this relatively unbridled, and unwarranted,
optimism stands largely unchallenged conceptually in the social sciences
today. This is the case precisely because of the lacuna of integrative possibilities and then the resulting ideology of exhausted possibilities. Within this
context of conceptual default, liberals and pluralists readily dismiss out of
hand the significance for social change of any and all imbalances of resources, power, and influence emerging from political and economic
marketplaces - including the extent and intensity of social control accorded
to "private" corporations within civil society. All such outcomes are for
them unrelated to the issue of whether government remains "democratic"
and whether the market remains "free." Because their complacency and
optimism obfuscates the Weberian Dilemma, they fail to see any identifiable
social infrastructure irreducible to the possibility of a nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions. They then fail to see, of
course, whether and when this social infrastructure is jeopardized by certain
outcomes of liberal-democratic economic and political marketplaces.
Pluralists' argument regarding the central importance of robust interest
competition heavily influenced the works of many social scientists in many
disciplines throughout the 1960s and beyond. Their argument is altogether
consistent, for instance, with the tradition of symbolic interactionism in
70
sociology (Blumer 1969). And yet, its great influence cannot be traced to
its direct appeal. Its influence may be traced instead to how convincingly
pluralists (and interactionists) revealed that all substantive and procedural
normative restraints that once contributed to political democracy (in the
United States and elsewhere) are today clearly in irreversible decline. By
revealing that all normative restraints on government have become negotiable, in principle, and increasingly compromised, in practice, they left the
social sciences with a compelling problem. This problem, in turn, enhanced
the influence of pluralism (and interactionism): How can social scientists
explain the remarkable stability of American democracy, for instance,
other than to attribute this to the institution of robust interest competition
itself?15
First, even by the mid-1950s, pluralists were pointing out that earlier
norms of internal substantive restraint on government and the economy norms of religion, natural law, and custom - were everywhere influxin the
West, rather than firm and resilient. Yet, these are the norms that once
kept the private sharply distinguished from the public, and that thereby
kept the state from encroaching into civil society even in response to group
competition. As examples of these norms' flux and irreversible decline
today, Supreme Court decisions in the United States regarding the substantive meaning of the equal protection clause of the Constitution are anything but consistent or unambiguous (Grossman and Wells 1980: 408-29,
564-608; Unger 1986). Sunday "blue laws" prohibiting commerce on the
Sabbath are a thing of the past, as are countless other religious and naturallaw proscriptions on economic and political marketplaces. Moving in the
other direction, prayer in public schools is not something that is any longer
beyond the possible reach of governmental action in response to group
competition, despite the once presumed inviolability of the separation of
church and state. Nor is the "privacy" of corporate investment or personnel
decisions beyond the reach of government, despite the once presumed
inviolability of private property (Note 1982; Stone 1982; Laumann and
Knoke 1987: 381-2).
Second, pluralists were also insisting that even the integrity of earlier
norms of internal procedural restraint on government is similarly in flux
across the West, and in marked decline in the United States and other
common law countries in particular. The integrity of nonrational norms of
any kind, substantive or procedural, is difficult for heterogeneous actors
and competing groups to sustain. This is the case because (a) pluralist
group competition is embedded within a larger social order, and (b) the
latter cannot be characterized as revolving around any identifiable lived
social fabric. The larger social order is rather characterized by functional
differentiation, actors' fragmentation of meaning, groups' competition,
and (benign) systemic drift (Luhmann 1990 emphasizes this as compellingly
71
as anyone in the literature today). Because pluralists insisted that American politics be studied coldly, "realistically," as it actually plays itself out in
practice - rather than as "institutionalists" and "formalists" were once
wont to idealize it - they insisted that even procedural norms of due process distinctive to common-law countries have become mere formalities
(see Laumann and Knoke 1987: 383-5, 395-7 for the same conclusion).16
These procedural norms, too, have become empty shells, like the substantive norms of natural law and natural right. By pluralists' accounts, these
formalities are also readily adjusted and readjusted by the content of group
competition, by power holders' ceaseless struggles for influence and strategic advantages. Indeed, on this point pluralists are in unreserved agreement with Marxists, Weberians, feminists, and contemporary sociologists
of law.17
For all of these theorists and researchers, norms of due process are, at
best, an accoutrement of robust interest competition itself. These norms
can no longer be traced, if they ever could, to "principles" grounded
against groups' competition and the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests. Instead, due process is itself reducible to how competing subjective
interests countervail or balance each other within political marketplaces:
the legislature, the administrative agency, and even the court. If there ever
was a shared sense of the integrity of basic norms and nonrational procedures of internal restraint - including due process - it has clearly fragmented (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: ix, 146-50). This explains why it is
so difficult today for legal scholars, for instance, to distinguish due process
conceptually from the courts' accommodating of whatever outcomes individual and corporate persons negotiate within economic and political marketplaces. Legal scholars are increasingly aware that due process currently
is being defined, in practice, as robust interest competition within and
around the courts themselves. And they are increasingly aware, too, that
this reduces the courts' role to "balancing," to acceding to drift; the courts
are no longer mediating drift (if they ever did) on the basis of some relatively clear sense of direction (Aleinikoff 1987; Yale Law Journal 1988).
Given this growing awareness among legal scholars, it is an easy matter,
then, for social scientists to insist in ever more direct terms that there are
no internal procedural restraints on arbitrary government today that are
either resilient, in practice, or grounded conceptually, in principle (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 21, 37). Like pluralists and interactionists, Weberians take this to mean that internal procedural restraints cannot be
independent of group competition. Marxists take this to mean that they
cannot be independent of the bourgeoisie's interests and beliefs in particular. Feminists take this to mean that they cannot be independent of what
MacKinnon calls the "male state." And mainstream sociologists of law
(along with specialists on deviance) endlessly document how the integrity
72
of procedural norms is subordinated to influential' ongoing negotiations

and compromises within criminal and civil justice systems.
Pluralism as critique of Western institutions and traditions. By substituting
a "realist" appraisal of American democracy for institutionalists' and formalists' idealized portrayals (Garson 1978), pluralists successfully debunked the normative basis of American democracy. They accomplished
this, ironically, as they simultaneously transferred Lockean liberals' optimism and complacency from the economic marketplace to the political
marketplace (Lowi 1969). They successfully established that the only institution of internal restraint both necessary and sufficient to maintain American democracy, and, presumably, a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change more generally, is robust interest competition. As long as the subjective interests emerging within a civil society are not blocked by de jure
obstacles of any kind as they are being formulated, articulated, and mobilized, arbitrary government is restrained by definition. By implication, a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change also is assured.
Putting this point differently, purposeful exercises of collective power by
the state (or by any sector, industry, or organization of a civil society) can
never be demonstrated by social scientists (or interest-group leaders) to be
arbitrary in principle. They can only be demonstrated to stimulate unusually intensive, extensive, or sustained competition among interest groups.
When the latter proves not to be the case, in practice, social scientists can
only describe such exercises as acceptable responses to ongoing group
competition, and, by implication, to systemic pressures of social change. If
anything, these exercises now become a literal virtue of robust interest
competition itself. By no means can they be condemned as particular,
controlling, or otherwise threatening. Within the conceptual framework of
pluralist theory, there are no grand "principles" that social scientists may
cite that legitimate any other restraints on the state's actions.18
Once again, there is indeed a point to this "realist" appraisal of the
admittedly dismal state of internal normative restraints on arbitrary government. But this point begins to move beyond pluralist theory itself, and
beyond the other theories noted above: With the sole exception of Fuller's
procedural threshold of interpretability, it is indeed no longer possible today
for competing groups and heterogeneous actors (or social scientists) to rely
on existing Western political institutions and economic practices to recognize
whether the state or any private enterprise is becoming more controlling and
authoritarian. The only changes that can possibly be recognized today on
this basis are whether new social movements are emerging within a civil
society, as one possible sign of unusual interest competition (Habermas
ends up doing this, e.g. 1962: 181-250; 1989). Otherwise, the direction of
73
social change cannot be fathomed, other than to keep track of any de jure
obstacles to actors' articulation and aggregation of their subjective interests
(or, in Habermas's case, de facto obstacles to actors' ideal speech).
Indeed, in terms of pluralism's "realist" approach, as in Weber's social
theory earlier, if a democratic government ever cites any principle as it
hesitates to accommodate the outcomes of ongoing interest competition,
this can only exacerbate social tensions and conflicts. It can only result in
"imbalance" and "crisis." As one example, if the separation of church and
state were reified into some nonnegotiable principle, this might rigidify a
mutual isolation of religious subcultures. By no means would it invariably
foster a single "national culture" or any other social fabric of "shared
meaning." Similarly, if either the division of powers or individuals' "natural
rights" were reified, this might magnify heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' difficulties in coming to a shared "definition of the situation"
regarding whether the direction of social change is benign or increasingly
threatening (thus, Buchanan's opposition to any "external values"). In
short, with the single great exception of their blind faith that the outcomes
of normatively unmediated arenas of political and economic competition
will invariably be benign, pluralists and interactionists otherwise follow
Weber in discounting the significance for contemporary democratic government and for a nonauthoritarian direction of social change of all institutions and norms of traditional governmental constitutionalism.
European neocorporatism: an alternative to American pluralism? Studies of
neocorporatism within Western Europe and Scandinavia since the mid1970s (see Schmitter's works) find that on the Continent more centralized
"peak associations" are substituted for America's decentralized pressure
groups. Yet, these studies essentially recapitulate pluralism's optimism and
complacency. They too discount the significance of the institutional legacy
of governmental constitutionalism. But what are peak associations?
Standing at the "peak" or literal boundary between state agencies and
the most powerful organized interests in a civil society, a peak association
dominates one particular functional sector of a civil society, whether banking, housing, manufacturing, international trade, transportation, education, or any other. On the Continent (unlike the case in Latin America), it
is a "private" trade association rather than an agency of government; its
leaders are neither popularly elected nor appointed by popularly elected
officials. Yet, these leaders bear enormous responsibilities for administering the public policies affecting their functional sector as well as for helping
to formulate these policies in the first place.
Looking in the other direction, from the peak down to the enterprises
and organizations within its functional sector, the leaders of each peak
74
association dominate all of the organized interests and social units within its
sector. Their domination is institutionalized in many ways, but the two
which follow are as illustrative of the peak association's power as any
others: First, leaders of peak associations directly or indirectly control the
licensing of all enterprises within their functional sector; thus, they control
their current and potential "membership." Second, leaders of peak associations formally or informally monopolize the political representation of all
organized interests within their functional sector; thus, they literally control what the state hears from their "membership."
In short, peak associations simultaneously "intermediate" both (a) the
public policy-making process taking place within the state that is directed
to their sectors and (b) the "private" articulation and aggregation of
interests taking place within their sectors that is directed to the state. As
such, the leaders of peak associations typically are seen in the literature as
a great stabilizing force in all democracies on the Continent. Neocorporatist theorists insist, and in no uncertain terms, that intermediation is
more significant to democratic government, and by implication to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change, than any and all traditions of
governmental constitutionalism or norms of internal restraint. Like pluralist theorists' characterizations of decentralized group competition within
the United States, neocorporatist theorists characterize centralized "intermediation" as a strictly strategic variant within the general type of
internal substantive restraints. Yet, the dominance of peak associations
replaces more robust interest competition, and it further subordinates the
practical significance of the division of powers, individuals' (as opposed to
groups') "natural rights," and the public/private distinction (Laumann and
Knoke 1987: 381-2, 397 see similar results in the United States, albeit
more informally developed).
Given (a) their dominance within functional sectors of civil society and
(b) their responsibility for both formulating and administering the public
policies affecting them, the presence of neocorporatist peak associations
has substantial effects, of course, on the practice of Western democratic
institutions. It also affects the latter's relationship to its own constitutional
traditions. The following three effects may be included among them:
First, as just noted, neocorporatism utterly eliminates interest-group
competition. It replaces this with higher level negotiations between
unelected leaders of peak associations, and then between them and
both elected and appointed leaders of state agencies.
Second, and as a result of this, neocorporatism institutionalizes a literal collapse of the public/private distinction. Depending on how one
wishes to view it, neocorporatist "intermediation" either (a) brings
unelected leaders of peak associations directly into the state or else (b)
75
brings elected and appointed leaders of state agencies directly into

functional sectors of civil society.
Third, neocorporatism institutionalizes a literal collapse of the division
of powers. Given that peak association leaders deal directly with managers of state agencies, and thereby typically bypass parliament and
the courts, the division of powers has for all intents and purposes been
rendered increasingly insignificant.
This is significant in that the division of powers is arguably the single most
important institution of internal substantive restraint ever developed within
the tradition of Western governmental constitutionalism.19 Indeed, it was the
division of powers, along with the public/private distinction underlying a
truly liberal economic marketplace, that once provided actors and groups
with an institutionalized "threshold." The integrity of this division and this
distinction once allowed them the possibility of recognizing and understanding in common when government was becoming arbitrary.20
By contrast to Western democratic institutions and constitutional traditions alike, the neocorporatist intermediation of public policies and social
interests is more like the "pacts" elites establish during periods of governmental crises. These are the periods when parliamentary democracy gives
way to military rule, and vice versa (O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead
1986, vol. 5: 37-47). The one significant difference between neocorporatist
intermediation and elite pacts is that elites forge pacts fully expecting their
arrangements to be temporary. By contrast, peak associations' intermediation literally institutionalizes the collapse of the public/private distinction. This is why it is so unclear to social theorists today which exercises of
governmental power on the Continent are extraordinary and which are
ordinary, or which are innovative and which are arbitrary (Luhmann 1990,
Habermas 1989). Peak associations' intermediation subordinates the significance of all restraints on arbitrary government to the literal end-in-itself of
ceaselessly accommodating peak associations' own immediate responses to
systemic pressures of drift (Streeck and Schmitter 1985).
Problems for Western traditions and Western institutions. Pluralism and
neocorporatism both reveal, in short, that Western democratic institutions

and constitutional traditions, and in particular any and all norms of internal
restraint, no longer operate as a reliable "threshold" or trip wire even in their
originally limited way. The integrity of the division of powers and of the
public/private distinction once signaled to all actors and groups in common
at least whether government was becoming unlimited, and thereby controlling and authoritarian (Friedrich 1974). The division of powers might very
well remain today a most significant institution of internal substantive restraint on arbitrary government. But what would have to be done in order
76
to reestablish its integrity within Western Europe, Scandinavia, or even the

United States is no longer self-evident, even to specialists (Vile 1967).21 As
far as back as 1942, the American political scientist V. O. Key, Jr., pointed
out (1942: 709) that the American government's growing complexity had
"reduced to a fiction the theory of separation of powers and the parallel
doctrine of the separability of politics and administration." Today, practicing politicians, leaders of interest groups and peak associations, and influentials within civil society fail to see this as a problem in the first place
(Laumann and Knoke 1987: 383-7). The demise of the division of powers
accounts only in part, however, for Western democracies' "crisis of public
authority."22
Beyond this, none of the original restraints on arbitrary government
codified in Western constitutional tradition operate any longer, in practice,
even in their original, limited way. They no longer do so, ironically, precisely because they were never extended, in practice, to the task of restraining
at least purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power by private enterprises within civil society. Again, with the exception of Fuller's procedural
threshold, restraints of governmental constitutionalism were never designed to support a social infrastructure on which competing groups or
heterogeneous actors (and social scientists) might possibly recognize shifts
in the direction of social change. As internal restraints, they are incapable
of assisting heterogeneous actors and competing groups in recognizing the
inadvertent arbitrariness of drift.
The restricted impact of internal restraints is mo&t evident today within
the civil law countries of the Continent. Yet, even within common-law
countries, these restraints were never extended to purposeful arbitrariness
by private enterprises.23 As a result, since the turn of the century social
influentials' once (relatively) shared recognition of the integrity of Western
democratic institutions and norms of internal restraint has itself fragmented
and withered. This is exactly what Weber expected, and this accounts for
Western democracies' "crisis of public authority": Whatever the social infrastructure may be today that is supporting a nonauthoritarian direction of
social change within Western democracies, or elsewhere, it is no longer revealed by principles of Western constitutional and liberal traditions. This
disjunction between theory and practice explains why power holders and
social influentials fail to recognize, first, what the social infrastructure
underlying a nonauthoritarian direction of social change today is and, second, how it might be maintained despite systemic pressures of drift to the
contrary. Pluralists' and neocorporatists' "realism" turns out, ironically, to
document this disjunction, albeit indirectly, as they endeavor to account for
the presence of political democracy (and, by implication, nonauthoritarian
social order) in the late twentieth century.
A constitutional crisis in the United States is so likely today that the truly
77
difficult problem is to predict which particular substantive issues will precipitate it (Ely 1980; Pennsylvania Law Review symposium 1982; Aleinikoff
1987; Siedman 1987; Yale University Law Journal symposium 1988; Nagel
1989). Prospects for inducing or compelling government agencies to conform more strictly to traditional constitutional restraints have been eliminated. In many respects American jurists' "strict constructionist" appeals
are one last, fated effort to respond to drift in the traditional ways (Dworkin 1985: 33-71). The same is true of social scientists' appeals to "civil
religion," including those by Bellah, Daniel Bell, and Brennan and Buchanan. Both types of appeals, coupled with (a) the increasing frequency of
changes in Supreme Court opinions, and (b) the rise of both the Law and
Economics movement and the Critical Legal Studies movement within
major law schools, are cumulative reflections of the deeper crisis of internal
restraints.24
4.3.2. Institutions of external restraint: tradition v. societal
constitutionalism
External procedural restraints are the institutions and norms on which heterogeneous actors and competing groups rely, in practice, whenever they
recognize that exercises of collective power which are indeed rational are
nonetheless contributing inadvertently to the drift of social change toward
bureaucratization, control, and social authoritarianism.25 Whether they rely
on these restraints explicitly or implicitly, knowingly or unknowingly, is of
secondary importance. What is of primary importance is whether distinctively external procedural restraints can be isolated, in principle, and then
located unambiguously within existing civil societies, in practice. It is argued
throughout the remainder of this volume that social (and governmental)
units organized in the collegial form institutionalize external procedural restraints by their sheer presence. The direction of social change can be said to
be shifting inadvertently toward control and social authoritarianism, in practice, whenever encroachments against collegial formations are increasing.
The remainder of this volume is dedicated to demonstrating why this is the
case. It is dedicated to demonstrating why the sheer presence of collegial
formations within any modern civil society institutionalizes the distinctive
social infrastructure underlying both a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change and heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possibilities for
social integration.
Institutions of external substantive restraint (HA): the anachronism of tradition. Looking at external restraints generally, what exactly keeps any normative restraint on the drift of social change "external?" What prevents
any normative restraint from being generally perceived as favoring the
78
subjective interests of selected actors only, and thereby from being politicized and drawn into interest competition itself? Institutions and norms
lose their "external" status the moment that they can no longer credibly
claim grounding. This means that they have lost any possibility of being
recognized, understood, and accepted in common by heterogeneous actors
and competing groups. Once they have lost this possibility, they are readily
subordinated (a) to accommodating the outcomes of interest competition
and (b) to accommodating social and governmental units' immediate responses to systemic pressures of social change in their own immediate
interests.
This process of subordination is precisely what happened historically to
external substantive restraints or all traditional norms and institutions with
the onset of modernity and the fragmentation of meaning: One by one,
substantive traditions and valued social fabrics lost their "external" status
or capacity to sustain a credible claim to grounding against the emerging
sovereignty of actors' subjective interests. Their claims to grounding were
instead successfully challenged by emerging interests and systemic pressures within civil society (Habermas 1962, 1963a,b; Moore 1966; Friedrich
1972; Bendix 1978; Maclntyre 1981; Schluchter 1981; Luhmann 1990).
Institutions of external substantive restraint include, as one example,
absolute religious proscriptions against various types of commercial practices, including usury (Nelson 1949; Meszaros 1972: 28-33). They also
include, as other examples, absolute constitutional or statutory proscriptions (a) against interstate or international commerce, based on "natural
law" tenets, or (b) against naturalized citizenship, based on ascriptive
criteria. In short, all institutions of external substantive restraint without
exception run directly counter to the very thrust of modernity itself. They
run directly counter to the increasing heterogeneity of national populations and to the increasing functional differentiation of organizations and
institutions within modern civil societies. Put more positively, these institutions can contribute truly external restraints only when actors somehow
sustain a broad, unchallenged consensus regarding what is right and
wrong, true and false, in substance, in their everyday social lives. This is
rare in the modern world (but see Maclntyre 1981 and Braithwaite 1989
for intriguing calls for renascence, and Bloom 1987 for a polemic based
implicitly on this).
Under modern conditions of drift, those who would endeavor seriously
to maintain the integrity of substantive norms of religion or natural law
must rely, ultimately, on precisely those mechanisms of social control that
carry the greatest potential for degenerating into authoritarian excess.
Moreover, as they do so, the institutions of external substantive restraint
whose integrity they are endeavoring to maintain simultaneously lose their
79
normative qualities.26 They become strategic restraints, increasingly enforced by formal mechanisms of social control. This is the case, for instance, with those few nation-states that continue to uphold a state religion
(e.g. Iran, Israel, and various Arab states) - irrespective of what the substantive merits of their institutions and practices happen to be. It is also the
case with that far greater number of nation-states that continues to cast
citizenship in terms of ethnic, religious, or other ascriptive criteria rather
than in terms of more universal criteria.27
At this point a thesis of the theory of societal constitutionalism may be
stated bluntly: If an institution of external restraint is to contribute to a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions, and
also to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration, it must remain a procedural mediation. Whatever its substantive impact
might be on organizations and institutions within a modern civil society, its
impact must remain mediated. It must remain consistent with actors' and
groups' ongoing behavioral fidelity to certain procedural norms.
Institutions of external procedural restraint (HB): the core of societal
constitutionalism
Three qualities of external procedural restraint. Again, the only norms

and institutions of external restraint that remain consistent with a nonauthoritarian direction of change as well as with heterogeneous actors' and
competing groups' possible social integration are strictly procedural mediations. Being "external," these procedures allow such actors and groups first
to recognize, and then possibly to restrain, the inadvertent arbitrariness
accompanying the drift of social change at the heart of the Weberian Dilemma. This means that these procedures exhibit at least three distinctive
qualities:
First, normativeness: These procedures are normative or nonrational
rather than strategic or instrumental.28
When even heterogeneous actors and competing groups are capable of
recognizing and understanding the integrity of nonrational procedures in
common, these procedures also exhibit two other qualities:
Second, grounding: These procedures can credibly claim conceptual
grounding against normative relativism, the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests, and the outcomes of interest competition.
Third, invariance: The impact of restraint which these procedures
have on inadvertent arbitrariness, or drift, does not vary from nationstate to nation-state; it is instead a product of their sheer presence
within any sector, industry, or organization of a civil society.
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The distinctiveness of the collegial form. These three qualities are discussed at length in the remainder of this volume. For the moment, it is
worth repeating that external procedural restraints are institutionalized
exclusively by the sheer presence of collegial formations. And collegial
formations may be defined in the following way for present purposes:
Collegial formations are deliberative and professional bodies wherein
heterogeneous actors and competing groups maintain the threshold of
interpretability of shared social duties as they endeavor to describe
and explain (or create and maintain) qualities in social life or in natural
events.
This definition is repeated in chapter 8, and explored at length within the
context of a discussion of organizational forms and a more developed presentation of the theory of societal constitutionalism. For now, the most that
can be said is that these formations cannot be distinguished from other
organizational forms by any of the substantive projects to which their
members happen to dedicate them in any particular instance. They are
rather distinguished by the procedural norms that distinguish this particular
organizational form from bureaucratic, democratic, or partron-client forms
of organization. At the moment that members of any collegial formation
encroach behaviorally against the integrity of this form's distinctive procedural norms, they undermine this form's continued presence. Encroachments against these procedural norms do not affect any other organizational form in this way. Nor, certainly, do they affect economic and political
marketplaces in this way.
Given that its members' behavior is distinctive, whether the collegial
form of organization is in evidence within any sector, industry, or organization of a modern civil society is an eminently empirical question. Studies of
its presence or absence within any sector, industry, organization, or organizational division are amenable to falsification and, ultimately, to operationalization. Moreover, because this formation's impact of restraint is
invariant, this too renders the presence or absence of collegial formations
amenable to empirical study.
Where is the collegial form typically to be found? To the extent that it is
present at all within a modern civil society, it is the organizational form
distinctive to the professions in particular and to rule-making and deliberative bodies more generally. To the extent that it is present at all, it is
typically found not only within public and private research institutes, artistic and intellectual networks, and universities, but also within legislatures,
courts and commissions, professional associations, and for that matter, the
research divisions of private and public corporations, the rule-making bodies of nonprofit organizations, and even the directorates of public and
private corporations.29
81
Still, how can it be said that the sheer presence of collegial formations
institutionalizes external procedural restraints? How can it be said that
these restraints can credibly claim conceptual grounding against normative
relativism and the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests? How can it be
said that the impact of these restraints on drift is invariant, in practice?
Why do members of collegial formations exhibit behavioral fidelity to distinctive procedural norms, and how exactly do the members of these formations institutionalize external procedural restraints across entire sectors of
a civil society?
These are all legitimate questions, and all of them, and many more, must
be answered. But for now, in the context of this overview of internal and
external restraints, it is possible only to state in the most general terms how
institutions of external procedural restraint differ from institutions of internal restraint.
External and internal procedural restraints. Collegial formations institutionalize the social infrastructure underlying all nonauthoritarian social
orders today, whether Western or non-Western. Only by maintaining the
integrity of these formations can heterogeneous actors and competing
groups simultaneously restrain social and governmental units' independent, immediate responses to the systemic pressures of social change that
concerned Weber. If these responses are otherwise left unrestrained, they
invariably contribute, however inadvertently so, to increasing bureaucratization, control, and susceptibility to social authoritarianism. Only the presence of institutions of external procedural restraint within a civil society
can account for the possibility of nonauthoritarian social order under modern conditions, and thereby resolve the Weberian Dilemma directly. Correlatively, the absence of these institutions, or their loss of integrity and
subsequent disappearance, both accounts for and reflects an authoritarian
direction of social change under modern conditions. This holds true in
comparative perspective irrespective of whether most Western political institutions and economic practices are otherwise present within a particular
nation-state or not.
Thinking again of William's situation, consider the possibility that instead of Scott's demand being anomalous, it is consistent with the company's longstanding practices in approaching its research divisions.30 Managers never have been instructed that research divisions are to be treated
any differently than sales divisions, marketing divisions, or distribution
divisions. Quite to the contrary, they have been instructed that if they need
"results," then "results" had better be delivered - from any division. The
problem is that "equal treatment" of all divisions results inadvertently in
quite unequal effects and outcomes, precisely because research divisions
differ from all others in the form in which they are organized.
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Once social scientists see that this form also happens to institutionalize
external procedural restraints by its sheer presence anywhere within a
civil society, they may make the following distinction within William's
lived situation: William's company may or may not be engaging in corporate crime. But it is indeed extending social control and contributing to
social authoritarianism. This remains the case irrespective of whether
corporate managers are doing so purposefully or inadvertently. By encroaching against the integrity of its research divisions' distinctive form of
organization, and thereby against the external procedural restraints that
only this form institutionalizes, managers' behavior is extending social
control and reducing heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possibilities for social integration. In this way, their contribution to drift at a
microsociological level also contributes, however incrementally so, to a
more macrosociological drift by their industry and sector of civil society.
The concept of external procedural restraints permits observing social
scientists to demonstrate this empirically, and in comparative perspective,
irrespective of whether the civil society in question is Western or nonWestern.
In short, the theory of societal constitutionalism revolves around the
interrelationship, in principle and in practice, between:
(a) one particular set of internal procedural restraints: Fuller's procedural threshold of interpret ability; and
(b) one particular institution of external procedural restraints: the
collegial form of organization.
The distinctive characteristics of Fuller's procedural threshold are discussed
in chapter 6 and collegial formations are discussed at length beginning in
chapter 8. For present purposes, the following may be asserted outside of the
conceptual context provided later in this volume: As long as members of
collegial formations maintain the integrity of their organizational form, this
contributes to external procedural restraints on any and all manifestations of
social authoritarianism, whether purposeful or inadvertent. To say that collegial formations institutionalize "external" procedural norms by their sheer
presence is to say that they do so: (a) irrespective of the subjective interests
of the heterogeneous actors and competing groups comprising their memberships, and (b) irrespective of the substantive projects to which these members dedicate their formations (as long as the projects remain mediated).
Social scientists may locate collegial formations with precision within
particular sectors, industries, and organizations, and even particular divisions of organizations. It cannot be assumed a priori, however, that all of
the sectors of the civil societies in which these formations will be found,
either today or historically, will invariably be those of Western democra-
4A. Social integration
83
cies. By contrast to the presupposition of exhausted possibilities, a central

thesis of the theory of societal constitutionalism comes to the fore: The
extent of the presence of collegia! formations within any particular civil
society not the presence of political institutions and economic practices of
existing Western democracies in themselves - accounts for whether it, or any
particular sector within it, can become (or remain) nonauthoritarian and
possibly integrative, despite systemic pressures to the contrary.31 This thesis
is amenable to empirical falsification in case studies, and amenable as well

to eventual operationalization.
4.4. Social integration: again, a preliminary definition
Given the discussion of internal and external procedural restraints, the

concept of social integration may be defined a little more specifically than
in chapter 2. It may be defined in three related ways, and yet these definitions, too, remain preliminary.32
First, heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible integration within any complex social unit ultimately rests on whether both
sets of institutions of procedural normative restraint are in evidence:
(a) institutions of internal procedural restraint on purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power, and (b) institutions of external
procedural restraint on inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective
power.
Second, and put more positively, heterogeneous actors' possible social
integration rests, in practice, on whether they share a normative orientation of restraint on all arbitrary exercises of collective power. They
may share this normative orientation, moreover, despite their own
increasing differences in substantive beliefs, internalized normative
motivations, and subjective interests (see chapter 5, note 1; and chapter 8, note 4). A shared normative orientation of this type can only be
the product of the institutionalization of distinctively normative procedures. It cannot be the product of the institutionalization of substantive norms of any kind, nor of rational procedures.
Third, social integration remains a possibility, in practice, whenever
heterogeneous actors and competing groups exhibit behavioral fidelity
to the threshold restraints of the collegial form of organization. This
requires, however, that they resist systemic pressures of drift toward
bureaucratization or toward adopting any other organizational forms
that are more strategic or instrumental.
The continued presence, and then further extension, of the collegial
form of organization within a modern civil society remains as contingent a
84
possibility within Western democracies as it does within nation-states of the

East and Third World. Nowhere in the modern world is this form's presence an "evolutionary universal." Nowhere in the modern world is its
presence "overdetermined" by "cultural imperatives," "national traditions," or systemic pressures of "functional differentiation." Put differently, there is not a single social order in the world today that comparativists may legitimately treat as irreversibly nonauthoritarian, as intrinsically
integrative. Quite to the contrary, each social order's direction of change
remains an open, empirical issue, in research as well as in practice. The
relationship between drift and direction remains forever subject to change.
The theory of societal constitutionalism is designed to allow social scientists
to specify empirically when these changes are occurring, in practice.
SECTION II
Origins of the analytical distinctions and

conceptual foundations: retracing steps taken
by Habermas, Fuller, and Parsons
5. Societal constitutionalism's grounding

against relativism: from Weber's legal
positivism to Habermas's communication
theory
Unlike the principles underlying any other legal theory, Lon Fuller's principles of "procedural legality" are interrelated with the form of organization
to which Talcott Parsons referred at various times as the "associational,"
the "ncwbureaucratic," and the "collegial." These Harvard colleagues
team-taught a course at the law school during the 1966-67 academic year,
and yet in two important respects Parsons's works remained unaffected by
this "collaboration." First, he never drew any connection between Fuller's
legal theory and his own explicit references to collegial formations, which
began only in the late 1960s, (1969a) or after this "collaboration." Second,
there is no evidence in Parsons's writings that he appreciated how incompatible conceptually Fuller's legal theory is with Weber's sociology of law.1
Parsons had been citing and referring to Weber's sociology of law for
four decades, and he continued to do so into the 1970s. Yet, in order to
work the conceptual implications of Fuller's view of law into his mature
theory, the AGIL schema, he would have had to stop this practice, and he
would have had to alter many of his own most basic concepts. This move
would have eliminated many of the most noticeable dead ends of his mature social theory. But by the late 1960s and early 1970s Parsons was
turning seventy, and was far too committed in too many ways to initiate a
project of literal conceptual renascence.
Because such changes are not suggested in Parsons's writings, whether
directly in texts or indirectly in footnotes, hermeneutics is not going to
reveal what the results might have been. And this is not the place, anyway,
to say another word about the AGIL schema. Instead, four steps may be
taken to demonstrate the interrelationship between Fuller's legal theory
and the collegial form of organization, and then to demonstrate the latter's
centrality to the theory of societal constitutionalism. These steps also provide an overview of chapters to follow. However, a major obstacle stands in
the way of taking even the first step: Fuller's work in particular and legal
theory generally is unfamiliar to social scientists, and a more familiar backdrop is needed against which to proceed. The purpose of the present chap87
88
5. Societal constitutionalism's grounding against relativism
ter is to provide this backdrop and simultaneously to demonstrate why it is

untenable for any theorist to cite Fuller's approach to law and yet to retain
basic concepts consistent with Weber's sociology of law.
5.1.1. A backdrop: critique of legal positivism
This chapter opens with references to Weber's sociology of law not because
it is conceptually rigorous or intrinsically instructive but because it is familiar. Unlike Fuller's or any other legal theorist's approach to law, Weber's
sociology of law remains for many researchers and theorists today, as for
Parsons across his career, an unquestioned (and, regrettably, too often
unargued) point of departure. The backdrop for the four steps taken in
later chapters is not Weber's sociology of law in itself, however; it is rather
a critique of it and of legal positivism generally. Jurgen Habermas's critique
is so rigorous that it may serve as backdrop even if not a single reader
accepts that Habermas's communication theory is, as it stands, a viable
theoretical vehicle for the social sciences. His critique has the great merit of
shattering the complacency of any reader who would continue to believe
that Weber's sociology of law has more to offer the social sciences today
than in fact it does. Equally importantly, by exposing the most important
conceptual gaps in any positivist approach to law, his critique also opens
the way to establishing in the next chapter the great merits of Fuller's
procedural approach.
Unlike Parsons, however, Habermas is unfamiliar with Fuller's work
even today. It goes without saying, therefore, that he has never made a case
for the merits of Fuller's legal theory, directly or indirectly.2 He believes
instead that his own "theory of comunicative action" fills the gaps exposed
by his critique. It is demonstrated in chapter 6, however, that (a) Fuller's
concepts are superior to Habermas's in this regard, and that (b) these
concepts are nonetheless intrinsically interrelated with Habermas's more
abstract principles of "procedural reason." These theorists' very
terminologies - procedural legality and procedural reason - suggest an interrelationship. In addition, Habermas's critique of Weber offers a convenient opportunity to explore (a) why he found it necessary to "twist" the
traditions of neo-Marxism and critical theory, and European social theory
more generally, with a "procedural turn," and then (b) why Fuller had
come to the same conclusion regarding both European and Anglo-American traditions of jurisprudence.
For the moment, however, consider only in general terms what each
theorist's procedural turn contributes to the other's concepts as well as to the
distinction between internal and external restraints informing the theory of
societal constitutionalism. On one side, Fuller defines "procedural legality"
89
in terms of eight specific normative restraints. Unlike Habermas's idealized

criteria of "procedural reason," these restraints may orient empirical studies. On the other side, the critique of positivism underlying Habermas's
procedural turn offers Fuller the possibility of credibly supporting two claims
for his normative restraints: First, his normative restraints challenge the
sovereignty of actors' subjective interests within economic and political marketplaces. Second, these same normative restraints can credibly claim
grounding against normative relativism rather than merely being asserted ad
hoc, or for heuristic purposes.3 Once it is demonstrated that Fuller's normative restraints are interrelated with Habermas's idealized standard of reason,
the resulting synthesis opens the possibility of bringing a grounded concept
of reasoned social action to detailed empirical research. This keeps open the
possibility that specific legal systems may be demonstrated empirically to be
consistent with actors' reasoned social action. The alternative is to assume
that the legitimacy of any and all legal systems is ultimately reducible to a
"balancing" of actors' subjective interests (Aleinikoff 1987).
Whether the possibility of conceptual grounding against normative relativism and the sovereignty of subjective interests is kept open or not (chapter 10) is critical to whether Fuller's standard of procedural legality can
resist counterarguments from legal realists or legal positivists. The same
holds true for whether the distinction between internal and external restraints can resist counterarguments from Weberians, pluralists, neocorporatists, feminists, and political sociologists generally. Putting this point more
generally, the possibility of sustaining a credible claim to conceptual grounding is what distinguishes a social theory as critical or radical.4 As a critical
social theory, societal constitutionalism stands or falls on whether its claim
to conceptual grounding can be kept open despite critics' most methodical
efforts to close it (and Luhmann's systems theory is as formidable an effort
as any).
5.1.2. The book as a whole: an overview
Given the backdrop provided in this chapter - Habermas's critique of positivism and his "turn" to a distinctively procedural standard of reason - the
first of four steps may be taken to reveal the interrelationship between (a)
Fuller's legal theory, (b) the collegial form of organization, and (c) the
open possibility of conceptual grounding.
Thefirststep, taken in chapter 6, is to bring into view a central implication of Fuller's approach to law: Precisely because it is procedural
rather than substantive, it is consistent with Habermas's critique of
positivism. It can thereby credibly claim conceptual grounding.
90
The whole matter of how norms of any kind, including procedural ones,
can remain "external" to systemic drift and thereby challenge the sovereignty of subjective interests is very closely related to whether such norms
can credibly claim grounding on any standard of reason. After all, if normative procedures cannot sustain such a claim, how can they be expected to
assist heterogeneous actors and competing groups in recognizing and then
restraining the inadvertent drift toward control and authoritarianism that
concerned Weber? Yet, even if this claim is kept open, a question remains:
How exactly can normative procedures assist such actors and groups in
recognizing and restraining drift? These questions can only be answered by
first sharpening the concept of "external":
The second step, taken in chapter 7, is to reformulate Parsons's early
concept of voluntaristic action. It is distinguished analytically from the
broader concepts of normative action and nonrational action. Internal
and external procedural restraints are then revealed to be distinctively
voluntaristic (and possibly reasoned), and not normative or nonrational (and unreasoned).
The reformulated concept of voluntaristic action specifies how normative
procedures can remain "external" to drift and yet contribute to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration rather than to
their demonstrable social control. The voluntaristic status of external procedural restraints also keeps open their claim to grounding on a procedural
standard of reason. In order for a nonauthoritarian social order to be a
possibility in the late twentieth century, heterogeneous actors and competing groups must institutionalize external procedural restraints.
The third step, taken in chapter 8, is to demonstrate that collegial
formations institutionalize external procedural restraints by their sheer
presence within a civil society. Unlike any other form of organization,
the collegial form is both voluntaristic and procedural. This unique
combination of analytical aspects simultaneously renders it "external"
and also possibly integrative and reasoned.
The fourth and final step, taken in chapters 9-11, is to elaborate the
implications for theory, research, and practice of the presence (and
absence) of collegial formations within modern civil societies.
5.2. Habermas's critique of Weber and later legal positivism
Weber's definitions of law are well known:
[L]aw [is an order] externally guaranteed by the probability that physical or psychological coercion will be applied by a staff of people in order to bring about compliance or avenge violation (Weber 1914-20: 34).
91
A "legal order" shall . . . be said to exist wherever coercive means, of a physical or

psychological kind, are available . . . in other words, wherever we find a consociation specifically dedicated to the purpose of "legal coercion." (Weber 1914-20:
317; see Kronman 1983: 72-95; and Turkel 1980-1: 45-51 on Weber's concept of
rational law in particular)
Weber defined the legitimacy of domination in related terms, as the "probability" that actors will in fact develop the "appropriate" subjective beliefs for
each ideal type of domination, whether rational-legal, traditional, or charismatic (1914-20: 213). His reference to actors' subjective beliefs was his
acknowledgement that any system of domination in time secures actors'
subjective acquiescence, if not subjective support (Habermas 1973a: 95-6).
Habermas (1981a: 265-6) points out, however, that Weber's specific
references to rational-legal domination rest on a line of argument that is at
once circular and spurious. On the one hand, Weber treated domination as
rational-legal (a) if enforcement agencies are organized rationally, that is if
they are specialized and effectively organized within bureaucracies;5 and
(b) if citizens believe subjectively that enforcers' actions and commands are
"right," or indeed lawful. On the other, Weber defined law as any set of
rules that happens to be enforced effectively, or bureaucratically. As a
result, at the moment that citizens, whose behavior is already controlled
effectively, come to believe subjectively that stabilized social arrangements
are also "rational" (rather than either traditional or charismatic), their
domination is rational-legal. How enforcement agencies otherwise conduct
themselves, either within or outside of their bureaucracies, is irrelevant to
the concept of rational-legal domination. The only exceptions, of course,
are when enforcers' conduct somehow brings the controlled citizenry to
alter its strictly subjective beliefs that stabilized social arrangements are
"rational."
Habermas considers Weber's treatment of law and legitimacy to be not
only relativistic and uncritical but unnecessarily apologetic and, ultimately,
simplistic. His alternative is to demonstrate conceptually that there is a
generalizable standard of reasoned social action that is also "more comprehensive" than Weber's narrow standard of purposive-rational action. Such
a standard would allow researchers to determine (a) when actors' subjective
beliefs are themselves "true" or "reasoned" and (b) when their subjective
beliefs have been either purposefully manipulated or else systemically narrowed or "distorted":
In contemporary sociology, the usefulness of the concept of legitimation, which
permits a demarcation of types of legitimate authority (in Weber's sense) according
to the forms and contents of legitimation, is undisputed. What is controversial is the
relation of legitimation to truth. This relation to truth must be presumed to exist if
one regards as possible a motivation crisis resulting from a systemic scarcity of the
resource of "meaning." Noncontingent [or non-relativistic] grounds for a disappear-
92
ance of legitimacy can, that is, be derived only from an "independent" [eigensinnigen] - that is, truth dependent - evolution of interpretation systems that systematically restricts the adaptive capacity of society. (Habermas 1973a: 97; 1979: 205-12)
Still, Habermas's work is quite distinct from that of other theorists
trained in either the Marxian or Frankfurt school tradition. He does not
dismiss law out of hand as a veil or a "reification" that invariably distorts
actors' subjective understandings of what their "real" situation is (1963b:
109-20; 1967a: 159, 165-7; other notable exceptions are Franz Neumann
1936 and Otto Kirchheimer in Burin and Shell 1969). Yet, like other neoMarxists and critical theorists, Habermas nonetheless concludes that "capitalistically modernized" legal institutions ultimately lack legitimacy. He
also insists that these legal institutions invariably contribute to, rather than
possibly slow or reverse, an inexorable, systemic drift toward what he calls
"legitimation crisis." He sees this crisis as imminent within all Western
democracies without exception (1973a; 1974; 1981a: 254-71, 412, note 49;
1982: 261-3, 281-3; 1984).6
Habermas's ambivalence toward law reflects the sophistication of his
concepts. They permit him simultaneously to insist that: (a) on the one
hand, Weber indeed was "basically a legal positivist" (1981a: 262; Kronman 1983: 4), and yet (b) on the other, certain normative (that is,
nonpositivist) qualities of law may be reasoned in a more generalizable
sense. Thus, he sees that Marxists err in reducing actors' subjective acceptance of any and all positive laws to their social control, manipulation, and
distorted understanding. But he also sees (1981a: 258-9) that Weber reduced the rationality of law to three characteristics. With these, Weber
rendered his concept of rational-legal legitimation consistent with his "onesided" view of purposive-rational social change more generally (see note
5):
(a) Weber's first characteristic of rational law, in Habermas's view, is
"positivity." A rational-legal social order is regulated by a sovereign
law-making body of one kind or another. This body, in turn, relies on
what Habermas calls "juridical means of organizing" social control
instead of coercing actors more directly.
(b) Weber's second characteristic of rational law is "legalism." Actors
who are legally controlled or protected are not defined as moral
agents. They are instead defined as possessors and consumers, as strategic pursuers of their own subjective interests (Holmes 1897; Grey
1989 for nuances).7
(c) Weber's final characteristic of rational law is "formality." Entire
domains of social life (economic and political marketplaces, in particular) are defined legally as amoral, as relatively unmediated by norms.
93
Within such arenas, actors are permitted to compete strictly strategically, on the basis of immediate - unmediated - self-interest.8
Habermas accepts that these three characteristics may well represent the
core of "bourgeois private law." But his point against Weber is that these
same three characteristics cannot be said, by Weber or anyone else, to
exhaust the normative (and possibly reasoned) components of law as such.9
Because Weber defined rational-legal legitimation so narrowly, so instrumentally, the only additional references to law that Habermas sees entering
into his work, and in particular into his account of why actors ever believe
that positive laws are "rational," are more ad hoc than methodical. These
include Weber's occasional references, in Habermas's words, to "procedures through which it [law] comes to pass." Habermas (1981a: 255-8)
ridicules Weber's references to procedures because the only procedures he
has in mind are those that instruct specialized enforcers how to maximize
the effectiveness of enforcement.10 These sorts of procedures need not be
directed to citizens at all since they are not designed to instruct citizens
regarding what the positive laws are. Nor are they designed to instruct
citizens regarding how they might adjust their behavior to avoid enforcers'
sanctions. They are designed to instruct enforcers regarding how they
might "rationalize" their exercises of collective power and other purposeful
mechanisms of social control (also Kronman 1983: 30). n
Lon Fuller also saw that legal positivists invariably treat legal procedures
as instructions that may, in principle, be directed exclusively to specialized
enforcers. Indeed, this is the central point at issue in any critique of legal
positivism: If the law is reducible to enforcers' instructions regarding how to
maximize enforcement, then enforcers' camaraderie and fidelity to chains
of command - not the interpretability of the law - becomes the only standard of legality as such. But if law is conceded to include instructions to
citizens regarding what their shared social duties are, then interpretability the duties' capacity to be recognized and understood in common even by
heterogeneous actors and competing groups - becomes an irreducible criterion of legality as such. Far more than Habermas, Fuller specified the
irreducible qualities of the law's (and duties') interpretability, and thereby
drove home more methodically than anyone else before or since the central
point at issue with legal positivism.
Fuller pointed out that it was Hans Kelsen, not Weber, who most explicitly and methodically elaborated the positivist approach to legal procedures
(see note 13). For Kelsen, legal procedures need never inform citizens
regarding the sorts of behavior prohibited (or facilitated) by positive laws.
Nor, for that matter, need they inform citizens regarding how specialized
enforcers are likely to act in typical (or possible) situations.12 Quite to the
94
contrary, the procedures Kelsen (and Weber) had in mind may be restricted, both in principle and in practice, to cues that enforcers exchange
strictly among themselves as they endeavor (a) to maintain consistency
across their own independent activities of enforcement, and thereby (b) to
maintain their own camaraderie or esprit de corps as enforcers. In these
ways legal procedures contribute exclusively to improving their effectiveness of enforcement, their rationalizing of purposeful mechanisms of social
control.13
Habermas's (and Fuller's) point against Weber's (and Kelsen's) narrow
approach to legal procedures is well taken. It reveals precisely why in the
passage below Weber used Autoritdt when referring to the relationship of
camaraderie between a chief and his staff, and why he then used Herrschaft
when referring to the relationship of command between a staff of enforcers
and the general population:
[A] system of domination may - as often occurs in practice - be so completely
protected, on the one hand by the obvious community of interests between the
chief and his administrative staff (bodyguards, Pr[a]etorians, "red" or "white"
guards) as opposed to the subjects, on the other hand by the helplessness of the
latter, that it can afford to drop even the pretense of a claim to legitimacy. But even
then the mode of legitimation of the relation between chief and his staff may vary
widely according to the type of basis [Autoritdtsgrundlage] of the relation of the
authority between them, and, as will be shown, this variation is highly significant
for the structure of domination [Struktur der Herrschaft]. (Weber 1914-20: 214, my
emphasis)14
Weber treated the rationalization of positive law, in short, in terms of two

central factors: First, the increasing specialization of legal officials (from
prophets, to honoratoriores, to secular power holders, to experts trained in
the positive law). Second, the increasing bureaucratization and effectiveness of the agencies of enforcement. The result of this reductionism is
precisely the three characteristics that Habermas isolates within Weber's
account of rational law, and that Kronman (1983: 89-90) labels somewhat
differently as "calculability," "comprehensiveness," and "organizational
clarity." Weber expected to find these characteristics in any "true legal
system," whether within an authoritarian or a nonauthoritarian social order. To concede his point is, of course, to acknowledge that these characteristics of law cannot support the nonauthoritarian/authoritarian distinction.
Habermas notes that later legal positivists, from Kelsen to Niklas
Luhmann (1972; 1982: 90-137), and one could add H.L.A. Hart (1961)
and Donald Black (1976), have remained remarkably consistent with Weber's lead. They continue to belittle the significance of legal procedures by
reducing them, in principle, to cues exchanged among enforcers themselves. Habermas points out that Luhmann in particular treats all other
legal procedures, all normative procedures, as a mere "secondary tradition-
95
alism" (Habermas's phrase, not Luhmann's): They habituate an already

manipulated and controlled citizenry into believing, without warrant, that
officials and enforcers would be capable of justifying their actions if questioned (Habermas 1981a: 255-6, 266, 269-70; also 1963b: 113-14; 1973a:
36-7). This subjective belief is unwarranted because, following Weber's
definition of legitimacy, there is no generalizable, grounded standard of
reasoned justification available beyond the narrow norm of rational action.
Since authorities can appeal only to this narrow standard whenever they
are questioned, other normative procedures cannot possibly be warranted:
Positive law is not valid because higher norms permit it, but because its selectivity
[i.e. each particular positive law passed by a legislature] fulfills the function of
congruency [with ongoing enforcement]. (Luhmann 1972: 156)
If an ordering of values is going to cross the lowest threshold of minimal complexity,
it must become opportunistic [or strategic]. It must foresee the possibility of varying
the order of values according to what actions are possible or urgent and according
to how much the various values have been realized. This function corresponds to
the normative regulation of norms in the legal domain. It is structurally analogous
and necessary for similar reasons. (Luhmann 1982: 97-8)
The same presupposition, that citizens' questioning cannot possibly reveal
a warrant for the positive laws beyond the latter's "congruence" with the
norm of purposive-rational action and drift of rationalization, also explains
why Weber based his ideal type of rational-legal domination exclusively on
one particular interrelationship. He based it on the interrelationship between (a) specialized enforcers effectively maintaining social control, and
(b) controlled subjects believing subjectively that their own control (and the
social order that results) is "right" or "legal" rather than simply habitual or
traditional (or charismatic). Thus, Weber's ideal type of rational-legal domination rests ultimately on whether enforcers reduce - or, better still,
eliminate - citizens' questioning and their calls for warrants or justifications. When enforcers succeed in this, they simultaneously ensure that citizens' ultimately unfounded subjective beliefs in lawfulness and lightness will
not be revealed to be unfounded (Habermas 1973a: 111-17). Thus, the
phrase Habermas attributes to Luhmann's treatment of normative or
nonrational legal procedures is quite apt for any legal positivist: Such procedures are merely a "secondary traditionalism," and not linked to any greater
warrant or justification.
Habermas (also Parsons, surprisingly, 1958a; 1969a: 498-9) thereby reveals the most damaging flaw in Weber's (and then Luhmann's) circular
reasoning: Rational-legal domination is not a distinct type of legitimation
at all. Instead, it is "merely an indication of [some other] underlying
legitimacy" (1981a: 266, 438 note 34). It is an indication of traditional
legitimacy, or, even more simply, of actors' strictly habitual deference to
96
power holders' and enforcers' instructions. After all is said and done, for
Weber as for legal positivists ever since, rational-legal domination is at its
core as unreasoned as traditional domination; for that matter, it is as unreasoned as charismatic impositions of social control. The increasing numbers of legal experts dedicated to enforcing legal domination, and the
increasing complexity of the formalities and procedures by which they
operate, merely "lengthen the path to [the citizens' questioning] legitimation" (Habermas 1981a: 269; 1982: 314-15). None render law any more
reasoned or warranted.
5.3. Habermas's alternative: communicative action or procedural
reason
5.3.7. Purposive rationality and procedural reason
Habermas insists that in order for any standard of reason to be generalizable today, in order for there to be a standard of reason grounded conceptually against normative relativism, it must remain a procedural mediation.
He accepts from the outset Weber's pathos (chapter 3) regarding drift
precisely because he concedes that modernity is indeed characterized by an
ongoing fragmentation of meaning. Habermas emphasizes that the fragmentation of the "substantial unity of reason" is immutable. This is why he
insists - against other neo-Marxists, and his own teachers - that any standard of reason today that can credibly claim grounding against normative
relativism cannot itself be "objective" or directly substantive (1981a: chapter 4). Heterogeneous actors and competing groups cannot secure procedurally unmediated access to any "objective" or substantive standard of
reason anyway. They cannot secure procedurally unmediated access to
objective "facts" in the world, for instance, nor, for that matter, to an
intersubjective recognition and understanding of complex social events.15
Indeed, one of the most important theses in Habermas's entire body of
work is one that is both conditional and indirect: / / there are irreducible
qualities of reasoned social action that are indeed distinctively procedural,
then any social action that violates the integrity of these qualities cannot
contribute to reasoned social action.16 It cannot do so irrespective of what
the substance or content of these social actions happens to be, or what
actors' normative motivations or subjective interests might have been in
carrying them out. It also cannot contribute to reasoned social action irrespective of whether actors believe subjectively that their social action is
otherwise legitimate, or whether they violated these procedural qualities
unawares rather than purposefully.
What is a substantive standard of water pollution, for instance, that
might reveal to social scientists when pollution enforcement is "reasoned"
5.3. Habermas's alternative
97
(Hawkins 1984)? What is a substantive rate of inflation or a substantive

level of unemployment that might reveal when economic policy is "reasoned"? What is a substantive relationship between actors' concerns, say,
to maintain the integrity of their families, neighborhoods, communities,
or regions - however this is defined - and other actors' concerns to dismantle all unnecessary obstacles to interstate (and international) commerce that might reveal when national planning is "reasoned"? What is a
substantive relationship between popular demands for greater egalitarianism, on the one hand, and concentrations of wealth and power that leaders of either state agencies or private corporations insist are necessary for
effectiveness or efficiency, on the other, that reveals when social planning
is "reasoned"?
These questions may be multiplied endlessly. All of them revolve
around the same fundamental problem: How can social scientists (or
actors) recognize in common what the public interest is in substance?
What in substance is a reasoned or principled course of action, as opposed
to a passing agreement that interested parties accept at the moment,
subjectively as "legitimate"?17
The conditional thesis at the center of Habermas's social theory recapitulates Lon Fuller's central argument against legal positivism in the
1950s and 1960s, albeit in a more conceptually sophisticated way. For all
of their many other differences, and in particular the great differences in
the theoretical traditions into which they were originally trained, these
two theorists nonetheless arrived independently at a most important point
of agreement: Possible manifestations of reasoned social action, in practice, can only be recognized by observing social scientists (or by the actors
and groups affected) through a procedural mediation. The latter, in turn,
can credibly claim to be grounded conceptually against normative relativism, the sovereignty of subjective interests, and the outcomes of interestgroup competition. Still, given the conditional thesis that Habermas and
Fuller essentially share, this procedural mediation can at best only reveal
when a social action is possibly reasoned. It can only reveal when a social
action does not violate the procedural requirements of reasoned social
action.
One other point must be emphasized. Any and all possible manifestations of reasoned social action will invariably be embedded within larger
social enterprises, larger social orders. The latter, in turn, are not likely to
be reasoned as a totality, as an undifferentiated, lived social fabric. More is
said about this momentarily (and also in chapter 10).
Given his appreciation that the fragmentation of reason's "substantial
unity" is irreversible, Habermas sees more clearly than most other contemporary social theorists that he, and they, have a basic decision to make: On
the one hand, the concept of reasoned social action could be abandoned
98
altogether. This is precisely what mainstream theorists and researchers in

the social sciences have done, including Talcott Parsons but not Lon Fuller.
Systems theory, talk of postmodernism, and a recent renewal of interest in
pragmatism, all add legitimacy to this basic decision rather than challenging
it by proposing any alternative conceptual grounding that can support critique (see Antonio 1989 on pragmatism; Luhmann 1990 for systems theory;
and Habermas 1989 on implications). On the other hand, the endeavor to
specify substantive qualities that might somehow qualify social actions as
reasoned could be abandoned in favor of focusing exclusively on the latter's
irreducible procedural qualities. Only the latter, after all, can be recognized
in common by social scientists (and heterogeneous actors and competing
groups) in the face of functional differentiation and the ongoing fragmentation of meaning.
The importance of this second decision, to take a procedural turn
rather than to abandon reason altogether, cannot be overemphasized.
Because mainstream social scientists are typically not interested in critique, the moment that they come up against the fragmentation of the
substantial unity of reason they readily accede to normative relativism and
the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests (Brennan and Buchanan
1985; Hechter 1987). Indeed, the conventional wisdom in the social sciences holds that acceding to relativism and subjectivism are literal prerequisites of value-free research. Yet, this prevents social scientists from
resisting the collective prejudices of the day, including the presupposition
of exhausted possibilities. Because the conventional wisdom labels any
talk of "reason" in social life as hopelessly "normative," and ultimately
"ideological," this means that social scientists are convinced that the concept of reasoned social action cannot be rendered consistent with falsifiable research in the social sciences - before a single argument has been
presented. Like any "aphorism" removed from discussion, this is more an
article of faith than a scientifically sound point of departure. After all, it
cannot be falsified empirically.
Nearly all neo-Marxist theorists other than Habermas also refuse steadfastly to take a procedural turn. Even worse, they then refuse to follow the
conventional wisdom in abandoning the concept of reasoned social action
altogether. Instead, they hold out the hope, and this is all it amounts to,
that they will in the future specify what reasoned social action is in
substance - despite the fragmentation of meaning, functional differentiation, and other manifestations of drift (Luhmann shatters this position
1982, 1986, 1990; and Wellmer 1976 brings Habermas's critique to it). Any
and all references by Marxists (or by Giddens, Collins, and other British
and American "conflict theorists" as well) to actors' alienation, exploitation, reification, fetishism, and "false consciousness" are nothing other
99
than assertions that purportedly substantive qualities of reasoned social

action are being unnecessarily restricted. These restrictions are then attributed, in turn, to the bourgeoisie's (or some "elite's") control over workers'
access to the means of production, to a "dominant ideology," or to systemic
social controls said to be intrinsic to capitalism but not to modernity more
generally (this is Collins's assumption in calling for an end to credentials,
1979).
The problem with all of this is that if Habermas is correct, if only a
procedural mediation can support critique today, then it is not possible for
neo-Marxists or conflict theorists to escape infinite regress when they endeavor to demonstrate that particular social actions contribute to actors'
alienation or exploitation (1981a: 171-2, 267-70, 218-22; Wellmer 1976).
After all, if distinctively procedural qualities are indeed irreducible to the
very possibility of anyone recognizing what reasoned social action is, how
do neo-Marxists or conflict theorists know when reasoned social action is
being unnecessarily restricted, in practice? Why aren't their descriptions of
social events, like actors' subjective understandings of them, reflections of
the false consciousness and inadvertent distortions of their subjective interests? How does the quite small circle of critical theorists, structural or
systems theorists, or American and British conflict theorists manage to
escape the dominant ideology and restrictions of reason that so effectively
fetter everyone else?18
5.3.2. A procedural turn to truth and reason
Habermas's turn to the procedural mediation irreducible to the very possibility of social scientists (or anyone else) recognizing reasoned social action
stems, therefore, from his early disillusionment with neo-Marxism. He
became convinced that neo-Marxism as a tradition of theory and research
suffers from serious conceptual limitations, and that these both contributed
to, and were reflected in, communism's failures. His procedural turn also
stems, however, from two other products of his training and early theorizing: First, he has been unwilling to abandon critique or to follow the
conventional wisdom of the "bourgeois social sciences" in acceding to relativism and subjectivism. Second, he has rejected all substantive standards
of truth and reason as a possible conceptual grounding for critique, including those standards proposed in the philosophy of science by neopositivists
who operate explicitly or implicitly with a copy theory of truth (Habermas
1965, 1968a, 1973b, 1981a: 107-119; 1982: 274-8; Apel 1972, 1980).
The lessons that Habermas has drawn from these early positions are
mutually supporting. To begin with, "truth" in the natural sciences cannot
be traced, or reduced, to "objective" characteristics of natural events.
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Individual scientists do not somehow discover or observe the "truth" of

natural events as solipsistic researchers ("monads"). Nor do they, still in
isolation, describe these "objective" characteristics in such a way that a
particular set of descriptions somehow eventually strikes each monad to be
"true." Similarly, "reason" in the social sciences (and in social life) cannot
be traced, or reduced, to the substance or content of any lived social fabric.
Social scientists do not somehow observe what is "reasoned" in substance
in social life, as isolated observers.
At the same time, however, the scientific study of social life cannot be
reduced to researchers' particular "perspectives," or "value commitments,"
in describing social behavior and in attributing subjective interests to actors. This would reduce the social sciences to a most mundane sociology of
knowledge (Mannheim 1929 may legitimately be read in this way).19
Researchers' (or actors') shared recognition of what is "true" in natural
events or "reasoned" in social life is indeed always and everywhere normatively mediated rather than objectively self-evident. This means, of
course, that it is always and everywhere infused by researchers' valuecommitments and attributions of subjective interests to actors. Yet, these
commitments and attributions are themselves mediated by overarching
normative orientations institutionalized within what Habermas calls researchers' (and actors') communities of communication. The question is
not whether researchers ever accurately copy the "reality" of social
events, but rather the extent to which communities of communication
distort or manipulate researchers' (and actors') ongoing efforts to fathom
the truth or reason of social events. By moving considerably beyond
Habermas's own wording, however, this question may be sharpened: Is
there a form of organization distinctive to any and all communities of
communication that are reducing manipulation, and that are thereby approaching what Habermas calls "nondistorted communication"?20
Researchers (and actors) invariably operate within and through particular, identifiable communities of communication. This is the case irrespective of whether these communities are formal organizations or more informal networks. Habe/mas emphasizes this not because he turns to forms of
organization - he does not - but because one key to recognizing whether
any set of descriptions ever approaches the truth of natural events or the
reason of social life is whether the communities in which these descriptions
are presented maintain the integrity of their communications. For him, the
integrity of communication includes irreducible procedural components.
Instead of turning to forms of organization, he identifies these components,
calling them both "universal pragmatics" and "formal pragmatics" (1976a).
Only within communities that honor the integrity of these procedural components can actors (or researchers) literally recognize which of the competing descriptions, evaluations and explanations of natural phenomena and
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social events asymptotically approach "truth" or "reason." Whatever may

be the objectively true qualities of natural events, or the substantively
reasoned qualities of actors' lived social fabrics, these qualities cannot be
described and explained by actors (or researchers) outside of such communities of communication.
5.3.3. A consensus theory of truth (and reason)
Habermas came to his communication theory by first methodically criticizing the rationales neopositivists offered for a "copy theory of truth."21 He
refused to accept the idea that natural scientists collectively correct errors,
including faulty descriptions and interpretations of natural events, by
somehow rendering their theories, hypotheses, and experiments into "copies" of what is "objectively true" within natural events. There is no scientific (or hermeneutic) standard available to them by which they might
possibly gauge their own (or others') asymptotic advances toward such
"copies." Thus, a "copy theory of truth" cannot be at the base of the
natural sciences.
By contrast, a consensus theory of truth shifts the issue. It shifts the issue
from whether certain qualities in natural events are or are not "copied" by
scientists' descriptions and explanations, to whether certain descriptions
and explanations of natural events are or are not distorted, and thereby
capable of approaching the truth whatever it happens to be in substance. In
the first case "truth" is something that may be grasped by monads. But in
the second "truth" is something that can only be approached asymptotically
be members of communication communities. And, again, Habermas's consensus theory of truth rests on a proposal that is quite conditional and
indirect: //the procedural qualities marking any instance of "nondistorted"
consensus among any set of speakers can be specified, then this establishes
a limiting case standard, an "ideal speech situation." Against this standard,
any existing communication community's institutions and practices might
be described and evaluated. Moreover, because this standard is itself a
strictly procedural mediation, and by no means an objective or substantive
standard "in the world," it may be recognized and understood in common
by heterogeneous actors and competing groups within and across existing
communication communities.
In two respects, then, Habermas's consensus theory of truth and standard
of procedural reason establishes something of an Archimedean point within
thefluxof actors' normative beliefs and subjective interests. First, this standard can credibly claim conceptual grounding, and can account for (a) how
natural scientists ever recognize "objective" truth in their descriptions of
natural events, (b) how social scientists ever recognize "reasoned" social
actions, or (c) how actors ever approach "substantive reason" within their
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own lived social fabrics. Only within and through communication communities of one kind or another do researchers or actors ever discover that certain
"protocol statements" - particular descriptions of natural or social events are superior to others (see Popper 1934 on protocol statements). Second, the
quality of communication within any particular community - whether it is
distorted or not - may itself be described and evaluated on the basis of the
limiting case of nondistorted communication.
Habermas insists that whatever limitations a "consensus theory" of truth
and reason might have, it is nonetheless more fundamental epistemologically than any copy theory or any variation of realism or positivism.22 Indeed, at the most basic level, the level of interpersonal communication,
Habermas refers to these procedural qualities of truth or reason as "universal pragmatics." This term suggests conceptual grounding and generalizability: Universal syntactics (as presented by Noam Chomsky) proposes that a
conceptually grounded grammatical code delimits those sentences that can
possibly be constructed within any written language. Habermas's universal
pragmatics, in turn, delimits those "speech acts" that can possibly be understood within any spoken language. It is only possible for speakers to arrive at
mutual - nonmanipulated, nondistorted - understandings of each other's
"speech acts" (Austin's term) if the latter exhibit fidelity to universal pragmatics under the conditions of the ideal speech situation. Speakers' mutual
understandings of speech acts under these conditions, in turn, are the irreducible foundation upon which any intersubjective recognition of objective
truth as well as of reasoned social action rests.23
5.3.4. The ideal speech situation: claiming an idealized grounding
Rather than exploring universal pragmatics in detail, it is sufficient for
present purposes to address the "ideal speech situation."24 Only within the
latter, after all, can speakers' "discourse" and mutual understandings of
speech acts be fully realized. Within the ideal speech situation: "[Participants do not exchange information [about states of affairs in the world], do
not direct or carry out actions [in the world], do not have or communicate
[particular] experiences. [IJnstead [they] . . . search for arguments or offer
justifications" for their descriptions and evaluations of events or actions in
social life that are of interest to them (Habermas 1971: 18-19).
A speech situation is ideal to the extent that it takes place under three
conditions, and Habermas himself acknowledges that these conditions render this situation "counterfactual" and "unreal." It is a limiting case standard rather than a practicable situation. First, participants within the ideal
speech situation "suspend" all of their presuppositions regarding "objective" constraints on social actions. All such purported "conditions" are
treated, at least initially, as contingent or negotiable rather than as immuta-
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ble.25 Each participant temporarily treats any and all proposals for social
action as potentially practicable. This community thought experiment permits participants (a) to "neutralize" not only whatever personal "motives"
they may have for unduly limiting alternatives but also (b) to "neutralize"
the influence of their institutional affiliations and material resources outside the situation.26 In this way, participants develop a "cooperative readiness to arrive at an understanding" based strictly on each proposal's merits
as an argument. Second, and as a result, the validity of any proposal is
assessed independently of any consideration of the proposer's social standing outside of the speech situation. Third, participants "suspend" their
earlier "assumptions" even regarding which types of statements or arguments are typically valid (1973c: 255-61; 1981a: 17-19, 22-42; 1982: 241).
Habermas insists that these three conditions ensure that all present and
potential participants may "validate" statements, or influence others' assessments of statements, through the quality of their arguments alone. This is his
"universalization thesis." It is, essentially, a thesis of absolute - unmediated, unconstrained - democratization within and around the ideal speech
situation. Indeed, what Habermas means by the very term "ideal speech
situation" is a situation in which every actor's unrestrained access to, as well
as subsequently unrestrained participation within, artificially protected arenas of discourse is guaranteed without exception.27 He refers to the same
guarantee as the "symmetry-requirement" of discourse (1973c: 255-61;
1981a: 17-19, 22-6; 1982: 235-6, 241, 255-8, 262-3).28 The social action
that results from nondistorted communication is "communicative action."
Unlike rational action, communicative action is tied to a "more comprehensive" concept of reason.
Habermas insists that the substantive impact of communicative action, in
practice, is likely to vary greatly from group to group and from social unit
to social unit. Yet, he also insists that all of the major institutions of the
Western democracies are, without exception, too far removed from meeting the procedural requirements of communicative action to qualify as
reasoned. One unfortunate result of this absolutism, however, is that
Habermas cannot draw examples of communicative action from contemporary institutional or organizational practices.29 He can draw examples only
from interpersonal relationships.30 He refers to psychoanalysis in particular
as an exemplar of how willing participants push ordinary speech toward
"depth hermeneutics" and communicative action: The analyst employs
"depth hermeneutics" to remove phobias or deep-seated "distortions" in
the analysand's understanding of his or her life-world. The analysand, of
course, willingly visits the analyst precisely in order to have these removed.
The analyst's task is to make it possible for the analysand to engage in
reasoned discourse, and then in reasoned or communicative action (1968a:
chapters 10-12; 1971: 28-32, 37-40; 1981a: 20-1, 41-2).
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5.3.5. Habermas's dead end, and a way out

Precisely because Habermas accepts Weber's point that the "substantial
unity of reason" has been fragmented, he dismisses out of hand many of
the most basic presuppositions underlying Marxist theory. If substantive
reason is fragmented, how can the proletariat be capable of nonmanipulated and nondistorted "consciousness" and "solidarity" on the basis of its
"objective" material interests? If substantive reason is fragmented, how
can Marxist theory itself be used - whether by the proletariat, a vanguard,
or Marxist researchers - to reveal how relations of production might
be dis-alienated consistently with a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change? It is a rare Marxist theorist, historically or today, who has not
ultimately based his or her work on the theory's intrinsic capacity to instruct actors on both counts. Yet, in many respects the crisis of Marxism
since the 1920s has been a product of Marxists' increasing realization that
the proletariat lacks any intrinsic capacity to establish consciousness and
maintain solidarity on the basis of "objective" material interests alone (e.g.
Olson 1965: 102-111).
Of course, Habermas also dismisses Weberians' presupposition that their
conceptual framework somehow allows them to specify what a substantively rational action is, either in principle or in practice.31 For Habermas,
only actors' fidelity to admittedly idealized procedures of "discourse" allows anyone to recognize whether any social action is possibly reasoned
rather than self-interested and "strategic." Weberians lack a theory of manipulation precisely because they lack a concept of reasoned social action
against which to isolate manipulated action within the larger, strictly residual category of nonrational action (see chapter 7 for other distinctions
within the nonrational).
Still, with his procedural turn, Habermas has painted himself into a corner. First, he can never posit that a particular group's way of life or a
particular nation-state's institutions are reasoned or communicative in all of
their parts or analytical aspects. Should he ever do so, he would have to
explain how he arrived at this judgment, and he cannot possibly accomplish
this. On the one hand, the limiting case of ideal speech clearly cannot be
realized, in practice, by any existing group or nation-state. On the other,
Habermas's own judgment would itself have to be filtered through the ideal
speech situation since the latter alone certifies any judgment as reasoned
rather than as distorted. Short of this, any such assertion by Habermas or
anyone else marks either a return to a copy theory of truth, or, worse, a
regression to dogmatism (Bernstein 1978, 1983; Dallmayr 1974, 1976). By
contrast, if the ideal speech situation cannot be sidestepped by Habermas or
anyone else, then the particular characteristics of any group's practices or
any nation-state's institutions must be explored in very rich detail. Rather
105
than launching an absolutist critique, one must endeavor to discover those

parts or analytical aspects that are consistent with irreducible procedural qualities of reasoned social action. It is clear from Habermas's (1973a) absolutist
critique of Western institutions, however, that the ideal speech situation is
too blunt an instrument to inform such detailed study.
Second, Habermas has also painted himself into a corner because he is
left with an idealized standard of democratic access to discourse as his only
basis for describing and evaluating shifts in the direction of institutional and
social change. Given the complexity of the latter, neither Habermas nor
any of his proponents has to date provided the slightest hint regarding how
the idealized standard might be used to specify whether any particular
social movement, organization, or institution within any particular nationstate is becoming more reasoned or less "strategic" (e.g. Habermas's replies to critics in 1982, but consider the weakness of his position by 1989).
Rather, the theory leaves Habermas no alternative other than to cling to an
absolutist critique of all complex social units as ultimately manipulative and
distorting. It is not surprising to be told that all Western democratic institutions and practices fail to exhibit fidelity to what Habermas himself acknowledges is an unreal standard. It is surprising to be told, however, that
one unavoidable result of these failures is an imminent "legitimation crisis"
(Habermas 1973a, 1974).
The interrelationship between Fuller's procedural approach to law (chapter 6) and the collegial form of organization (chapter 8) emancipates
Habermas from the corner into which he has painted himself. This is accomplished, moreover, without jeopardizing the advances he has clearly made
beyond copy theories of truth and both Weberian and Marxist social theories. If Habermas's idealized standard of procedural reason is to inform
detailed research, it must be explicitly interrelated with a procedural threshold. It would have to be demonstrated, in turn, that this procedural threshold is (a) irreducible to any possibility of realizing the ideal speech situation, and yet (b) eminently practicable rather than counterfactual. What is
clear, however, is that if Habermas's consensus theory of truth is to ground
detailed research against normative relativism, the sovereignty of actors'
subjective interests, and the outcomes of group competition and drift, then
any practicable threshold must remain a procedural mediation.
Fuller offers the social sciences a specific set of procedural norms that are
irreducible to any effort to restrain purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power. Being irreducible in this respect, these procedural norms
indeed mark an eminently practicable threshold: Heterogeneous actors and
competing groups must successfully cross this threshold in their behavior
before they can aspire to reasoned social action in Habermas's sense. Put
differently, procedural reason will always remain a social aspiration at best
(to borrow a term from Fuller). By contrast, Fuller's procedural restraints
106
mark an irreducible and unambiguous social duty: Heterogeneous actors

and competing groups must institutionalize their own behavioralfidelityto
these restraints before they can take another step toward reasoned social
action. At the same time, their behavioral fidelity to these procedural
restraints by no means compromises or jeopardizes the credibility of
Habermas's claim that procedural reason is grounded against relativism.
In short, even as Habermas's criticisms of Weber's views of rational-legal
legitimation, and of rational-legal procedures, are sound in every respect,
these criticisms cannot be transferred, in whole or in part, to Fuller's work.
Quite to the contrary, Fuller's procedural restraints allow social scientists
to demonstrate that particular sectors, industries, organizations, and even
particular divisions of organizations are indeed legitimate in a sense that
Habermas himself must acknowledge is reasoned. Yet, these same social
units will certainly fail to realize the limiting case standard of ideal speech.
6. Societal constitutionalism's threshold in

practice: from Fuller's legal theory to
societal constitutionalism
The Harvard legal theorist, Lon Fuller (1902-78), and the Oxford legal
theorist, H.L.A. Hart (1907-), were undeniably the English-speaking
world's most respected and influential legal theorists from the 1950s
through the 1970s, and their influence persists today. Robert Summers
(1984: 2) calls Fuller the "greatest proceduralist in the history of legal
theory," and ranks him as one of the four most important American legal
theorists of the past 100 years, the other three being Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Roscoe Pound, and Karl Llewellyn (1984: 1). Indeed, in 1948
Fuller succeeded Pound in the Carter Professorship of General Jurisprudence, after nearly a decade on the faculty at Harvard Law School. Aside
from The Morality of Law (1964/1969), Fuller is best remembered for his
debates over legal positivism in the 1950s, first with Ernest Nagel (see
chapter 5, note 2), and then Hart.1 The latter exchange "was perhaps the
most interesting and illuminating exchange of views on basic issues of legal
theory to appear in English in this century" (Summers 1984: 10).2
It is important to point out, however, that in the great debate over legal
formalism and legal realism that raged in the United States in the 1930s,
this future "greatest proceduralist" took the side of legal formalism's critics. Unlike the legal realists of his day who were advising legal scholars to
describe judges' behavior as such, however, the young Fuller emphasized
the importance of studying the reasons judges offer for their decisions and
behavior. His point against Holmes (1897) and then the legal realists of his
own generation was that the meaning of judges' behavior can seldom be
gleaned from direct observation alone.3 Judges' behavior can only be understood, and thereby accurately described and explained, he insisted, once
observers have fathomed what the judges within any legal system are endeavoring to accomplish in the first place.
Put in more general terms, Fuller was intrigued by the social interactions
underlying any legal system, and how increasingly complex social interactions are both reflected in, and shaped by, the law.
One can imagine a small group - transplanted, say, to some tropical island - living
successfully together with only the guidance of certain shared standards of conduct,
107
108
6. Societal constitutionalism's threshold in practice
these standards having been shaped in various indirect and informal ways by experience and education. What may be called the legal experience mightfirstcome to
such a society when it selected a committee to draw up an authoritative statement of
the accepted standards of conduct (Fuller 1964/1969: 130; also 205-6).
Though it can be said that law and [substantive] morality share certain concerns for example, that rules should be clear - it is as these concerns become increasingly
the objects of an explicit responsibility that a legal system is created (Fuller 1964/
1969: 131).
Thus, Fuller saw the law framing complex social interactions, not behavior
that is somehow accessible to discrete observations. Such an approach to
law is, of course, as sociological as can be. In many respects, Fuller's legal
theory may legitimately be labeled today a critical variant of symbolic
interactionism. Whereas symbolic interactionists (and legal realists) accede
to the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and normative relativism
as they describe social behavior, Fuller was confident that he had located
something of a contemporary Archimedean point. He was confident that
his claim to conceptually ground researchers' (or actors') critical descriptions of existing legal systems was credible. Yet, he explicitly acknowledged
that his own work failed to establish this, and that it needed to be linked to
a communication theory in order to do so (1964/1969: 184-6).
Why has Fuller's legal theory had so little direct impact on the social
sciences, including the sociology of law? As is the case with any theory in
the social sciences that claims conceptual grounding, sociologists hastily
label Fuller's legal theory "normative." This happens whenever a conceptual framework is merely kept open to the possibility that there is a concept
of reasoned social action beyond the narrow norm of rational action. With
this conceptual openness, the theorist is refusing to accede a priori to
relativism, and to the ideology of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Given the conventional wisdom in the social sciences regarding the
acceptability of this presupposition and the unacceptability of the concept
of reason, sociologists fail to appreciate the many respects in which their
abandoning of the concept of reasoned social action narrows the scope of
empirical research (see chapter 10 for elaboration).4
Still, as noted in chapter 5, Fuller team-taught a course at Harvard Law
School with Talcott Parsons, the Harvard sociologist, and each theorist
became noticeably influenced by the other's work and terminology. There
are both personal and theoretical reasons why Parsons became increasingly
attracted to Fuller's legal theory late in his career. On the one hand, each
theorist already had reached the apex of his respective field when they met,
and they were also age cohorts - born the same year (1902) and later
passing away within one year (Fuller in 1978 and Parsons in 1979). Equally
importantly, Parsons's analytical concepts also were designed to challenge
the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and escape normative relativism
6.1. Procedural legality as irreducible threshold
109
(see chapter 5, note 4). This renders his social theory intrinsically critical,
irrespective of how Parsons himself happened to label it, and irrespective
of how it has been labeled in the discipline (Sciulli in preparation, a).
Indeed, it is fair to say that Parsons and Fuller independently developed
the conceptual foundations of a decidedly non-Marxist approach to critical
theory. Given that Habermas's communication theory departs so substantially from core concepts of the Marxist tradition, a synthesis of these three
theorists' central concepts follows far more readily than might be expected
at first glance.
6.1. Procedural legality as irreducible threshold: Fuller's
contribution to the social sciences
Like Weber, Lon Fuller also rejected Lockean liberals' optimism regarding
the drift of social change. Instead he operated implicitly on the basis of
three very Weberian positions. First, he assumed that all social and governmental units within all modern nation-states respond in one way or another
to systemic pressures of change. Second, he acknowledged that actors
experience this as a fragmentation of "meaning," a literal sense of drift.
Third, and most importantly, he insisted that any social order resulting
from social and governmental units' normatively unmediated pursuit of
their own interests under these conditions is more likely to be controlling
and authoritarian than benign.
Unlike Weber, however, Fuller's central concern was to address directly
how a nonauthoritarian social order is possible in the mid- and late twentieth century. By posing the following dual problem, he developed a distinction that anticipated Habermas's later critique of Weber and broader
reasoned/unreasoned distinction: First, as bureaucratically organized enforcers enforce positive laws under modern conditions of drift, they are just
as capable of effectively enforcing arbitrary decrees as they are capable of
effectively enforcing responsible laws. Second, the actors subjected to effective enforcement are just as capable of becoming convinced subjectively
that decrees are rational-legal, and thereby legitimate, as they are that
responsible laws are rational-legal. In Fuller's terms, the question is: How
can social scientists distinguish in comparative perspective when a nationstate's effectively enforced positive laws are becoming either more arbitrary or more responsible?5
The importance of Fuller's resulting lawless/lawful distinction is that it
would allow social scientists to recognize purposefully arbitrary exercises of
collective power irrespective of whether a nation-state's existing positive
laws qualify as rational-legal in Weber's sense, and irrespective of whether
actors accept their legitimacy as such. Just as importantly, Fuller's distinction is consistent conceptually with Habermas's communication theory,
110
even as it remains a distinct contribution that cannot be derived directly or

logically from Habermas's concepts. Finally, even as Fuller's dual problem
and resulting distinction are consistent with longstanding concerns of constitutional and liberal traditions, they result in concepts capable of supporting
a radical critique of any modern nation-state, including Western democracies. Because his concepts call into question the sovereignty of actors'
subjective interests, they simultaneously open the way to addressing the
Weberian Dilemma rather than sidestepping it with a facile optimism and
complacency. Indeed, unlike any other legal theory drawn from Western
constitutional and liberal traditions, Fuller's principles of "procedural legality" begin to address the problem of how social scientists might recognize
the inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power that accompany the
drift of social change.
6.1.1. Generalizing Fuller's threshold: from law to shared social
duties
Fuller's contribution may be put into the terminology of societal constitutionalism rather than left restricted to references to law alone: He offers the
social sciences an irreducible threshold of internal procedural restraints.
Heterogeneous actors and competing groups rely on this procedural threshold, in practice, whenever they simply recognize and understand in common the shared social duties being sanctioned within any complex social
unit. Social scientists may employ the same procedural threshold to specify:
(a) When the positive laws being enforced within any modern nationstate are arbitrary (and thereby controlling).
(b) When the shared social duties being sanctioned with any social unit
are demonstrably controlling (and, of course, manipulative and distorting in Habermas's sense).
(c) When acknowledged ranges of expectations of what is acceptable
behavior within any social unit contribute to actors' unnecessary selfrestriction (chapter 2).
For two reasons, Fuller never extended his threshold in this way, from law
in particular to shared social duties in general. First, he never explicitly
interrelated his procedural threshold to a communication theory and
grounded standard of procedural reason. Second, he never interrelated his
procedural threshold to a particular form of organization. Given the presentation of the theory of societal constitutionalism to this point, this extension
is incorporated into the discussion of Fuller's legal theory below even
though these two interrelationships have yet to be explored methodically.
111
Critique of Weber: from effectiveness to interpretability. Weber's emphasis
on the importance of effective law enforcement by specialized enforcers

was not so much mistaken, in Fuller's view, as partial: It is certainly correct
that social scientists can only recognize whether rules (or duties) are being
effectively enforced by whether instances of lawbreaking are decreasing
over time. Indeed, the effectiveness of law enforcement may be converted
into quantifiable indices of lawbreaking of one kind or another, and, in this
way, rendered increasingly consistent with strictly rational or instrumental
calculations of success (chapter 7).6
But Fuller's point moves beyond such circular reasoning. Whether rules
(or duties) are successfully recognized and understood by heterogeneous
actors and competing groups cannot be reduced - by social scientists or
actors - to indices of lawbreaking and the effectiveness of enforcement.
Such indices fail to reveal whether such actors and groups are recognizing
and understanding what their shared social duties are. After all, actors may
purposefully disobey rules that are clearly understandable (as is the case,
for example, with civil disobedience). Conversely, when rules or duties are
not understandable - as is the case, for instance, with "laws" that prohibit
"threats to the State" - actors' disobedience may be altogether inadvertent. For that matter, enforcement may be uneven, and again inadvertently
so.
It is only possible for heterogeneous actors and competing groups, as
well as the specialized enforcers themselves, to recognize and understand
what the laws (or duties) are, in Fuller's view, when the laws (or duties) are
kept consistent with a specific set of procedural qualities. This holds true,
he insists, irrespective of: (a) what the laws' (or duties') positive content
happens to be, (b) whether a legitimate lawmaking body drafted the laws
(or duties) in an acceptable way, and (c) whether both their content and
their legitimacy are consistent with the public's expectations. Put into the
terminology of chapter 4, these procedural qualities mark a threshold of
internal procedural restraints. This threshold cannot be reduced to surveys
of enforcers' camaraderie, or of the public's strictly subjective beliefs regarding the legitimacy of the law, the lawmakers, or the enforcers (whether
as rational-legal legitimacy, or any other).7
Procedural threshold: specifying the integration/control distinction. Fuller
(1964/1969: 46-84) concentrated, therefore, on specifying those procedural qualities that distinguish law proper from any and all other mechanisms of social control, including well-enforced decrees (see Black 1984
for an impressive review of such mechanisms).8 As noted above, he did
not argue that these procedural qualities distinguish instances of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration from in-
112
stances of their demonstrable social control (see Fuller 1966, 1969b, plus
1981). Yet, his references to law may be generalized in this way, and the
first step is to substitute the phrase "shared social duties" for his references to law.9
With this substitution, it may be said that heterogenous actors and competing groups are capable of recognizing and understanding what their
shared social duties are only when the latter are kept consistent with all
eight of the following procedural restraints:
1. Generality. In order possibly to be integrative, a system of shared
social duties must be applicable, in principle, to all actors and groups irrespective of whether they are acceptable to them in substance or not.
The case-by-case approach taken by regulatory agencies, Fuller notes, may
in time become divorced from generality, and lead to inadvertent exercises
of arbitrary power by entire agencies of enforcement (see Hawkins 1984:
33-5 for a clear example in Great Britain). Whether agencies' rulings are
enforced effectively, or whether they continue to be accepted subjectively
by most actors as "right" or "lawful," does not somehow keep them possibly integrative once they encroach against the principle of generality.
2. Promulgation. Although it is not necessary for every actor to be able
to understand the meaning of every shared social duty, it must be possible
for those who are most interested in, or affected by, particular duties to
keep themselves informed regarding authorities' intent.10 After all, actors
less informed (the majority) tend to be influenced by the acceptance or
criticism of sanctioned social duties by those more informed (the minority).
3. Prospectivity. Within a system of prospective rules, situations may well
arise in which retroactive rulings are acceptable and necessary. This is the
case when, as examples: courts confer validity on marriages that had not
been conducted properly, appellate courts overturn lower court decisions
or alter legal doctrine, and legislatures amend the tax code. But retroactive
enactments of shared social duties must remain exceptional efforts, mere
fine-tuning of prospective duties. It must remain clear to everyone that
they are indeed exceptional. Thus, as appellate courts overturn or substantially alter their own decisions within ever shorter periods of time, or as the
tax code is endlessly revised, the prospectivity/retroactivity distinction is
being blurred.
4. Clarity. Beyond the obligation not to violate explicit constitutional
provisions, any lawmaking body, whether in government or the "private"
sector, has a responsibility to keep the shared social duties that it is sanctioning sufficiently clear. Both actors and enforcers alike must be able to recognize compliance and noncompliance unambiguously (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 109).
5. Noncontradiction. Shared social duties are seldom in violation of
"contrariety" (that is, A, not-A, or punishing an actor for doing what he or
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she was ordered to do). But they must also avoid "contradiction." They
must avoid becoming incompatible or repugnant, and thereby failing to
correspond to any sensible legislative purpose. For instance, a right to
freedom of assembly is meaningless if groups find it difficult to secure
demonstration permits.
6. Possibility. All eight principles, according to Fuller, may be logically
reduced to this requirement. Shared social duties must avoid requiring
conduct of actors that is beyond their abilities to perform. For example,
shared social duties cannot require actors to alter their ascriptive characteristics in order to enter the civil service or to escape prosecution. Impossible
duties - duties that are secret, retroactive, unclear, or contradictory allow power holders selectively to eliminate real or imagined political opponents. Since all actors are in principle placed in jeopardy by such duties,
particular power holders are free to select where and when to apply sanctions, quite irrespective of actors' behavior.
7. Constancy. This is self-explanatory, but it also provides the basis for
the harshest criticism of contemporary rule-making in the United States
and advanced societies generally. Across the West, legislatures, courts,
professional associations, and many other organizations ceaselessly accommodate interest lobbying (and political party logrolling) at the expense of
institutional consistency or even institutional memory (Vile 1967; Lowi
1969; Hayek 1973-9; Luhmann 1990 sees this as a virtue of system
"autopoiesis").
8. Congruence. Declared social duties must be in congruence with officials' actions. Fuller says this principle is the most complex, and most
interrelated with rule makers' substantive concerns. He notes that breakdowns in congruence may be traced to many factors, including: mistaken
interpretation, inaccessibility of the law, lack of insight into what is required to maintain the integrity of the legal system, bribery, prejudice,
indifference, stupidity, and a drive for personal power. The means used to
maintain congruence also may vary from nation-state to nation-state, including: procedural due process, habeas corpus and right to appeal, and
consistency in statutes and constitutional principles.
As noted above, these qualities do not merely ground the lawful/lawless
distinction, as Fuller held. They mark a threshold of interpretability of (a)
shared social duties (b) acknowledged ranges of expectations, and (c) the
mechanisms of social control employed in their support. Whether the
shared social duties sanctioned within any complex social unit remain consistent with these threshold restraints, and power holders do not in time
resort to mechanisms of social control that encroach against them, is a
strictly empirical issue. This is an issue amenable to detailed, falsifiable
studies, and ultimately to operationalization. Unlike Habermas's limiting
case of procedural reason, the threshold restraints are by no means coun-
114
terfactual. They are rather the most irreducible first step that any set of
heterogeneous actors or competing groups takes whenever they recognize
in common, and then restrain collectively, purposefully arbitrary exercises
of collective power or mechanisms of social control. This holds true within
any sector, industry, or organization of a modern civil society, and, for that
matter, within any division of a particular organization. Because this threshold marks an irreducible first step in recognizing the undue narrowness of
even subtle forms of social control, it also opens the way to addressing the
inadvertent arbitrariness of drift at the center of the Weberian Dilemma.
This opening is carried through in chapter 8 by demonstrating that collegial
formations institutionalize shared social duties that remain consistent with
this threshold.
Preliminary criticisms of natural law, liberalism, and Marxism. Being pro-
cedural, Fuller's threshold restraints are much less robust and substantial
than moral theories proper, including traditional theories of natural law
and natural right. Their successful institutionalization by no means brings
the "good life" any nearer to realization. Quite to the contrary, their successful institutionalization ensures only two things. First, it ensures that the
"good life," whatever it might entail in substance, remains a possibility to
which actors and groups may (or may not) continue to aspire. And, second,
it ensures, in the meantime, that the most coercive, manipulative, or distorting purposeful mechanisms of social control can be recognized by heterogeneous actors and competing groups in common, and then possibly restrained by them collectively.11
Regardless, these threshold restraints are the most fundamental contribution of constitutional and liberal traditions. They are more basic to
nonauthoritarian social order in the late twentieth century than the division
of powers, individuals' "natural rights," a market economy, or competing
interest groups, political parties, and timely elections. Rather than being
intrinsically integrative, all of these institutions are readily converted into
mechanisms of social control once power holders encroach against the threshold of interpretability of shared social duties. A democratic electorate that
votes freely for candidates who issue unclear or contradictory decrees in
the "national interest," for instance, converts elections, competing political
parties, and even voters' own first amendment freedoms into mechanisms
of actors' demonstrable social control. It increases a nation-state's susceptibility to social authoritarianism. Putting this point more generally, a sharp
distinction can be drawn between (a) whether a candidate's claim to hold
an office is warranted, either by an election or appointment, and (b)
whether the candidate's (or the electorate's) subsequent actions are consistent with the threshold of interpretability. The former claim hinges entirely
on actors' subjective acceptance of election outcomes, but the latter actions
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are quite independent of this. Thus, power holders' behavioral fidelity to

the threshold does not guarantee that a social order will be subjectively
legitimate (or popular) in Weber's sense. But a social order's popularity (or
rational-legal legitimation) fails to reveal whether purposefully arbitrary
exercises of collective power are increasing or decreasing (see the section
below).
In addition to marking a threshold independent of rises and falls in
subjective acceptance, and thereby of electoral outcomes, Fuller (1964/
1969: 17-18) also used his procedural restraints to stake out a position
independent of a view held, ironically, by liberal and Marxist theorists
alike. This is the liberal view that the procedural integrity of law is only
successfully institutionalized within modern nation-states that maintain robust market economies. Marxists convert this into the proposition that the
procedural integrity of law only needs to be institutionalized where robust
market economies are found.12 Fuller ridiculed liberals who imagine that
the interpretability of law is somehow intrinsically supported by a robust
market economy. He also ridiculed "revolutionaries" who imagine that
they may ignore the threshold of procedural restraints because their selfdeclared commitment to substantive justice or substantive rationality elevates their actions above all such "bourgeois" formalities.13
6.1.2. Between morality and positivism, aspiration and duty
Rather than merely exposing limitations in other approaches to law, Fuller
preferred to demonstrate the generalizability of his procedural approach
more positively. With this in mind, he saw that he had to steer clear of two
shoals. First, he had to avoid succumbing to the conceptual imprecision of
natural law theories in particular and moral theories in general. Contributors to these theoretical traditions typically treat categories of "natural law"
as directly substantive.14 Such categories are incapable of credibly claiming
grounding against normative relativism under modern conditions. Second,
he also had to avoid succumbing to the normative relativism of legal positivists, Weberians, and liberals. Contributors to these theoretical traditions
treat the category of "positive law" as distinct from all that is nonpositive.
But they fail to examine the latter residual category. They merely label it
"morality."15
Relativism results from Weber's ideal types, to recall, because the norm
of rational action, and the related type of legitimation, cannot in themselves account for the presence of nonauthoritarian social orders in the late
twentieth century. Given this aporia in Weber's conceptual framework, this
issue seems to hinge on strictly substantive, patently unreasoned factors, or
factors distinctive to each instance of nonauthoritarian social order in and
of itself. Consider, for instance, that in employing Weber's categories
116
alone, one has no alternative other than to categorize contemporary Great

Britain and the United States, as well as the Soviet Union and South
Africa, as "rational-legal." All four nation-states, after all: (a) enforce
positive laws through bureaucratically organized agencies, (b) adjudicate
enforcement consistently with their respective country's positive laws, and
(c) train both enforcers and jurists as specialists in these positive laws
(Meador's 1986 intriguing discussion of legal training in East Germany is
generally illustrative of civil law systems in the former Eastern bloc).16
Fuller did not develop his alternative to Weber and legal positivism,
however, by turning immediately to natural law theories or other moral
theories for guidance. Instead, and again like Habermas later, he developed his alternative by methodically addressing the conceptual limitations
of legal positivism. Unlike Habermas, however, he turned his attention to
legal positivists' unexamined category of "morality."17 As a first step, he
distinguished a "morality of duty" from a "morality of aspiration."18 His
challenge to legal positivists was that they could not describe (let alone
explain) the positive laws of any modern nation-state, authoritarian or
nonauthoritarian, without ultimately acknowledging that there is an irreducible interrelationship, in practice, between any set of positive laws and
both moralities.
Two propositions. What did Fuller have in mind in drawing his distinction? Exemplars of the morality of aspiration are Aristotelian notions of
"praxis" and the "good life," Nietzschean notions of "nobility," and Marxian notions of praxis as laboring under conditions of disalienation and
unmediated access to resources. In all of these instances, actors aspire to a
substantive ideal of self-development or cultivation that, at best, they ceaselessly approach asymptotically. By contrast, the exemplar of the morality of
duty is basic criminal law. The limiting case of basic criminal law would
place the most minimal, altogether nonnegotiable, social duties on all actors. It would impose that particular range of expectations regarding acceptable behavior most essential to maintain social order as such.19
What is ironic is that these seemingly polar types are simultaneously (a)
analytically distinct in principle, and yet (b) intrinsically interrelated in
practice. What Fuller had in mind in distinguishing them may be worded in
the form of two propositions implicit in his writings:
First Proposition. Actors are already exhibiting behavioral fidelity to
some shared morality of duty whenever they are aspiring openly or
publicly to any vision of the "good life," whether individually or
collectively.20
Irrespective of how different actors' public aspirations may be, or how
competitively and possibly conflictually they may pursue them, their ongo-
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ing behavioral fidelity to some morality of duty may be said to be in

evidence whenever social order simply persists. Thus, Fuller's second
proposition is more important:
Second Proposition. Because the morality of duty is interrelated with
social order as such, it may be thought initially that actors' mutual
recognition and understanding of what their shared social duties are is
more or less self-evident to them. But actors no more readily recognize
and understand in common what their shared social duties are than they
recognize and understand in common what their aspirations are, or
what any other public "morality" is that falls within positivists' residual
category (Fuller 1964/1969: II). 21
Fuller's point in drawing his distinction may be worded in the terminology
of the theory of societal constitutionalism: The very notion of shared social
duties is utterly meaningless in itself, even when the most basic social duties
are being considered. This notion becomes meaningful only when the "purpose" intrinsic to any set of shared social duties is appreciated. Its intrinsic
"purpose" is not to maintain social order as such. Its intrinsic "purpose" is
to maintain a social infrastructure that allows actors to pursue their aspirations openly or publicly, whether independently or collectively. Legal positivists may well deny that this is the "purpose" of the positive law. But
Fuller's challenge to them is simple: Account for judges' and enforcers'
behavior without having this purpose in mind, either implicitly or explicitly.
Interrelated in practice; distinct in principle. To attribute any intrinsic
purpose, including a substantively open-ended one, to any social enterprise

is to attribute a telos to it; and any teleology is a "morality." This is
precisely why Fuller calls heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
mutual recognition and understanding of even the most basic social duties a
"morality." Put differently, consider what happens at the moment that it is
conceded that shared social duties are intended to establish a social infrastructure that can support publicly pursued aspirations. At this moment (a)
duty and aspiration, (b) enforcement and interpretation, (c) "fact" (description) and value (evaluation) have all been interrelated, in practice. Yet,
neither side of these polarities has been reduced to the other analytically, in
principle. Clearly, many publicly pursued aspirations are never enforced as
shared social duties, or mandatory performances. Many shared social duties, in turn, are never treated as if they were aspirations, or optional
performances.
Consider what happens when basic social duties are overextended, or
treated as if they were optional performances rather than sanctioned as
mandatory performances. Once truly basic criminal laws are treated in this
way, those ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior that are
118
indeed essential to the social infrastructure noted above become negotiable. Their enforcement becomes more uncertain than certain. Heterogeneous actors and competing groups no longer routinely acknowledge these
ranges in common. Nor, of course, do they routinely exhibit behavioral
fidelity to them. As a result, it becomes inordinately difficult for these
actors and groups to devote as much time as they once had to publicly
pursuing their own most lofty aspirations; the social infrastructure once
supporting this is giving way to uncertainty.
To take an extreme example, breakdowns of basic law and order in
inner-city residential areas have this unfortunate effect. Residents become
so inordinately concerned about their personal safety that, too often, their
publicly pursued aspirations tumble readily from lofty heights. Is it unfair
to think in particular of selected neighborhoods within Harlem, the South
Bronx, and Bedford Stuyvesant, to consider only three boroughs in New
York City, as fluctuating back and forth in this respect from, say, the 1920s
through the late 1980s? When personal safety turns out, in practice, to be
more a personal and collective aspiration than part of an irreducible social
infrastructure, all other publicly pursued aspirations are placed in jeopardy.
More and more of them tumble from their lofty "ceiling" as the basic
"floor" supporting them becomes shaky.
Consider what happens, in turn, when any particular public aspiration any exemplary way of life or valued social fabric - is overextended by
being sanctioned as a set of mandatory performances or basic social duties.
Once enforcers treat any public aspiration in this way, they simultaneously
(a) narrow the range of aspirations to which actors can possibly dedicate
most of their time, and, for that matter, (b) reduce the amount of time
actors can possibly dedicate even to those optional public aspirations that
remain consistent with this narrow range. Enforcers are endeavoring, after
all, to sanction some particular lived social fabric as a "duty," a set of
mandatory performances. With this, the "floor" of any social order - its
irreducible social infrastructure - is elevated. It is raised closer to the "ceiling" of public aspirations, as once optional or even exemplary performances are sanctioned as mandatory performances. Aside from narrowing
the range of acceptable public aspirations, this renders truly basic social
duties much more difficult for heterogeneous actors and competing groups
to recognize in common, and for enforcers to enforce consistently.
Any state religion has this effect under modern conditions, irrespective
of how benign its enforcement might be. Prohibition in the United States is
another often-cited example of such an overextension. Contemporary examples in the United States include: current drug enforcement policies, the
possible criminalization of abortion, and Catharine MacKinnon's (1983)
proposed reform of rape laws.
119
Implications of Fuller's critique and threshold. Within any complex social
unit, one comprised of heterogeneous actors and competing groups, many

actors will readily discover that they cannot, and need not, comply with
overextended aspirations (a lowered ceiling) or overextended duties (a
raised floor). They will bring their remarkable abilities, their enviably diverse visions of the good life, to devising ever more clever ways of evading
the announced "shared social duties." The problem, however, is not that
evasion is predictable. The problem, unfortunately, is rather more general
and more threatening: As either type of overextension occurs, it becomes
more and more difficult for all actors to differentiate truly basic social
duties from the overextensions. A literal culture of evasion is being institutionalized.22
Within such a culture, particular acts of evasion of shared social duties
are just as likely to be inadvertent as purposeful. And particular acts of
behavioral fidelity to shared social duties might just as well be products of
actors' strictly strategic or habitual behavior as products of their reasoned
or responsible action. Actors' behavioral fidelity to any set of shared social
duties and to any acknowledged ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior is indeed converted into matters of their immediate subjective interests or local interactions. Or else, and even more contingently, it is
converted into matters of their internalized normative motivations.23 Actors' behavioral fidelity has been unhinged from the shared social duties
that are unambiguous parts of the irreducible social infrastructure supporting all actors' publicly pursued aspirations.
Put differently, neither the undue lowering of the ceiling of aspirations to
mandatory performances, nor the undue raising of the floor of shared
duties to optional performances, is a problem in itself. After all, enforcement agencies cannot escape situations of selective enforcement (Klockars
1985: chapter 5; Law and Contemporary Problems 1984). Moreover, selective enforcement always takes place against some normative backdrop,
against some set of acknowledged ranges of expectations regarding what is
acceptable, including what the (ireal duties" are. And, any such normative
backdrop is invariably comprised not only of truly basic duties but also of
overextended aspirations and overextended duties. Thus, particular enforcers and particular agencies of enforcement invariably find themselves deciding, on an ad hoc basis, or else in terms consistent with an "organizational
culture" unique to each enforcement agency, which "duties" they will enforce at particular times, and in particular places.24 As lawyers are wont to
say, reasonable men and women may disagree over the significance of any
particular step taken in either direction of overextension.
But, again, the problem is quite different. It may be posed in two steps:
The first step is to distinguish when exercises of collective power or mecha-
120
nisms of social control are: (a) generalizable, and thereby capable of being
recognized and understood in common even by heterogeneous actors and
competing groups, and when they are (b) particular, and in principle incapable of being recognized and understood by such actors and groups in common. The second step, then, is to specify when enforcement agencies have indeed moved so far in either direction of overextension, whether purposefully
or inadvertently, that heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' recognition and understanding of their shared social duties becomes contingent or
uncertain. At these moments, a culture of evasion has been institutionalized.
Thus, selective enforcement under practical restrictions of scarce time and
scarce resources is one thing (e.g. Goldstein 1977; Sherman 1978). But
selective enforcement that could not possibly be kept consistent with the threshold of procedural restraints, even if all practical restrictions were lifted, is quite
another. What must be emphasized is that the second step noted above may
well be taken, in practice, as (a) the effectiveness of enforcement is improving impressively, as reflected in dramatic reductions in quantifiable indices
of criminality and deviance. It may also be taken as (b) the popularity or
subjective legitimacy of enforcement agencies either remains unquestioned
or improves. Even acknowledging, therefore, that the "real world" of selective enforcement is immutably grey, aspirations and duties nonetheless remain irreducible analytically. And yet, what is equally certain is that heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' sense of when the encroachments
marking the second step are occurring is not likely to be immediate. It is not
likely to be based strictly on the substantive issues involved.
This is precisely why Fuller insisted that only a threshold of distinctively
procedural restraints can possibly allow these groups and actors (and social
scientists) to recognize in common when the very direction of change of
rule-making and rule-enforcing enterprises is shifting (Fuller 1964/1969:
27-30). This is also why it was said earlier that the threshold of interpretability establishes something of an Archimedean point within the greyness
of the "real world." There is indeed a most basic social duty shared by the
members of any rule-making or rule-enforcing body that contributes in any
way to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration rather than to their demonstrable social control. Their most basic
social duty qua members of this body, rather than qua well-socialized individuals, is, simply, to maintain its integrity despite enormous systemic pressures of drift to the contrary. This holds true, moreover, irrespective of
whether such a body is found within a Western democracy or not.
Indeed, members' ongoing refusal to allow this body's integrity to be
subordinated to the end of maximizing the effectiveness of enforcement, or
to becoming a strictly rational instrument of manipulation, control, and
coercion, simultaneously becomes their loftiest, ongoing aspiration qua
members.25 By contrast, at the moment that they permit encroachments
6.2. Three foundations of societal constitutionalism
121
against the integrity of the threshold of interpretability, they are simultaneously permitting this body's integrity to be subordinated in this way.
Whether permitted purposefully or inadvertently, such encroachments signal that the members of any law-making or law-enforcing body are failing
to ensure that the shared social duties they are formulating, announcing,
and enforcing are being kept recognizable and understandable. Encroachments signal that they are failing to maintain the only normative orientation
that allows them, or anyone else, to recognize when their own activities of
rule-making or rule-enforcing are anything other than manipulative, controlling, and coercive. Encroachments signal that the social infrastructure
that can possibly support grander public aspirations of any kind, including
actors' possible social integration, is being jeopardized.
6.2. Three foundations of societal constitutionalism: procedural
grounding, procedural threshold, and procedural formation
Thinking again of the discussion of Habermas's communication theory in

chapter 5 and the earlier discussion of internal and external restraints in
chapter 4, the interrelationship between Habermas's procedural grounding
and Fuller's procedural threshold may be characterized in three ways. All
three also suggest the importance of the collegial form of organization,
which is discussed beginning in chapter 8.
First, the threshold of interpretability specifies what is in effect an irreducible set of procedural normative restraints on purposefully arbitrary
exercises of collective power. In chapter 4 these were called internal procedural restraints. Comparativists may employ this threshold to describe purposeful exercises of collective power by governmental agencies as well as
those by private enterprises within a civil society. They may distinguish
which purposeful exercises are demonstrably controlling and which are
possibly integrative. Comparativists may also employ this threshold to begin to specify when systemic or inadvertent exercises of collective power
are contributing to drift, and when they are being mediated to contribute to
a nonauthoritarian direction of social change. After all, if this threshold is
being encroached against, then the social infrastructure supporting a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change is being jeopardized.
Second, this is an irreducible threshold in another respect. Heterogeneous actors and competing groups must institutionalize these particular internal procedural restraints, in practice, if they are possibly: (a) to establish
the collegial form of organization and then maintain its integrity, or (b) to
aspire publicly to "communicative action" or reasoned social action in
Habermas's sense. Neither of these grander projects can possibly be pursued, as ongoing public aspirations, if these actors and groups are failing to
restrain even purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power.
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Third, in order to sustain a nonauthoritarian direction of social change in

the late twentieth century despite systemic pressures to the contrary, heterogeneous actors and competing groups must also institutionalize external
procedural restraints. This means, in practice, that they must institutionalize
a network of collegial formations across a civil society, encompassing more
and more sectors, industries, and organizations (chapter 8). The remainder
of this volume is dedicated to presenting the rationale for what, at this point,
is an assertion. Yet, even in the absence of a direct discussion of collegial
formations, this chapter may be concluded by reviewing the three most basic
institutional foundations of the theory of societal constitutionalism.
6.2.1. Procedural legality: normative means of societal
constitutionalism
As noted above, Fuller's procedural norms stake out something of a contemporary "Archimedean point" in the greyness of the "real world." He
saw that power holders on one side and actors on the other each face an
unavoidable situation once law-making or law-enforcing bodies are permitted to encroach against the threshold of interpretability. On their side,
actors find that there is no longer any reasoned basis for them to feel a
moral responsibility to obey "laws" or bear shared social duties.26 They
may continue to obey power holders out of fear, indifference, or ignorance,
of course. But officials' acts of encroachment nonetheless demonstrate behaviorally, empirically - that power holders are implicitly (or worse, explicitly) oriented by the following presupposition: Actors are incapable of
reasoning about, or taking responsibility for bearing, their shared social
duties. What other presupposition might account for power holders' failures to ensure that the shared social duties being sanctioned are at least
kept understandable?
On their side, power holders must realize that they have indeed crossed a
most significant normative threshold. Having encroached against these procedural norms, they can no longer be reasoned in feeling any moral (or
fiduciary) responsibility for honoring any restraints on exercises of collective power by rule-making or rule-enforcing bodies (see DeMott 1988 more
generally on the notion of fiduciary obligation in the law). Their only
consideration, at this point, is the strictly strategic restraints posed by
competing power holders and social influential. Ironically, these same
encroachments and strategic considerations may increasingly jeopardize
power holders' own rational action, including their ongoing efforts to improve the effectiveness of enforcement.27 After all, they have exposed
these efforts to a now normatively unmediated competition among interested parties for influence or particular strategic advantages within lawmaking and law-enforcing bodies themselves. This is why Fuller noted that:
123
[Infringements of legal morality tend to become cumulative. A neglect of clarity,

consistency, or publicity may beget the necessity for retroactive laws. Too frequent
changes in the law may nullify the benefits of formal, but slow-moving procedures
for making the law known. Carelessness about keeping the laws possible for obedience may engender the need for a discretionary enforcement which in turn impairs
the congruence between official action and enacted rule. (Fuller 1964/1969: 92)
A radical critic might respond by insisting that internal procedural restraints on purposeful exercises of collective power are mere formalities
(see chapter 4 for pluralists' similar response). As such, these restraints
may be violated in the interests of attaining "substantive justice," or in the
interests, say, of a revolutionary vanguard's strategy of initiating "emancipatory" social change. But the fundamental significance of the threshold of
interpretability remains unaddressed and undiminished by this line of criticism: How might competing groups and heterogeneous actors (and social
scientists) possibly recognize and understand in common whether substantive justice or an emancipatory strategy is really being attained? Given
actors' fragmentation of meaning and organizations' functional differentiation, how might they recognize in common whether such public aspirations
are being pursued at all, rather than being feigned for purposes of strategic
advantage or mass manipulation?28
Because the threshold of interpretability is irreducible to the very possibility of heterogeneous actors and competing groups recognizing and understanding in common what their most basic social duties are, the same normative procedures also are irreducible to any possibility of heterogeneous actors'
and competing groups' social integration. After all, it cannot be said that
such actors and groups are ever integrated, within any complex social unit,
if they cannot simply recognize and understand what the shared social
duties are that are being sanctioned. Moreover, it is oxymoronic to refer to
any possibility of these actors and groups aspiring to discourse, communicative action, or reasoned social action within complex social units that encroach against this threshold.
6.2.2. Procedural reason: conceptual grounding of societal
constitutionalism
Habermas9 s oversight of internal procedural restraints. Habermas sees liberalism's tradition of "rational natural law" - its tradition of "natural
rights" of private property, free exchange, and contract - as the "first to
meet the [modern] demand for a procedural grounding of law, that is, for a
justification by principles whose validity could in turn be criticized" (see
1981a: 264; also 1962; 1963; 1963b: 85-6 for his historical accounts). This
attempt is instructive enough for Habermas that his reading of "bourgeois
legality" is rendered ambivalent rather than left one-sidedly critical. He
124
sees all legal and moral theories that fall within the broad category of
"cognitivist ethics" endeavoring to secure "abstract universality" rather
than "basing" normative positions on actors' mere habitual behavior or
subjective interests. This category encompasses (a) liberal contract theories, (b) Kantian principles of morality, and (c) Habermas's own theory of
communicative action or "procedural reason."
Another, related reason for Habermas's ambivalent reading of "bourgeois legality" is contained in the following passage:
Legal proceedings and the working out of compromises can serve as examples of
argumentation organized as disputation; scientific and moral discussions, as well as
art criticism can serve as examples of argumentation set up as a process of reaching
agreement. (Habermas 1981a: 35)
Rather than treating courtroom proceedings as reducible to strategic or
manipulative action, divorced entirely from reason or communicative action, Habermas sees them "as a special case of practical discourse" (1981a:
412, note 49).
Thus, all arguments . . . require the same basic form of organization, which subordinates the eristic means to the end of developing intersubjective conviction by the
force of the better argument. (1981a: 36, my emphasis)
Like speech within any deliberative or professional body, that is, even
Western courtrooms retain elements of communicative action.29
Yet, even with this ambivalence, Habermas nonetheless follows Weber
(and Marx, and then Lukacs and neo-Marxism generally) in failing to
appreciate the distinctiveness of the common-law tradition within liberalism, and its critical potential (this is particularly evident in his first work,
Strukturwandel 1962). Whether shared social duties can be recognized and
understood in common by heterogeneous actors and competing groups is
an issue distinct from the sovereignty of subjective interests underlying all
liberal contract theories, and Kantian ethics as well. The former issue
cannot be reduced to whether actors are acting on their subjective interests
"freely" or independently within economic and political marketplaces. To
read the jurist Sir Edward Coke or Solicitor General of England William
Murray (later Lord Mansfield) as unwitting apologists for the same market
society that Thomas Hobbes depicted so methodically is as great a distortion as to read Hobbes as a "bourgeois" theorist preoccupied with internal
procedural restraints on arbitrary power.30 The threshold of interpret ability
of shared social duties indeed marks a normative standard of comparison
rather than a rational - strictly instrumental or strategic - standard. Yet, it
can credibly claim generalizability as possibly reasoned in Habermas's
sense, and it underlies the social integration/social control distinction informing the theory of societal constitutionalism.
Put differently, Habermas has never addressed the possibility that the
62. Three foundations of societal constitutionalism
125
claim to "abstract universality" by internal procedural restraints on government is just as credible as the claim he makes for his own principles of procedural reason. What is more, the threshold of interpretability at the center
of these internal procedural restraints is irreducible to any possible nonauthoritarian social order, and thereby generalizable. Yet, it is eminently
practicable rather than idealized. The point at issue may be put to Habermas
directly: Even if all actors who aspire to communicative action are as "rationally motivated" as he could ever hope, they would nonetheless genuinely
and sincerely disagree, and at every point along the way, as to whether their
own actions were indeed progressing toward or regressing from this ideal.
Should they aspire to communicative action withoutfirstinstitutionalizing internal procedural restraints, that is, they would invariably contribute to social
control and increase a nation-state's susceptibility to social authoritarianism even if they did so inadvertently rather than purposefully.
Thus, even if universal pragmatics is generalizable at the level of actors'
most basic interpersonal communications, as Habermas insists, he cannot
expect heterogeneous actors and competing groups somehow to share "intuitively" a recognition and understanding of when exercises of collective
power or mechanisms of social control are either controlling or integrative,
arbitrary or responsible. To couple Habermas's lofty aspiration of procedural reason with the typical ambiguities, misunderstandings, and miscommunications that heterogeneous actors and competing groups invariably
experience within any complex social situation is to reveal two flaws in
Habermas's work, the first of which he himself acknowledges. First, it reveals that his communication theory is distanced from empirical application,
in research (Habermas 1971). Second, it reveals that his communication
theory offers unnecessarily wide latitude to demagogues, in practice. Demagogues may readily feign fidelity to "communicative action," as one aspiration within some purportedly long-term "plan" of social democracy (or of
libertarian license). Even worse, they may cite the authority of what
Habermas calls "therapeutic critique" to silence critics, those who question
the sincerity of their self-declared fidelity to Habermas's principles (Habermas, 1968a: chapters 10-12; 1971: 28-32, 37-40; 1981a: 20-1, 41-2).
All of this changes, however, once the mediation provided by a practicable, procedural threshold is brought into the picture. The same critics, with
the same demagogues among them, may now readily and unambiguously
recognize in common, and at every step along the way, at least whether
power holders' behavior exhibits fidelity to internal procedural restraints.
The latter restraints differ in two important respects from Habermas's
procedural aspiration: First, as noted above, these threshold restraints are
practicable rather than idealized or "unreal." They may be, and indeed
have been, institutionalized (however temporarily at times) within many
modern nation-states. Beyond courts, legislatures, boards, and commis-
126
sions, they have been institutionalized within universities; public and private research centers; research divisions of private corporations; professional associations; intellectual, literary, and artistic networks; and even
selected corporate directorates.31 By contrast, procedural reason has never
been institutionalized, nor can it be. It is a social aspiration.
Second, and equally importantly, the threshold of internal procedural
restraints differs from Habermas's procedural aspiration in that power holders may employ material sanctions and even physical force to uphold the
threshold's integrity without placing all actors in jeopardy. Indeed, sanctions supporting the threshold of internal procedural restraints remain consistent with actors' possible social integration even if these sanctions include
manifest coercion. In other words, social scientists cannot legitimately reduce any and all instances of coercion (or collective force) to social control
analytically.212 By contrast, coercive sanctions employed in support of actors' unmediated pursuit of the ideal speech situation cannot avoid extending and intensifying social control - irrespective of what actors' subjective
interests or normative motivations happen to be.
Habermas's concern that Western democracies face an imminent legitimation crisis will remain insignificant empirically (Weil 1987, 1989), until
some modern nation-state (a) begins to compete materially with Western
democracies, and simultaneously (b) institutionalizes internal procedural
restraints, at the very least. Neither of these projects is beyond the existing
capabilities of several nation-states outside the West. There are no empirical, historical, or cultural factors that permit comparativists to presuppose,
for instance, that existing economic advantages enjoyed by the Western
democracies and Japan are anything other than a state of affairs quite
idiosyncratic to the mid- and late twentieth century.33 The matter of extending internal procedural restraints into civil societies outside of the West is
addressed at length in chapters 9-10.
Interrelating the procedural threshold and procedural grounding. The rela-
tionship between the procedural threshold of interpretability and Habermas's procedural grounding may be elaborated in three steps:
First, the threshold restraints provide social scientists with a generalizable standard that allows them to reevaluate critically Habermas's
absolutist critique of Western democracies and his thesis of legitimation crisis.
Second, the threshold restraints simultaneously close off any possibility of social scientists reverting to (a) the complacency and optimism of
liberalism and pluralism, (b) the presupposition of exhausted possibilities, or, certainly, (c) the dogmatism of neo-Marxism's absolutist critiques of ideology and alienation.
127
Third, the threshold restraints open the way for social scientists to
specify when any sector, industry, or organization of a civil society
contributes exclusively to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
social control and when it contributes in some part to their possible
social integration.
The synthesis of procedural duties (the threshold restraints) and a procedural aspiration (the ideal of procedural reason) is one of two syntheses
underlying the theory of societal constitutionalism. The other synthesis
reveals that collegial formations are the exclusive organizational expression
of both the procedural duties and the procedural aspiration.
Why is the first synthesis necessary at all? Why couldn't the theory of
societal constitutionalism rest solely on the demonstration that internal
procedural restraints can only be institutionalized by the presence of collegial formations? Why couldn't this synthesis alone be brought to comparative research, such that the theory of societal constitutionalism could avoid
the entire controversy over whether Habermas's standard of procedural
reason can credibly claim grounding? There are three reasons why the
theory of societal constitutionalism rests on syntheses of the procedural
threshold, the collegial form, and the procedural grounding rather than
resting on a synthesis of the first two concepts alone.
First, even though it is indeed counterfactual, Habermas's proposed
grounding of procedural reason is nonetheless clearly "more comprehensive" than the narrow norm of rational action underlying Weber's social
theory and contemporary comparative research. It is also more generalizable conceptually, or more irreducible analytically, than either the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests underlying liberal contract theory or
the nonrational (normative) principles underlying the common-law tradition
and lived social fabrics within Anglo-American countries (chapter 10). By
establishing that internal procedural restraints, as well as their organizational expression in collegial formations, remain consistent analytically
with a "more comprehensive" concept of (procedural) reason, the theory
of societal constitutionalism offers social scientists a standard of institutionalization that can credibly claim grounding against relativism. It exposes to
view the social infrastructure that sustains a nonauthoritarian direction of
social change under modern conditions, and that simultaneously expands
heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration within particular sectors, industries, and organizations of civil society.
This standard allows them to describe and explain even subtle shifts in the
direction of social change without reverting to the Europocentrism of the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
Second, and equally importantly, this threshold's claim to conceptual
grounding against normative relativism is not jeopardized even if it turns out
128
that Habermas's communication theory is not the best one available. This
threshold's claim to conceptual grounding is much more secure than this: It
rests ultimately on the critique of neopositivism and copy theories of truth
that is shared not only by Habermas and Apel but also by Popper, Lakatos,
and many others. Thus, even if Habermas's communication theory is eventually jettisoned as inadequate, what is far less likely to be jettisoned is the
thesis that (a) any concept of substantive reason is an oxymoron under
modern conditions, and, correlatively, (b) only a concept of procedural
reason can credibly claim grounding.
In short, comparativists may legitimately employ the social infrastructure noted above not only because it is practicable and already in evidence,
but because it can credibly claim conceptual grounding, unlike the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Any critic wishing to level the charge of
particularism against the theory of societal constitutionalism must demonstrate that all possible concepts of procedural reason are particular and
intrinsically relative (chapter 10). This is a much more formidable challenge than demonstrating that all possible substantive moralities and concepts of substantive reason are particular, including the presupposition of
exhausted possibilities.
Finally, it should be kept in mind that Fuller's legal theory was by no
means ever falsified, or rebutted directly, within the law journals. Instead,
it was sidestepped. Critics typically acknowledged its compelling thrust but
then insisted that it is unscientific, normative, and, actually, distractingly
Anglophile. Critics complained that Fuller's legal theory merely selected
tenets from a particular tradition of law, conveniently that distinctive to
Anglo-American countries, and elevated these tenets to a purportedly generalizable standard of legality.34 But only since the very late 1960s, at the
earliest, has Habermas's (and Apel's) critique of neopositivism been available. And only since the mid-1970s has his communication theory really
been presented in sufficient detail to be assessed. Taken together, this
critique and this theory provide Fuller's procedural threshold with the
theoretical framework that allows it to credibly claim grounding. This same
theoretical framework closes off any possibility of sidestepping Fuller's
legal theory today by merely pointing to its historical origin in the commonlaw tradition (chapter 10).
6.2.3. Collegial formations: qualitative ends of societal
constitutionalism
With a credible claim to conceptual grounding, the foundations of an ideal
type of nonliberal "democracy" are beginning to come into view, or, more
accurately put, the foundations of an ideal type of nonliberal or nonmarket
social integration.35 The procedural concepts developed independently by
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Fuller and Habermas are, respectively, the procedural duty or "floor" and
the procedural aspiration or "ceiling" of the theory of societal constitutionalism. To bring this synthesis of concepts to detailed research, however,
it is necessary to add something to the "middle," between "floor" and
"ceiling." The "middle" of the theory of societal constitutionalism is occupied by the only organizational form that either the floor or ceiling can
assume, in practice: the collegial form of organization (chapter 8).
As noted in chapter 4, to the extent that this form of organization is in
evidence at all, in practice, it is to be found within deliberative bodies, rulemaking bodies more generally, and sites at which professionals are employed collectively. The latter sites may be found within universities; public
and private research divisions; professional associations; intellectual, literary, and artistic networks; courts; legislatures; public and private corporate
directorates; and various commissions. Bringing this organizational form to
comparative research opens the way for social scientists to describe and
evaluate, and eventually to explain and predict, specific shifts in the direction of social change within any nation-state of the Third World or East, or
within any Western democracy.
Collegial formations have already been formally defined in chapter 4
(page 80), and this definition is examined in detail beginning in chapter 8.
The most that can be said about these formations at this point in the
presentation of the theory of societal constitutionalism is to mention their
interrelationship with the threshold of interpretability. Collegial formations
institutionalize heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' behavioral
fidelity to this threshold. They thereby institutionalize a distinctive normative orientation of procedural restraint by their sheer presence within a civil
society. This is manifested, in practice, in two ways:
First, if the integrity of collegial formations is being maintained, then,
by definition, the members of these formations already exhibit behavioral fidelity to internal procedural restraints on purposeful exercises
Why the sheer presence of these formations also restrains even the inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power that accompany drift is addressed methodically beginning in chapter 8. For the moment, the second
manifestation of the sheer presence of collegial formations may merely be
stated without elaboration:
Second, if the integrity of collegial formations is being maintained,
then the members of these formations also are "available" to extend
internal procedural restraints on arbitrary exercises of collective power
from government to sectors, industries, and organizations of a civil
society.
130
Putting this second manifestation differently, professionals and other members of existing collegial formations remain a latent social force of procedural restraint within any civil society in which these formations are present. They remain a latent social force because they are members of collegial
formations, not because they are properly socialized individuals. For the
same reason, they share a normative orientation - irrespective of all of
their remaining, and possibly increasing, differences in subjective interests
and normative beliefs.
7. Societal constitutionalism's
organizational manifestation, I:
voluntaristic action as a distinct concept
7.1. The importance of voluntaristic action
In chapter 4 institutions of external procedural restraint were distinguished

analytically from three other types of institutions. What was left unclear
was how any normative restraint, procedural or substantive, can remain
"external" to group competition and systemic drift, and simultaneously
contribute intrinsically to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change.
Once Parsons's early concept of voluntaristic action is reformulated into a
distinct concept, it becomes clear how this is possible.
As a preliminary approach, voluntaristic action may be defined in the
following way:
Voluntaristic action is an analytical distinction drawn within the
broader categories of normative action and nonrational action. It is
distinctive in that it alone is comprised of (a) qualitative worldly ends,
and (b) the symbolic or normative means that allow actors to recognize such ends in common.
Once voluntaristic action is distinguished analytically from purposiverational action, on one side, and from nonrational and normative action,
on the other, the theory of societal constitutionalism may be seen clearly to
revolve around normative restraints that are distinctively procedural and
voluntaristic. The theory cannot be based on substantive restraints of any
kind, whether normative or strategic. It also cannot be based on procedures that are rational rather than distinctively voluntaristic.
Still, what exactly is the relationship between voluntaristic action as a
distinct concept and the internal and external restraints introduced in chapter 4? What is the relationship between voluntaristic action as a distinct
concept and the procedural turns taken by Habermas and Fuller discussed
in chapters 5 and 6? Finally, why was it said in chapter 4 and then again at
the end of chapter 6 that Fuller's procedural threshold is intrinsically interrelated with the collegial form of organization in particular? This chapter
lays the conceptual groundwork for answering these questions.
131
132
7. Voluntaristic action as a distinct concept
7.2. Parsons's point of departure: the normative or nonrational
Across his career, Talcott Parsons dedicated himself to cataloguing and

exploring all analytical aspects of social action and social order that are
"nonrational," literally not-purposive-rational. He quite consciously drew
his first major concept, voluntaristic action, from this residual category.
Later in his career, most of his other important concepts were also drawn
from the same residual category. Why did Parsons turn first to a strictly
residual category, the nonrational? Why must his references to voluntaristic action be reformulated in order to reveal this concept's distinctiveness
within this residual category?
7.2.7. Opening a social theory conceptually to nonrational action
Parsons's first published work in general social theory, "The Place of Ultimate Values in Sociological Theory," appeared in a philosophy journal in
1935, two years before the publication of The Structure of Social Action.1
Rather than summarizing his forthcoming book, he used this essay to present his rationale for saying that the social theory he was about to have
published marked an "advance" beyond the contributions of Alfred Marshall, Vilfredo Pareto, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber.2 For all of his
enormous respect for, and at times stultifying deference to, the ideas of the
last three "classics" in particular, Parsons was nonetheless claiming as a
young man of thirty-three that he was not merely standing on their shoulders but leaping over their heads.3
In 1935, Parsons discussed the importance of norms - actors' nonrational motivations, beliefs, and interests - in accounting for social action
proper. He insisted that normative "factors" or "analytical aspects" account for social solidarity or those collective actions that cannot be reduced
to an aggregation of individuals' self-interested behavior within (idealized)
economic and political marketplaces. By concentrating on these aspects,
Parsons moved far outside the possible scope of application of utilitarianism and methodological individualism. He also rejected John Locke's claim
that social order rests on individuals' natural identity of subjective interests
in establishing and maintaining a limited government.
Indeed, Parsons's very criterion for selecting his four theorists for methodical study was that each had turned to norms and other nonrational
aspects of social action in order to account for solidarity and social order.
When he discovered that the concepts each had developed independently
"converged" in taking this "normative turn," he coined a new terminology.
He did so in order to synthesize their contributions explicitly and to consolidate his own position: In his view, social theory already rested, albeit
implicitly, on a new conceptual foundation. He was utterly convinced that
7.2. Parsons }s point of departure
133
social theory could never again regress to utilitarianism and tenets of methodological individualism (Alexander 1982a,b; 1983a,b; 1987 updates this
argument). Of course, first Homans, then Coleman, and now Cook,
Wilier, Hechter and others have since demonstrated that Parsons was somewhat hasty on this matter. Regardless, in the paperback edition of Structure
(1968d) he would refer to this new terminology as his "first conceptual
schema," and in 1935 and 1937 he used the phrases "voluntaristic meansend schema" and "voluntaristic theory of action" to label it.
In short, the pervasiveness and salience of a distinctively nonrational
"reality" within everyday social life was Parsons's very point of departure
as a social theorist.4 In his view, any methodical examination of the relationship between the means that actors employ and the ends that they pursue
within any solidary unit or collectivity must be kept open conceptually to
addressing directly the nonrational aspects infusing both the means and the
ends.5 Utilitarianism, Marxism, rational-choice theory, and all other social
theories that rest on what Parsons then called a "materialist epistemology"
struck him as suffering first and foremost from conceptual closure. Their
conceptual frameworks were closed prematurely to the normative or
nonrational aspects of social action.6 He did not reject Marxism, therefore,
because it is purportedly radical, nor, of course, did he reject utilitarianism
because it is purportedly conservative. He rather rejected all such theories
because they were closed conceptually in this respect, and because they
were unable to account for social action as such - let alone to account
either for conservative or radical social actions in particular.
7.2.2. Voluntaristic action in the literature today
Still, Parsons ultimately failed to distinguish his concept of voluntaristic
action from the more general concepts of normative action, nonrational
action, and even social action as such. As will be shown in this section, his
many exegetes and proponents have done the same ever since. When is
social action distinctively voluntaristic? Put more precisely, can voluntaristic aspects of social action be distinguished from aspects that are more
strictly nonrational or normative? One result of Parsons's own vagueness
and inconsistency in characterizing his first major concept is that at least
five definitions of this concept may be found in the literature today, including Parsons's own later references to it:
(1) Voluntaristic action as actors' free will.7 This position is not claimed
explicitly today (except in treatments of Parsons's early works found in
theory textbooks), but it remains associated with John Finley Scott despite his objections (Scott 1963: 720, 724-5, 734; for the charge, see
Turner and Beeghley 1974a: 49; and Gerstein 1975: 11-12; for Scott's
denial, 1974: 59). It remains a position that is nonetheless implied by a
134
great many commentators (most recently Camic 1989: 92-3), including

many of those cited below. For instance, Alvin Gouldner suggested this
position throughout his critical treatment of Parsons's works (1970: 1413, 156, 190-3).
(2) Voluntaristic action as actors' "formal" capacity, or capacity in principle, for "voluntary" or self-initiated action, regardless of whether this capacity is exercised by actors in practice at any particular moment or not
(Proctor 1978: 44-7; Alexander 1978: 178-81; 1982a: 87, 96-8; 1982b: 656, 79ff, 197ff, 330ff; 1983a: 98-9,107-8,112-14; 1983b: 25-6,120-7, 214;
again, Camic 1989: 92-3).8
(3) Voluntaristic action as actors' autonomous action which, in turn, is
always realized within and thereby "balanced" by some context of constraints, whether ideal or material conditions (Turner and Beeghley 1974a:
49; 1974b: 62; Gerstein 1975: 12; Mayhew 1982; Munch 1981a: 722-3,7278; 1981b: 312, 348; 1982: 773, 776-7; again, Alexander 1978, 1982-3; and
also Parsons himself by the 1970s, e.g. 1974a: 56; 1975a: 108).
(4) Voluntaristic action as actors' autonomous action which is an inherently contingent and possibly disruptive factor within any social order
(again Gouldner, but especially Luhmann 1976: 507-8, and Loubser 1976:
4-5, 19).
(5) Voluntaristic action as normative action, or as all of those factors or
analytical aspects within any social action which may be categorized residually as not behavioral, conditional, or material (Scott 1963; Cohen, Hazelrigg, and Pope 1975; Bourricaud 1977: 33; Menzies 1977; Adriaansens
1980; Johnson 1981; as well as Munch, Alexander, and Camic).
None of the five meanings accounts for the concept's distinctiveness. If
the concept is a synonym for "voluntary" action in particular, then it is
commonplace rather than innovative. If the concept is a synonym for normative action in general, then it is redundant rather than distinctive
(Warner 1978: 1319-20; and Parsons's weak reply 1978a: 1351-3).9 Because Parsons failed to distinguish the concept, and commentators have
fared no better, the case for its distinctiveness has yet to be made.10
In the 1930s Parsons coined not only the phrase "voluntaristic means-end
schema" but also the phrases "intrinsic means-end schema" and "symbolic
means-end schema" (Parsons 1935: 300-5; 1936: 87; 1937a: 56ff, 133, 141,
109-18, 257-64, 285-8, 383-90, 404, 565-6, 645, 653-8, 673-7, 683-4). In
his view, actors' solidarity or social action is comprised of some combination of these three "pure types," these three sets of analytical aspects (1935:
298-9; 1937: 79, 81-2, 209-15, 221, 251-61, 486 note 2, 645 note 1, 660-
135
1). By using his early references to each, but then reformulating them to
clearly account for each type's or each set's distinctiveness, the concept of
voluntaristic action may be specified:
(1) Formally rational aspects (or purposive-rational aspects) of social
action comprise what Parsons in 1937 called the intrinsic means-end
schema. The latter is distinguished by the intrinsic interrelationship
between (a) physical means that are instrumentally effective and (b)
empirical or worldly ends that are reducible to interchangeable and
quantifiable physical units (such as utilities in economics).
(2) Nonrational aspects of social action comprise what Parsons called
the symbolic means-end schema. The latter is distinguished by the
interrelationship between (a) symbolic means that are normative (e.g.
rituals) and (b) meta-empirical ends that are transcendental or ultimate.
Given these polar types, in order for voluntaristic action to be distinct it
must be comprised of a distinct set of means and ends. For Parsons to coin
a new term, presumably, this third combination of analytical means and
ends of social action must indeed not be reducible to either of the first two
combinations. Thus:
(3) Voluntaristic aspects of social action, and what Parsons called the
voluntaristic means-end schema, are distinguished by the interrelationship between (a) symbolic means that are normative or noninstrumental, and (b) ends that are worldly qualities - neither reducible to interchangeable physical units nor attributable to transcendental matters of
faith.
7.3.1. Rational action and quantifiable ends
In the 1930s (but not in his later works, e.g. 1977a) Parsons at times
suggested that he was departing dramatically from Weber by defining rational action narrowly, that is analytically. At these times, it could be
argued that he was establishing a foundation for comparative study - for
"general social theory" - in the face of the sovereignty of actors' subjective
interests and normative relativism as well as researchers' conceptual relativism (1935: 330-5; 1937: 432-3, 547-9, 564-6, 574, 673). On this foundation, shared by liberals and Weberians, positivists and utilitarians as well,
he could move beyond the conceptual limitations of other theoretical traditions. He could do so by varying means and ends, and thereby distinguishing all of those combinations "external" to rational action's "intrinsic
means-end schema." Even though Parsons was not consistent in referring
to rational action in this way, this line of reasoning may be carried through
136
consistently. One result is that the research potential of the reformulated

concept of voluntaristic action begins to come into view.
Why the ends of rational action must be quantifiable. The ends of strictly
rational action are reducible to discrete, interchangeable, physical units.

Pushed to its limiting case, each unit lacks any and all worldly qualities that
could distinguish it from any other. Because each unit is indistinguishable,
each may be aggregated with all others and thereby converted into a
quantifiable result. And this is of enormous significance to social scientists
(as well as to actors) operating within a social context characterized by
systemic pressures of drift and the fragmentation of meaning. Within this
context, competing social groups and heterogeneous actors (and social
scientists) are unlikely to recognize and understand in common when qualities in social life are either retaining or losing their integrity qua qualities.
They are far more likely to recognize and understand in common when
particular social enterprises or governmental agencies are becoming more
or less efficient or effective - precisely because this issue can be reduced to
quantifiable indices. Not only can actors (and observers) measure such
ends, they can also attain them causally (or repeatedly) by employing
strictly instrumental means.
For instance, qualities of taste, smell, or appearance that distinguish
particular cuisines from others may be reduced to quantifiable indices, if
one is interested only in recognizing, describing, and explaining the efficient production of foodstuffs. Such indices include, as examples, calories
per serving, or, for that matter, bushels per acre. They establish an unambiguous foundation on which even heterogeneous actors and competing
groups (and of course, social scientists) may recognize in common whether
production is becoming more or less efficient. Companies that produce
frozen dinners, dog food, or any number of snack foods no doubt calculate
their efficiency in precisely this way.
By contrast, actors' subjective opinions regarding qualities in social life,
including qualities of cuisine, cannot as readily provide an unambiguous
foundation for heterogeneous actors' shared recognition and understanding. This remains the case even if these same opinions are observed "objectively" by social scientists, and then "quantified" into "indices" of survey
analysis. These indices (a) are never unambiguous and (b) can never be
causally or repeatedly reproduced in all social contexts using strictly instrumental means.
Purposive-rational action and survey research. A distinction must be
drawn, both in practice and in principle, therefore, between the possible

quantification of physical units in the world, which distinguishes purposiverational action, and the possible quantification of heterogeneous actors'
137
subjective opinions about qualities in social life. Researchers seeking "testable theories" are quite aware of this distinction, and the following statement by Jack Gibbs (1972: 387) is typical:
The most conspicuous limitation of [Gibbs's own proposed] scheme is that it does
not permit a theorist to make empirical assertions about relations among qualitative
properties. No attempt is made to belittle that limitation by arguing that all sociological terms actually designate quantitative properties. The recognition of unit
terms is in itself an admission of the importance of qualitative properties, and the
stipulation of referential formulas entails reference to qualitative units. The only
mitigation is that virtually all sociological theories actually make assertions about
relations between quantitative properties of social units, even though the distinction may not have been recognized by the theorist.
Two examples illustrate the distinction. The first also illustrates the interrelationship Weber had drawn between normatively unmediated drift of
social change and bureaucratization. Bureaucracies are inordinately easy to
recognize, by participants and observers alike, irrespective of whether they
are found in government or in civil society. Following Weber's account
(1914-20: 956-8), their characteristics are unambiguous because the performance of any bureaucratic agency may be described and evaluated in terms
of quite discrete, quantifiable units, including the caseload that bureaus
"process" per hour (or per day, week, month, or year). These units may be
readily recognized and measured quite apart from subjective opinions regarding the quality of an agency's performance, whether those of officials
or their clients. These units may be recognized and measured, that is,
irrespective of whether survey research finds that officials or clients believe
particular cases are genuinely well-handled or not, or whether they believe
the agency performs a genuine "service" to the community or not. Moreover, either reformers or social scientists may explore how an agency's
efficiency and effectiveness may be increased in these terms. They may, if
they wish, disregard officials' and clients' subjective beliefs regarding the
agency's "service" to the community.
By contrast, and as the second example, heterogeneous actors (and social scientists) face a great problem simply in recognizing, and then in
defining, what a neighborhood is, and then, certainly, in describing neighborhoods over time and space (Warren 1977). The qualities of neighborliness, whatever they might be, and references to a residential unit as a
neighborhood, whatever this might entail, are not reducible to any combination of quantitative indices of performance. Such indices might include:
rates of property taxes, trees per lawn, schools per capita, residents' income per capita, or even local crime rates. It is very possible, however, for
the most "neighborly" residential areas in a city to have a quite mediocre
statistical record on every one of these scales without exception. It is just as
possible for the most "anomic" residential areas to have exemplary statisti-
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cal records on each without exception. Indeed, in order to discover how

neighborhoods may be "improved" or "maintained," residents' subjective
opinions must be surveyed; and opinions, of course, may be genuine or else
manipulated and distorted. What is clear is that this question cannot be
reduced to mere instrumental improvements of physical units within a
residential area. It must include efforts to symbolize neighborliness, and to
assess actors' subjective understandings of their own situation.
In short, survey research may "measure" heterogeneous actors' subjective opinions regarding qualities of cuisine, qualities of neighborhood, or
regarding any number of other qualities in social life. But irrespective of
how these opinions might be distinguished, gradated, and then aggregated,
they remain subjective opinions about worldly qualities. They do not somehow become reduced to the discrete units of rational action. Indeed, resorting to survey research is in itself an acknowledgement (by participants or
social scientists) that the ends involved in the social actions under study
cannot be brought into the "intrinsic" interrelationship of means-end rationality. If neighborhoods could be instrumentally created, maintained, or
improved, why survey actors' opinions?
Conceptual limitations of purposive-rational action. A final implication of
the analytical approach to rational action implicit in Parsons's early writings

also may be pushed beyond his suggestions. Parsons saw, of course, that the
intrinsic means-end schema alone cannot account for social action, as opposed to Homo economicus's serially related actions within idealized marketplaces. Clearly, it cannot account for heterogeneous actors' possible
social integration, nor for their contributions to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change. Quite the opposite is the case. Should actors ever
reach the limiting case of sharing only a recognition of quantities of interchangeable units, and of the effectiveness or efficiency of instrumental
means in attaining them, their "social" action would be reducible to strategic competition and, at best, strictly serial relationships. Only physical
coercion, material sanctions, and other mechanisms of social control could
account for actors' solidarity or longer-term social relationships, including
social order itself (and Hechter 1987 and Coleman 1986 endeavor to demonstrate this).
Like Hobbes and then Pareto and Weber, Parsons carried this implication
of rational action to its "limiting case:" for Hobbes, a war of all against all;
for Pareto, cycles of normative breakdown and renascence; for Weber,
bureaucratization and authoritarianism; for the young Parsons (1937a:
752), the possibility of "entropy." But because Parsons alone endeavored to
account comprehensively for the nonrational restraints that typically prevent this limiting case from being realized, in practice, his analytical concepts accomplished something over the years that the others' social theories
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did not: they left open the possibility of specifying the social control/social
integration distinction and the authoritarian/nonauthoritarian distinction.
Parsons himself never characterized his work in this way, of course (Sciulli
in preparation, a). For him, the dilemmas exposed by Hobbes, Pareto, and
Weber illuminated the importance of nonrational aspects of social order,
and this is what led him to coin the term voluntaristic action. The reformulated concept of voluntaristic action offered here begins to reveal why this
particular set of analytical aspects of social order simultaneously restrains
drift and contributes to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change.
7.3.2. Nonrational action and transcendental ends
Noninstrumental means of solidarity or social action are symbols and
norms; in the limiting case, such means are ritual prayers and devout
ceremonies. Regardless, all of these symbols and norms are by definition
"external" to the intrinsic interrelationship of instrumental means and
quantifiable ends that characterizes rational action (1937: 56ff, 133, 645,
653-8). When actors employ symbols and norms as means to secure
quantities of physical units, for instance, their social action cannot be
efficient or effective. Quite to the contrary, for them to employ symbols
or norms in this way is for them to engage in magic: They are employing
symbols and norms in an effort to "control" natural events or physical
movements instrumentally. Magic, unlike religion, is in direct competition
with science.
For its part, religion revolves around actors' dedication of symbols and
norms to ends that are ultimate, or not worldly at all. This is the case when
religious believers honor rituals as a means to their own putative spiritual
salvation. The means to such ends are invariably symbolic and normative;
they cannot possibly be instrumental or rational.
In so far as the common system of ultimate ends involves transcendental ends, it is
then to be expected that it will be expressed in common ritual actions. From the
empirical point of view the question whether such actions in fact attain their ends is
irrelevant, for there is no possible means of verification. (Parsons 1935: 303; also
1936: 87; 1937a: 565-6)
Actually, once actors dedicate themselves to transcendental ends, it is no
longer possible for them or social scientists to recognize whether any means
secure these ends. It is senseless even to ask, therefore, whether certain
means to such ends are instrumentally effective. As an example, if sociologists ask, what is an efficient way to get into heaven?, what could the
members of any collectivity anywhere in the world demonstrate is an "efficient prayer" or an "efficient ritual"?
Parsons was clear that in the limiting case of strictly symbolic social
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action, actors' behavioral fidelity to symbolic and normative means must be

scrupulously enforced precisely because the means' relationship to the transcendental ends can never be known. The means of the symbolic meansend schema must become ends-in-themselves, in practice. "Moral authorities" have no alternative other than to monitor actors' strict behavioral
fidelity to these means because such behavior is their only evidence of
ongoing symbolic social action as such (Parsons 1937a: 429-41). n It is clear
from this, despite Parsons's failure to pursue the implications of this point
explicitly, that the actors engaged in symbolic social action are far more
likely to be homogeneous than heterogeneous. After all, ritual behavior
ultimately rests on whether actors share cultural beliefs, internalized motivations, and subjective interests.
7.3.3. Voluntaristic action and qualitative ends
Given the rational/nonrational polarity, Parsons turned to a third pure type
of social action,12 and yet the great problem with his early works (and later
references) is that he failed to specify the distinct set of analytical aspects
comprising it. One result of this is that it has never been clear (a) what he
meant by the term "voluntaristic action," whether in the 1930s or 1970s, or
(b) why he thought it necessary to coin a new term in the first place.
Indeed, with the exception of those rare moments later in his career when
Parsons was specifically called on to clarify this term's meaning, the concept otherwise drops out of sight in his works after 1937.
Regardless, a two-step process of reasoning is implicit in Parsons's works
of the 1930s, and it is depicted in table 7.1. By rendering these steps
explicit, the reformulated concept of voluntaristic action comes into view.
What also comes into view is how this concept can inform comparative
research and directly address the Weberian Dilemma by accounting for the
presence of nonauthoritarian social orders in the late twentieth century. It
establishes why certain procedural restraints are accurately characterized
as both "external" to drift and central to (a) maintaining a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change and (b) enhancing heterogeneous actors' and
competing groups' prospects for social integration.
Looking at the top of table 7.1, all analytical aspects of social action that
cannot be reduced to the means and ends intrinsic to rational action fall into
an enormous residual category. This is the category that Parsons appropriately labeled the "nonrational realm." Irrespective of the characteristics
that any of these analytical aspects happen to exhibit in practice, what is
certain is that they are all: not quantifiable, not instrumental, not effective,
and not efficient - in short, they are all nonrational.
Looking now at the middle of table 7.1, two pure types of social action or
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Table 7.1. The Rational, the nonrational, and the voluntaristic

Rational Realm
Rational action: efficient means/quantifiable (empirical) ends
Residual Nonrational Realm
Voluntaristic action: symbolic means/qualitative (empirical) ends
1. If the means are substantive norms, they are tied to homogeneous actors'
shared normative motivations - which they either internalize or else negotiate within local interactions.
2. If the means are procedural norms, they are tied to heterogeneous actors'
shared normative orientations - which a form of organization may institutionalize, irrespective of actors' competing beliefs and interests.
Nonrational action: symbolic means/transcendental (nonempirical) ends; all of the
means are substantive norms
two sets of analytical aspects of social action may be distinguished within

this residual category: nonrational action proper (or strictly symbolic and
ritualistic social behavior) and voluntaristic action proper. With this distinction, the residual realm of the nonrational is no longer left residual. Instead, it is exposed to further sociological inquiry.
But what, then, is voluntaristic action? Reformulated as a pure type,
voluntaristic action is first and foremost a distinct concept within the
nonrational realm. Irrespective of where this concept may ever be manifested in practice, that is, its status as a constituent of the residual
nonrational realm can never be altered, by definition. However, since rational action revolves around ends that are worldly but quantifiable, and
nonrational action proper revolves around ends that are transcendental
rather than worldly at all, only voluntaristic action alone revolves around
ends that are both worldly and qualitative. Magic is an oddity precisely
because it brings the symbolic or normative means of nonrational action to
the matter of attaining quantifiable ends. This is what places magic into
direct competition with science.
By contrast to the polar types of rational and nonrational, voluntaristic
action revolves around normative practices that actors dedicate to attaining or maintaining the integrity of qualities in social life. Since the ends
involved are not quantifiable, and since the means involved remain symbolic or normative rather than becoming instrumental, voluntaristic action
clearly remains nonrational. But, just as clearly, it is neither ritualistic nor
magical. Voluntaristic action hinges on whether the actors involved can
recognize in common: (a) what the worldly qualities are that they are
seeking or maintaining, and (b) whether they are indeed maintaining, or
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else encroaching against, the integrity of these worldly qualities. The only
means that actors have at their disposal in establishing or maintaining any
such shared recognition among themselves, short of one faction imposing
its will somehow on all others with material sanctions of one kind or
another, are shared norms and symbols.
Thinking of voluntaristic action in Fuller's terms, when actors maintain
the integrity of any qualities in social life, their ongoing solidarity and
collective action to this end can rest either on obligatory performances or
exemplary performances. In either case, their ongoing solidarity and collective action rests on their capacity to recognize in common which
worldly qualities are worthy of attaining or maintaining. This is an irreducibly normative collective judgment rather than one that ever becomes
amenable to scientific or rational calculation. Put differently, irrespective
of whether the continued integrity of any qualities of social life rests on
actors' shared social duties or on their independent aspirations, the actors
engaged in voluntaristic action must themselves be able to recognize these
qualities in common. If they lose this shared recognition under systemic
pressures of drift, then these actors cannot prevent their voluntaristic
action from "fragmenting." Their voluntaristic action will either be "reduced" to the instrumental means and quantifiable ends of rational action
or else it will be "elevated" to the symbolic means and ultimate ends of
nonrational action. In the latter case, worldly qualities will be treated as
"sacred," and the symbolic means to upholding their integrity will be
enforced as rituals.
As qualities in social life, analytical aspects of voluntaristic action proper
may be found in families, schools, neighborhoods, communities, religious
congregations, or ethnic sections within many modern nation-states. Continuing with the example of neighborhood, residents' views of which qualities merit their obligatory performances, and which may be left to their
exemplary performances, might very well be far removed from a rational
actor's calculations of the market values for housing. Residents may refuse
to allow anyone to reduce the qualities that they prize in their neighborhood to such instrumental means and quantifiable indices. Even as housing
is bought and sold in the marketplace, residents' working assumption may
remain that any new owner is not permitted to conduct himself or herself
strictly instrumentally or strategically. New owners may be informed,
whether formally or informally, that reductionist treatments of their own
property or, for that matter, of their own behavior, will be sanctioned,
again either formally (by a neighborhood association) or informally (by
concerned neighbors).
Being worldly qualities, however, these analytical aspects of voluntaristic
action are not readily elevated by these actors, or any others, to transcendental qualities or ultimate matters of faith. Rarely are these qualities
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valued so widely or dearly that they are protected artificially from the
outcomes of economic and political marketplaces, as "sacred." Actors'
shared recognition that certain neighborly actions are obligatory and others
are exemplary is not readily attributed to any sacred mandate (whether, as
examples, to "God's will" or "natural law").13 Their shared recognition is
ultimately tied to quite local interactions.14
To be sure, there are institutions and landmarks within modern nationstates that may be honored quite literally as sacred, at least in certain of
their analytically distinguishable aspects (e.g. Arlington National Cemetery
or the Lincoln Memorial). But the point of Parsons's analytical approach to
social action and social order is that, by definition, these aspects of social
action fall within the symbolic means-end schema or category of nonrational
action proper. These aspects do not fall within the reformulated concept of
voluntaristic action. When residents share a recognition of their neighborhood's qualities, and none of them, of course, imagines for a moment that
these qualities are tied to any sacred or transcendental mandate, their
efforts to maintain the integrity of these qualities then remain strictly
voluntaristic. For social scientists to attribute "sacred" qualities to these
efforts is misleading and distorting in the extreme. The same may be said of
attributing "sacred" qualities to related efforts by members of ethnic
groups, schools, and families. Such an attribution discounts the enormous
difficulties that modern actors everywhere experience in simply recognizing, and then in maintaining, the integrity of any qualities in social life. It
obfuscates much more than it illuminates about the actual workings of local
interactions, subcultural practices, and national institutions.
This point about voluntaristic "pattern-maintenance" may be put differently. It may be placed into the terminology employed in the preliminary
definitions of social integration presented in chapters 2-3.
Heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration rests ultimately on whether they can recognize and understand (and
then exhibit behavioral fidelity to) some qualities in social life, and
thereby institutionalize social action that is distinctively voluntaristic.
Still, if voluntaristic action is to account for the solidarity and collective
action of heterogeneous actors and competing groups under modern conditions, it must revolve around distinctively procedural norms and worldly
qualities rather than around substantive norms and worldly qualities of any
kind. First, it must revolve around the "means" of the threshold of interpretability. This frames their recognition and understanding of the shared
social duties involved in their efforts to maintain the integrity of worldly
qualities. Second, it also must remain consistent with the "end" that institutionalizes these voluntaristic procedures and other worldly qualities in social life: the collegial form of organization.
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7 A. Three meanings of voluntaristic action
How is voluntaristic action related to the normative restraints discussed in

chapter 4? As a distinct type of social action drawn from the residual realm
of the nonrational, voluntaristic action is by definition "external" to the
drift of rationalization. Still, how can it be said that certain types of
voluntaristic action contribute to a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change and to expanding heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possibilities for social integration? Three interrelated meanings of voluntaristic action begin to answer this question. They also prepare the way for the
discussion of collegial formations that begins in the next chapter. Taken
together, these three meanings clearly distinguish voluntaristic action from
normative action; they also distinguish it from even more general concepts,
such as "action," "creativity," "effort," and the like.
Against the secondary literature, and against Parsons's own later references to the term, none of the three meanings below refers to actors' free
will. Nor do any of them refer to actors' purportedly intrinsic capacity for
solidarity or willingness to "volunteer" to act in common. Nor, finally, do
any of the meanings refer directly to actors' personal "autonomy" or "independence" from given material conditions, from their own internalized
beliefs, or from institutionalized norms and values. Rather than referring
to qualities that might distinguish the actors who engage in voluntaristic
action, these three meanings instead distinguish the qualities of voluntaristic action as such.
7.4.1. Voluntaristic action as restraint on drift
As noted above, precisely because voluntaristic action is not purposiverational, precisely because it is a distinct type drawn from the nonrational
realm, any manifestation of it, in practice, is "external" to the drift of
purposive-rational social change. To be sure, this "external" status is
shared by all actions drawn from the nonrational realm. The sheer presence of such actions within any social or governmental unit intrinsically
restrains the unit from responding most immediately to systemic pressures
of social change in its own immediate material interests.
The voluntaristic conception of action implies that there is resistance to the realization of the rational norm. . . . This problem of control [of collective recognition of
qualities of social life] tends to be met by the subjection of action in pursuit of
immediate non-ultimate ends [that is, worldly qualities] to normative rules which
regulate that action in conformity with the common ultimate value system of the
community [that is, a subgrouping of a society]. These normative rules both define
what immediate ends should and should not be sought, and limit the choice of
means to them in terms other than those of efficiency. Finally, they also define
145
standards of socially acceptable effort. This system of rules, fundamental to any

society . . . is what I call its institutions. They are moral norms, not norms of
efficiency. (1935: 298-9; also, 1936: 79-80; 1937a: 74-9, 81-2, 209-15, 221, 251-7,
261, 486 note 2, 645 note 1, 660-1)
Given the Weberian Dilemma discussed in chapter 3, including how
normatively unmediated responses to systemic pressures contribute to actors' fragmentation of "meaning" and then to bureaucratization and the
extension of other mechanisms of social control, an important but implicit
theme in Parsons's early writings comes to the fore: The presence of
voluntaristic restraints of some kind is essential to the possibility of restraining drift under modern conditions. These same restraints are essential to
the possibility of restraining bureaucratization as well as actors' fragmentation of meaning, if not all mechanisms of social control. The question, of
course, is: Can any particular set of voluntaristic restraints be demonstrated to contribute intrinsically to a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change, by its sheer presence alone? Or, alternatively, is Weber correct that
any and all nonrational restraints invariably accelerate control and authoritarianism, however inadvertently so?
7.4.2. Voluntaristic action as contingent institutions
The institutionalization of voluntaristic action can be said to offer heterogeneous actors and competing groups their only possibility of escaping the
Weberian Dilemma, provided that any of these institutions performs two
tasks simultaneously. First, they must resiliency restrain bureaucratization
and drift by normatively mediating how all social and governmental units
are permitted to respond to competition and systemic pressures in their
own interests. Second, they must avoid the excessiveness of restraint. They
must avoid imposing greater homogeneity, collectivism, and ritualism on
heterogeneous actors and competing groups than is necessary to restrain
bureaucratization and drift. In the 1930s, Parsons clearly appreciated both
of these implications of the Weberian Dilemma, and he endeavored to
address them conceptually:
[Weber's] rationality occupies a logical position in respect to action systems analogous to that of entropy in physical systems . . . [I]t is the most fundamental generalization that emerges from Weber's work, his conception of the process of rationalization. . . . (Parsons 1937a: 752-3; also, 263, 392, 624-35; 675-6; 1935: 295-6; cf.
Alexander 1983b: 167-8).
In many respects it is fair to say that Parsons anticipated Max Horkheimer's
reading of Weber in the 1940s (1940, 1947; Horkheimer and Adorno 1944)
when Horkheimer raised the spector of the authoritarian state, and Leo
Strauss's reading of Weber in the 1950s (1953: 35-80) when Strauss argued
146
that Weber's concepts result not merely in relativism but nihilism (Bloom
1987 resumes this argument; also see chapter 10).
Precisely because Parsons appreciated both of these implications, he
explicitly related Pareto's and Durkheim's cyclical theories of normative
and institutional change to Weber's more linear view of rationalization.
Pareto and Durkheim saw periods of normative stability giving way to
periods of normative breakdown: For Pareto, a "general law of rhythm"
that includes "sentiments"; for Durkheim, "anomie" leading to atomization and even suicide. Nonetheless, all three theorists "converged," by
Parsons's reading, on the following thesis: Systemic social forces cast all
modern societies adrift, and power holders (or insurgents) invariably rationalize formal social controls during periods of normative breakdown. During periods of normative stability, informal social controls may replace
some of the formal ones. But these periods are rare, and always appear
only temporarily. Thus, normative breakdown:
[I]s essentially the process involved in Pareto's process of transition from dominance of the residues of persistence to those of combination, equally in Durkheim's
transition from solidarity or integration to anomie. It is a process the possibility of
which is inherent in the voluntaristic conception of action as such. Its complete
absence from Weber's thought would have given grave reason to doubt the accuracy
of [Parsons's convergence thesis and]
analysis. But it is there. (Parsons 1937a: 6856, my emphasis; also 710; 1962)15
Thus, Parsons's second implicit meaning for his concept: The institutionalization of voluntaristic action (and of any nonauthoritarian direction of
social change based thereon) remains contingent rather than ever becomingfirmlystabilized. In terms of the Weberian Dilemma, the polar types of
strictly rational action and strictly nonrational action are each far more
readily stabilized since each in its own way is ultimately consistent with
extending bureaucratization. Rational action includes the rationalization of
formal mechanisms of social control, of course, but nonrational action has
the same result, albeit by a more indirect route. By institutionalizing ritualism, and thereby imposing homogeneous behavior on otherwise heterogeneous actors and competing groups, nonrational action ultimately relies
heavily on specialized agencies of enforcement.
It is much more difficult, therefore, for heterogeneous actors and competing groups to institutionalize and maintain distinctively voluntaristic
action. It is much more difficult for them to institutionalize their own
recognition and understanding of shared social duties and other qualities in
social life without moving to ritualism. The success of this project remains
ever-contingent because it cannot be reduced to the effectiveness of formal
mechanisms of social control, including the effectiveness of specialized
agencies of enforcement. It also cannot be reduced to the purported "natural identity" of actors' and groups' subjective interests, to their purported
147
internalization of shared substantive beliefs, or to their purported negotiation of shared definitions of the situation in local interactions. Indeed, were
any of these reductions to occur, in practice, voluntaristic action itself
would either be reduced to strictly rational action or else elevated to strictly
nonrational or habitual action proper.
As noted above, voluntaristic action is in evidence within all social orders, both nonauthoritarian and authoritarian. But because the sheer presence of its means and ends restrains bureaucratization and drift, its institutionalization opens the contingent possibility that even heterogeneous
actors and competing groups may contribute somehow to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change. This possibility is brought more clearly into
view by noting that certain types of voluntaristic action may revolve around
distinctively procedural norms (the threshold of interpretability of shared
social duties) and distinctively procedural ends (the collegial form of organization). Thus, the external restraints placed on bureaucratization and drift
may be procedural mediations rather than more directly substantive. The
institutionalization of voluntaristic procedures provides the only foundation
for a nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions.
It also provides the only foundation for heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration within any sector, industry, organization, or organizational division of a modern civil society.
Parsons never drew these distinctions within the concept of voluntaristic
action, and yet his view of the contingency of institutionalizing voluntaristic
action was far more radical than Niklas Luhmann (1976) and Jan Loubser
(1976) appreciate. It remains more radical than Jeffrey Alexander's view
(1984) of the contingency of interpersonal relations, and the related view
long held by symbolic interactionists (also, compare Alexander's position
in 1984 to that in 1987). Parsons agreed with Pareto's most pessimistic
positions: Any particular set of substantive worldly qualities can only temporarily secure heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' shared recognition and understanding, to say nothing of their possible acceptance and
behavioral fidelity. Systemic "drift," and the concomitant fragmentation of
substantive meaning, is immutable (see Parsons 1962, 1970b for later statements of this position).
Substantive voluntaristic action, therefore, is as shaky a foundation on
which to base a nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern
conditions as any that can be imagined. When power holders endeavor to
enforce heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'fidelityto substantive
norms and qualities of any kind outside of any mediation provided by
voluntaristic procedures, they are repeatedly and persistently faced with
situations wherein resorting to formal mechanisms of social control becomes their only hope of success (1936; 1937a: 284-8,402). The great irony
is that by resorting to these mechanisms, they are simultaneously subordi-
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7. Voluntanstic action as a distinct concept
nating the distinctive means-ends relationship of voluntaristic action either

to that of purposive-rational action or that of strictly nonrational action.
After all, they are treating substantive qualities either as ends that can be
attained instrumentally or else as ends that merit actors' ritualistic behavior.
As a pure type, voluntaristic action isolates the always contested effort
by actors and groups to maintain their own solidarity and collective action
under conditions of drift, short of resorting to manipulation, coercion, or
ritualism.16 It sharpens the Weberian Dilemma by casting it into the following terms: First, periodic breakdowns in substantive voluntaristic action are
immutable, rather than preventable or avoidable. Second, nonauthoritarian social order remains everywhere and always a contingent possibility,
and by no means a state of "equilibrium" which systemic pressures themselves somehow intrinsically support rather than jeopardize.17
There are three logical possibilities of the general relation of a norm to the actual
course of action. The first is the possibility that the mere existence of the norm, that
is its recognition by the actor as binding, implies automatic conformity with it. The
second is the opposite, that the norm is a mere manifestation, in the index sense, of
the real [governmental or marketplace] forces governing action, but has no [independent] causal significance at all. Action [which is consistent with the norm] is
then an automatic process. Finally, there is the possibility that while the norm
constitutes one structural element in the concrete action it is only one. There are
obstacles and resistances to its attainment. . . . The existence of this resistance and
its (even partial) overcoming implies another element, "effort," which has no place
in either of the other two views. (Parsons 1937a: 251; also 263, 285-6 and note 4,
288; 1935: 306-7; 1936: 80)18
The theory of societal constitutionalism proposes that only the institutionalization of voluntaristic procedures - the institutionalization of both
internal procedural restraints on purposeful arbitrariness and external
procedural restraints on inadvertent arbitrariness - can account for any
sustained nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions.
7.4.3. Voluntaristic action as central to a conceptual schema
Parsons connected the first two meanings of voluntaristic action in his
chapters devoted to Durkheim (1937a: chapters 8-11) rather than in either
the introductory or concluding chapters of The Structure of Social Action.
As he discussed Durkheim's work, he insisted that because voluntaristic
restraints on drift are by definition nonultimate (that is, nonsacred), they
are thereby always only contingently stabilized:
The further these immediate ends [of voluntaristic action] are removed in the
means-end chain from the system of ultimate values sanctioning the system of rules,
the more the rules will tend to appear to the individuals subject to them as morally
neutral, as mere conditions of action. And since the ends of the great majority of
7A. Three meanings of voluntaristic action
149
practical activities are very far removed from ultimate values, there is a strong
tendency to evasion. (1937a: 401, my emphasis)
Parsons failed to see, however, that this holds true only for substantive
voluntaristic action in particular. It does not hold true, either in principle or
in practice, for procedural voluntaristic action. This point is elaborated in
the next chapter.
Given the concept's first two meanings, the third meaning of voluntaristic action implicit in Parsons's early writings is contained in his acknowledging that his first social theory is conceptually primitive. Even as he believed
that it marked an "advance" beyond the contributions of the four theorists
he examined, he knew he could not claim that it is "scientific." Instead, he
claimed that it is voluntaristic: It offers sociologists a contingent possibility,
but by no means any guarantee, that a suitable conceptual grounding had
been laid on which knowledge in the social sciences might be accumulated.
Parsons accepted that this grounding would likely have to be substantially
reformulated, as well as supplemented with many other analytical distinctions, in order to inform empirical research.
The main framework of the present study may, then, be considered an analysis of
the structural aspects of systems of action, in a certain sense their "anatomy." . . .
Though all structures must be regarded as capable of analysis in terms of a plurality
of analytical elements, and hence the two types of analysis [definition and specification] are closely related, it does not follow that only one choice of elements is
possible in the analysis of a given concrete structure. . . . But this very possibility of
different choices of elements explains why it is not advisable to attempt to jump
directly from an outline of the structure of action systems to a system of elements. It
is on the former, not the latter, level that the writers treated here [Marshall, Pareto,
Durkheim, and Weber] converge almost explicitly upon a single system. (Parsons
1937a: 39; also 38-41; 1951: chapter 1)
8. Societal constitutionalism's
organizational manifestation, II: from
voluntaristic action to collegial formations

8.1.1. Four steps beyond Habermas, Fuller, and Parsons
The theory of societal constitutionalism draws comparativists' attention to

those sectors, industries, and organizations of any modern civil society
that contain norms and institutions that are distinctively voluntaristic and
procedural. It does so because only the presence of these norms and
institutions can account (a) for a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change under modern conditions, and also (b) for heterogeneous actors'
and competing groups' possible social integration within any sector, industry, or organization. The norms and institutions whose presence cannot
resolve the Weberian Dilemma, either in isolation or in combination, are:
(a) purposive-rational and strategic (for example, in economic and political markets), (b) nonrational and ritualistic (for example, in religious
"protected spheres"), and (c) voluntaristic but also substantively immediate rather than procedural mediations (for example, in friendships, families, and neighborhoods, and also in ethnic solidarities and cultural "protected spheres").
Clearly, an emphasis on the importance of distinctively procedural norms
and institutions informs the writings of Habermas and Fuller. Both of these
theorists appreciated that only procedural norms and institutions can challenge the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and yet credibly claim
grounding against normative relativism. Neither appreciated, however,
that the presence of these same norms and institutions within any sector,
industry, or organization of a civil society places distinctively voluntaristic
restraints on interest competition and systemic drift. Parsons's mature writings, in turn, do not as clearly emphasize the importance of procedural
norms and institutions, and yet his steadily increasing references to the
latter by the late 1960s and mid-1970s are in many respects as suggestive as
Fuller's and Habermas's more developed approaches.1
These three theorists have been a focus of attention to this point precisely because each in his own way took a "procedural turn," albeit Parsons
150
151
less decisively so than either Fuller or Habermas. Still, the theory of societal constitutionalism takes four steps that each of these theorists failed to
take.
First step: the importance of external (voluntaristic) procedural restraints.
Habermas, Fuller, and Parsons each failed in his own way to appreciate, let
alone elaborate, the unique impact of voluntaristic restraint that the presence of certain procedural norms and institutions have on organizations
and their institutionalized environments (Meyer and Rowan 1977), and, in
this way, on the direction of social change. This failure explains why each
theorist also failed to appreciate how his own "procedural turn" might
assist social scientists in addressing two related issues: First, how have
organizations and institutions within nonauthoritarian nation-states actually responded, in practice, to the systemic pressures of drift that concerned Weber? Second, how have heterogeneous actors and competing
groups ever managed to institutionalize restraints on drift without simultaneously extending or intensifying mechanisms of social control inadvertently, as Weber expected?
(a) Parsons failed to appreciate this because he never rendered
voluntaristic action into a distinct concept in the first place. He also
failed because he followed Weber in dismissing the possibility that a
standard of reasoned social action more comprehensive than the narrow norm of rational action might be grounded conceptually against
normative relativism (chapter 10).
(b) Fuller failed to appreciate this because he never developed methodically the more general implications of his legal theory: The latter establishes a procedural threshold of interpretability of shared social duties
as such. In addition, Fuller never linked his legal theory either (1) to a
grounded concept of reasoned social action, or (2) to its organizational
expression within a particular form of organization. He acknowledged
that he needed a communication theory (1964/1969: 138-45), but he
never appreciated that he also needed an organization theory (1964/
1969: 173ff for weak comments on "institutional design").
(c) Habermas fails, finally, because he has not linked his idealized
standard of procedural reason to any practicable threshold of institutionalization. He also fails to appreciate the distinctiveness of voluntaristic action within the broader category of normative action. This explains why he correctly points out that communicative action is not
legitimately treated as normative action, and yet why he wrongly insists
that communicative action complements and contributes to rationalization. He fails to see that communicative action is voluntaristic, and
152
8. From voluntaristic action to collegia! formations

thereby intrinsically restrains rationalization by substituting direction
for drift.
Second step: differentiation of voluntaristic action in practice. Once these

theorists' independently taken "procedural turns" are synthesized, the second step is to dedicate this synthesis to the methodical study of institutions
and organizations that are distinctively procedural and voluntaristic. This
step may be worded in the form of two propositions:
First Proposition. Under systemic pressures of drift, voluntaristic action itself becomes functionally differentiated, in practice, within any
/io/iauthoritarian social order. Those divisions of organizations and
institutions in which heterogeneous actors and competing groups maintain the integrity of voluntaristic procedural mediations become more
and more clearly differentiated, in practice, from those divisions in
which their social action revolves more immediately around substantive qualities of life.
Second Proposition. Correlatively, whenever this differentiation either
fails to develop in practice, or else later collapses or ^differentiates,
the direction of change within a civil society ceases to be benign. It
shifts to one of greater social control and susceptibility to social
authoritarianism.
Thus, the theory of societal constitutionalism proposes that there will not
be evidence of voluntaristic action's differentiation, in practice, within authoritarian social orders. It also proposes that within those nonauthoritarian social orders that are experiencing a shift toward greater social control,
there will be clear evidence of increasing ^differentiation of the divisions
of substantive and procedural voluntaristic action.
Consider again the illustration in chapter 1. William could begin to protect himself against Scott, at least in principle, if he could demonstrate
unambiguously that his "professional integrity" is compromised, as noted
at the end of chapter 3. Now, by proposing an interrelationship between the
threshold of interpretability and the integrity of the collegial form of any
research enterprise - including William's research division - it is beginning
to be seen how this might be done. The substantive projects to which
William's research division is dedicated, or to which any other corporate
research division in his industry and sector is dedicated, is an issue distinct
from whether corporate managers are maintaining the voluntaristic procedures distinctive to any research division's collegial form.
Of course, even if he were aware of this threshold and its interrelationship with the collegial form, William would still face a very practical
problem: When corporate managers lack any understanding of, or appreciation for, the worldly qualities that distinguish a research division's form
153
of organization from all other organizational forms, neither William nor

any other researcher can protect their "professional integrity" within such
a corporate setting. Moreover, corporate managers typically endeavor to
attain most immediately the corporation's substantive goals, whether quantifiable (purposive-rational) or qualitative (substantively voluntaristic).
They seldom become dedicated to maintaining the purported integrity of
any division's form or organization as an end in itself. Thus, if restraints
are not firmly institutionalized on what can be called a corporate "culture
of encroachment," then the threshold of interpretability of shared social
duties cannot be extended to William and other researchers. This threshold cannot be extended from restraining arbitrary government to restraining arbitrariness within civil society. This means, however, that citizens'
protections from arbitrary government are then, if anything, left exposed
to increasing contingency. After all, these citizens are learning in their
everyday lives that arbitrary exercises of collective power are acceptable,
and commonplace, within civil society. They are learning that professionals' integrity is readily compromised in pursuit of corporations' prized
substantive ends. How can these same citizens be expected to recognize
when government is wielding its power arbitrarily as it, too, pursues
worthy substantive ends?2
Third step: threshold of institutionalized external procedural restraints. The
third step beyond Habermas, Fuller, and Parsons is to draw attention to the
presence of the organizational form that institutionalizes a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change under modern conditions: Heterogeneous actors
and competing groups institutionalize restraints on drift that are distinctively procedural and external (that is, voluntaristic) only by establishing
and maintaining collegial formations within a civil society. Actors' behavior
within and around collegial formations is distinctive. Unlike their behavior
within and around any other organizational form, it exhibits fidelity to the
threshold of interpretability of shared social duties. This remains the case as
long as the integrity of this particular form of organization is simply being
maintained.
According to the theory of societal constitutionalism, it is the presence
(or absence) of collegial formations, and of this behavior by otherwise
heterogeneous actors and competing groups, that ultimately determines
the direction of change within any sector, industry, or organization of a civil
society. This, in turn, determines whether a nonauthoritarian direction of
social change is being sustained within any modern nation-state or whether
the latter is trapped by the Weberian Dilemma: either acceding to an
inadvertent drift toward authoritarianism or institutionalizing substantive
normative restraints that extend social control and increase its susceptibility to social authoritarianism.
154
8. From voluntaristic action to collegial formations
Fourth step: specifying possibilities for social integration. Given that the
presence (or absence) of collegial formations determines whether any complex social enterprise is contributing to direction (or to drift), the fourth
step follows as a corollary: The presence of collegial formations allows
social scientists literally to pinpoint heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups' possibilities for social integration within any division of an organization or institution. Such possibilities may be found, as examples, within:
particular divisions of a corporation, particular offices of a governmental
agency, particular departments of a university, particular committees of a
legislature, particular courts of a criminal or civil justice system, or particular networks of scholarship or the arts. By monitoring the presence of
collegial formations, social scientists may pinpoint such possibilities even as
ongoing mechanisms of social control continue to support the larger social
order of the sector, industry, or organization within which these particular
divisions are embedded.
Keeping in mind the reformulations of Parsons's trichotomy of concepts
discussed in chapter 7, figure 8.1 places societal constitutionalism's framework of analytical concepts into the context of Weber's, Parsons's, and
Habermas's contributions. As this figure portrays, the collegial form of
organization is the last of the basic concepts of the theory of societal
constitutionalism that needs to be discussed. A few more words of review
set the stage for this.
8.1.2. Three characteristics of societal constitutionalism's threshold:
a review
The theory of societal constitutionalism redefines Fuller's principles of
procedural legality in two steps. The first step, noted in chapter 6, is to
broaden the scope of application of what is now being called a threshold of
interpretability. This threshold's scope of application is broadened from the
interpretability of positive laws to the interpretability of shared social duties being sanctioned within any social unit. The second step is to define
this threshold analytically as a set of internal procedural restraints on purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power. By being defined analytically, the threshold is detached from the particularity of the historical experiences of common-law countries from which it emerged (chapter 10). And
yet, since it remains a set of internal procedural restraints, this threshold
cannot be said to address the Weberian Dilemma regardless.
What can be said about this threshold of internal procedural restraints as
it stands? What can be said about it apart from the subsequent issue of
whether, in any given instance, it is extended to a set of external procedural
restraints on drift by being institutionalized by the presence of collegial
155
Weber
Habermas
Reformulated Parsons
Societal Constitutionalism
Rat ional A
ts
Purposive-Rational
Action
Instrumental
Action
Rational Action
(Instrumental Means/Quantifiable Ends)
Strategic
Action
* Procedural Norms and Institutions

Institutionalized Normative Orientations
Procedural Legality and Collegial Formations
[e.g. Deliberative
Bodies, Research Divisions,
Professional Associations, Universities]
_Communicative_
Action
CO
"cB
o
Value-Rational
Action
Voluntaristic Action
(Normative Means/Qualitative Ends)
Substantive Norms and Institutions
Internalized Normative Motivations
Traditional, Religion, and Culture
[e.g. Families, Neighborhoods,
Communities, Social Movements,
Ethnic and Nationalist Groups]
Normative_
Action
Substantive-Rational
Action
Rational Norms and Institutions

Institutionalized Strategic and
Instrumental Action
Markets and Bureaucracies
[e.g. Commercial Profits, Bureaucratic
Caseloads, Democratic Votes]
Nonrational or Symbolic Action

{Normative Means/Transcendental Ends)
Figure 8.1. Societal constitutionalism within conceptual context
156
formations? As it stands, the threshold of internal procedural restraints

brings three characteristics to comparative study:
First, the threshold is distinctively voluntaristic rather than either rational or more strictly nonrational.
Second, actors' behavioral fidelity to this threshold is irreducible, both
in principle and in practice, to the possibility of their sustaining a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change, and to the possibility of
their being integrated rather than controlled anywhere within a civil
society.3
Third, the threshold may credibly claim conceptual grounding against
normative relativism (chapter 10). As such, it is not legitimate for any
social scientist to reduce actors' behavioral fidelity to it to their subjective interests alone or to normative beliefs that are strictly relative to
time and place. Such behavior instead rests, in principle, on a credible
claim to contribute to reasoned social action as such.
By working the discussion of Fuller's legal theory (chapter 6) into the
discussions of the reformulated concept of voluntaristic action (chapter 7)
and Habermas's communication theory (chapter 5), each of these characteristics of the threshold of internal procedural restraints may be elaborated in
turn.
Voluntaristic. One thesis cutting across chapters 5-7 is that most of the
shared social duties being sanctioned within complex social units are neither rational and instrumental nor more strictly nonrational and habitual.
They are rather distinctively voluntaristic. They are being sanctioned in the
effort to maintain the integrity of worldly qualities in social life, and the
success of this effort remains contingent rather than becoming overdetermined systemically. Such social duties can be recognized and understood by
heterogeneous actors and competing groups in common only if the duties, as
well as the sanctions supporting them, are kept consistent with the threshold of interpretability. If they are not kept consistent, then these actors'
and groups' behavioral fidelity to social units' acknowledged ranges of
expectations regarding acceptable behavior is indeed reducible to some
combination of formal and informal mechanisms of social control. This
proposition holds even if the actors involved are convinced subjectively
that they are acting freely, in their own best interests.
Still, it is important to emphasize that if social scientists employ this
threshold alone, independently of exploring whether it is institutionalized
by the presence of collegial formations, their comparative research will be
severely limited. It will be limited, even as it begins to challenge the presupposition of exhausted possibilities, because the reverse of the proposition
8.1 Again, the possibility of social integration
157
above does not hold: Actors' and groups' behavioral fidelity to this threshold at any given moment in time does not in itself, in the absence of
collegial formations, somehow guarantee that a nonauthoritarian direction
of social change is being sustained. Nor does it guarantee that these actors'
and groups' orderly behavior within any division of an organization or
institution is consistent with their possible social integration.
The threshold of interpretability of shared social duties is a voluntaristic
threshold of internal procedural restraints on purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power alone. As such, it allows social scientists to go
beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities by specifying particular instances of control and arbitrariness within Western civil societies. But,
as a set of internal procedural restraints alone, this threshold fails to reveal
any social infrastructure that allows social scientists (or anyone else) to
distinguish shifts from direction to drift (or vice versa) within any given
civil society.
As one example, if particular corporate managers happen at any given
moment in time not to encroach against this threshold in their everyday
behavior, this does not mean that corporate research divisions in particular,
or corporate directorates, are organized in the collegial form. Nor does it
mean, therefore, that researchers within these divisions are maintaining
their professional integrity, and are thereby possibly integrated. Similarly,
even if particular researchers within these divisions happen to conform
individually to the threshold of internal procedural restraints, these divisions are themselves embedded within the larger institutionalized environments of the corporation, its industry, and its sector (Meyer and Rowan
1977). These environing institutions may be adrift themselves. Whether a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change is being sustained beyond actors' local interactions, therefore, hinges on whether external procedural
restraints on drift are also in evidence. This depends, in turn, on whether
collegial formations are present within research divisions' and directorates'
institutionalized environments, that is, within the corporation's industry,
sector, and the larger civil society (in chapter 11 these are called sectoral
collegial formations, as opposed to the divisional collegial formations
within any particular organization).
Thus, actors' and groups' behavioral fidelity to internal procedural restraints at particular moments in time guarantees only that (a) they happen
to be restraining purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power at
these moments within their local interactions. And, as a result of this, it also
guarantees that (b) they remain capable, at least in principle, of recognizing
and understanding the shared social duties being purposefully sanctioned at
this level. Unfortunately, as symbolic interactionists richly document, local
interactions may alternate greatly, and within quite brief periods of time,
between fidelity to, and encroachments against, any set of normative re-
158
straints. Moreover, the theory of societal constitutionalism dismisses out of

hand the likelihood that interactions within any complex social unit evolve
or change in a unilinear direction. Indeed, one of the tasks of the social
sciences is to monitor shifts of direction dispassionately, and not to assume,
even provisionally, that interactions within Western democracies are tending in any certain direction whereas those in all other nation-states are
tending in others.
Despite its limitations when brought to comparative research in isolation, the threshold of internal procedural restraints nonetheless offers comparativists at least three advantages over the presupposition of exhausted
possibilities:
First, encroachments against the threshold may be detected by any set
of actors (including social scientists), and not merely by professionals
trained in the law. Thus, when professional enforcers encroach against
these restraints, this may be readily detected. Similarly, when professional researchers encroach against the same threshold within corporate research divisions, this too may be readily detected.
Second, social scientists can demonstrate with precision when the
shared social duties being sanctioned at local or interactional levels
encroach against this threshold. They can demonstrate this with at
least as much precision as they currently demonstrate whether local
social units are becoming more or less efficient in production, effective
in administration, or democratic in participation and responsiveness.4
Third, the threshold of internal procedural restraints is institutionalized
beyond local interactions by the presence of the collegial/orra of organization. This formation institutionalizes this threshold as a voluntaristic
orientation that competing groups and heterogeneous actors (and social scientists) can recognize in common.5 Moreover, because evidence
of this voluntaristic orientation is strictly behavioral, its institutionalization has nothing to do with whether actors happen to internalize (or
negotiate) shared normative motivations or subjective interests.6
Irreducible. As noted in passing above, the threshold of interpretability
lays claim simultaneously to being practicable and yet irreducible to a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change and actors' prospects for social
integration. By marking the irreducible "floor" of actors' integrative possibilities, this procedural threshold permits social scientists to bring the social integration/social control distinction to even subtle changes within any
complex social unit. By contrast, when social scientists undertake comparative research without employing this threshold, and without drawing this
distinction, the most they can recognize is whether Western political institutions and economic practices are present or absent. In short, their research
8.2. Organizational expression of internal procedural restraints
159
is then oriented, however implicitly, by the presupposition of exhausted

possibilities.
The problem with this is that if actors freely vote and assemble, exchange
and invest - even as power holders within a civil society typically encroach
against the threshold of internal procedural restraints - then these actors
are indeed being manipulated, controlled, and coerced in their everyday
lives. When national institutions such as elections, civil liberties, and private property rest on such a social infrastructure, they may be demonstrated empirically to contribute to actors' demonstrable social control.7 By
no means can it be assumed that these national institutions somehow contribute intrinsically to actors' possible social integration within their lived
social fabrics.
Grounded. One implication of the threshold's irreducibility in the sense
above is that it can credibly claim grounding against the sovereignty of
actors' subjective interests and normative relativism. Unlike the presupposition of exhausted possibilities, this threshold is consistent with Habermas's
(and others') critique of copy theories of truth and subsequent "procedural
turn" to a consensus theory of truth (and reason). Still, even as this threshold can credibly claim grounding, it cannot claim a universal scope of
application in empirical research.
On the one hand, this threshold is legitimately applied only to modern
nation-states and modern civil societies, and not to traditional societies. On
the other hand, this threshold is not legitimately applied to the most microsociological interactions, or those that take place outside of any and all
organizational forms. Such interactions include those taking place within
families, and any and all other cathectic relations and relations of personal
trust (rather than relations of institutional orfiduciarytrust) (Barber 1983 on
the former; Scheff 1990 more generally; and both DeMott 1988 and Frankel
1983 on fiduciary relations). Within its proper scope of application - to
divisions of modern institutions and organizations - the threshold of interpretability is indeed generalizable rather than Europocentric or otherwise
particular.
8.2. The organizational expression of internal procedural restraints
As actors establish and maintain collegial formations, they simultaneously

institutionalize qualities in social life that are distinctively voluntaristic and
procedural. The threshold of interpretability is included among these qualities. Once it is institutionalized by this organizational form, actors' behavioral fidelity to these qualities is no longer left to actors' ad hoc interactions. Indeed, as this organizational form is itself extended across entire
industries and sectors of a civil society, actors' behavioral fidelity to the
160
threshold of interpretability is extended into organizations' institutionalized environments.

What, then, are collegial formations? How may social scientists distinguish this particular form of organization from any and all others?
8.2.1. Defining collegial formations residually: nondemocratic
As a first approach, collegial formations may be defined in residual terms.
This is precisely the tack that Parsons took late in his career. In occasional
references, he emphasized what "associational" and "collegial" bodies are
not: He found that they are not "competitive," bureaucratic, or democratic.8 As was the case earlier with his treatment of voluntaristic action,
here too he failed to specify any criteria that distinguish the collegial form
positively. Within the theory of societal constitutionalism, however, the
collegial form is distinguished positively in terms of two criteria. First, its
members remain dedicated to describing and explaining (or creating and
maintaining) qualities in social life. Second, its members' behavior remains
consistent with the voluntaristic and procedural qualities of the threshold of
interpretability of shared social duties. Before discussing why these criteria
characterize actors' behavior only within the collegial form rather than
within any other organizational form, it is worthwhile to consider first why
the collegial form is nondemocratic.
Any democratic organization hinges ultimately on whether its members'
subjective interests are treated equally, in accordance with the strictly rational procedure of majority rule (Offe 1983). This procedure is rational
rather than voluntaristic because the counting of equal, and thereby interchangeable, subjective interests is consistent with the rational means-end
schema.9 Indeed, majority rule is the normative orientation institutionalized by any democratic formation, irrespective of how any particular one
happens to structure its members' articulation and aggregation of their
subjective interests (note 6). By definition, this normative orientation is
shared by all members of this formation as long as the latter's integrity is
being maintained. All of them are oriented to honor the outcomes of
majority rule: (a) irrespective of what these outcomes happen to be in
substance, (b) irrespective of the quality of information (if any) that they
receive, (c) irrespective of the quality of discussion (if any) in which they
engaged prior to voting, and (d) irrespective of all of their remaining differences in subjective interests and normative motivations.
Actors' behavior within collegial formations is inconsistent with this
normative orientation. The collegial form does not orient its members
normatively to exhibit behavioral fidelity to majority rule as such, but
rather to exhibit behavioral fidelity to voluntaristic or qualitative procedures as such. This does not mean, of course, that members of collegial
5.2. Organizational expression of internal procedural restraints
161
formations cavalierly ignore or contravene electoral results. Nor does it

mean, for that matter, that they ignore or contravene other rational procedures, including basic techniques of administrative effectiveness or economic efficiency. It does, mean, however, that they are not normatively
oriented first and foremost to rational procedures or to attain quantifiable
outcomes of any kind, whether those of efficiency, effectiveness, or majority rule. As an organizational form that institutionalizes its members'
behavioral fidelity to voluntaristic procedures, and to qualities in social
life, the collegial form's normative orientation is both nondemocratic and
nonrational.10
At the same time, collegial formations are clearly supported, in practice,
by administrative staffs, and the latter, in turn, are organized in the bureaucratic form. These staffs are thereby oriented normatively to maximize
efficiency or effectiveness rather than to maintain the integrity of deliberation or any other qualities in social life. Consider, as examples, the staff of
the Supreme Court, the administration of a university, or the staff of a
corporate research division. Just as clearly, members of collegial formations may ultimately finalize their deliberations by voting in a formally
democratic way. Yet, what is distinctive about the behavior of the members
of any collegial formation is that their behavior is oriented first and foremost (a) to keeping open the possibility of heterogeneous actors and competing groups recognizing and understanding what their shared social duties are, and then (b) to keeping open the possibility of their recognizing
and understanding (or creating and maintaining) other worldly qualities in
their social lives. For the members of any collegial formation to subordinate their behavioral fidelity to this institutionalized normative orientation
is for them simultaneously to abandon this very organizational form. Actors cannot maximize their efficiency in production or their effectiveness in
administration, as they are encroaching against this formation's threshold,
and then expect that an essentially voluntaristic or nonrational form of
organization can resist transformation under pressures of interest competition and systemic drift. Similarly, actors cannot vote in a majority, as they
are encroaching against this formation's threshold, and then expect that
this does not similarly jeopardize this organizational form.
Because this formation's procedural threshold is itself comprised of
worldly qualities in social life, its sheer presence within any modern civil
society means that its members' behavior already resists reduction to the
instrumental means and quantifiable ends that characterize any rational
social enterprise, including democratic elections. Put differently, this means
that collegial formations cannot be distinguished by (a) the effectiveness of
their administrative staffs, even as the latter might indeed be effective, nor
by (b) the efficiency of their production units, even as the latter might
indeed be efficient, nor by (c) the numbers of actors who participate in
162
their elections or how the majority happens to vote, even as the latter
might indeed be formally democratic. Collegial formations can be distinguished only by the worldly qualities orienting their members to resiliency
restrain their administrators, producers, and electoral majorities from elevating effectiveness, efficiency, or even majority rule to their primary normative orientation.
Thus, the continued presence and integrity of collegial formations may
well be compatible, in practice, with a great many of the economic practices and political institutions of Western democracy. But because the normative orientation institutionalized by these formations revolves around
voluntaristic procedures rather than around rational procedures, their sheer
presence within a Western civil society just as intrinsically restrains one-sided
democratization as it intrinsically restrains one-sided bureaucratization and
all other immediate responses to the drift of rationalization.11 The sheer
presence of collegial formations just as intrinsically restrains the social
units' leaders from most effectively mobilizing voters as it restrains the
social units' administrators from most effectively organizing personnel.12
Within nonauthoritarian social orders, these and all other strictly rational
actions are permitted and even encouraged - but only to the point where
they begin to compromise the integrity of the voluntaristic procedural
threshold institutionalized by collegial formations.
8.2.2. Three forms of organization
Whether efficient production, as measured by outputs, effective administration, as measured by caseloads, and even democratic participation, as measured by votes, are increasing or decreasing within any sector, industry, or
organization of a civil society is, in each instance, an empirical question.
But each of these empirical questions differs from the empirical questions
raised by the theory of societal constitutionalism: Does the collective
power wielded within and through these social units contribute exclusively
to actors' social control, even if inadvertently so? Is the social order of
these units, and then of the larger civil society, becoming more controlling
and thereby susceptible to social authoritarianism?
The three types of ends characterizing the first three empirical issues
noted above - outputs, caseloads, votes - are all quantifiable rather than
intrinsically qualitative. As a result, none qualifies as a type of end consistent with voluntaristic action. Social enterprises dedicated primarily to
attaining any of these three ends thereby fail to restrain the drift of rationalization intrinsically, by their sheer presence within a civil society. For that
matter, these enterprises do not instrinsically restrain even purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power. Thus, they fail to institutionalize either
internal or external procedural restraints. Instead, because each revolves
8.2. Organizational expression of internal procedural restraints 163

around rational procedures and quantifiable ends, each is marked by complicity in drift.
Unlike bureaucratic and democratic formations, as well as patron-client
formations, collegial formations institutionalize external (voluntaristic) procedural restraints on both purposefully and inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power by their sheer presence within a civil society. Because they are oriented by voluntaristic procedures, members of collegial
formations contribute to the social infrastructure of a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change: (a) irrespective of the substantive goods or
services that their formations provide, (b) irrespective of the sector or
industry within which their formations are located, and (c) irrespective of
their own subjective interests or internalized motivations. By contrast:
(a) Within bureaucratic formations, actors' orientation to voluntaristic
procedures is clearly not emphasized. What is emphasized instead is
their rational orientation to maximize the effectiveness of administration or efficiency of production. Thus, even as actors within a bureaucracy obey orders in a top-down chain of command, and thereby
maintain the integrity of the bureaucratic form, they may nonetheless
simultaneously encroach against the voluntaristic procedural threshold of interpretability of shared social duties.
(b) Within formally democratic formations, actors' orientation to
voluntaristic procedures or other qualities in social life also is not
emphasized. What is emphasized instead is their rational orientation
to maximize the mobilization of formally equal votes, formally equal
subjective interests. Thus, even as actors within a democracy mobilize
voters, and thereby maintain the integrity of the democratic form, they
may nonetheless simultaneously encroach against the voluntaristic procedural threshold.
(c) Within patron-client formations,13finally,actors' orientation to generalizable procedures of any kind, whether voluntaristic or rational, is
not emphasized. What is emphasized instead is their substantive orientation to extend and intensify networks of personal loyalties that cover
both material assistance and effective support (Gellner and Waterbury
1977; Schmidt et al. 1977; Eisenstadt and Roniger 1984). Thus, as
actors within a patron-client network honor their personal loyalties,
and thereby maintain the integrity of the clientelistic form, they may
nonetheless simultaneously encroach against the voluntaristic procedural threshold.
A social order experiencing bureaucratization in response to the breakdown of meaning and other systemic pressures may maintain or even extend its popular appeal. Its political leaders may continue to be legitimated
164
electorally in fair and free, and at least nominally competitive elections (as
Mexico has long demonstrated, e.g. Hansen 1971; Purcell and Purcell
1980). It is even more likely that a bureaucratic-authoritarian regime
(O'Donnell 1977) may steadily increase its effectiveness in administration
and its efficiency in production, at least for a time (as Brazil once demonstrated, e.g. McDonough 1981). Mechanisms of social control may thereby
remain rational and also secure ongoing popular support or, at least, the
support of significant factions of social influentials. But to the extent that
actors and groups maintain the integrity of collegial formations within any
sector of a civil society, this sector simultaneously restrains both purposefully and inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power.
When voluntaristic action is institutionalized, whether substantive or
procedural, this marks an external restraint on the drift of rationalization
because such action is intrinsically nonrational (chapter 7). When the
shared social duties being sanctioned within any institutionalized arena of
voluntaristic action are kept consistent with the procedural threshold of
interpretability, however, this marks the voluntaristic orientation distinctive to the collegial form alone. To institutionalize these shared social duties rather than leaving them to actors' ad hoc behavior is not merely to
institutionalize internal procedural restraints on local arbitrariness. It is
also to contribute to the social infrastructure that sustains a nonauthoritarian direction of social change and expands heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration.
Thinking again of the young researcher within the pharmaceutical company sketched in chapter 1, how might company managers be restrained
institutionally from pursuing the firm's material interests most immediately? They would be restrained the moment that they acknowledge that
companies within their industry do not typically encroach against research
divisions' collegial form even for "sound business reasons."14 Indeed,
within the industries or sectors where collegial formations are to be found,
managements as well as interested parties both within and outside of particular corporations formulate and articulate what the company's (or their
respective division's) material interests are within an institutionalized environment that contains external procedural restraints.15
But, again, what are collegial formations? The following definition (see also
page 80) brings some substance to the discussion of organizational forms:
Collegial formations are deliberative and professional bodies wherein
heterogeneous actors and competing groups maintain the threshold of
8.3. The collegia! form of organization
165
interpretability of shared social duties as they endeavor to describe

and explain (or create and maintain) qualitative phenomena in social
life or in natural events.
The collegial form literally ceases to exist when either one of two developments occurs, in practice: First, it ceases to exist when the members of
this formation encroach against the integrity of its voluntaristic procedural
threshold, whether purposefully or inadvertently. Second, it ceases to
exist when the significance of the social or natural events that they are
describing and explaining (or creating and maintaining) can be reduced to
quantitative measurements of one kind or another. Each of these developments may be explored in turn, with the following proposition stating
each more analytically:
Collegial formations institutionalize external (voluntaristic) procedural restraints on drift to the extent that: (a) Their members do not
encroach against the formation's threshold, (b) The significance of the
worldly qualities that these members are responsible for describing
and explaining (or creating and maintaining) cannot be reduced to
measurements or quantitative indices of any kind.
8.3.1. Encroachments against the collegial form
As deliberative and professional bodies, collegial formations may appear,
in practice, as the networks of social interactions within and through which
artists, intellectuals, or scholars exchange criticisms and evaluations. More
importantly, they also may appear as the formally organized divisions of
more complex institutions and organizations, including, as examples: the
diagnostic units of hospitals, the research divisions and directorates of
corporations, academic departments within universities, and refereed publications or prizes within disciplines or expert fields. Whether manifested as
networks or as formally organized divisions, these bodies are distinguished
by their form of organization, not by any of the substantive activities to
which their members happen to dedicate them. In turn, their members are
not distinguished by their subjective interests, nor by the particular valuecommitments and motivations that they happen to have internalized as
individuals either before or during their professional training.16 Nor, finally, are they distinguished by any particular set of shared subjective
interests they happen to bring to, or to negotiate within, their local interactions. As members of collegial formations, they are instead distinguished
strictly and solely by their behavioral fidelity (a) to a shared voluntaristic
procedural orientation, and, concomitantly, (b) to a shared voluntaristic
procedural responsibility.
166
To the extent that individuals indeed remain members of collegial formations, they share a voluntaristic procedural orientation rather than any
orientation that is either more rational or more immediately substantive.
They share this orientation qua members of collegial formations irrespective of all of their remaining and possibly increasing differences in subjective interests and normative orientations qua heterogeneous actors and
members of competing groups and factions.
First, they share the voluntaristic orientation institutionalized by the
collegial form itself: They exhibit behavioral fidelity to the procedural
threshold of interpretability of shared social duties.
Second, they also share a concomitant voluntaristic responsibility:
They detect and sanction any and all encroachments against this formation's procedural threshold and, thus, against their shared orientation.
If members of collegial formations shirk this responsibility, in practice,
then their own formations are placed in jeopardy. Still, in at least two
respects, this responsibility is fiduciary rather than either self-interested or
personal (see Frankel 1983 and DeMott 1988 on "fiduciary obligation" in
law): First, the members of all other collegial formations are relying on the
members of each particular collegial formation to bear this responsibility,
however implicitly. Each set of members is being relied on to contribute to
the social infrastructure that, in turn, supports the continued presence of all
other nonrational or "protected" spheres within a civil society, including all
other collegial formations. Second, and even more implicitly, the general
public also is relying on the members of each collegial formation to bear
this responsibility. The same social infrastructure is what ultimately supports any current or future effort to extend to the general public protection
against greater social control and susceptibility to social authoritarianism.
This social infrastructure is ultimately what underlies any effort, for instance, to extend even internal procedural restraints from arbitrary government to purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power by private
enterprises within a civil society (chapters 9-11 develop these two points).
If members of collegial formations either encroach against this form's
institutionalized orientation themselves, or else shirk their concomitant
responsibility to detect and sanction their own and others' encroachments,
then there are no subjective interests or normative motivations that they
can adopt, negotiate, or internalize that can insulate them from breakdowns of meaning, extensions of social control, and other manifestations of
systemic drift. Only their behavioral fidelity to this orientation and to this
responsibility can insulate them, even to some limited extent, from having
their own activities subjected more immediately to the competition of sub-
167
jective interests within economic and political marketplaces. This brings

into view a second proposition (following the one on page 165):
Collegial formations are distinctive in that their members share an
essentially voluntaristic procedural orientation and responsibility. Due
to this, their members' behavior is distinct from the behavior of actors
within any other organizational form.
8.3.2. Reducing qualities to quantitative measurements
Collegial formations and the contingency of qualities. Collegial formations
are social units within and through which professionals in particular, and
deliberators in general, describe and explain (and create and maintain)
qualitative phenomena in social life or in natural events. Examples of such
qualitative phenomena include (a) the "meaning" of a patient's physical or
mental symptoms; (b) the "meaning" of social actions, texts, or works of art;
and (c) the "meaning" of the "facts" in a court of law, a commission proceeding or, for that matter, a controlled experiment. Not being strictly reducible
to quantification, actors establish "meaning" in each instance, from case to
case and from social unit to social unit. Their shared "meaning" rests, in
turn, on particular descriptions of qualitative phenomena somehow securing their shared recognition and understanding, and then possible acceptance.17 Collegial formations institutionalize professionals' and deliberators'
ongoing efforts to establish and maintain a shared "meaning" of qualitative
phenomena, qua heterogeneous actors and competing groups.
When does the "meaning" of patients' symptoms or the "meaning" of the
results of controlled experiments, as examples, remain irreducibly qualitative? Descriptions of such phenomena may be supplemented and greatly
enhanced by any number of measurements, to be sure. But their "meaning" remains qualitative as long as their significance for clients (or other
interested parties) resists reduction to such measurements. At the moment
that reduction becomes a possibility, whether as a result of technological
developments or advances in knowledge, collegial formations no longer
remain central to professionals' and deliberators' everyday activities in the
substantive areas affected. This is what occurs, for instance, at the moment
that certain mental illnesses are discovered to be reducible to patients'
chemical imbalances. Diagnosis is then reducible to laboratory technicians'
measurements, and treatment is reducible to pharmacists' prescriptions all outside of the collegial form (see Abbott 1988: chapter 2 on diagnosis).
Implications of collegial formations9 loss of qualities. As the organizational
form distinctive to working deliberative bodies (as opposed to honorific
168
forums), collegial formations are never the most rational way to organize
heterogeneous actors and competing groups for efficient production, effective administration, democratic participation or, for that matter, personal
loyalty. Bureaucratic formations, democratic formations, and patron-client
networks are always superior organizational forms for such ends. Precisely
because this is the case, once the significance of qualitative phenomena is
reduced to measurements, the continued presence of collegial formations
becomes altogether unwarranted. These formations are by definition already voluntaristic or nonrational, and thereby incapable of being warranted
on strictly instrumental or strategic grounds. With the reduction of qualities
to measurements, they become patently nonreasoned as well: They can no
longer be warranted even on communicative grounds. Within the broader
social context of systemic pressures of drift, it becomes literally impossible
for heterogeneous actors and competing groups to resist adopting some
other, more strategic, form of organization, whether one more rational (in
the cases of bureaucratic and democratic formations) or one more personal
(in the case of patron-client relations).
The interrelationship between the collegial form and its members' independent and collective efforts to describe and explain qualitative phenomena carries two additional implications. On the one hand, at the moment
that their descriptions can be reduced to quantification - whether technically or else strategically in competition with other occupations (Abbott
1988) - professionals' vulnerability to deprofessionalization increases dramatically. This is the case precisely because their continued membership
within collegial formations is jeopardized. It is professionals' direct or
indirect membership within collegial formations, and not any of the substantive activities to which they become dedicated, nor any of their own
internalized beliefs or subjective interests as individuals, that ultimately
distinguishes their expert occupations as professions (Sciulli and Jenkins
1990). The same membership is also what ultimately distinguishes any
assembly as a working deliberative body rather than as an honorific
forum.18
On the other hand, members of aspiring "professions" or aspiring "deliberative bodies" who fail either to establish or to maintain the integrity of
the collegial form cannot succeed. Systemic pressures of rationalization,
including ongoing competition with other expert occupations, ceaselessly
pressure them to adopt organizational forms that offer their members more
immediate protection and security within economic and political marketplaces. This is precisely what the bureaucratic and patron-client forms in
particular offer to heterogeneous actors and competing groups under modern conditions. Through political lobbying or unionization, actors may for a
time secure a monopoly over the services that they are offering within and
169
through other organizational forms. This is what Abbott (1988) documents

so impressively. But he does so by refusing to distinguish professions from
"expert occupations." The problem is that successful monopolization or, in
Abbott's terminology, successful control over a jurisdiction, by no means
establishes that an expert occupation is either a profession or a deliberative
body (Abbott follows Larson 1977, Collins 1979, and other "monopolist"
theorists in thinking otherwise).
Qualities and the contingency of collegial formations. If professionals or
deliberators are indeed endeavoring to establish and maintain an intersubjective understanding of qualitative phenomena, rather than subordinating this endeavor, for example, to maintaining personal loyalties within
cliques or factions, then they have no alternative other than somehow to
institutionalize their own ongoing exchanges of information. After all, if
they are indeed presenting and discussing descriptions of qualities in social
life and natural events, then they must expose their exchanges institutionally to public or at least peer appraisal rather than leaving them to personal
or ad hoc exchanges. Whenever professionals or deliberators institutionalize such exchanges of information - whether in face-to-face proceedings, broader networks of exchanges, or publications and more formally
organized forums - the only form of organization available to them in this
endeavor is the collegial form. Still, this endeavor remains an intrinsically
voluntaristic project, irrespective of how firmly they may institutionalize
their exchanges within a particular network or organizational division at
any given point in time. Given systemic pressures of drift to the contrary, as
well as professionals' and deliberators' own increasing heterogeneity and
competitiveness, all of the networks and organizational divisions that they
establish for the purpose of institutionalizing such exchanges are uartificial."
Their presence within any modern nation-state is never "natural," favored
by the drift of modernity itself. Precisely because all voluntaristic organizations and institutions are indeed nonrational, their continued presence always strikes outsiders, those competing more immediately within economic
and political marketplaces, as "artificial" and "monopolistic," unnecessary
and unwarranted (Larson 1977 codifies this, and, ironically, Buchanan's
approach to monopoly offers her theoretical underpinnings, 1989: 5-11).
The very presence of collegial formations means that "protected arenas"
may be found within a modern civil society, arenas protected from what
would otherwise be a more unmediated, and robust, interest competition
within economic and political marketplaces. Only by great, sustained effort
are such social arenas ever kept protected from competition's "natural"
encroachments, and from two other sources of encroachment under modern conditions: On one side, these social arenas are exposed to outsiders'
170
publicly presented, ideological proposals to eliminate all instances of "social closure" as intrinsically unnecessary and unwarranted (Collins 1979:
197-204). These typically include calls for (a) opening these social arenas
internally to unmediated democratization and (b) opening them externally
to unmediated strategic competition within economic and political marketplaces. On the other side, these social arenas are also exposed to their own
members' personal cliques and factions.19 These involve private or personal exchanges that compel or induce members to subordinate the voluntaristic orientation and responsibility institutionalized by the collegial form
to the substantive goals of their own networks and to the patron-client
form's normative orientation of personal loyalty. Professionals and deliberators operating within such networks scrupulously veil their activities
from public and peer appraisal instead of announcing their activities publicly as a "school" of thought or a "tradition" of theory or practice (Crane
1972 collapses this distinction at times).
In short, heterogeneous actors and competing groups - including professionals and deliberators who have undergone the secondary socialization of
expert training - never somehow maintain the integrity of voluntaristic
networks and organizational divisions spontaneously or naturally. They
never do so by default, as if more rational and strategic alternatives were
not available to them every step of the way. Heterogeneous actors and
competing groups never establish and institutionalize deliberation merely
because (a) instrumental calculations cannot be applied at the moment to a
particular task, (b) bureaucratic chains of command and record keeping
cannot be applied to a particular task, or (c) personal networks of loyalty
cannot be applied to a particular task. Even the greatest inappropriateness
or inapplicability of all of these alternatives by no means improves the
likelihood that collegial formations actually will appear, if actors are not
already endeavoring to reach an intersubjective, public understanding of
irreducibly qualitative phenomena.
Quite to the contrary, systemic pressures of rationalization, including
actors' fragmentation of meaning, ceaselessly jeopardize the integrity of
deliberation. They jeopardize the successful institutionalization of collegial
formations as well as the continued presence of substantively voluntaristic
"protected spheres" (from day-care centers to museums, and from monasteries to wildlife reserves). Indeed, collegial formations' vulnerability to
encroachments never diminishes with modernity. There is not a single collegial formation anywhere in the world today whose continued presence and
integrity is immune from encroachments as interested parties both within
and around it mobilize resources in the effort to maximize economic efficiency, administrative effectiveness, "democratic" participation, or their
own personal loyalties.20
8.4. Preliminary proposals for orienting empirical research
171

8.4.1. Proposals for organizations research
John Meyer's "rationalized myths." By emphasizing the significance of
collegial formations' presence within sectors, industries, or organizations
of a civil society, greater specificity may be brought to John Meyer's impressive studies of how organization leaders respond to competition within
"institutionalized environments."21 The question that Meyer poses may be
put in the following way: Why do the leaders of corporations, labor unions,
schools, and other complex organizations often fail to maximize their organizations' efficiency in production or effectiveness in administration, even
as they endeavor to remain economically and politically competitive within
their sector or industry? Meyer's answer to this question is that some of the
norms institutionalized within their sector, as ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior, are "rationalized myths." They are "myths" regarding what qualifies as "rationalization" within their sector.
This is an unfortunate term because the institutionalized norms to which
Meyer is referring are neither rationalized nor myths, at least within nonauthoritarian social orders. He resorts to his oxymoron because of two
conceptual gaps in his work. First, he fails to differentiate voluntaristic
action from rational action. As a result of this, all norms other than the
narrow norm of rational action are labeled "myths," a term more consistent
with nonrational action proper than with voluntaristic action. Second, he
then fails to distinguish voluntaristic procedural restraints on drift from the
more immediately substantive or strategic restraints posed by organizations' ongoing economic and political competition within any industry or
sector. Given these conceptual gaps, Meyer coined his oxymoron because
he accurately observed the following two phenomena: First, the norms or
expectations institutionalized within many sectors and industries of modern
civil societies are by no means consistent with the narrow norm of rational
action. Second, these norms do not pose absolute obstacles to leaders
steadily rationalizing their organizations' production and administration,
but they do mediate how they accomplish this.
Meyer may refer to these norms as "rationalized myths," however, only
because he is assuming, implicitly or explicitly, that leaders'fidelityto these
institutionalized expectations compromises their organizations' efficiency
and effectiveness objectively. Only on the basis of an implicit or explicit
objective (or intersubjective) standard of efficiency and effectiveness, after
all, can Meyer suggest that norms are "myths," that they distort organization leaders' strategic decisions and actions.
Bracketing this issue for a moment, consider two other issues that
172
Meyer's oxymoron raises. First, why would organization leaders who are
attempting to gain advantages over their competitors ever conform to
such norms rather than take steps independently to rationalize their organization's production and administration? They do so, presumably, because these norms are indeed the ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior that are widely acknowledged within their industry or
sector. Second, even if this is the case, how are such "myths" institutionalized? According to Meyer, governmental funding, customer or supplier
loyalty, camaraderie within and across the subdivisions of each organization itself, and each organization's prestige and reputation within its industry, all hinge, in practice, on whether organization leaders appear to
conform to these expectations. Within the context of these ongoing interrelationships, organization leaders who endeavor to maximize the efficiency of production or the effectiveness of administration "objectively"
may simultaneously challenge the expectations of suppliers, clients, and
regulators. Thus, their efforts would be sanctioned formally or informally
as disorderly. The result would be that the organization's costs of operation would escalate, and its efficiency or effectiveness would not be improved at all.
Meyer's work cannot be faulted as it stands either for the accuracy of his
descriptions of organization leaders' behavior, or for the sophistication of
his methodology. It can be faulted, however, for its two conceptual gaps,
and thereby for its lack of analytical precision. This, in turn, distorts the
implications that he draws from his methodologically sound descriptions of
organizational behavior.22 These implications also have a vague or indefinite quality to them at times because every organization is embedded
within an "institutionalized environment" of one kind or another. And
nonrational norms of one kind or another are invariably to be found within
all of these environments. To point this out fails to assist researchers who
are interested in empirically specifying how particular organizations respond to particular "environments," or, conversely, how particular "environments" affect either the internal structure or the external performance
of particular organizations. The implications that Meyer draws are equally
applicable to the most controlling sectors of a civil society as to the most
integrative. Something is wrong with any framework of concepts, however,
that fails to assist researchers in drawing detailed distinctions between
sectors and between organizations within different industries.23
Five empirical issues for the organizations literature. Meyer leaves at least
two central questions unanswered: First, what qualifies any institutionalized norm as a myth in the first place? Second, why does Meyer also
contend that some of the same institutionalized norms are nonetheless
"rationalized" in some sense? Bringing the discussion of collegial forma-
8.4, Preliminary proposals for orienting empirical research
173
tions to Meyer's work, it can be seen that the distinctively voluntaristic

procedural norms that these formations institutionalize are nonrational, by
definition, and yet are also at least as generalizable as the narrow norm of
rational action. Social scientists can as readily recognize actors' fidelity to,
and encroachments against, the collegial form as actors' fidelity to, and
encroachments against, the narrow norm of rational action. Moreover,
because the presence of these formations means that actors' behavior remains consistent with the procedural threshold of interpretability as well as
with Habermas's proposed procedural grounding of reason, it is a distortion for social scientists to attribute this behavior to the impact of myths of
any kind. Quite to the contrary, instances of actors' behavioral fidelity to
the collegial form of organization qualify as possibly contributing to reasoned social action, even as this behavior remains nonrational.
By contrast to Meyer's analytically undifferentiated concept of "rationalized myths," therefore, the theory of societal constitutionalism approaches
the issue of organizational behavior within institutionalized environments
with a question capable of orienting detailed empirical studies: Are collegial formations to be found within the sector or industry of the organizations under study? This question can be answered with precision. In turn,
the answer opens up numerous specific issues for detailed, falsifiable, empirical studies, issues buried somewhere within Meyer's institutional approach. In particular, the theory of societal constitutionalism poses such
historical and cross-national issues as:
First, in which sectors of a modern civil society do organization leaders
(or others) typically institutionalize collegial formations first, at the
point of initial industrialization?
Second, what do the "alternative" environments look like, those in
which actors fail to institutionalize collegial formations even as industrialization matures?
Third, is the institutionalization of collegial formations ever stateinitiated, or does this invariably "percolate" up from civil society to
eventual state recognition (and possible cooptation)?24
Fourth, are there particular sectors of civil societies in the former
Eastern bloc, the Third World or, say, China, North Korea, or Cuba in
which actors have indeed institutionalized collegial formations, even
as most Western political institutions and economic practices continue
to be absent?
Fifth, and conversely, are there particular sectors of Western civil societies within which actors are increasingly permitting or encouraging
encroachments against the integrity of collegial formations, whether
purposefully or inadvertently?
174
Three presuppositions and an orienting hypothesis. Rather than resting on
the reductionist claim that when collegial formations institutionalize procedural voluntaristic restraints this somehow squelches or ameliorates interest competition, or occasional group conflicts, the theory of societal constitutionalism rests on quite different presuppositions:
First, the theory of societal constitutionalism presupposes that individual actors and particular groups within all networks and organizational
divisions act primarily on the basis of their immediate material interests, not on the basis of procedural mediations of any kind.
With this, the theory of societal constitutionalism is consistent with
rational-choice theory in sociology and public-choice theory in political
science, along with neocorporatism, pluralism, and liberalism, Yet, this
theory adds that wherever and whenever collegial formations are present
within a civil society, actors' and groups' self-interested behavior is indeed
being restrained normatively, in practice. With its second presupposition,
the theory of societal constitutionalism is rendered consistent with Hobbesian and Weberian approaches to social order:
Second, the theory of societal constitutionalism presupposes that heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' immediate material interests are always sufficiently diverse and competitive that they never lose
their capacity to foster disorder and outright social conflict.
Instead of downplaying the significance of the material and substantive
bases of group competition and social conflict, yet a third presupposition of
the theory of societal constitutionalism emphasizes it:
Third, the theory of societal constitutionalism presupposes that whenever heterogeneous actors and competing groups share subjective interests or immediate material interests outside of any mediation provided
by distinctively voluntaristic procedures, this is always the product of
their manipulation, control, and coercion.
Heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' sharing of subjective interests is never a "natural" product of their unmediated recognition and understanding of an "objective" situation that they purportedly share in common. It also cannot be treated as empirical evidence of their possible social
integration. This third presupposition distinguishes the theory of societal
constitutionalism from the theories and approaches noted above, as well as
from others, including: symbolic interactionism, network analysis,25 exchange theory, Giddens's structuration theory, and both Parsons's functionalism and Luhmann's systems theory. Given these three presuppositions, an orienting hypothesis follows:
175
Collegial formations must be present in an increasing number of

sectors of a civil society in order for (a) group competition and
mechanisms of social control to be restrained, (b) a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change to be sustained, and (c) heterogeneous
actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration to be
expanded.
With this orienting hypothesis, the theory of societal constitutionalism proposes that the presence of a particular organizational form is more fundamental to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change and to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration than the
presence of Western political institutions and economic practices in and of
themselves. It thereby fills the lacuna of integrative possibilities and opens
the way to revealing the prejudice, the normative relativism, of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
8.4.2. Proposals for comparative research
In which ways can this orienting hypothesis inform research in comparative
political sociology and comparative politics? How can it inform comparative research that is amenable both to falsification by critics and to operationalization by proponents?26
Comparative research beyond left and right. As one illustration, it is not selfevident that "left-wing" regimes (social democracies or increasingly egalitarian social orders) uniformly encroach against the threshold of interpretability in a particular way, or that "right-wing" regimes (liberal democracies or
increasingly inegalitarian social orders) uniformly encroach against it in a
particular way. Put more generally, the implications that comparativists routinely draw from the types of class structures and stratification systems that
theyfindwithin a particular nation-state may have to be altered or amended
once they consider the organizational forms that dominate particular sectors, industries, and organizations. By exploring which sets of the eight
procedural norms comprising the threshold are violated within particular
sectors and industries, a new typology can be expected to emerge that crosscuts or otherwise challenges more traditional, strictly materialist approaches
to comparative research.
For instance, students of social democracy currently offer "left" and
"right" interpretations of recent trends in Scandinavia: respectively, labormovement theory (exemplified by the works of Walter Korpi, Gosta
Esping-Anderson, and John Stephens) and the theory of neocorporatism
(developed by Philippe Schmitter and subsequent proponents). The prob-
176
lem, however, is that this way of approaching contemporary social democracies is less instructive than counterbalancing studies of their stratification
systems by exploring whether arbitrary exercises of collective power are
increasing or decreasing across their civil societies. Adam Przeworski
(1985) in essence demonstrates that the left-right dichotomy is misleading
from the outset, given Social Democratic parties' acceptance of more and
more practices of liberal-democracy. Social Democratic parties have long
ago abandoned a truly radical policy agenda. Even to approach their programs today in terms of any traditional left/right dichotomy is to inject a
language of class struggle into scholarly research that has long been anachronistic in practice.27
Because the standard of the presence or absence of the collegial form can
credibly claim grounding against relativism, and also can be brought with
precision to particular sectors, industries, and organizations, any new
typology of social orders that results will reflect the complexity and diversity of modern civil societies. As one example, comparativists have no
reason to assume a priori that power holders and social influential within
each nation-state of the former Eastern bloc (say Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania) violated the same norms of the procedural threshold
before 1989. Nor do they have any reason to assume a priori that they
violated the integrity of nascent collegial formations within and across the
same sectors of their civil societies.
Quite to the contrary, there may be particular professional enterprises
within particular sectors of the civil societies of each Eastern nation-state
that have long been organized in the collegial form.28 Some professional
enterprises, that is, may have long resisted the state's and the party's exercises of collective power. They may well have provided insurgent leaders
with a social base from which to challenge power holders. Or, their presence may have restrained power holders sufficiently that independent trade
unions or state agencies emerged that were not themselves organized in the
collegial form. What is clear is that these sites of resilient restraint were not
formally institutionalized anywhere in the East before 1979, just as they
have yet to be formally institutionalized anywhere in the West. This is why
they readily escape researchers' attention.
The theory of societal constitutionalism directs comparativists' attention
to the issue of the presence of collegial formations irrespective of whether
the latter are formally institutionalized or not. With this shift in focus,
studies of the relationship between nascent collegial bodies and broader
opposition groups within particular sectors of any Eastern or Western civil
society may result today in predictions of further changes in its political
institutions and economic practices. Given this same focus, studies of Japanese civil society, for instance, may escape the increasing speculation re-
111
garding whether it is more authoritarian than liberal-democratic (or vice

versa). Social scientists may get on with the business of empirically exploring changes within particular sectors and industries of Japanese civil society
over time. Relatedly, as Germany unifies and once again becomes a world
economic and political power, shifts in its direction of social change may be
monitored with far greater precision in this way than by concentrating on
its stratification system or on whether it continues to maintain relatively
free markets.
By exploring how Western and Eastern nation-states differ from each
other in these specific respects, each nation-state, and then each sector of its
civil society and each agency of its government, may be placed along a
spectrum of types of social order. This spectrum would range from the most
controlling and least integrative to the most integrative and least controlling:
(a) Strict authoritarian social control. This is marked by routine encroachments not only against the integrity of professionals' formations
and practices but also against internal restraints, whether procedural
or strategic.
(b) Efforts to introduce and then routinize the resilience of internal
substantive restraints on government. This includes the institutionalization of interest-group competition and the rise of spheres of social life
protected from immediate economic pressures (chapter 11).
(c) Efforts to introduce and then routinize the resilience of internal
procedural restraints on government. This includes the institutionalization of particular guarantees of due process at least, and then of the
threshold of interpretability on enterprises of law making and law
enforcing.
(d) Efforts to extend internal procedural restraints from government to
more and more sectors of civil society, and to more and more exercises
of collective power by state-owned or state-controlled organizations.
(e) The rise of distinctively collegial forms of organization at least
within selected divisions or particular organizations and agencies.
(f) Fully institutionalized and stabilized collegial formations within
some major organizations and institutions of civil society and some
agencies of government.
(g) A public policy of maintaining the integrity of the collegial
form within more and more sectors of civil society and agencies of
government - that is, the institutionalization of a public realm proper
(chapter 11).
Such a typology begins to reveal possibilities for nonliberal (or nonWestern) "democracy" in practice. Better put, it reveals possibilities for
178
expanding heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration, whether within Western or non-Western nation-states. It
exposes possibilities that comparativists have long obfuscated because of
(a) their presupposition that Western political institutions and economic
practices exhaust the possibilities for "democracy" under modern conditions (including Schmitter 1983), or (b) their preoccupation with whether
public policies within a nation-state maintain private property (including
Przeworski 1985) or else a substantive way of life (including Popenoe 1988
and Bloom 1987). Even though some Western democracies may have
moved furthest to date in spanning the above spectrum of types of social
order, the very real possibility remains open of a nation-state of the East
or Third World "leaping ahead" to the final point in the spectrum, by
maintaining the integrity of its collegial formations as a matter of public
policy.
The same typology also allows social scientists to specify points at which
manipulation, control, and latent coercion are increasing across sectors of
a civil society, whether within a Western or non-Western nation-state. It
allows them to specify this without concentrating exclusively on whether
state agencies resort at times to manifest coercion. Like any other substantive standard of comparison (note 27), state agencies' physical control of
rebels, demonstrators, or emigrants is not in and of itself an infallible
reflection of the extent of social control or the prospects for social integration to be found across a civil society. To take extreme examples, the
shootings at Kent State likely reflected as little about the prospects for
social integration across the sectors of American civil society in 1970 as do
the obstacles that state agencies within nation-states of the West, the East,
and the Third World currently place on professionals and other skilled
workers who wish to emigrate on demand.
By monitoring all exercises of collective power that encroach against the
integrity of collegial formations and its procedural threshold, social scientists
may study each sector, industry, and organization of a modern nation-state
in detail and in comparative perspective. They may describe and evaluate
the substantive accomplishments of each social unit, as well as the ideologies
with which actors symbolize these accomplishments. By employing a standard that allows social scientists to specify excesses or encroachments, social
scientists need neither accept nor reject out of hand any of the ideological
claims that organization leaders are offering to justify their actions. These
claims become data that researchers may take into account as they monitor
behavioral encroachments. Such data is the equivalent, at the macrosociological level, of "mitigating circumstances" or "subcultural mores" that social scientists take into account in microsociological studies of criminality or
deviance. In both instances, social scientists acknowledge that actors' beliefs
179
are part of the lived social fabric within which particular types of organizational behavior are to be understood and possibly explained.
Comparative research beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
A second illustration of how comparative research may be informed by the

theory of societal constitutionalism is that there is no reason for social
scientists to assume that Latin American nation-states that hold elections
are less controlling or less authoritarian than those that do not. There is no
reason for them to assume, for example, that Mexico has been less controlling than either Cuba since 1960 or Brazil since 1964. The theory of societal
constitutionalism permits social scientists to draw important distinctions
within existing models of "authoritarianism" (from Linz 1964) and "corporatism" (from Schmitter 1974), models that emerged largely from case
studies of Latin America and the Iberian peninsula.
The major conceptual contribution to date of the neocorporatism literature, for instance, has been two sets of ideal types developed by Philippe
Schmitter (see his works in the bibliography). Schmitter first distinguished
neocorporatism from pluralism (and, more vaguely, from syndicalism):
In pluralism (within the United States), interest groups compete independently for political influence.
In neocorporatism (within Western Europe, Scandinavia, and Latin
America), a single peak association dominates each sector of a civil
society, and other interest groups are unable to compete for influence
independently.
Schmitter then distinguished between what he calls "societal" and "state"
neocorporatism:
In societal neocorporatism (within Western Europe and Scandinavia),
peak associations and major labor unions were founded independently
of the state. As a result, they remain potential social bases of internal
substantive restraints on state policy-making bodies.
In state neocorporatism (within Latin America), peak associations and
major labor unions were founded by the state, whether directly or
indirectly. They remain mechanisms by which the state controls the
demands that emerge from civil society.
Schmitter fails to consider two significant issues, however. First, why is it
not possible in time for state-created peak associations to restrain arbitrary
exercises of collective power by state agencies (or by private corporations
within civil society)? Second, why is it not possible, conversely, for independently created interest groups or peak associations in time to provoke or
180
even initiate arbitrary exercises of collective power by state agencies or by

"private" corporations? These are empirical issues that Schmitter's distinction between state and societal neocorporatism obfuscates. Regardless of
whether any interest association is independent of the state, either at its
founding or later in its development, the theory of societal constitutionalism orients social scientists to address these issues in each particular
case.
SECTION III
Implications of the analytical distinctions and

conceptual foundations
9. Procedural institutionalization beyond

the Western democracies: three bases of
voluntaristic restraint
Is the integrity of corporate directorates' collegial form upheld by law in

any nation-state (Note 1982, Useem 1984)? Is the integrity of the collegial
form of corporate research divisions upheld by law in any nation-state
(Braithwaite 1982), or that of research facilities within public or private
universities (Parsons and Platt 1973)? Do professional associations uphold
by law the integrity of collegial formations at their members' various work
sites, whether within universities, corporations, hospitals, or other complex
organizations (Abbott 1988)? Do artistic, intellectual, or scholarly networks uphold by law the integrity of the collegial form framing their members' exchanges of information, including their anonymous refereeing and
independent reviewing of publications and prizes (Crane 1972)?
The integrity of collegial formations is not currently upheld by law in any
modern nation-state. As a result, not a single modern nation-state protects
and expands heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for
social integration as a matter of public policy. Yet, collegial formations are to
be found, both historically and today, within different sectors, industries,
and organizations of different civil societies. By no means are all of these
sectors located within civil societies of Western democracies exclusively. Yet,
in every instance to date, actors who have adopted the collegial form of
organization have done so on their own, independently of the support of
legal or formal sanctions. One result of this ad hoc activity, of course, is that
collegial formations are distributed quite unevenly across the civil societies
in which they are found at all. Another result is that everywhere their presence remains as contingent today as it has ever been historically.
What is intriguing to consider in comparative perspective is how different
this present state of affairs could be in most modern nation-states, given their
existing material conditions, forms of government, patterns of stratification,
and cultural traditions. It is well within the material means of a great many
modern nation-states, East and West, North and South, for their leaders
immediately to mandate an extension of collegial formations across their civil
societies as a matter ofpublic policy. This same policy proposal also happens
to be consistent with many of their national traditions and historical experiences. Thus, even though this public mandate is not in evidence, it is nonethe183
184
9. Three bases of voluntaristic restraint
less eminently practicable. Nothing about it is Utopian, idealistic, or

ideological - unlike many existing and proposed public policies, including:
President Bush's proposals to curtail the drug trade and never to raise taxes;
many of the details of President Gorbachev's policy of perestroika; President Reagan's commitment to balance the federal budget - to say nothing of
his proposed Strategic Defense Initiative; President Carter's wish to reverse
a perceived "malaise" in the American body politic; and, for that matter,
many of President Johnson's and then President Nixon's Great Society programs, including the "war on poverty."1
It is well within the material means, political power, historical experiences, and cultural traditions of many modern nation-states to support
their existing collegial formations immediately with legal sanctions and to
mandate the creation of others. And yet this public policy is not likely to be
adopted soon in any modern nation-state, Western democratic or other. It
is not on the policy agenda today because the Weberian Dilemma itself
goes largely unnoticed, as it does at any historical moment when drift
seems more benign than immediately threatening.
What go unnoticed today are two important points about institutions'
and organizations' ongoing responses to systemic pressures of rationalization: First, the reason why actors within a very select set of modern nationstates do not experience greater social control and arbitrariness today, and
thereby experience drift as more immediately threatening, is that collegial
formations are indeed present within some sectors of their civil societies.
Their presence can continue for a time today, as it did historically, even in
the absence of support from legal sanctions; but in this absence, the eventual collapse of existing collegial formations is as fated today as it was
historically (see pages 199-200). Second, the only practicable and prudent
way for the leaders (or insurgents) of any modern nation-state to respond
to systemic pressures in such a way as to sustain a nonauthoritarian direction of social change is for them to uphold existing collegial formations by
law, as a matter of public policy.
Why does it matter at all whether such a public policy is ever adopted
within any modern nation-state? Are heterogeneous actors and competing
groups within the United States or Great Britain, as examples, rendered
more vulnerable to increasing manipulation, control, and possible social
authoritarianism, if their policy makers fail to adopt such a public policy?
Can such actors and groups within the Soviet Union and China, or Brazil
and Mexico, as examples, become less controlled and manipulated, and
also reduce the likelihood of their leaders reverting to authoritarian excesses, if such a public policy is adopted? The answer to both questions is
positive.
If either answer seems startling or disturbing, then what needs to be
asked is whether the Weberian Dilemma remains salient in the late twenti-
185
eth century. Or, alternatively, have the Western democracies, as well as

other modern nation-states, somehow developed systemically in such a way
that they have safely escaped its implications once and for all?
When government agencies act instrumentally or strategically in response

to systemic pressures of social change, and social influential believe subjectively that these actions are literally unavoidable, this context of subjective
belief renders these actions seemingly self-justifying. Within this context,
these actions appear to social influential not merely to be rational. Because they seem unavoidable or "natural," they are elevated implicitly to a
broader, but conveniently unarticulated, standard of "reason." Social influentials believe that the warrant for these actions exceeds that provided by
the narrow norm of rational action (and Luhmann 1982,1986,1990 codifies
this by treating their warrant as systemic). These actions appear to be
determined (Luhmann) or principled (traditional liberalism), even as they
remain strictly strategic and narrowly self-interested. That this appearance
is a distortion is readily revealed in two ways.
First, since quantitative indices of efficient production, effective administration, and democratic participation may improve steadily as the quality of
actors' everyday lives deterioriates, it cannot be assumed a priori that
instrumental and strategic action exhausts reason as such. Consider, as
examples, when urban zoning policies remain rational even as inner-city
decay increases or when the actions taken by government agencies remain
rational even as their responsiveness to clients narrows and declines (to use
two of Habermas's examples, 1980).2 Second, governmental actions that
seem unavoidable, within the context of belief just noted, cast a quite
different appearance once they are placed outside this context. They then
appear to be particular responses to pork-barrel politics (in the United
States), partisan politics (in parliamentary democracies), drives for personal gain or career advancement (in all Western democracies and elsewhere), or utter confusion in the face of the complexities of drift. The latter
was the case, for instance, during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s, and
then during the recession that followed (Laumann and Knoke 1987: 69-72,
160, 166, 183-5, 283-4, 298-9).3 Jill Quadagno (1990) has found, in turn,
that a remarkably narrow coalition of interests defeated President Nixon's
proposed family assistance plan in the early 1970s.
Within the context of belief noted above, social influential' preeminent
concern is whether particular governmental actions happen to stimulate
unusual levels of group opposition, either from other agencies of government (including legislatures or courts) or from interests in civil society
(Laumann and Knoke 1987: chapter 14). Within the same context, social
186
influential assume that all interests in civil society, including all interests
stimulated to opposition, are subjective and thereby intrinsically particular
rather than possibly principled or reasoned (see Lowi 1969 on American
pluralism). Indeed, beyond the wax and wane of levels of group opposition, social influential operating within this context of belief are inclined
to assume from the outset that any resilient normative restraints placed on
government's instrumental or strategic actions invariably fuel prejudices of
one kind or another.4 They assume, in short, that the leaders of any "reasonable" group or movement would never endeavor to resiliency restrain
government's instrumental or strategic responses to systemic pressures.
And there is a point to this skeptical view of normative restraints. What
is unambiguously principled or reasoned about contemporary tax policies,
or policies of affirmative action - or opposition to them? What is unambiguously principled or reasoned about (proposed) policies of prayer in public
schools, or, for that matter, the protection of academic freedom within
universities - or opposition to them? What is unambiguously principled or
reasoned about extending first amendment freedoms of speech from the
"natural person" to the "corporate person"5 - or opposition to this? What
is unambiguously principled or reasoned about Brazilian labor policy or
monetary policy, or about many of the details of President Gorbachev's
domestic policies - or opposition to them?6 Putting these issues more generally: Does the Weberian Dilemma loom still in the background in the late
twentieth century, or have the United States, Japan, and the Continent
safely escaped it once and for all, unawares and unannounced?
The context of belief discussed above is itself not attached to any principle or standard. As such, it cannot inform social influential (or anyone
else) regarding what the contemporary direction of social change is. Rather
than addressing the Weberian Dilemma either directly or indirectly, this
context of belief instead simultaneously (a) disenchants officials' actions
and (b) elevates these same actions above significant criticism. In this way
it is a reflection of the Weberian Dilemma itself, not a manifestation of any
successful escape from it.
On the one hand, this context of belief disenchants officials' actions by
reducing them to indices of efficiency, effectiveness, or popular acceptance.
It thereby detaches these actions from any possible source of principled
justification, including, of course, any "sacred" or strictly nonrational mandate. Is there a single student of contemporary politics who believes that the
president, Congress, or the courts and federal agencies are doing God's
work, or toiling in the public interest? Yet, on the other hand, this same
context of belief simultaneously elevates these same domestic policies
above radical or sustained criticism. Social influential acknowledge that
government's actions are detached from any generalizable standard of reason against which these actions might possibly be criticized radically or
9.2. Three bases ofvoluntaristic restraint
187
fundamentally. They thereby reduce officials' actions to the self-justify ing

products of whatever coalitions of interests happen to prevail within any
policy domain at any particular point in time (Laumann and Knoke 1987
revolve around this belief by influentials and power holders).7
Still, this whole matter of the relationship between reasoned restraint
and instrumental rationality, between qualities in social life and quantifiable outcomes, may be sharpened. It may be converted into discrete,
researchable issues rather than left to speculation.
It has been noted at several points in this volume that the presence of
collegial formations within any sector, industry, or organization contributes
to a literal social infrastructure of nonauthoritarian social order and possible social integration. Actually, the presence of these formations provides
up to three related social bases on which even competing groups and heterogeneous actors (or social scientists) may recognize when government's actions are first purposefully and then inadvertently arbitrary. They may
recognize this even when these actions remain rational in every respect,
and thereby seemingly "natural" and unavoidable.
First, collegial formations provide a social basis on which heterogeneous actors may at least recognize the broad direction of social change,
despite the particularity of their own subjective interests and normative beliefs.
Second, collegial formations provide a social basis on which heterogeneous actors and competing groups may resuscitate the integrity of
internal procedural restraints on government by extending these restraints at least to purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power
by private enterprises within civil society.
Third, collegial formations institutionalize external procedural restraints on inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power, whether
by government or private enterprises.
Each of these social bases is discussed in turn.
9.2.1. The problem of recognizing drift and direction
With John Willard Hurst, the University of Wisconsin legal historian, Talcott Parsons (1962) believed that behind the American government's instrumental and strategic actions there "lies a system of order which, while not
centrally directed, is in fact directional in its main influence on society."
Indeed, Hurst characterized this "system of order" in the United States in
188
terms that Parsons at times adopted: the relationship between the "drift" of
self-interested competition and the "direction" of normative mediation.
Hurst also characterized it as the relationship between the substance and
the form of American politics. The substantive drift of American politics is
fueled by what he called the "bastard pragmatism" of interest-group pluralism. The form or normative mediation of American politics is provided by
the "directionality" that Hurst saw law bringing to bastard pragmatism. In
the terminology of the theory of societal constitutionalism, "directionality"
can only refer to a procedural voluntaristic orientation that enables heterogeneous actors and competing groups, first, to recognize social control and
arbitrariness in common, and, with this, to bring some direction to the drift
of interest competition.
Parsons's (1962: 561) most significant criticism of Hurst was a telling one,
however: Hurst failed to see that (a) what heterogeneous actors and competing groups recognize to be "drift," in practice, and (b) what they recognize to be a more directional pattern of social change, in practice, must
itself be mediated by norms. And this normative mediation, in turn, must
itself be insulated from the bastard pragmatism of interest-group politics. If
it is not, then any recognition of drift or direction would be a product of
bastard pragmatism itself, and thereby incapable of supporting the "system
of order" to which Hurst referred.
Hurst, in his understandable anxiety to be realistic, has himself fallen a victim to the
tendency to bastard pragmatism. By assimilating the categories of legal and political
so closely together as he has, he has tended unnecessarily to give away an important
part of his case, which I take to be that the relative directionality of American
history (including the containment of, if not immunity to bastard pragmatism) is
primarily explained by the institutionalization of a distinctive normative framework
which is the core of what he calls the legal element. It is indeed precisely the
containment of shorter-run interests by this normative framework, and the stimulus
to redefine them in longer-run terms which is the feature of development serving as
the focus of his discussion. (Parsons 1962: 564, my parenthesis)
Clearly, a shared recognition of which governmental policies contribute

to drift and which ones contribute to "directionality" is not something that
heterogeneous actors and competing groups develop intuitively. It is also
not something that they negotiate "naturally," outside of economic and
political marketplaces. For this very reason, Parsons's reference to a "distinctive normative framework" that, he believed, already supports such a
shared recognition within the United States is vague in the extreme. Here
and in his later works Parsons failed to specify any social basis on which
social scientists - let alone actors and groups - might possibly recognize
directionality within the United States, to say nothing of doing so in comparative perspective.
In fact, because Parsons's references to "directionality" from 1962 to the
189
end of his career are so vague, they perpetuated a longstanding, and unfortunately ultimately correct, impression of his work overall: His accounts of
social order hypostatize the "success" of socialization and of actors' internalization of shared subjective interests and normative beliefs. In the 1930s,
Parsons labeled these internalized interests and beliefs "voluntaristic" (in
some vague sense). Throughout the remainder of his career, he labeled
them "integrative" and "directing."8 Yet, if the same shared interests and
beliefs were externally sanctioned rather than successfully internalized,
Parsons's concepts left him with no alternative other than to label them
deterministic and controlling.
To hinge the social control/social integration distinction on whether
shared interests and beliefs are internalized or not fails, of course, to move
beyond Hurst's vague notion of "directionality." Both theorists' concepts
turn out, therefore, to be relativist and uncritical, and incapable of informing detailed comparative studies. By contrast, the increasing presence of
collegial formations within a civil society provides a social basis on which
direction may be distinguished from drift. The absence of these formations
is clear evidence that drift is unmediated by direction.
9.2.2. Internal procedural restraints and purposeful arbitrariness
Constitutional theorists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century had a

point: The division of powers and other internal restraints on arbitrary
government are central to limited government. It bears repeating (from
chapter 4) that these restraints are the core of governmental constitutionalism, not popular elections, competing mass political parties, interestgroup lobbying, nor, for that matter, broad first amendment freedoms of
property, speech, assembly, and religious worship.9 However, none of the
nation-states today whose governments are limited in this sense have yet
extended internal procedural restraints to purposefully arbitrary exercises
of collective power by private enterprises within their civil societies (Braithwaite 1982; Stewart 1983, 1987).
This next step is by no means systemically "overdetermined," whether
within Western democracies or elsewhere. Yet, both William Evan and
Philip Selznick come very near to treating it as if it is. Evan (1976) does not
hold that an extending of internal procedural restraints in this sense is
overdetermined, but he does insist that an extending of actors' citizenship
status or "natural rights" is overdetermined. He sees the latter being extended to actors' sites of employment within both public and private organizations, but he fails to provide any rationale for why he assumes this. After
all, corporations are not typically treated as if they are legislatures dedicated to ensuring their employees' (or stockholders') increasingly equal
representation within their decision-making bodies. Philip Selznick (1969)
190
also does not contend that the extension Evan has in mind is overdetermined, but he does see it as an increasingly likely possibility. He also fails
to provide a rationale for why he assumes this, or how it escapes confusing
corporations with legislatures. In the decade and more that has passed
since their publications, there has been no discernible movement in this
direction within the United States. More importantly, even if there were an
extending of actors' "natural rights" into civil society, this would by no
means be equivalent to extending internal procedural restraints (see note
30).10
The second social basis provided by the presence of collegial formations
differs, therefore, from Evan's and Selznick's vision of extending actors'
citizenship status or "natural rights" to actors' sites of employment. Along
with the division of powers, internal procedural restraints on purposeful
arbitrariness are the single most significant contribution of governmental
constitutionalism in general, and of Anglo-American legal theory and practice in particular (Haar and Fessler 1986). To restate this contribution as an
analytical concept, however, not only begins to elevate it conceptually
above the particularity of its historical origins (chapter 10) but also above
the tendency today to equate it with actors' "natural rights" (see chapter 4,
note 2). Indeed, by taking this step and two others, the quite particular
historical contribution of the threshold of interpretability is elevated to a
generalizable standard, one suitable for the comparative study of drift and
direction:
The first step, just noted, is to restate this contribution as internal
procedural restraints on purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective
power, irrespective of whether these exercises are undertaken by governmental agencies or private enterprises.
Any analytical concept properly defined is generalizable because it isolates aspects distinctive to types of social action, whether historical or
contemporary. Moreover, these aspects may appear, in practice, in various
combinations, and many of these combinations are likely to cut across the
types in which they originally appeared historically. Thus, the appearance of
these aspects is by no means somehow tied intrinsically to their sites of
historical origin - even as their appearance may remain tied broadly to
time (that is, to modern conditions as such). As one example, the most
irreducible aspects of interest competition may be found within many
nation-states, including those that fail to exhibit any of the characteristics
of either American pluralism or European neocorporatism.
Similarly, the concept of internal procedural restraints is "freed" from its
sites of historical origin in Anglo-American experiences and the commonlaw tradition once it is defined analytically (chapter 10). Irrespective of the
admittedly particular historical origins of modern limited government, evi-
191
dence of internal procedural restraints may well be found within a great

many networks, organizations, and institutions of modern civil societies in
comparative perspective. Put differently, these aspects of restraint may
well disappear, in practice, within particular Western democracies, and
they may well appear, in practice, within particular nation-states outside
the West.
The second step is to use this analytical concept to sharpen the distinction between drift and directionality. By being defined analytically, a
distinction may be drawn, for instance, between (a) internal procedural restraints on government and (b) internal procedural restraints
on private enterprises.
This distinction advances beyond constitutional and liberal traditions,11
including Evan's and Selznick's and others' emphases today on extending
actors' "natural rights." Yet, it fails to address the Weberian Dilemma
directly. The third step finally accomplishes the latter, and it is the proposed contribution of the theory of societal constitutionalism.
The third step is to monitor the institutionalization of collegial formations within and across a civil society, rather than following rationalchoice theorists and pluralists in monitoring the robustness of economic
and political marketplaces, and rather than following Evan, Selznick,
and others in monitoring the extension of natural persons' (or corporate
persons') "natural rights" into these marketplaces.12
The institutionalization of economic and political marketplaces is a significant achievement, both historically and today. The former is today often
labeled "liberalization" and the latter "democratization." Whenever actors'
individual and collective ends can be quantified, these marketplaces effectively institutionalize the mobilization of instrumental and strategic means
to attain them (Williamson 1985). But, in themselves, liberalization and
democratization fail even to maintain, let alone to extend, any voluntaristic
procedural restraints on arbitrary exercises of collective power, whether by
government or private enterprises. Indeed, political marketplaces extend
Homo economicus}s self-interested competition for capital and possessions
to the bastard pragmatism of group competition for power and influence
within legislative and administrative bodies. Thus, "democratization" at
best institutionalizes internal substantive restraints on government, and this
alone extends drift at the expense of (traditional) directionality.
First step: analytical restatement of Anglo-American tradition. What is the
significance of the first step, restating the historical contribution of Western

constitutional theory and Anglo-American practice analytically, as internal
procedural restraints? This step "frees" this contribution from the particular-
192
ity of its historical origins in two respects, and thereby renders it generalizable and amenable to comparative study: First, by defining this contribution
analytically, specific qualities of restraint are isolated that are significant for
the comparative study of purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective
power. Second, by emphasizing that these qualities happen to be procedural
mediations rather than directly substantive, this further "frees" this contribution from reduction to the particularity of any national experience or lived
social fabric. The latter revolvesfirstand foremost around substantive qualities of life, and not strictly procedural qualities. A British or American "way
of life," for instance, is not reducible to procedural qualities of any kind, nor
is a Soviet, Chinese, Iranian, or Brazilian "way of life."
The purpose of the next chapter is to elaborate why this is the case: Why
are particular procedural restraints on arbitrary exercises of collective
power more "available" for transfer across modern nation-states today
than substantive restraints of any kind? The purpose of the present discussion, however, is to explore this from the side of non-Western nation-states
to which such procedural restraints are transferred today. That is, even if
these restraints are somehow "available" for transfer, why do power holders and social influential outside of the Western democracies ever consider
introducing them into their nation-states? Why do they consider this even
when their nation-state's historical experiences, current economic and political marketplaces, and cultural and national traditions differ markedly
from those of any existing or historical Western democracy?13
As power holders and social influential in the East and Third World
become more heterogeneous themselves, and as their civil societies become more functionally differentiated, they face the same problems that all
other sets of heterogeneous actors and competing groups face: They too
endeavor to establish and maintain a shared recognition of which purposeful exercises of collective power are arbitrary and which are innovative.
They too must discern which exercises of collective power are threatening
and which are initially controversial but by no means controlling. If they
fail to establish such a shared recognition, then their own subjective
interests - and, for that matter, their own persons - are increasingly exposed to jeopardy by the state's actions. In addition, they too are increasingly exposed to jeopardy by the actions taken by powerful social movements, organizations, and institutions within civil society.
As power holders and social influential become more heterogeneous
themselves, and as the social units that they own, control, or influence
become more functionally differentiated, their earlier reliance on patronclient networks and informal understandings no longer suffices to protect
their interests and persons (see Luhmann 1982: 140-1 on the transition
from expectations "mediated by personal identities" to a "loss of security"). These networks of personal loyalties once were extended sufficiently
193
to encompass literally all power holders and social influential. But, as a

result of the changes just noted, they no longer comprise one social fabric
of substantive restraints. They no longer provide all power holders and
social influential with a reliable trip-wire. They no longer signal to all
power holders and social influential in common when purposeful exercises
of collective power are controlling and arbitrary.14 In short, power holders
and social influential outside the West are steadily losing the social infrastructure that had once permitted them to recognize in common what direction is,
and what drift is. For the reasons discussed in chapter 4, the internal substantive restraints provided by robust group competition (or by robust
competition between patron-client networks) are incapable of providing
such a social infrastructure in and of themselves.
Illustration: regime changes in Latin America. Looking at Latin America
first in general terms, Charles Anderson, a University of Wisconsin political scientist, concedes in a 1982 updating of his 1964 "general theory of
Latin American politics" that personal networks no longer provide resilient
substantive restraints on exercises of collective power. He fears that violence by state officials as well as by "power contenders" within civil society
can be expected to escalate as Latin American elites' once shared meanings
fragment, and their negotiated settlements periodically break down. For
Anderson, the great variety of power contenders in Latin American countries in this century, and their ceaseless struggles for material resources,
political power, and social influence, best explains why many of these
countries have alternated between civilian and military rule.
Consider, on the one hand, that only certain power contenders within any
civil society in Latin America are particularly adept at mobilizing mass
electoral support. On the other hand, many other power contenders are
adept at mobilizing investments, military power, general strikes, or, for that
matter, street demonstrations, public disruptions, and threats of vandalism
or property damage. None of these latter power contenders accepts that any
single "power resource" is the most legitimate power resource of all, including that of mobilizing mass electoral support. Each power contender instead
operates on the assumption that the power resource it monopolizes is at least
as legitimate as the power resource of electoral mobilization.
Thus, a great many power holders and social influential within Latin
America have never believed at any time in this century that the results of
elections are legitimate or decisive a priori. They have never believed that
electoral results alone legitimately determine: (a) who is to hold public
office; (b) how material resources and political power are to be distributed,
whether by government or private enterprises in civil society; or, ultimately, (c) what the form of government itself is to be. They have never
believed that the single set of power contenders that happens to control the
194
single power resource of mobilizing voters somehow has an unchallenged

right to determine what the form of government is to be. Why, they wonder, should the very form of government itself guarantee that elections are
held in the first place, let alone that all other power contenders are to defer
to their results as legitimate or decisive?
For many power contenders and social influentials in Latin America,
therefore, and particularly those in Brazil and Argentina, as prominent
examples, periodic turns to military rule counterbalance those turns taken
earlier that favored the power resources wielded by other sets of power
contenders - nothing more. This is why regime changes are more the
norm than the exception for many Latin American countries. Rather than
being an unambiguous sign of "political decay," regime changes are rather
manifestations of the robustness of power contenders' competition for
power, resources, and influence. Instead of following North Americans in
competing over government policies alone, social influentials and power
contenders within Brazil and Argentina compete over the very form of
government itself. If anything, they wonder why North American elites in
particular and Western elites in general are so naive as to ignore that any
form of government benefits only a fraction of the entire set of social
influentials and power contenders within a civil society. In addition, there
is precious little empirical evidence to support a proposition that appeals
intuitively to Westerners: That stable civilian rule, as opposed to military
rule or, for that matter, periodic regime changes, invariably fosters higher
rates of economic growth (see Friedland and Sanders 1985 on the West
alone) or more egalitarian distributions of resources (Bollen and Jackman
1985).
Illustration: a closer look at Brazil. Looking more specifically at Brazil,
Peter McDonough (1981) discusses Brazilian elites' alliances and coalitions, and he notes that their dedication to their own patron-client networks squeezes out consideration of broader norms, including Western
"rules of the game" (Higley and Burton 1989; O'Donnell, Schmitter, and
Whitehead 1986 more generally on elites during transitions to civilian rule).
Luciano Martins (1986) demonstrates indirectly, in turn, how broader normative restraints of some kind are needed today in order for "liberalization" to secure a foothold in Brazil in the face of competing influentials'
immediate calculations of strategic advantages. Put differently, Brazilian
influentials are finding that they must respond in some way as systemic
pressures of drift affect them. Yet, they are not likely to abandon their own
patron-client networks at local, regional, and national levels. Nor are they
likely to abandon the corporatist structures dating from Getulio Vargas's
rule in the 1930s, structures that include state-dominated peak associations
that have for so long blurred the public/private distinction in Brazil. This
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means, in turn, that it is highly unlikely that Brazilian elites can firmly
institutionalize (a) a truly professional civil service, (b) truly pluralist group
competition, or, for that matter, (c) truly competitive political parties independent of these personal networks and state-dominated structures.
Given that Brazil's massive state apparatus dates to the 1930s, and given
that power holders' and social influentials' patron-client networks antedate
this, it is unlikely that Brazilian elites will institutionalize a resilient division
of powers within the government itself. They are just as unlikely to institutionalize truly effective governmental regulation of powerful enterprises
within civil society. The blurring of the public/private distinction has gone
so far in Brazil that these policy options are impractical. Although commonplace in (early) Western democracies, these policy options are decidedly
idealistic and Utopian when considered in the context of Brazil's existing
social infrastructure. And yet, Brazilian power holders and social influentials (or insurgents) can find some way to restrain their own fragmentation
of meaning, and their own competition across patron-client networks. They
can find a way of doing this, moreover, that takes into account their embeddedness within the permanent government of corporatist peak associations
and the permanent social infrastructure of patron-client networks. They
can establish social bases of some kind that permit them to recognize direction and drift - even as they themselves continue to compete in their own
subjective interests across a permanently blurred public/private distinction.
To this end, institutions and norms of internal procedural restraint are
available to them for their own self-interested, strategic purposes. Brazilian
power holders and social influentials may introduce internal procedural
restraints on purposely arbitrary exercises of collective power by government, or else by "private" enterprises within civil society (including peak
associations), as social duties that, at first, they share (and sanction) only
among themselves. They may institutionalize these restraints in order to
protect themselves, as they continue to compete across their patron-client
networks. They may fail to extend these restraints to protect others, either
from governmental control and arbitrariness or from corporate control and
arbitrariness across Brazil's civil society.15
Any move by Brazilian power holders and social influentials to institutionalize internal procedural restraints on purposeful arbitrariness, even if
only to protect themselves, would be a voluntaristic undertaking consistent
with the theory of societal constitutionalism. Although admittedly a small
step in itself, the public/private distinction in Brazil is so blurred that social
scientists seeking unambiguous evidence of a shift to a market economy
(liberalization) or a liberal state (democratization) in any sense familiar to
Westerners are unlikely to find it.16 The theory of societal constitutionalism
may assist social scientists studying Latin America's largest economic and
political system precisely because it is not a theory of Western democratiza-
196
tion or liberalization. It is also not a theory of egalitarianism, nor, certainly, a

theory of elite magnanimity. It is rather a theory that addresses when interest
competition is being restrained in any way that remains consistent with a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change, and with heterogeneous actors'
and competing groups' possible social integration. The first steps taken in
this direction may well be small, but they are significant nonetheless.
Second step: internal procedural restraints as voluntaristic action. Internal
procedural restraints on purposeful arbitrariness are generalizable qualities
in social life. Yet, they are procedural mediations rather than more directly
substantive. The discussion of Fuller's legal theory demonstrated that these
analytically distinct qualities are irreducible to any nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions. Yet, their irreducibility and
generalizability in principle does not explain why they are found in practice
within modern nation-states. Nor does it rule out the possibility that actors
may place these restraints first on "private" enterprises within selected sectors or industries of a civil society rather than on government.
The significance of the second step for comparative research is to emphasize that systemic pressures of social change do not improve the likelihood
that power holders and social influentials (or insurgents) will in fact extend
internal procedural restraints either (a) from government to civil society or
(b) from civil society to government. Systemic pressures do not improve
the likelihood of the first extension within Western democracies, nor would
they improve the likelihood of the second extension within Brazil or any
other nation-state that happened to institutionalize these restraints first in
civil society. The significance of this second step may be elaborated in three
ways:
First, even the continued presence of internal procedural restraints
on government is an intrinsically contingent or voluntaristic project.
It, too, is never systemically overdetermined - even within Western
democracies.
Second, yet internal procedural restraints are indeed to be found within
a great many modern nation-states, Western and non-Western alike.
This is the case not because these restraints are generalizable qualities,
in principle, but because they remain attractive to actors by default, in
practice: Whenever power holders and social influentials (or insurgents) wish to institutionalize resilient normative restraints on purposeful arbitrariness, more practicable alternatives are not available to them
as their own subjective interests become more heterogeneous and their
sites of employment become more functionally differentiated.
Third, collegial formations proper revolve around qualities that are
generalizable in principle. But the presence of collegial formations,
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unlike the presence of internal procedural restraints alone, never attracts the attention of heterogeneous actors and competing groups by
default of practicable alternatives. Quite to the contrary, these formations suffered a rather sudden decline within Western civil societies
during the mid-nineteenth century, even as internal procedural restraints on arbitrary government remained in place (at least within
Great Britain and the United States, not within France or Germany).
Systemic pressures today have by no means reduced the possibility of
another collapse of collegial formations within Western civil societies.
The contingency of internal procedural restraints on government. The
likelihood that heterogeneous actors and competing groups will institutionalize internal procedural restraints on arbitrary government has not
improved over the years. The systemic pressures that clearly improved the
likelihood of actors institutionalizing first economic markets and then
political markets, for instance, did not simultaneously improve the likelihood of this.17 This may be said with the same certainty in reference to
seventeenth-century England, as in reference to (a) the American colonies of the late eighteenth century, (b) France, Italy, Germany, and then
Scandinavia in the early twentieth century, and (c) the Iberian Peninsula
and Latin America in the late twentieth century. Heterogeneous actors'
and competing groups' institutionalization of the threshold of interpretability on positive laws has always been, and remains today, a strictly
voluntaristic project rather than becoming either more rational or more
habitual.
Indeed, it must be kept in mind that Western governments today encroach against this threshold quite often. Their encroachments largely are
ignored by social scientists because the latter emphasize the significance of
pluralist politics or peak associations' "intermediation," and downplay the
significance of all normative restraints (chapter 4).18 Yet, current encroachments may well extend and intensify rapidly under conditions of economic
crisis. Systemic pressures in the late twentieth century do not somehow
reduce the likelihood of this happening. Quite to the contrary, the continued integrity of threshold restraints on government is, if anything, increasingly jeopardized by the drift of social change - unless collegial formations
are firmly institutionalized within a civil society to counterbalance this drift
with direction.
What is intriguing to consider is that social scientists may wellfindempirical evidence of increasing failures to institutionalize internal procedural
restraints on government even as they find empirical evidence of two other
developments instead. On the one hand, social influential within an Eastern or Third World nation-state might fail immediately to institutionalize
internal procedural restraints on government and yet institutionalize these
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9. Three bases ofvoluntaristic restraint
same voluntaristic restraints on (or within) selected sectors, industries, and

organizations of their civil society. As examples, they may institutionalize
the integrity of the research divisions of private or state-run corporations
within a particular industry. Or else they may institutionalize the integrity
of university departments or, for that matter, artistic networks or deliberative bodies controlling prestigious exhibitions or publications.19 Only at a
much later date, if ever, may these or other social influential successfully
pressure policymakers to institutionalize the same voluntaristic restraints
on agencies of government themselves. As examples, they may move internal procedural restraints to bureaus of the secret police, to particular offices of regulatory agencies, to caucuses of a ruling political party, or to the
decision-making bodies of neocorporatist peak associations.20
On the other hand, encroachments by policymakers and specialized enforcers against internal procedural restraints on government may very well
increase in frequency within a Western democracy. This may happen as
either one of the following developments is taking place simultaneously:
First, social influential within the same nation-state may be endeavoring
to extend these voluntaristic restraints to selected sectors, industries, or
organizations of their civil society. Second, open elections, competing political parties, and broad first amendment freedoms might continue to be
upheld rather than being suspended or restricted.
Where social influential (or insurgents) first institutionalize internal procedural restraints within a modern nation-state - and, later, where power
holders (or insurgents) first encroach against them - is very much an empirical issue. Comparativists have yet to explore methodically the rise and
fall of internal procedural restraints, and yet this empirical issue begins to
reveal whether direction or drift characterizes social change. At the very
least, the methodical study of these shifts is as worthy a sociological undertaking in itself as the methodical study of organizations, social movements,
patterns of stratification within economic and political marketplaces, welfare policies, "social closure," deviance, or, certainly, revolutions.
In short, the voluntaristic restraints on arbitrary government that are the
hallmark of constitutional theory and practice may well be found outside
the West. But they may be found in civil society, rather than where comparativists have been looking for them, oriented by the presupposition of
exhausted possibilities. Similarly, many non-Western nation-states' preand postwar institutions and practices not only lack but fundamentally
resist many of the substantive norms and social practices that comparativists associate with the social infrastructure of Western democratization and
liberalization. As examples, social influentials within these nation-states
may never assume a priori that: (a) individual actors ultimately possess
"natural rights," whether first amendment freedoms in general or the right
to own industrial capital in particular,21 or that (b) policymakers (or social
199
influential themselves) ultimately are accountable to some distinct branch

of government (or, certainly, to some "natural law" overarching a nationstate's positive laws).22 Yet, these same influential might well institutionalize internal procedural restraints within selected sectors of their civil
societies regardless. Why they would do so has already been discussed in
reference to Brazil, and this point may be restated in more general terms
now.
The proliferation of internal procedural restraints by default. A more
optimistic way of addressing the intrinsic voluntarism or contingency of
extending internal procedural restraints from government to civil society
comes into view with the Brazilian illustration. Common-law countries
need neither promote nor impose their particular institutions and practices
on the social influential and policymakers of other nation-states. This is
unnecessary precisely because there are no alternative, substantive norms
of internal restraint, nor strategic restraints of any kind, available to social
influential and policymakers who wish to restrain purposeful arbitrariness
in their own subjective interests.
Put differently, there are no internal substantive and strategic restraints
on purposeful exercises of collective power that can be recognized in common by heterogeneous and competing social influentials as they are experiencing a breakdown in meaning and other manifestations of drift. There
are no alternative internal restraints available to them which provide a
social base on which they might recognize when purposeful exercises of
collective power are becoming arbitrary. Even more clearly, substantive
and strategic restraints fail to provide them with as secure a social base on
which they might recognize when specific exercises of collective power are
maintaining or extending their own possibilities for social integration.
Historical decline of collegia! formations. As emphasized in chapter 8,
actors exhibit fidelity to the threshold of interpretability of shared social
duties whenever they maintain the integrity of the collegial form. But,
again, the collegial form is never the most effective, efficient, democratic,
or personal way of organizing heterogeneous actors and competing groups.
Being voluntaristic, and thereby not rational, it fails to maximize efficient
production, effective administration, or democratic participation. Being
procedural, it is impersonal.23
Across the West in the mid-nineteenth century, including the United
States and Great Britain, social influentials subordinated their fidelity to
these threshold restraints and to this organizational form as they pursued
both substantive and quantifiable ends more immediately. They abandoned
existing collegial formations in civil society in favor of alternative organizational forms that were either more rational or more personal. Put more
200
precisely, they abandoned the deliberative bodies of the "bourgeois public"

that had emerged in the early eighteenth century as liberalization and
democratization were being extended. Thus, this was a period marked by a
significant historical shift from direction to drift under systemic pressures
of change (but see note 24). Consider the following approaches to this
period of decline:
(a) Weber codified this period in the very way that he approached
what he called "collegiate bodies" in Economy and Society, a work
written in the second decade of the twentieth century (1914-20: 27182,994-98,1089-90). He treated these bodies as decidedly anachronistic holdovers from a premodern era. His working assumption throughout was that these bodies are nonrational and thereby incapable of
surviving ongoing systemic pressures.
(b) Maurice Duverger (1951) chronicled this same period, albeit more
indirectly, by tracing the contemporaneous rise of mass political parties. He explored how the latter affected not only voting patterns but
also patterns of coalition formation within legislatures themselves.
They thereby contributed to the waning political significance of government's deliberative bodies.
(c) Looking more directly and more methodically at the rise and decline of deliberative bodies within civil society, Habermas (1962) explored what he called the "bourgeois public." He studied the formally
and informally organized deliberative bodies that landed and merchant middle classes established within coffee houses, salons, inns, and
reading groups. These informal collegial formations were originally
dedicated to criticism of the arts, but they soon moved to criticism of
politics.
(d) Hannah Arendt (1951) turned Weber's argument on its head by
emphasizing that what she called the "council system," a network of
collegial formations across a civil society, is far from anachronistic in
the twentieth century. She thought, in fact, that collegial formations
might be resuscitated outside of the Western democracies, her exemplar being Hungary in the mid-1950s (see Sitton 1987 for discussion,
and Sciulli 1990 on the councils' relationship to the theory of societal
constitutionalism).
(e) A prominent American law review {Yale Law Journal 1988) devotes an issue to the fall of the "republican civic tradition" in the
United States during this same historical period, and the subsequent
rise of interest-group politics. The working assumption is that American pluralism today is casting the courts adrift, and that a return to
republican principles of one kind or another is a possibility.
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It is not by accident that the early nineteenth century marked the rise of
mass political parties, beginning in the United States in the 1820s. Their
rise set the stage for two subsequent, interrelated developments. The first
was the emergence, by midcentury, of the party "machine." Dedicated to
maximizing voter turnout, machines were organized in the patron-client
form (and Latin American clientelism is often compared to American politics prior to the Progressive reforms). The second development, in turn,
was the rise of reform politics by the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century, as a reaction to the perceived corruption of party machines. These
reforms essentially subordinated the machines' patron-client form to more
rational and impersonal techniques of political mobilization and recruitment. On the one hand, democratization was extended by the direct election of senators and the steadily increasing use of primary elections rather
than party caucuses for nominations. On the other hand, bureaucratization
was extended by both a marked reduction in the offices subject to election
(and party patronage) and a marked increase in those subject to civil service appointments.
The point, however, is that the decline of collegia! formations within civil
society antedated the rise of party machines as well as the subsequent
reforms that continued into the 1960s. It does well to recall that when
American political parties emerged in the 1820s, on a rising tide of Jacksonian democracy that so captivated Tocqueville, the framers were anxious
and suspicious. They had been witnessing since 1789 the rise and rigidification of voting factions and interest coalitions within state legislatures
and Congress. As these factions curried popular support, and the electorate steadily expanded, the most entrepreneurial leaders of these factions
steadily developed the skills of "machine politics." Indeed, the period from
the 1820s through the 1890s established the high-water mark of electoral
participation in the United States (Chambers and Burnham 1969; Burnham
1970; Ladd 1970: chapter 4). Moreover, legislative rules at the time accommodated the rising power of political-party caucuses, both by allowing the
latter to control legislative committee assignments and by institutionalizing
a "strong Speaker" in the House of Representatives and state legislatures.
After the 1890s, electoral participation steadily declined in the United
States while industrialization and urbanization accelerated.24
On the Continent, the period from the 1820s through the 1890s was
marked by national governments' increasing interest in steering their economies and their ongoing effort to develop the administrative capacity to do
so. It was a period marked generally by a coupling of an ambivalent view of
liberalization and democratization with a decidedly romantic view of science and technique (as exemplified by the writings of Comte and Marx).
Both the ambivalence and the romanticism ended dramatically with World
War I, the Soviet Revolution, and the Fascist and Nazi reactions; such an
202
ending was presaged in the writings of Nietzsche, Michels, Weber, and

Freud; Mosca and Pareto; and Sorel and Durkheim.
In short, the decline of the collegial form of "bourgeois" talking clubs in
civil society antedated the rise not only of mass political parties in the
United States and then in Europe, but also the rise of European and then
American industrialization and urbanization. It was also coupled with a
decline of the collegial form within European parliaments and American
legislatures. All of these developments contributed, of course, to an ongoing fragmentation of meaning among social influential and power holders.
Their earlier sense of shared meaning had at one time rested rather securely on shared substantive beliefs within relatively stable social fabrics of
preindustrial cities and communities (see chapter 10 on the allegory of the
"constituent force").
As noted many times throughout this volume, manifestations of rationalization such as the fragmentation of meaning and functional differentiation
could not then, and cannot today, be halted or reversed without authoritarianism invariably resulting. The only practicable, nonauthoritarian response to systemic pressures of rationalization, whether historically or today, is for social influential (or insurgents) to counterbalance drift by
institutionalizing a normative direction that is both voluntaristic and procedural. To attempt to institutionalize substantive values of preindustrial cities and communities is invariably to extend and intensify mechanisms of
social control, and thereby to increase a nation-state's susceptibility to
authoritarianism. The point of this section is to illustrate that the decline of
deliberative bodies that occurred across Western civil societies in the midnineteenth century under systemic pressures of social change might well be
repeated in the late twentieth century. It might occur, for instance, under
the even greater systemic pressures of international economic, political,
and cultural competition. The fall of the Berlin wall, and the welcomed
opening of the former Eastern bloc, does not somehow ameliorate the
impact of these systemic pressures. It instead extends their most immediate
impact from West to East, without reducing their intensity within the West
itself.
Third step: external procedural restraints as voluntaristic action. Whenever
the meaning of shared social duties (or of research findings or professional

practice) becomes unclear to the actors affected, whenever meaning is typically contested rather than typically assumed, two outcomes are possible.
First, the actors involved may be increasingly subjected to formal rather than
informal social controls, including stricter chains of command or harsher (or
more alluring) material sanctions (Olson 1965; Hechter 1987). Or, second,
actors' voluntaristic deliberations over meaning may be moved closer to the
center of their everday concerns. Actors' deliberations may be institutional-
203
ized morefirmlyat selected sites that are protected "artificially" from actors'
more immediately rational and nonrational behavior.
During initial moments of confusion over meaning, moments of contestation and ad hoc deliberation, actors experience great personal stress
and anxiety. After all, their personal responsibilities for securing shared
meaning, and for sustaining deliberation, increase dramatically. Their
everyday lives are disrupted. Whether they know it or not, moreover, they
are endeavoring to institutionalize a voluntaristic direction of social change
that runs quite counter to enormous systemic pressures of drift. As obstacles to their success multiply, their stress and anxiety escalate.
During these moments, actors within particular divisions of social networks or complex social enterprises may adopt the collegial form of organization precisely in order to reduce their personal stress and anxiety. Once
again, this is a choice that actors may make strictly in their own selfinterest, and not out of any sense of altruism or magnanimity. For actors to
remain devoted personally to securing shared meaning is for them to bear
an inordinately burdensome responsibility. It is much easier for them to
accede at some point to decrees, material incentives, or personal loyalties
than to bear this burden. For any set of heterogeneous actors and competing
groups to bear this burden outside of forms and procedures mediating their
own interest competition within economic and political marketplaces is
unthinkable.25
As a practicable alternative, the same actors and groups, facing the same
obstacles, may endeavor to institutionalize deliberation over worldly qualities and to institutionalize their own shared social duties within deliberative
bodies. They may approach the problem, that is, in terms of establishing
and maintaining shared meaning more indirectly, and more impersonally.
This is precisely why these actors and groups may adopt the collegial form
of organization - at least within selected, "protected" arenas of a civil
society. This is also why they may agree to sanction by law actors' ongoing
fidelity to these formations' distinctive procedural threshold and concomitant voluntaristic orientation. Yet, this move has yet to be taken within any
modern nation-state.
What happens if actors within any social network or complex enterprise
remain convinced that the integrity of their own deliberations is less significant, and less rewarding personally, than their strategic competition within
alternative organizational forms? What happens if they prefer personally to
maximize the effectiveness of administration, the efficiency of production,
the scope of democratic participation, or the loyalty of personal networks?
At such moments, the voluntaristic project of institutionalizing the collegial form of organization remains for them an unnecessary personal burden. It is a burden that they will refuse to bear. This voluntaristic project
will not seem sensible, let alone practicable.
204
These two choices convey the significance of the third step for comparative research: The sheer presence of collegial formations institutionalizes a
voluntaristic orientation of external procedural restraint on how heterogeneous actors and competing groups within civil society are permitted institutionally to compete strategically (irrespective of whether the economy in
question is market- or state-dominated). It also institutionalizes such restraints on how they are permitted institutionally to rationalize administration, mobilize voters, and cultivate loyalties within personal networks
(again, irrespective of whether any of the enterprises involved are "private" or state-controlled). Because Western democracies have taken neither the second step of extending internal procedural restraints from government to civil society, nor this third step of institutionalizing external
procedural restraints by extending collegial formations as a matter of public
policy, the theory of societal constitutionalism reveals that comparativists
currently lack a rationale, conceptual or empirical, for operating with the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities. They lack a rationale for employing concepts that suggest directly or indirectly that Western social orders
rest primarily, or to any great extent at all, on heterogeneous actors' and
competing groups' possible social integration rather than on their demonstrable social control. Once this is exposed as a strictly empirical issue, it
can no longer be presupposed in lieu of being studied - even if the former
tack has long been supported (and encouraged) by the conventional wisdom of the social sciences.
It may turn out, for instance, that leaders within Western democracies
are indeed merely more sophisticated than their counterparts in the Third
World and the East in employing purposeful mechanisms of social control
and in benefiting from systemic and informal mechanisms. Conflict theorists insist that this is the case, but they fail to demonstrate this empirically.
Clearly, Western leaders currently have enormous material resources at
their disposal. They can readily substitute both positive and negative economic sanctions for cruder, and ultimately more costly, formal social controls. This is precisely why the resource mobilization approach to social
movements is so cogent, and why rational-choice theory in sociology or
public-choice theory in political science will never wane. This may also be
why social influential and power holders in the East and Third World are
so amenable today to adopting many Western democratic institutions and
practices: They are increasingly appreciating that the latter rest on far less
costly mechanisms of social control (see chapter 8, note 7).
Some of the specific respects in which the theory of societal constitutionalism directly challenges traditions of Western constitutionalism and
liberalism (as well as social-democratic practice) are addressed in the next
two chapters. Because this theory instructs social scientists to seek evidence
9.3. Institutionalizing collegia! formations as public policy
205
of the presence of collegial formations, and thereby of resilient external

procedural restraints, it remains critically distanced from existing institutions and practices of Western democracies.26 The continued integrity of
collegial formations is as little supported by these institutions and practices,
in and of themselves, as it is by systemic pressures of social change. The
possibility of heterogeneous actors and competing groups linking the threshold of interpretability of shared social duties with the only organizational
form that institutionalizes external procedural restraints on drift hinges at
some point on whether this becomes a matter of public (or corporate)
policy.27
9.3. Institutionalizing collegial formations as public policy
9.3.1. A coming challenge to the West?

Beyond instructing social scientists to monitor actors'fidelityto the threshold of interpretability, the theory of societal constitutionalism also instructs
them to monitor whether and when power holders uphold the integrity of
collegial formations as a matter of public policy. What alone casts this public
policy as unusual today is that it exceeds the scope of application of the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities. It is not merely conceivable but
rather eminently practicable for a nation-state in the East or "advanced"
Third World (e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, South Korea, Taiwan, or India)
to "leap ahead" of Western democratic institutions and practices by introducing collegial formations into more and more sectors, industries, and
organizations of its civil society as a matter ofpublic policy. To be sure, such
a public policy might well be coupled, in practice, with policies of democratization or liberalization designed to institutionalize robust competition
within political and economic marketplaces. But it need not be. Indeed,
such coupling is not likely to be in evidence where national marketplaces
already are constricted by peak associations and patron-client networks
(e.g. Brazil and Mexico, to say nothing of Cuba's formal controls). Moreover, such coupling may not prove successful in Eastern Europe as the
costs and disruptions involved in institutionalizing unmediated marketplaces begin to be experienced. Again, even to entertain the empirical issue
of the coupling or decoupling of (a) a public policy of introducing or
maintaining collegial formations and (b) a public policy of democratization
and liberalization is already to move beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
Because the collegial form's voluntaristic orientation is both nonrational
and nondemocratic, it may be introduced into a civil society as a matter of
public policy in the absence of policies of liberalization or democratization.
206
The question of whether this voluntaristic orientation is in evidence within

any particular civil society, then, is independent of the question of whether
a nation-state's economy is market-based or state-controlled, or whether
its political marketplace is pluralist or neocorporatist. It is illegitimate for
social scientists' very concepts to obfuscate the significance of any modern
nation-state adopting the former public policy. Indeed, greater decoupling
might very well prove attractive to citizens within Western democracies themselves, as the disruptions of unmediated liberalization accumulate, and as
unmediated democratization becomes more a matter of ascriptive and functional group representation than a matter of individual citizenship.
Western democracies today by no means provide the majority of their
citizens with the best of all possible worlds, either material or normative.
Notwithstanding the comforting ideology of the presupposition of exhausted
possibilities and liberalism's traditional complacency and optimism, Western democracies are no more insulated from the positive challenges posed by
viable alternatives than they are from the negative challenges posed by the
Weberian Dilemma. Quite to the contrary, the emergence of a nonauthoritarian alternative either inside or outside of the West that decouples the
institutionalization of collegial formations from (now unmediated) liberalization may well stimulate great disaffection among actors within all other
Western democracies. Such an alternative can be said to emerge: First, once a
modern nation-state offers the vast majority of its citizens not more consumer goods or creature comforts but instead greater protection from everyday contingencies, including, as examples, the anxieties attending possible
economic hardships, general health care and environmental safety, and fear
of violent crime.28 Second, once a modern nation-state offers the vast majority of its citizens more certain protection from breakdowns of "meaning" by
purposefully expanding their possibilities for social integration at their various sites of employment. In the face of such a practicable alternative, actors'
disaffection within existing Western democracies may escalate so suddenly
that survey researchers might indeed be startled.
9.3.2. Two policy options
Many social controls are enforced by law within nonauthoritarian and authoritarian nation-states alike. Certain actors, including police officers, are
mandated by law to bear the responsibility for enforcement, and encroachments are formally sanctioned by courts and other bodies (see Berman 1972
on postwar Soviet alternatives). What is critical in all of this is that these
responsibilities are not left to voluntary associations (such as bar associations) or professions (such the legal profession); encroachments are not left
to informal sanctions. What the theory of societal constitutionalism reveals
207
is that the responsibility for maintaining and extending heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possibilities for social integration can no longer
be left to voluntary associations and professions today. Similarly, encroachments against sites of possible social integration cannot be left to informal
sanctions within civil society. Given pressures of drift, this responsibility
and these sanctions must be mandated by law or else actors' prospects for
social integration can be expected to decline. If the institutionalization of
collegial formations is not mandated by law in particular, then systemic
pressures yield fewer possibilities for social integration. In this way, the social
infrastructure underlying a nonauthoritarian direction of social change is
steadily eroded. Still, social influential and power holders (or insurgents)
might adopt such a public policy either indirectly or directly, and each of
these possibilities may be considered in turn.
Extending substantive restraints: from religious to secular ^protected
spheres." An indirect way of adopting such a public policy is for enterprises

performing certain functions or tasks within a civil society to be explicitly
protected by statute or constitutional provision from immediate interest
competition within economic and political marketplaces - irrespective of
the organizational forms that actors within these enterprises adopt. The
historical separation of church and state is an instructive example of this, as
one particular manifestation of the public/private distinction. Yet, it is otherwise not consistent with the theory of societal constitutionalism. Within
multireligious nation-states, the church/state distinction is more consistent
with mechanisms of social control, however benign, than with heterogeneous
actors' and competing groups' possibilities for social integration.29
By placing religious enterprises of any and all kinds into a legally sanctioned "protected sphere" of civil society, the state in essence buffers these
enterprises "artificially" from all other spheres' more "natural condition,"
that of immediate competition within economic and political marketplaces.
This is a voluntaristic public policy even as it results in protecting enterprises and arenas of nonrational action. Indeed, the state often subsidizes
these enterprises at taxpayers' expense, whether indirectly, by granting
them tax-free status, or more directly, by paying clerics' salaries as civil
servants (see Popenoe 1988 on Sweden). Still, a voluntaristic public policy
cannot ensure that these nonrational enterprises will in fact wield moral
authority. Whether increasing numbers of churchgoers become disaffected,
and at some point no longer believe that the clerics and churches being
legally protected wield moral authority - as opposed to political influence
or economic patronage - is a matter that, ultimately, the state can neither
prevent (in the West) nor promote (in the former Eastern bloc).
The principle of a legally sanctioned "protected sphere" may be ex-
208
tended, in practice, to cover enterprises performing any number of identifiable functions, including many of more direct concern to the theory of
societal constitutionalism. Enterprises dedicated to quite secular pursuits
might be defined by statute, or in constitutional provision, as comprising
such a sphere. Indeed, this is already the case in many civil-law countries
on the Continent where, as examples, the state buffers labor unions or
trade associations from immediate economic and even political competition (e.g. the chapters in Streeck and Schmitter 1985 survey the Continent). In Japan, corporations have more or less formalized an "internal
labor market" into which loyal employees are promoted, another sphere
artificially protected from immediate pressures of competition in the economic marketplace. In the United States, dominant firms in expanding
markets establish similar internal labor markets, albeit less consistently so
(Hechter 1987: 141-3). More importantly for present purposes, this practice of "artificial protection" could be extended to include deliberative
bodies within modern civil societies as well as professional associations and
sites of professionals' practice within corporations, universities, hospitals,
artistic networks, and elsewhere.
As is the case with legally protected religious bodies, and with corporations' internal labor markets, some nation-states also buffer certain social
and cultural enterprises from immediate competition within economic and
political marketplaces as a matter of public policy. These include enterprises dedicated to the arts, architectural preservation, environmental protection, rehabilitation of the handicapped, and, for that matter, certain
types of schooling and day care. But whether actors are actually integrated rather than controlled within any of these legally protected enterprises is also a matter that, ultimately, the state cannot guarantee in this
way (also see chapter 11, pages 257-8 on moral authorities). It cannot
guarantee this simply by declaring that these enterprises comprise a legally "protected sphere." It can only guarantee this by moving to the next
step: ensuring legally that enterprises of deliberation and professional
practice adopt and then maintain a particular form of organization in
order to qualify for inclusion within a "protected sphere." This moves the
discussion, however, away from a public policy that may contribute indirectly to the theory of societal constitutionalism. It moves the discussion
to a public policy that directly institutionalizes heterogeneous actors' and
competing groups' possibilities for social integration at their various sites
of employment.
Extending procedural restraints: from government to civil society. Public
policies within Western democracies currently permit and, for that matter,
encourage (a) legislators and public administrators to be lobbied by compet-
209
ing interests, (b) judges to be influenced by interested parties (through

amici curiae briefs), and (c) leaders of enterprises within legally protected
spheres to be influenced by their clients and patrons. None of this institutionalizes the "rule of law." Quite to the contrary, these policies extend the
bastard pragmatism of interest competition from markets, legislatures, and
administrative agencies to the courts and then to "protected spheres"
within civil society.30 When deliberators and professionals alter their decisions because interested parties have mobilized, or because they are wary
of being sued for malpractice, rather than because they anticipate how
peers would likely evaluate their decisions in anonymous review, bastard
pragmatism has been extended, not the rule of law. The rule of law proper
is extended when the integrity of the threshold of interpretability of shared
social duties is legally sanctioned within appropriate protected spheres as a
matter of public policy. It is extended when internal procedural restraints
are established and maintained by law anywhere within a civil society.
But consider this distinction between institutionalizing bastard pragmatism and institutionalizing the rule of law from a different angle. If interest
competition were extended by law to the self-governance of protected
spheres in civil society, then neither purposefully nor inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power would be intrinsically restrained. Neither would be restrained even as "liberalization" and "democratization"
were being extended successfully from the economy and government to
once protected spheres of civil society. For good reason, Weber treated
democratization in particular as more a "leveling" of the governed than
as a significant restraint on drift. For the same good reason, Buchanan
today remains an anxious Hobbesian rather than becoming a complacent
Lockean.
What is important to keep in mind is that as long as actors' and groups'
behavior exhibits fidelity to the threshold restraints, then, whatever else
their behavior might entail in substance, observing social scientists cannot
legitimately reduce it to interests that are strictly subjective and particular.
Quite to the contrary, their behavior remains consistent with intersubjectively recognized and understood social duties, even as it otherwise remains competitive and at times conflictual. Moreover, actors' and groups'
competition and occasional conflicts may be classified as a public good
(Samuelson), social capital (James Coleman), communitarian (Selznick),
or a noncommodity value (Stewart).31
Historically, a democratic franchise, regular elections, and competing political parties all emerged as alternatives to the nonrational rituals and external substantive restraints of premodern societies (chapter 10). These institutions replaced the latter with new rituals. The new rituals were both rational
and procedural rather than nonrational and substantive. At best, the inter-
210
ests in civil society that the new rituals protect place strictly strategic restraints on purposeful exercises of collective power alone. They fail to distinguish arbitrary exercises from innovative ones. More importantly for present
purposes, modernity's rational, procedural rituals historically undermined
and replaced the informal collegial formations of the early "bourgeois public
realm." And any set of collegial formations institutionalizes external
(voluntaristic) procedural restraints on all manifestations of rationalization,
including unmediated liberalization and democratization.
When the democratic franchise, regular elections, and competing political parties are compared exclusively to the external substantive restraints
once posed by nonrational rituals and traditions, the former institutions
appear intrinsically liberating or emancipatory. However, when the rational, procedural rituals that they institutionalize are compared to the
voluntaristic procedures institutionalized by collegial formations, everything suddenly appears in a different light. The impact of the former institutions now appears more ambivalent than one-sidedly progressive. Indeed,
the great strength of Habermas's study of the early bourgeois public sphere
is that it explores this ambivalence: These early talking clubs excluded the
working classes, and yet they were nonetheless critical deliberative bodies;
mass political parties included the working classes, and yet they were from
the start available for apologetics - and worse.
Still, Habermas fails to distinguish organizational forms methodically.
He fails to specify a procedural threshold of restraint irreducible to a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change and also distinct from the new
procedures that simultaneously replaced both the bourgeois public realm
and nonrational traditions. Because he sees that the new rituals are more
manipulative and controlling than critical and emancipatory, he tries desperately, and fails, to discover some alternative. But he cannot say much
more about the new rituals even today other than to note, unsurprisingly,
that they are at odds with the ideal speech situation (Habermas 1989).
What Habermas finds is that as the working class struggled to broaden the
franchise, the public sphere's distinctively critical qualities steadily gave
way to the strategic mobilization of electoral majorities within mass political organizations. The coffee houses, salons, reading societies, and other
informal deliberative bodies of the bourgeois public sphere gave way to the
political "machine." "Public opinion" became more passive and acclamatory than active and critical.
Putting this differently, wherever democratization is institutionalized in
response to interest competition, social time and social space are subordinated to the drift of rationalization.32 Because none of the Western democracies maintains the integrity of the collegial form within their civil societies
as a matter of public policy, all existing "protected spheres" are based on
211
function or task rather than being tied as well to organizational form. As a

result, these spheres may restrain governmental agencies and social enterprises from acceding immediately to drift. But they do not contribute by
their sheer presence to heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration.
What does it mean, in practice, when electoral majorities acclaim manifestations of drift? Looked at in the most positive light, and thereby most
narrowly, they legitimate particular leaders' claims to hold public offices
(again, Charles Anderson discusses why this is often not the case in Latin
America). They also pose a rational, procedural restraint - the possibility of
losing reelection - on a rather small set of power holders: public officials.
Yet, elections were substituted historically for the external substantive restraints that traditions (including natural law) had once placed not only on
absolute monarchy but also on all other power holders and social influential
affiliated with the court, and thereby on drift itself Unlike the rigidity of
external substantive restraints, the great appeal of the new rituals for an
emerging landed and commercial bourgeoisie was that the substantive outcomes of rational procedures are not merely quantifiable but also eminently
flexible, negotiable, and reversible: Particular office-holders might be
changed in the next election, and particular public policies as well.
Looked at more broadly, once again everything appears more ambivalent. Elected officials have every reason to hypostatize their "popular mandate" to rule, and to encroach against the threshold of interpretability as
well as the collegial form, as they accommodate competing interests.33 In
this respect, the new rituals prove to be too flexible (cf. Luhmann 1990).
Their flexibility means that they are potentially manipulative and controlling, not intrinsically integrative.34 By contrast, the threshold of interpretability might be extended by introducing collegial formations into those
sectors, industries, and organizations of a civil society in which this form of
organization is possibly appropriate. These areas would not include, as
examples, those containing mass political parties or other electoral majorities, those containing labor unions whose members are tied to primary and
secondary sectors of the economy dedicated instrumentally to attaining
quantitative ends, or, for that matter, those containing elite occupations on
Wall Street and elsewhere that are dedicated to the same means and ends.
9.3.2. External procedural restraints and "wasted" time and space
The threshold of interpretability may be extended quite dramatically beyond

government's deliberative bodies into civil society. This may be done by
extending these restraints from covering positive laws to covering shared
social duties being sanctioned within any social enterprise. The ranges of
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expectations of acceptable behavior typically acknowledged by actors within

social enterprises are part of the shared social duties in question. These
ranges, too, can be kept consistent with the collegial form of organization
and its threshold restraints. In this way, social influentials (or enlightened
insurgents) within any modern nation-state, and not simply Western democracies, may institutionalize the time and space that heterogeneous actors and
competing groups need in order to respond to the Weberian Dilemma collectively.35 They may institutionalize deliberative bodies, networks of interpretation, and a great diversity of self-regulating "protected spheres." Together,
these social units mediate even inadvertently arbitrary responses to systemic
pressures, and they do so by their sheer presence within a civil society.
Thus, both nonrational traditions historically and voluntaristic collegial
formations today elevate time and space above the drift of unmediated
liberalization and democratization. The point of enforcing the integrity of
collegial formations as a matter of public policy is that such time and space
are no longer elevated habitually or ritualistically. The rational procedures
institutionalized as rituals of liberalization and democratization, in turn,
were never designed to support or extend "protected spheres" within civil
society, and thereby to elevate social time and social space above drift.
The external procedural restraints institutionalized by collegial formations both support, and are supported by, the presence of other "protected
spheres" within a civil society. Protected from immediate interest competition within economic and political marketplaces, all of these social units are
permitted institutionally to "waste" time and space. Ironically, to the extent that more traditional principles of governmental constitutionalism,
such as the division of powers or actors' "natural rights," are hypostatized
today as "sacred" restraints on electoral outcomes and interest competition, their strictly nonrational or symbolic quality comes to the fore. These
principles have indeed become mere formalities. However revered they
might remain in some quarters, they are today quite far removed, in practice, from affecting how collective power is exercised in everyday life
within modern civil societies. This is particularly apparent within the
neocorporatist policy making processes of Western Europe and Scandinavia today, but it holds true as well for the United States, Great Britain, and
other common-law countries.36
A public policy of maintaining the integrity of collegial formations is
more practicable today than any public policy designed somehow to preserve the integrity of the "sacred" division of powers, actors' "sacred"
natural rights, and the "sacred" church/state and private/public distinctions
(see chapter 11). But why would extending collegial formations across a
civil society ever become a matter of public policy within a modern nationstate? Why would it ever become the organizational policy of any particu-
9.3. Institutionalizing collegia! formations as public policy
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lar corporation, or, for that matter, of any particular professional association? Are there concrete interest groups within modern nation-states that
already operate in terms of a normative orientation consistent with such a
policy? Can researchers demonstrate that identifiable groups have an immediate material interest in supporting and promoting such a policy?
10. External restraints: prospects for

reason and "tradition"
10.1.1. Abandonment of reason

Like the social theorists whose works he helped elevate to the status of
classics, Parsons assumed that when social scientists (or actors) describe a
social action as "reasoned," rather than as rational and either instrumental
or strategic, this is at best normative and at worst ideological (see also
Stinchcombe 1986, even as he endeavors to distinguish reason from rationality). For Parsons and the classics alike, the concept of rational action is
generalizable. It can credibly claim grounding against actors' subjective
interests and normative relativism, as well as against the relativism of
researchers' own value commitments. By contrast, the concept of reasoned
social action cannot. As a result, there is no "Archimedean point" available
to the social sciences other than the narrow norm of rational action.1
By labeling the concept of reasoned social action normative, however,
social theorists leave social scientists with an enormous problem. Every
researcher's description of social events ultimately contains, among other
things, the researcher's attribution of subjective interests to actors and the
researcher's own value commitments. As a result, the obstacles to recognizing shifts in the direction of social change other than those either
toward or away from rationalization are seemingly insuperable. This is
why Parsons thought that the "directionality" that social scientists might
possibly recognize in common are shifts (a) toward or away from the
narrow norm of rational action,2 or (b) toward or away from realizing
social scientists' own shared value-commitments. He could readily concede, moreover, that it would be rare indeed for social scientists to share
any particular set of value-commitments. Yet, one example of this is the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities. The latter may well be a collective prejudice, but it offers social scientists a standard of "directionality"
that they (and many actors) seemingly share in common beyond the narrow norm of rational action. This is what makes this prejudice extremely
valuable, and inordinately difficult to jettison, even in the face of mount214
215
ing evidence that it obfuscates more about contemporary social change

than it illuminates.
There is something else about this prejudice that makes it difficult to
jettison. In dismissing out of hand the possibility that any concept of reasoned social action can credibly claim grounding, social theorists simultaneously dismiss another possibility out of hand, and here rightly so. They
dismiss the possibility that the social sciences can ever challenge actors'
subjective interests and researchers' value-commitments on the basis of a
substantive grounding or an "objective" standard of social change. It is
clearly beyond the capabilities of the social sciences to locate any such
grounding or standard.
At the same time, social theorists are going far beyond this when they
dismiss the possibility that any concept of reasoned social action can credibly claim grounding. In acceding conceptually to the sovereignty of actors'
subjective interests and to social scientists' own value relativism, they are
failing to appreciate the many implications that their own conceptual frameworks have not only for theory construction but also for research and
practice. In theory construction, one implication, of course, is that social
theorists fail to leave their frameworks or theories open conceptually. They
close them to the very possibility that any concept of reasoned social action
might prove in time to credibly claim grounding and generalizability. Their
seemingly plausible rationale in opting for conceptual closure rather than
openness is that they endeavor to keep the social sciences: falsifiable (Popper 1934), value-neutral (Weber 1914-20; Merton 1949/1957), and conceptually consistent with actors' subjective interests and lived understandings
(from Weber 1914-20 to Brennan and Buchanan 1985 and Hechter 1987).
They wish to avoid any unnecessary risk of appending the prestige of the
social sciences to any normative posture or ideology (Mannheim 1929).
The great irony is that social theorists' decision to close their theories and
frameworks conceptually in this way is itself decidedly normative. It is not a
decision tied to any scientific finding or tenet. After all, it is not scientific to
decide a priori to close all conceptual frameworks to the possibility of
particular concepts or analytical distinctions proving in time that they can
credibly claim grounding. What exactly are the costs to scientific research
of leaving this matter an open issue in theory construction? How are the
prospects for value-neutral and falsifiable research in the social sciences
jeopardized as a result of opting for conceptual openness and yet remaining
critical of all concepts that purportedly isolate reasoned social action?
Moreover, is it really intrinsically impossible to falsify a purportedly generalizable claim regarding whether certain social actions possibly contribute
to reasoned social action or are demonstrably unreasoned? Conversely, if
one insists that theories and frameworks are to be kept closed conceptually
to all concepts of reasoned social action, how exactly does this a priori
216
10. External restraints
decision insulate the social sciences from ideology? Does it not instead
place unnecessary obstacles in the path of possible empirical, falsifiable
discoveries in the social sciences?
Still, the decision to close theories conceptually in this way neither explains nor justifies why social theorists also fail to appreciate the many
implications that this decision carries for research and social practice. Its
implications for research cannot be halted, for instance, at the point where
social scientists (and actors) respect, and neutrally describe, differences in
national traditions, subcultures, and lived social fabrics (see Winch 1958 as
an exemplar, but also labeling theory and symbolic interactionism more
generally). After all, once any existing tradition, subculture, or lived social
fabric is disrupted or challenged, in practice, this in itself begins to push
social scientists' conceptual relativism beyond equanimity. It can result in
social scientists' outright nihilism or else in their respectful, neutral descriptions of social controls that are sophisticated and manipulative rather than
blatantly coercive. What else can it mean when symbolic interactionists
insist that all interests and norms are negotiable in all social orders, and
thereby refuse to address the "normative" issue of distinguishing nonauthoritarian from authoritarian social orders?
Relativism in the social sciences is readily pushed to nihilism, in practice, at the moment that any social movement becomes committed to
"radical reform" of the larger social system of which it is a part. The
Nazis' organizing slogan at local levels was not accidental in this regard:
"To each his own" (Allen 1965). This slogan was designed precisely to test
the limits of relativists' equanimity. It certainly beckons social scientists at
least to consider that conceptual relativism may be incapable of resisting
nihilism.3 To be sure, during unusual historical periods, periods of sustained domestic tranquility, conceptual relativism appears resistant to this.
The social sciences in particular then seem incapable of contributing to
one-sidedness or harshness of any kind. But such periods are unusual. A
few Western democracies have happened to experience such a period in
the postwar era, but the vast majority of modern nation-states have been
experiencing quite different domestic situations. Moreover, ethnic and
religious competition, and moments of outright conflict, are increasing
not only across the Third World (with the exception of Latin America)
and the former Eastern bloc but also across the Western democracies as
well. As regards Latin America, consider what the result would be of
bringing symbolic interactionists' or rational-choice theorists' concepts to
elites' competition over power resources and forms of government (chapter 9). If concepts are indeed value-neutral, should they not hold up
equally well within any and all modern social contexts - including those
charged by escalating tensions?
If the most basic conceptual decisions in the social sciences hold up best
217
during unusual historical periods of sustained domestic tranquillity, it is

likely that the social sciences will seem remarkably short-sighted during
moments of domestic disruption, the very moments when they are called
on for their richest insights (see pages 4-5). Even more ironically, the
social theories and social research tied to these basic conceptual decisions
are those that zealots may heartily embrace - as they longingly await their
opportunities to negotiate some interests and norms of their own. The
alternative to these decisions, however, is by no means to base social theory
on any substantive standard or "objective interest." Nor, of course, is it to
turn to any normative posture or ideology for instruction or "value orientation." It is simply to leave the social sciences open conceptually to the
possibility that a concept of reasoned social action might prove in time to
credibly claim grounding. It is to leave the social sciences open conceptually to the possibility that sharp empirical distinctions might be drawn in
time between types of social orders, between concrete instances of integration and control, and between the ways in which interests and norms are
negotiated within these types and in these instances.
One significant result of the alternative of conceptual openness is that it
reveals that when relativists posit that all interests and norms are ultimately
negotiable - in all "social orders," in all places and at all times - they
abandon any possibility of distinguishing drift from direction. In defending
an a priori decision of conceptual closure, they label any and all efforts to
draw the latter distinction "normative" and "ideological." The problem
today is that even the most basic conceptual distinction, the authoritarian/
nonauthoritarian distinction, is dismissed out of hand as intrinsically normative and ideological. The presupposition of exhausted possibilities rests
ultimately on domestic tranquility continuing in the Western democracies for perpetuity - because, within a context of conceptual closure, it is as
normative or ideological a stance as any other. Yet, does it make sense to
assume a priori that within ncwauthoritarian social orders, and within sites
of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration,
all interests and norms remain negotiable, either in principle or in practice?
Equally importantly, does it make sense to assume a priori that the interests and norms distinctive to these orders and these sites are reducible to
those characterizing the presupposition of exhausted possibilities? Ironically, these two assumptions can themselves only be warranted or justified if
they are based on a standard of reason that can credibly claim grounding or
generalizability.
10.1.2. Why Parsons fs decision was particularly unfortunate
Parsons's decision to close his social theory conceptually in this way means,
of course, that his social theory is, as it stands, ultimately closed to the
218
central proposal of this volume: Institutions of external procedural restraint offer social scientists (and actors) a standard that can credibly claim
grounding in distinguishing drift and direction. Parsons's decision is more
disappointing than those by other classical or contemporary theorists, however, because among all major non-Marxist theorists of the twentieth century only Talcott Parsons built his social theory on analytical distinctions.
Analytical distinctions are the contemporary social theorist's claim to conceptual grounding against the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests
and researchers' value relativism (chapter 7). All analytical distinctions rest
on a claim to irreducibility, and thereby to generalizability. A social theorist
has no reason to draw analytical distinctions other than to claim conceptual
grounding.
By contrast, ideal types or cruder generalizations rest solely on a claim to
heuristic fruitfulness. Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy, for instance, portrays one particular set of analytical concepts as if they were permanently
interrelated, in practice, as a single, irreducible social whole. In this way, it
casts researchers' sights away from the analytical concepts comprising it
and turns their sights toward what the whole illuminates. In portraying an
undifferentiated whole, the question this and other ideal types raises is:
Which existing social actions or social units most closely approach this
idealized whole in practice? In this instance, which existing organizations in
the world come closest to the ideal type of bureaucracy?
Analytical distinctions isolate the most irreducible building blocks of
ideal types or cruder generalizations. As such, they cast researchers' sights
away from the whole and toward its constituent parts. Given this focus, the
question they raise is: Which analytical aspects may be found, in practice,
within existing social actions or social units that have nothing to do with
the ideal type, and which analytical aspects are indeed found exclusively
within those actions and units that approach the ideal type? For instance,
aspects of "disinterestedness" may be observed in actors' behavior not
only within bureaucratic organizations but also within professional-client
relationships. Fewer of these aspects are typically observed in parent-child
relationships or in patron-client relationships. Instead, aspects of affect are
more prominent.
Where ideal types orient research in terms of polarities - which existing
organizations are becoming bureaucratic and which nonbureaucratic? analytical distinctions orient research in terms of mixtures or gradations of
aspects. Some mixtures are typically in evidence whereas others rarely appear: Are professional-client relationships always characterized by the
prominence of aspects of "disinterestedness," either in comparative perspective or historically? When did parent-child relationships become marked by
aspects of affect, either in the West, or, for example, in Brazil or Indonesia?
219
Are there limits, in practice, to the aspects of disinterestedness or those of

affect that can be present or absent within any of these relationships?
Parsons quite consciously based his social theory on analytical concepts
precisely because he wished to ground the findings of social science research against the relativism, and concomitant distortions, of findings informed by ideal types and cruder generalizations. He was convinced that
only a framework of analytical concepts could accomplish this and
thereby render knowledge in the social sciences cumulative. He was convinced that a comprehensive inventory of all analytical aspects to be
found within any of the complex social events or social units under study
can offer the social sciences their only opportunity to overcome the current incommensurability of their substantive findings. Incommensurability
in the social sciences results from the different levels of analysis, ideal
types, and generalizations that researchers employ. It also results from
(a) differences in the subjective interests that social scientists attribute to
the actors they are studying, and (b) differences in social scientists' own
value-commitments. A framework of analytical concepts offers researchers an opportunity literally to "translate" all of their diverse findings into
a single body of cumulative knowledge despite all of these differences and
many others (Bershady 1973). It offers them a framework of concepts
that claims to be irreducible, and thereby generalizable; a literal "common language" of translation.
What is so disappointing, therefore, about Parsons's decision to close his
framework of concepts to the concept of reasoned social action is that this
single decision in theory construction undermined everything else he was
endeavoring to accomplish. On the one hand, it prevented him from ever
considering the possibility that a framework of analytical concepts might
address the Weberian Dilemma directly, and thereby allow him (and other
social scientists) to jettison the ideology of the presupposition of exhausted
possibilities. On the other, it also prevented him from seeing that any effort
to escape relativism brings a "critical edge" into the social sciences. It
pushes the social sciences closer to critical theory than to Lockean complacency (Sciulli and Gerstein 1985).4
Parsons never saw either of these points because, like the classics that he
studied so methodically, and like his own students and exegetes both in his
own day and today, his decision to opt for conceptual closure in theory
construction simultaneously committed him to two decisions: First, he had
to assume a priori that the concept of reasoned social action is substantive
or "objective," and thereby intrinsically normative and ideological. Second, he had to close his social theory conceptually to any possibility of
accommodating any concept of reasoned social action, even if the latter
turns out to be distinctively procedural and intersubjective.
220
10.1.3 Bringing reasoned social action to comparative research

The theory of societal constitutionalism does not rest directly on a grounded
standard of reasoned social action. It need not in order to differ considerably
from Parsons's social theory as well as from other social theories that rest on
theoretical frameworks already closed conceptually to this very possibility.
The theory of societal constitutionalism differs from these social theories
simply by remaining open conceptually. It differs simply by refusing to assume a priori that the concept of reasoned social action is substantive or
"objective."
The conceptual openness of the theory of societal constitutionalism carries at least two implications.
First, the theory of societal constitutionalism remains open conceptually to the possibility that some normative (that is, voluntaristic) aspects of existing or historical social actions and social units can credibly
claim to contribute to reasoned social action even as they remain
decidedly nonrational.
Second, as a result, social scientists' descriptions of the social actions or
social units that contain these aspects cannot legitimately be reduced to
any combination of (a) researchers' attributions of actors' subjective
interests, (b) researchers' own value commitments, and (c) researchers'
evaluations of whether these actions and units are consistent with rationalization or the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. The impact
that these actions and units have on the direction of social change may
be demonstrated to transcend all of these factors.
The theory of societal constitutionalism posits that social scientists' descriptions of social actions and social units containing voluntaristic procedural
aspects can, at the very least, be kept as generalizable as their current
descriptions of those containing rational or instrumental aspects. The concepts that keep the theory of societal constitutionalism open to this possibility include: the distinct concept of voluntaristic action (chapter 7), the
positively defined concept of collegial formations (chapter 8), and the analytical distinctions drawn between normative restraints (chapter 4) and
heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration
and demonstrable social control (chapters 1-3).
The theory of societal constitutionalization is designed conceptually to
accommodate a grounded standard of reasoned social action whenever this
becomes available to the social sciences - as long as it is procedural rather
than directly substantive. Unlike Parsons's social theory, as well as the
diverse social theories of Niklas Luhmann, Jeffrey Alexander, Richard
Munch, and others working broadly within the Parsonian tradition, this
221
possibility is left open rather than closed a priori. Conceptual closure is

what ultimately blocks these theorists from bringing a critical edge into
neofunctionalist research. Lacking a critical edge, the latter ends up recapitulating one version or another of Lockean optimism and complacency,
alongside those versions already provided by researchers employing the
concepts of symbolic interactionism, rational-choice theory, and systems
theory.
10.1.4. Distinguishing societal constitutionalism from other nonMarxist theories
It was pointed out in chapter 9 that the project of institutionalizing and
then maintaining collegial formations is voluntaristic rather than either
rational or more strictly nonrational and habitual. The success of this project is never overdetermined systemically. Yet, its relative success or failure
within any modern nation-state, and within any sector of its civil society,
provides social scientists with a generalizable standard that can support the
direction/drift distinction.
Three points about societal constitutionalism's response to the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and social scientists' value relativism
demonstrate this standard's generalizability, and the credibility of its claim
to conceptual grounding:
First, not all of the nation-states in which collegial formations are to be
found, whether historically or today, are Western democracies.
Second, not all Western democracies have been, or are today, equally
successful in meeting this standard of institutionalization. Some allow
the integrity of collegial formations to be undermined inadvertently,
and others undermine their integrity purposefully as well. Moreover,
Western constitutional and liberal traditions fail to inform power holders and social influential that collegial formations institutionalize external procedural restraints on drift.
Third, there is not a single nation-state today that either maintains or
extends collegial formations within its civil society as a matter of public
policy, and thereby institutionalizes external procedural restraints on
drift.
These three points distinguish the theory of societal constitutionalism from:
(a) the Europocentrism of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities; (b)
the normative relativism and potential nihilism of Weberian ideal types; and
(c) Parsons's unfortunate decision to close his social theory conceptually.
222
A public policy of maintaining and extending collegial formations is a

voluntaristic project of institutionalizing a public realm or a public sphere
proper within a civil society.5 To draw attention to this in the last decade of
the twentieth century is to draw attention to a practicable alternative to the
earlier theory and practice of (a) the "bourgeois public sphere" of the
Continent from the mid-eighteenth through the early nineteenth century
(Habermas 1962), and (b) the "constituent force" of seventeenth-century
England and eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century American colonies
(Friedrich 1941, 1972, 1974). Against constitutional theorists and liberal
theorists who even today operate on the basis of the empirical generalization that limited government is exclusively interrelated with the presence of
a market economy (which drove Arendt 1951 to distraction by its illogic),
the theory of societal constitutionalism operates on the basis of a quite
different presupposition: It presupposes that heterogeneous actors' and
competing groups' prospects for institutionalizing a public realm within
civil society are neither invariably based on, nor at all restricted to, the
historical experiences, socioeconomic conditions, governmental forms, and
cultural traditions of existing Western democracies. Instead, these prospects are equally voluntaristic in any modern setting, and they are by no
means impaired within modern nation-states that can be expected to retain
an enormous administrative state and a relatively controlled economy (Perestroika notwithstanding, e.g. Battle 1988; Birman 1988; Rosefielde
1988). This point is elaborated momentarily.
10.1.5. From relativism to nihilism: theorists' complicity in drift
A problem that Parsons failed to address as a result of his decision to close
his social theory to the concept of reasoned social action may be stated in
the following way: When normative restraints on drift are approached
conceptually as ultimately reducible to particular sets of subjective interests rather than as possibly reasoned, it is being assumed that they can only
be maintained by mechanisms of social control, whether informal or formal. To follow Parsons and the classics in closing social theory conceptually
in this way is to take two further steps by conceptual default: First, it is to
assume that external procedural restraints on drift are ultimately inconsistent with heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible social integration. Second, it is to bracket the Weberian Dilemma from further discussion, including any effort to resolve it conceptually or, for that matter, any
effort to demonstrate that it has been rendered irrelevant in practice.
If the implications of drift are pondered rather than bracketed, then a
haunting, unyielding sense of pathos accompanies the same decision to
close social theory to the concept of reasoned social action. This was the
case with Weber, and it is the case today with Hayek and Buchanan.
223
Parsons was an optimist not because he was an American (although this

probably helped), but because he failed to appreciate fully that this single
decision in theory construction meant that he was acceding conceptually to
the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and researchers' value relativism. He failed to appreciate this, ironically, because his ongoing effort to
escape normative relativism with analytical concepts was far more sustained than that by any other liberal theorist. The irony is that for all of the
critical potential left latent within his analytical concepts, Parsons's decision in theory construction rendered his social theory more apologetic than
Weber's and other liberals': Like Weber, Parsons treated manipulation conceptually as both immutable and inescapable, but, unlike Weber, he labeled
noncoercive social control "integration." This allowed him to convert Weber's pathos into an optimistic portrayal of the prospects for system "equilibrium" and "social order." Today, Luhmann has carried this conversion to
the point of assuming that systems operate on the basis of a natural identity
of interests (1982, 1986, 1990).
As the literature review in chapter 2 makes clear, such apologetics are
not unique to Talcott Parsons (or Niklas Luhmann). Many of Parsons's
harshest critics are equally guilty of complicity in drift. His critics "reveal" that all normative restraints on actors' interests and negotiations
are ultimately particular, and thereby unreasoned. Consider two respects
in which this position results in complicity in drift. First, the specialized
enforcers wielding formal mechanisms of social control cannot be expected to operate with any greater sophistication than the theorists and
researchers studying their behavior.6 Like the latter, the enforcers, too,
find that it is very difficult to recognize which "protected spheres," if any,
simultaneously restrain drift and contribute to heterogenous actors' and
competing groups' possible social integration. It is an easy matter for
them (and other actors) either to allow, or themselves to contribute to,
inadvertent encroachments against such spheres. Put differently, enforcers cannot be expected by anyone, least of all by the social theorists who
have already decided that the social sciences are to remain closed to the
concept of reasoned social action, to take any special pains in maintaining
the integrity of those particular spheres that are sites of actors' possible
social integration. They may instead maintain other "protected spheres,"
those that contribute exclusively to actors' demonstrable social control
(chapter 11).
Second, the heterogeneous actors and competing groups employed
within the protected spheres that are sites of possible social integration
find that they face an enormous obstacle under modern conditions of
drift. As they restrain encroachments, and as they seek the support of
social influentials and power holders to this end, these efforts of normative
restraint appear - to actors and social scientists alike - to be particular,
224
and thereby unreasoned. If they persist in these efforts, they run the risk
of being seen as extending or intensifying social control rather than as
endeavoring to protect the sites of (their own, or others') possible social
integration.
The result of social theorists' and researchers' acceding conceptually to
the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and normative relativism,
therefore, is by no means dispassionate or value-neutral observation of
ongoing social events and existing social units. The result is rather the
social sciences' complicity in drift. Shifts in the direction of social change
are left undifferentiated conceptually, and thereby left literally unobserved
and unresearched empirically. Enforcers (and actors) are never informed
of the full implications of their actions by the social sciences (this paragraph
specifies the point on pages 216-7).
This explains why social scientists find themselves at times facing the
following situation: On the one hand, they become convinced personally
that the quality of life of the actors they are studying is deteriorating, or
clearly not improving, and yet quantitative indices of their material condition and of their subjective approval of their lived situation are either stable
or improving. On the other hand, social scientists find that they lack the
concepts with which to convert their personal conviction into falsifiable
descriptions and explanations. Turning to social theory for assistance, they
discover that non-Marxist theorists declare the entire issue of directionality
to be off-limits conceptually, unredeemably "normative." By conceptual
default, the whole matter is left to survey researchers, the reporters of
record of actors' successful manipulation and control.
10.2. Are restraints on drift intrinsically unreasoned?
10.2.1. From Weber's pathos to Parsons's optimism: rendering

"tradition" benign
The prospect of infusing external restraints on drift with political power or
legal sanctions clearly troubled Parsons. The three reasons why it did unite
him with Weber as the two most conceptually sophisticated non-Marxist
social theorists of their respective generations:
First, neither Weber nor Parsons distinguished internal from external
substantive restraints conceptually, even as both theorists clearly appreciated the great differences between resistance to arbitrary government and resistance to modernity itself.
Second, and more importantly, neither theorist distinguished external
procedural restraints from external substantive restraints conceptually.
225
As a result, each failed to distinguish between voluntaristic directionality and traditionalism or substantive fundamentalism. Each also
failed, of course, to explore methodically the relationship between
internal and external procedural restraints.
Third, because neither theorist really distinguished the concept of
voluntaristic action from nonrational or normative action, neither kept
his social theory open to the possibility that certain normative social
actions might credibly claim to contribute to reasoned social action.
Still, Parsons turned away from Weber's rather one-sided treatment of
rationalization because he saw that it led to "entropy" (1937a: 752), and
could not, in itself, account for the evidence of ongoing social order by midcentury. Far more methodically than Weber, Parsons explored the substantive normative restraints that continue to be found within modern societies.
Rather than employing this terminology of restraints, however, he instead
referred to norms, values, solidarity, morality, and the like. He was particularly interested in studying: kinship (1943; 1965; 1971b,c); race, ethnicity,
and religion (1945,1952b, 1958b, 1966c, 1969b, 1973b, 1974c, 1975c); community (1957); value commitments (1968b); and culture more generally
(1972, 1976b, 1978b).
Because Parsons did not distinguish between procedural and substantive
external restraints, nor between voluntaristic and nonrational action, he
classified all of the topics just mentioned as, ultimately, manifestations of
religion and tradition. He did so because he saw that all of them revolve
around actors sustaining shared substantive beliefs. To be sure, Parsons
treated all of these topics as complexes of analytical aspects amenable to
comparative study rather than as manifestations of particular lived social
fabrics tied to time and place. The problem that Parsons faced is that once
substantive normative aspects are isolated analytically from the lived social
fabrics in which they originated historically, their patently unreasoned qualities come to the fore in stark relief. Religious and traditional aspects are
indeed substantive prejudices. The reasons why they happen to appear
within any lived social fabric, in practice, are invariably particular rather
than ever generalizable. Thus, these aspects may be placed into comparative perspective by being defined analytically as norms and values. But
their appearance, in practice, cannot be generalized because they cannot
be justified to disbelieving outsiders with reasons.
Weber's very concept of "substantive rationality" is his relativist substitute for the concept of reasoned social action. And this concept codifies the
problem: Substantive restraints on drift are indistinguishable from prejudices, both in practice and conceptually.7 Aside from collapsing the distinction between substantive and procedural restraints, and that between inter-
226
nal and external substantive restraints, Weber's concept does not permit
any social theorist or researcher to specify what exactly is "rational" about
any purported instance of substantively rational action (see Habermas
1981a for the best discussion of this problem). When residents in a neighborhood band together to resist commercialization, is this substantively
rational or not? When executives in a corporation fail to organize either
sales or research personnel most effectively, is this substantively rational or
not?
Putting the problem more generally: Is there a single social theorist or
researcher who has contributed to the vast Weber literature who directly or
indirectly refutes the proposition that any purported instance of substantively rational action, in practice, is actually an instance of "substantively
prejudiced action"? Why are there so few examples of substantive rationality in Weber's writings, and, surprisingly, even fewer in the Weber literature?8 The fact of the matter is that no one has specified conceptually, nor
illustrated with concrete examples, what is unambiguously rational about
any purported instance of substantively rational action. This failure explains why Weber, and then Parsons, assumed that any effort to infuse
external restraints of any kind with political power or legal sanctions is,
respectively, "regressive" and "dedifferentiating." They shared this assumption because the only alternative to acceding to drift that they saw available
to modern actors is some variant or another of substantive prejudice. Each
tried desperately, and failed, to demonstrate that certain substantive prejudices are "more rational" than others.9 With this, both the optimistic
American and the pessimistic German ultimately fell victim to the ideology
of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
10.2.2. Parsons's conceptual limitations and dilemma
Parsons failed to take three steps that would have pushed his framework of
analytical concepts toward addressing the Weberian Dilemma directly and
challenging the presupposition of exhausted possibilities:
First, external procedural restraints may be infused with political
power, without simultaneously imposing prejudices on "outsiders" or
disbelievers. They may be infused with political power just as the
rationalization of economic growth or the rationalization of law enforcement, as counterexamples, are infused with political power.
Second, and relatedly, to infuse external procedural restraints with
political power is not to shift social change from direction to drift, nor
from possible social integration to demonstrable social control. As one
example, this does not contribute intrinsically to shifting law enforce-
227
ment from routine discretion or selective enforcement to unmediated

manipulation, control, and coercion.10
Third, even should law enforcement agencies (and other organizations) resort to discretion, and even should they extend formal mechanisms of social control to outright coercion, all of their actions remain
consistent with heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' possible
social integration if their actions remain consistent with external procedural restraints.
Rather than taking any of the steps, Parsons instead followed the classical social theorists in failing to distinguish external procedural restraints
conceptually. Like them, he too collapsed these norms into more general
categories of solidarity, morality, tradition, religion, and the "sacred." The
problem with all of the latter categories is that they may be reduced by
critics to strictly nonrational social action - just like Weber's oxymoron,
substantive rationality. All of these categories address external substantive
restraints at the very core of lived social fabrics, and they collapse into the
latter the external procedural restraints found, in practice, only within
certain traditions and lived social fabrics.
Parsons's failure to draw these analytical distinctions accounts for his
lifelong interest in exploring how cultural values and nonrational social
solidarities of all kinds maintain "equilibrium" and "social order." He
lacked the concepts to address explicitly the problem of ncwauthoritarian
social order in particular (Sciulli 1988b). Late in his career, for instance, he
expected middle-class professionals to bear a "fiduciary responsibility" for
"pattern-maintenance." In other words, he expected professionals to become increasingly responsible for maintaining social order within every
modern nation-state without exception. He expected this to occur, moreover, despite the ongoing fragmentation of meaning affecting professionals
in the same ways that it affects all other actors.
Aside from the unlikelihood of either expectation's being realized, in
practice, each also lacks conceptual support in Parsons's own social
theory. Ultimately, his view of the professions illustrates the great weakness of retaining Weber's concept of substantive rationality instead of
keeping a social theory open to the concept of reasoned social action. Just
as the former concept can be rendered synonymous with substantive prejudices, so too Parsons's approach to professions cannot account for the
possibility of flonauthoritarian social order in comparative perspective
(see chapter 11, pages 251-4 for an alternative account of professionals'
responsibility).
Still, Parsons's approach to professions raises a legitimate problem.
Since he lacked the conceptual apparatus to resolve it directly, this problem
228
is fittingly labeled the Parsonian Dilemma: How is it that professionals,

whether acting independently or collectively, can recognize and understand
the "meaning" of substantive norms of restraint in common? How is it that
they can accomplish this despite: (a) their own increasing heterogeneity
and increasing diversity in their patterns of primary socialization; (b) the
increasing functional differentiation of their professional training and
thereby of their secondary socialization; (c) the increasing functional differentiation of their sites of employment and thereby of their duties and
aspirations; and, finally, (d) the increasing diversity of their styles of life,
subjective interests, and substantive beliefs?11
10.3. Rethinking tradition: lived distinctiveness v. transferable
qualities
10.3.1 Two conceptual possibilities exposed by Parsons's mature
works
The discussion of the theory of societal constitutionalism to this point
reveals two ways in which Parsons's treatments of norms and values might
be significantly improved. First, quite distinctive social units - collegial
formations - are for a variety of reasons becoming increasingly significant
under modern conditions, at least in principle. Within nonauthoritarian
nation-states, this is indeed the case in practice. Second, and equally
importantly, Parsons's residual references to collegial formations, and
then to procedural institutions and the law generally, provide an opening
to an alternative way of thinking about his treatments of norms and
values.
To Parsons's credit, he saw members of collegial formations (particularly
within the United States) as bearing a fiduciary responsibility for somehow
maintaining the integrity of national (and cultural) "traditions." The Parsonian Dilemma, however, results from his assumption that professionals
would indeed bear this responsibility within all modern nation-states. This
dilemma may now be traced specifically to Parsons's failure to relate this
assumption to his treatment of traditions. On the one hand, he failed to
account conceptually for why professionals can be expected to assume such
an onerous fiduciary responsibility in commony despite systemic pressures
to the contrary (chapter 8, note 16). Yet, on the other, he acknowledged
that within common-law countries at least, national traditions cannot be
reduced to substantive norms and institutions. These national traditions
also include longstanding principles of governmental constitutionalism as
well as other analytical aspects of distinctively procedural norms and values.
This suggestion, presented by Parsons ever so tentatively, carries three
10.3. Rethinking tradition
229
important implications. Once developed, they move progressively beyond

Parsons's writings:
First, comparativists cannot legitimately treat all analytical aspects of all
national (or subcultural) traditions as if they are exclusively substantive.
Second, comparativists cannot treat all analytical aspects of "tradition" as if they are intrinsically reducible to the lived social fabrics
within which they originated historically.12
Third, professionals and other members of collegial formations may
well institutionalize the external procedural restraints distinctive to
/tonauthoritarian social order, even as they simultaneously maintain
this order's "traditions." They may accomplish this as long as the
"traditions" involved contain voluntaristic procedures rather than being reducible to some combination of rational procedures and more
immediately substantive qualities.
Parsons acknowledged the distinctiveness of procedural norms within
certain national traditions, and in particular within those of Great Britain
and the United States. But he failed to work this insight into his conceptual framework. It is precisely the procedural norms of any national tradition, both rational and voluntaristic, that can possibly claim generalizability, not the norms of its substantive core and lived social fabrics. It is
the former analytical aspects of any national tradition, moreover, that are
capable of being transfered overseas without having to be imposed on
"outsiders." It is these analytical aspects, finally, that can credibly claim to
contribute to reasoned social action rather than being reducible a priori to
prejudices.
Indeed, these analytical aspects of tradition have been transfered historically to "alien" locales, short of imposition. They have been successfully
detached, in practice, from the substantive core and lived social fabrics of
the national traditions within which they originated historically. Still, it must
be keep in mind that even as procedural norms include rational norms,
such as those involved in advances of science and technology, only distinctively voluntaristic procedures are significant for the theory of societal
constitutionalism.
10.3.2. Two conceptual developments beyond Parsons
Actors' lived social fabrics (or Lebensweli) within any modern nation-state
indeed revolve around particular sets of substantive norms (and material
interests). The actors living within any particular fabric only pass these
230
substantive norms to future generations through relatively successful primary socialization. Many of these substantive norms may be lost from
actors' Lebenswelt even within a single generation. This happens, in practice, whenever institutions of family and primary education, as examples,
are disrupted or substantially altered. Being difficult to pass along successfully even from generation to generation, these norms are clearly not
readily transferred overseas short of being imposed by conquest, colonization, or cultural imperialism.13 They are not available for transfer because
they are particular rather than generalizable; they are ultimately supported
by a particular social infrastructure of lived social fabrics. This is why even
after 300 years of direct military occupation Brazil is not Portugal, and
Mexico and Argentina are not Spain. With far fewer years of occupation,
the New England states and Guyana are not England, Louisiana and Haiti
are not France, and Zaire is not Belgium.
Nevertheless, analytical aspects of traditions, whether substantive or procedural, are indeed transferred to new sites, in practice. At times they are
transferred during quite brief periods of imposition, as was the case, for
example, with French occupations of Algeria and Vietnam or American
occupations of Japan, Germany, and Vietnam. The important point for
comparative research, however, is to consider methodically which analytical aspects of any tradition are "most available" for transfer without having
to be imposed on "outsiders" or disbelievers in any respect whatsoever.14 Put
differently, comparative researchers cannot legitimately treat all analytical
aspects of all national traditions as equally confined to their social infrastructure of lived social fabrics, and thereby equally unavailable for tranfer. Two
possible lines of theoretical development left unexplored by Parsons are
beginning to come into view, based on the two steps taken in the preceding
section.
"Tradition" as transferable, generalizable, and invariant in impact. The
first line of theoretical development is to consider that if at least certain
analytical aspects of certain national traditions are indeed distinctively
voluntaristic and procedural, then these aspects are possibly generalizable,
in principle. As such, they are also available for transfer, in practice.15 In
addition, unlike all other analytical aspects comprising the same national
traditions, these analytical aspects also have an invariant impact on the
direction of social change of any modern nation-state to which they are
transferred.16 They restrain arbitrary exercises of collective power by their
sheer presence. This means that they do so: (a) irrespective of the particular nation-state to which they are transferred; (b) irrespective of the substantive projects to which they become attached within this nation-state;
and (c) irrespective of the primary socialization, substantive beliefs, and
subjective interests of the actors participating in these substantive projects.
10.3. Rethinking tradition
231
Once the availability for transfer of distinctively voluntaristic and procedural aspects of a national tradition is brought into view, along with an
appreciation of the invariance of their impact upon transferal, the prominence that Parsons gave to primary socialization, and to Durkheim's and
Freud's analyses of actors' internalization of shared substantive norms, is
challenged conceptually. Comparativists cannot legitimately treat national
traditions as undifferentiated wholes which, in principle as well as in practice, are altogether fixed social facts. They cannot legitimately employ
conceptual frameworks that a priori treat all analytical aspects of all national traditions as if they were exclusively or ultimately tied to actors'
internalization of shared substantive beliefs. Nor, for that matter, can they
employ conceptual frameworks that treat all such aspects as reducible to
actors' local interactions and cultural "tool kits" (Swidler 1986).17 This first
line of theoretical development beyond Parsons is pursued in the remainder of this chapter and the next.
Resuscitating the integrity of internal procedural restraints. The second
possible line of theoretical development left unexplored by Parsons is that
actors within rccwauthoritarian social orders either develop or adopt both
internal and external procedural restraints. They do so irrespective of the
substance of national traditions and the particularity of the social infrastructure that is comprised of lived social fabrics. Moreover, they may innovate
by infusing any newly transferred restraints with political power or legal
sanctions. In other words, the nation-states to which voluntaristic procedural norms of restraint are transferred may, in principle, initiate the establishing of a public realm within their civil societies well in advance of the
nation-state within which these voluntaristic procedural norms originated
historically. There is no theoretical or empirical reason why this cannot
occur, in practice. Such a move beyond the public policies of existing
Western democracies exposes limitations in the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
By contrast to Parsons and Weber alike, therefore, it cannot be assumed a priori that one invariant result of infusing norms of external
restraint with political power or legal sanctions is institutional regression
or functional dedifferentiation. Quite the opposite is the case: When exercises of political power and legal sanctions are dedicated to maintaining
the integrity of internal and external norms of procedural restraint, they
are always and everywhere possibly integrative. By distinguishing voluntaristic procedural analytical aspects within any national tradition, and by
considering the implications of supporting their integrity with political
power or legal sanctions, the discussion has moved significantly beyond
the literature of Western constitutional theory and practice. It has moved
beyond this literature by revealing that a public policy of introducing
232
collegial formations into a civil society may be initiated even within

nation-states whose substantive cores of national traditions are quite different from, and possibly incompatible with, those of any and all Western
democracies. This too exposes limitations in the scope of application of
the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. This second line of theoretical development beyond Parsons is explored somewhat further in the next
chapter.
10.4.1. Societal constitutionalism v. governmental constitutionalism
The first line of theoretical development beyond Parsons as noted previously is that researchers may predict that procedural and voluntaristic aspects of national traditions are "available" for transfer short of impositions
and not any part of their core substantive norms and social infrastructure of
lived social fabrics. This first possibility may be specified in three distinct
steps:
First, any corporation or complex social unit anywhere in the world
that maintains the integrity of collegial formations simultaneously institutionalizes external procedural restraints on drift, at least within its
sector or industry. Yet, the voluntaristic and procedural norms underlying collegial formations originated historically within common-law
countries.
Second, the sheer presence of collegial formations within any corporation or complex social unit also contributes to a social infrastructure that
permits even heterogeneous actors and competing groups to revitalize
the integrity of internal procedural restraints on government. They may
revitalize these restraints by extending them from government to purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power by private enterprises
within civil society. This extension bears a striking resemblance to the
(purported) contribution of the "constituent group" in seventeenthcentury England and eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century American colonies, which is discussed momentarily. Once again, the theory
(and purported practice) of the constituent group originated historically
in legal and constitutional struggles against absolute monarchy within
common-law countries.18
Third, the external procedural restraints institutionalized by collegial
formations not only render the constituent group's (purported) historical contribution "available" for use by social influential (and
insurgents) within non-Western nation-states. They also extend its
contribution from establishing strictly internal procedural restraints
233
to establishing external procedural restraints on how sectors, industries, and organizations respond to systemic pressures of drift. Unlike
the particularity of the constituent group's (purported) narrower
contribution, moreover, the external procedural restraints institutionalized by collegial formations are eminently transferable. Just as importantly, their impact of restraint on any sector, industry, or organization of any modern civil society is invariant.
It is instructive to consider more closely the major differences between
governmental constitutionalism's "agent of change" and that of societal
constitutionalism. Governmental constitutionalism's agent is homogeneous actors and consensual groups, first within an amorphous "constituent force" and then within a temporarily organized "constituent group."
Societal constitutionalism's agent is heterogeneous actors and competing
groups within collegial formations. In exploring the differences between
these agents, the reasons for collegial formations' greater "availability"
for transfer or generalizability, and for their invariant impact, come into
view.
10.4.2. From the constituent group to collegial formations
Constituent group: restricted impact, temporary presence. The "constitu-
ent group" of seventeenth-century England and eighteenth- and early

nineteenth-century America is, according to Anglo-American legal and
constitutional theory, the social agent that, respectively, institutionalized a
limited government (in England) and framed a republican constitution (in
America) (see Friedrich 1941, 1963, 1972, 1974; Milsom 1981; Yale Law
Journal 1988 on republicanism). In both instances, this group placed both
substantive and procedural restraints on arbitrary government or, more
accurately, on absolute monarchy. The constituent group is explicitly distinguished, however, from a much more amorphous social force: the "constituent force." According to this same theoretical tradition, this social
force literally pervaded English and American civil societies at the time of
their respective revolutions. The constituent force, it is said, was comprised of that entire set of social influential who opposed arbitrary government, whether commercial landowners, emerging bourgeoisie, or others
sympathetic to limited government. Anglo-American legal and constitutional theory holds that it was from these ranks that the much smaller set
of political activists comprising the constituent group eventually emerged,
by a process of self-selection. The constituent group's popular mandate
continued to rest, however, on whether the constituent force accepted that
the limits it placed on government were proper. Once acceptable limits
were placed on government, the constituent group disbanded immedi-
234
ately, receding into the amorphous constituent force from which it had
emerged and to which it had remained responsible.
Legal and constitutional theorists distinguish the constituent group from
the constituent force for a most important reason. By their accounts, the
constituent force is in itself incapable of either establishing or maintaining a
republican or limited government. Indeed, these theorists insist quite adamantly that if this social force were ever mobilized en masse it would be
unable to avoid authoritarian excesses. They said this because with the
delegitimation of the natural right of kings - the "natural law" that a monarch's sovereignty is as removed from challenge as is God's rule over man
or a parent's rule over a child - the constituent force became sovereign, and
sovereignty is ultimately indivisible.
Thus, once the monarch's sovereignty could no longer escape challenge,
the constituent force became the ultimate source of political power within
the nation - as the totality of republican-minded social influential. Like
the monarch's sovereignty before it, however, the constituent force's sovereignty also is ultimately absolute, beyond challenge. Its power is never
legitimately limited or restrained by any group or faction because any and
all other interests are particular whereas the interest of the constituent
force is general, the literal "public interest." The major difference between
the monarch's sovereignty and the constituent force's sovereignty, however, is critical to this tradition of legal and constitutional theory: Unlike a
monarch, the new sovereign is likely to remain forever a latent social force,
or what Habermas (1962) calls a "bourgeois public sphere." The theorists
within this tradition could not imagine the circumstances under which the
constituent force would ever, or could ever, mobilize fully. But then again
these same theorists failed to anticipate the rise of mass political parties in
the mid- and late nineteenth century, to say nothing of the numerous massbased authoritarian (and occasional totalitarian) regimes of the twentieth
century.
Regardless, Anglo-American legal and constitutional theory revolves
around the presupposition that whenever government exceeds its "natural"
limits, a faction of the constituent force - the constituent group - can be
expected to organize, albeit temporarily. It can be expected to organize
only for as long as it takes to complete its single task: to return government
to "natural" limits, limits popularly recognized by the latent constituent
force. The constituent group accomplishes this at the moment that it
frames (and has ratified) a republican constitution, and in particular at the
moment that it successfully introduces (or resuscitates) the division of powers (see Vile 1967 for the best account). Once this is accomplished, the
constituent group simultaneously loses its legitimacy to remain organized.
It properly disbands, receding into the amorphous, ever-vigilant constituent force from which it came.
235
If the constituent group fails to disband, it cannot avoid authoritarian

excesses because, as legal and constitutional theorists insist, as long as it
remains organized it takes into itself the nation's sovereign power. As long
as it remains organized, its exercises of collective power are not legitimately limited or restrained by any opposition from any quarter, strategic
or normative.19 As the literal sovereign, the constituent group can never be
trusted to govern. It can be trusted only to limit government. In the terminology of societal constitutionalism, it can be trusted only to institutionalize
internal substantive and procedural restraints.
Indeed, according to early Anglo-American legal and constitutional
theory, the members of the constituent group not only must recede into the
amorphous constituent force but also must forego communicating among
themselves through formal channels. They cannot remain organized within
any identifiable groups or "factions" purporting to represent the constituent force. It can be appreciated at this point why the American founders
and framers so feared the rise of fledgling political parties in the 1820s.
Only in the face of renewed arbitrariness by government are members of
the larger constituent force ever to establish formal channels of communication or to seek organizational expression. Otherwise, none of this is necessary. According to this theoretical tradition, the individuals comprising the
constituent force are ever-vigilant regardless. They are certain to recognize
in common any increases in government's arbitrariness. Given this faith in
dispersed individuals' capacity to sustain a shared recognition and understanding within civil society of government's actions, these theorists were
convinced that a faction of the constituent force would invariably organize
in sufficient time whenever government became threatening. This is why
these theorists also were certain that this faction, once self-selected, would
arrive rather readily at consensus regarding how best to proceed, and then
when it is appropriate to disband.20
Like neopositivists' implicit portrayals of how individual scientists conduct themselves in order for a copy theory of truth to be a possibility, these
early legal and constitutional theorists assumed that each social influential
comprising the amorphous constituent force is capable, in isolation, of
recognizing unambiguously what governmental arbitrariness is. Given this
assumption, it was not problematic for these theorists also to assume that
the same individuals, still operating in isolation or at best through the
informal channels of communication that Habermas documents in his study
of the bourgeois public sphere, can readily agree when it is time to institutionalize internal procedural and substantive restraints on government.
The constituent group can readily get on with the task of framing a republican constitution precisely because the constituent force's shared recognition
of the problem antedates its formation. Correlatively, the constituent group
can organize itself on short notice, with scarce resources and informal
236
leadership, precisely because it does not face legitimate strategic or normative opposition from any quarter within the constituent force proper. The
only opposition it faces comes literally from traitors or monarchists, and
the latter are already riddled by the problem of delegitimation. As the
constituent group carries out its sole task, its opponents are encouraged to
leave the country - and to leave their property behind.21
Still, even if all of these assumptions are conceded, the only normative
and strategic restraints that concerned early legal and constitutional theorists were internal procedural and substantive restraints on government.
Systemic pressures of rationalization, including actors' fragmentation of
meaning and the reactions of bureaucratization and steady extensions of
formal social controls, were not salient issues for theorists in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. This is why the issue of
challenging the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests, of institutionalizing external procedural restraints on the drift of social change, falls far
outside the scope of application of the concepts that these theorists developed.22 Just as early legal and constitutional theorists assumed that the
constituent force would remain forever latent and unorganized within civil
society, so too they assumed that the sole legitimate product of the constituent group - a republican constitution - would have at most a strictly latent
and indirect impact on civil society.
To this day, this tradition of legal and constitutional theory lacks the
concepts that would allow social scientists to address even the possibility
that permanent organizations and institutions within a civil society might
comprise the social infrastructure of a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change. First, this would be the social infrastructure on which a contemporary "constituent force" (and social scientists) might establish and maintain
a shared recognition and understanding of what governmental arbitrariness
is in the late twentieth century. Second, this would be the same social
infrastructure on which social influentials (and social scientists) might recognize and understand in common when arbitrary exercises of collective
power by private enterprises are increasing within a civil society.
Habermas fares no better than this constitutional and legal tradition
when he explores the rise of popular opposition to absolute monarchy in
Western Europe in the mid-eighteenth century. (He excludes the American
colonies from his discussion.) As noted in passing above, he refers to this
opposition not as an amorphous constituent force but rather as an informally organized "bourgeois public sphere:" "[A] forum in which the private people, come together to form a public, readied themselves to compel
public authority to legitimate itself before public opinion" (pp. 25-6).
Habermas traces this sphere's steady rise to prominence through the early
nineteenth century, and then its subsequent rapid decline in influence begin-
10A. Prospects for "tradition"
237
ning in the mid-nineteenth century as premodern absolutism dropped from

the scene and both liberalization and democratization were extended.
Consistent with constitutional and legal theorists' accounts of the constituent group in England and the American colonies, a great irony informs
Habermas's account of the bourgeois social sphere on the Continent: It was
most critical, and seemingly most reasoned, when its participants were
most homogeneous - in class, in ethnicity, in religion, and in style of life.23
This informally organized "sphere" was most critical when admission to its
talking clubs was most restricted, when the vast majority of the population,
the working classes and rural populace, was both impoverished and illiterate. An individual's admission to the early public sphere was contingent on
the security of his or her property base as well as on the suitability of his or
her education or "cultivation." The richest part of Habermas's account is
indeed his careful exploration of the talking clubs comprising this amorphous sphere: the coffee houses, salons, reading societies, and intellectual
networks that sprang up across Western Europe as expanding market societies generated both investment opportunities and a consumer market outside the control of court and estates.
Within these talking clubs, first the arts and then politics and public
affairs were critically discussed. Consider the following items selected from
the tapestry of Habermas's excellent discussion:
(1) The earliest private "publications" are circulars exchanged by merchants engaged in long-distance trade (1962: 15).
(2) "Political journals" then appear by the early seventeenth century,
first weeklies and then dailies; again, they are first written in response
to the needs of merchants, and they continue to fall under the watchful
eye of the state administration (1962: 21-2).
(3) By the end of the seventeenth century, periodicals begin to appear
not merely with trade information but also with educational instructions as well as literary criticisms and reviews (1962: 24-5). There is a
rise of coffee houses in Britain (3,000 in London) and of salons in
France (1962: 32-3).
(4) During the eighteenth century, apolitical literary expressions of
the private lives of the bourgeois family begin to appear (1962: 29).
For the first time in history, mediocre novels become best-sellers
(1962: 43).
(5) Also by the mid-eighteenth century, serious reading by an interested public emerges simultaneously with the rise of theaters and concerts independent of the court (1962: 38). The very term "public"
refers to this new theater audience.
238

(6) Only by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, however,
did large daily newspapers emerge (such as the Times of London in
1785) (1962: 64); newspapers were permitted to report the votes of
Parliament in 1771 and by 1803 places were set aside in the gallery for
journalists (1962: 62).
(7) Three decades later, the press began to distance itself from ideological position-taking and to become more commercial (1962: 184); by
the 1870s, publishers wielded more power than editors (1962: 186).
Habermas's point in exploring such details is to demonstrate that public

opinion was intrinsically critical of public authority for about a century, and
then it became increasingly acclaiming. The bourgeois public sphere proper
was a decentralized network of distinct talking clubs, each with its own
public meeting places and publications. The public opinion emerging from
these clubs initially provided, in Habermas's view, a relatively reliable standard against which the "truth" or "reason" of public officials' actions might
be broadly gauged. Public opinion was not yet a measurable sentiment that
advertisers and other experts might manipulate, if not control, with symbols
detached from reasons. Indeed, the survey analyst, the public relations
expert, and the media consultant would all have to wait a full century before
the object of their handiwork, a seemingly speechless mass, and before their
own clients - the political party and corporate leaders seeking to manipulate
this object - would become available for their techniques.
Habermas's account of the early bourgeois public sphere, and its demise,
is much richer sociologically than the accounts of the constituent force
provided by classical liberal and constitutional theorists. Yet, incredibly,
the account of the constituent force is ultimately what underlies Lockean
liberals' complacency and optimism in the late twentieth century. By contrast to this allegory, Habermas provides more than 100 pages of rich detail
of the specific social units that comprised the so-called constituent force.
Just as importantly, he explores how the integrity of these social units was
steadily undermined with the onset of industrial capitalism, mass political
parties, and the administrative state. He concludes by trying, and failing, to
find substitutes for these social units within postwar Western democracies.
This leaves him with the dilemma that he inherited from Marx and Weber
alike, the dilemma that he has yet to resolve now nearly three decades after
his first book appeared: How is nonauthoritarian social order possible in
the late twentieth century given that the social infrastructure once provided
by the bourgeois public sphere is not in evidence?
Habermas's concepts, like Marx's and Weber's, fail to yield answers to
this question. In turn, liberal and constitutional concepts are tied to this
tradition's vague allegory, and to complacency and optimism, rather than
offering an answer to this question. A major reason for Habermas's failure
239
in particular is that since 1962 he has been looking too directly, too literally,
at political parties, interest groups, and social movements for the social
infrastructure once provided by the public realm. He then finds, of course,
that they fail to measure up as arenas of critical discourse, and thereby fail
to account for the possibility of nonauthoritarian social order. His later,
absolutist critiques of Western democracy (1973a; 1981a,b) clearly signal
that his conceptual apparatus, an achievement of the first order in other
respects, is leading him further and further away from answering the question above and resolving the Weberian Dilemma. Yet, this question and
this dilemma are being answered every day, in practice. There is indeed a
social infrastructure underlying nonauthoritarian social orders today, and it
is indeed under threat from systemic pressures of social change. But it is
comprised of collegial formations largely located within formal organizations. It is not comprised of a more amorphous set of social influential
operating within informal talking clubs or broader social movements.
In sum, the constituent group has the following characteristics:
(a) The constituent group strategically restrains government's excesses, and then institutionalizes both substantive and procedural internal restraints, including the division of powers in particular.
(b) The constituent group's emergence not merely straddles but collapses the public/private distinction. But because the constituent group
brings the sovereign power of the constituent force to bear on the
single task of restraining arbitrary government, civil society is not
directly affected by its actions.24 It is not to be trusted when it defines
its mission any more broadly, to include exercises of collective power
by private enterprises within civil society itself.
(c) The constituent group places both substantive and procedural restraints on government, but it does not do so by its sheer presence
within civil society. Nor, certainly, does the sheer presence of the more
amorphous constituent force or bourgeois public sphere yield internal
restraints. The constituent group places these restraints on government by organizing temporarily as a faction of the constituent force or
bourgeois social sphere.
Collegial formations: invariant impact, permanent presence. The problem
of arbitrariness in the late twentieth century is not as confined as it once

appeared to be in the days of the (purported) constituent force and the
bourgeois public sphere. Corporations within American civil society, for
instance, are larger, more powerful, and more influential than the largest
state governments, and often two or three of the latter taken together. The
problem of arbitrary exercises of collective power can no longer be kept
confined to maintaining or resuscitating the integrity of internal restraints
240
on arbitrary government. The problem instead becomes: Is it possible to

address the Weberian Dilemma by institutionalizing external restraints on
drift, and yet simultaneously avoid extending social control and increasing
a nation-state's susceptibility to social authoritarianism? It has been argued
throughout this volume that collegial formations restrain drift, and that
they do so in a way that remains possibly integrative rather than becoming
demonstrably controlling. It is intriguing, therefore, to consider points of
comparison and contrast between collegial formations and the constituent
group.
Collegial formations are permanent organizations, and they also are
distributed far more widely across the sectors and industries of a civil
society than was the constituent group in its day. Again, Habermas's account of the exclusivity of the larger "bourgeois public sphere" from which
the constituent group is drawn speaks to its restricted presence within civil
society. By contrast, the collegial form of organization potentially could be
extended to cover literally all of the professions (and their clients) as well as
all of the deliberative bodies of an entire civil society. It could be extended
further into the working classes than might be expected, even as it is likely
to exclude elite positions that are dedicated to corporate finance and investment but cannot credibly claim to be professional or deliberative. Yet, like
the constituent group, members of collegial formations will likely always
remain a distinct faction within any civil society - unlike, say, the potential
membership of mass political parties or of national social movements.
Put most succinctly, collegial formations have the following characteristics:
(a) Collegial formations are permanently organized, and by their sheer
presence institutionalize external procedural restraints not only on
government but also on how private enterprises are permitted institutionally to act in their own interests.
(b) Collegial formations pose invariant, generalizable restraints on any
and all exercises of collective power, again by their sheer presence
within a civil society.
(c) Collegial formations may be present within and across countless
sectors of a civil society as well as within and across countless agencies
of government. By their sheer presence, they establish a social infrastructure on which even heterogeneous actors and competing groups
might resuscitate the integrity of internal procedural restraints on government by extending them into civil society.
Actors' voluntaristic project of establishing and then maintaining this social
infrastructure may be thought of as one of institutionalizing and then maintaining a public realm within civil society. This project is much more complicated than the constituent group's project of framing a constitution and
241
then receding into civil society, and yet this project is decidedly practicable
rather than idealized or allegorical.
A public realm proper is literally the commons within a civil society (cf.
Selznick 1987). No one is excluded, in principle, from participating within
and contributing to the organizations and institutions comprising this
realm. Yet, these same organizations and institutions are not themselves
democratic in any strict sense. They are not organized in the democratic
form, and their impact on civil society and government, while invariant, is
by no means synonymous with that of the "public opinion" that survey
research codifies. The organizations and institutions at the center of this
public realm are a decentralized network of collegial formations. The same
social and political conditions supporting this network simultaneously support other "protected spheres" that fail to adopt the collegial form. The
latter are functionally defined spheres of religion, the arts, environment,
leisure, and family or local life protected artificially from unmediated competition within economic and political marketplaces.
11. Collegial formations as external

procedural restraints: prospects for a
public realm
The discussion in chapter 9 addressed why power holders and social influentials can be expected to institutionalize internal procedural restraints in
particular. This was followed, in chapter 10, by a discussion of why procedural voluntaristic restraints in general are "available" for transfer. Now it
is possible to assess conceptually collegial formations' current status and
future prospects within contemporary nation-states. Along the way, other
issues come to the fore as well, including: First, the relationship between
the theory of societal constitutionalism and other theoretical approaches to
social order. Second, how the presence of collegial formations affects the
stratification system. Third, how both authoritarian and nonauthoritarian
directions of social change develop beyond the limiting case of authoritarian social order. And, fourth, how the presence of collegial formations
within selected sectors of a civil society can affect how power holders act
and propose actions across an entire civil society.
11.1. Speculations on collegial formations today: two restraints not
institutionalized
Collegial formations today fail to restrain two sets of social activities that
they could restrain to some greater extent if their integrity were upheld as a
matter of public policy. Yet, they restrain a third set of social activities
because, by definition, their members' behavior is oriented by voluntaristic
procedures. This third contribution of restraint is what accounts for the
collegial form's modest links to social power today. It also provides social
scientists with a standard by which to gauge whether collegial formations
are maintaining or losing their integrity.
11.1.1. Collegial form and possessive individualism
The first set of normative restraints that collegial formations fail to institutionalize by their sheer presence within a civil society has to do with orienting economic activity within market economies. The presence of collegial
formations fails to restrain consumerism and possessive individualism
242
11.1. Speculations on collegial formations today
243
(Macpherson 1962).l Prominent members of collegial formations may endeavor at times to influence others by ridiculing the mindlessness of consumerism and possessiveness, and by rejecting the latter in their own styles
of life. The same may be said of selected leaders of other protected
spheres, including religious leaders and others dedicated in word and deed
to maintaining the integrity of the substantive core of a national or cultural
tradition. But more typically these members and leaders accommodate,
and themselves recapitulate, this behavior.
This presents a problem, of course, and one may label it "motivation
crisis" if one wishes (Habermas 1973a). Or else, one may label it the
problem of maintaining "social solidarity" (Hechter 1987), the "free-rider
problem" (Olson 1965) ,2 or the problem of "social order" (Parsons 1937a).
But this is a manifestation of systemic drift that is not intrinsically related to
the problem of whether social order is becoming more controlling and
arbitrary.3 The mindlessness of consumerism and possessiveness may be
regrettable. But free riders and other narrowly motivated actors in abundance do not invariably threaten heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups' possibilities for social integration, nor their possibilities for maintaining a nonauthoritarian direction of social change.4 Quite to the contrary, the reformers who endeavor to eliminate free riders, and to "cultivate" the narrowly motivated, might well pose a greater threat. This is
clearly the case the moment that even the best-intentioned efforts at "cultivation" entail either purposeful or inadvertent encroachments against collegial formations or against the threshold of interpretability of shared social
duties.
11.1.2. Collegial form, social stratification, and social order
The second set of restraints that collegial formations fail to institutionalize
today by their sheer presence within a civil society is a corollary of the first.
Consider the relationship between the collegial form of organization and
the substantive inequalities found within a civil society: the relationship
between collegial formations, social stratification, and social order. In exploring this relationship, points of contrast between societal constitutionalism and competing approaches to the "problem of social order" come
to the fore. Again, social order is any situation wherein actors conform to
ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior that are widely acknowledged by the members of any social unit (chapter 2).5
Societal constitutionalism v. consensus theory
Social order within collegial formations: acknowledged expectations.
When actors maintain the integrity of the collegial form within any division
of a more complex social enterprise, this means that their behavior within
244
11. Collegial formations as external procedural restraints
this division already exhibits fidelity to a normative orientation that is

distinctively voluntaristic and procedural. Correlatively, their behavior
within this division is /^consistent with the rational actions being taken
within the larger social enterprise; principles of rational choice cannot
account for this observed inconsistency.6 Yet, as noted above, their behavior within this division need not present any obstacle whatsoever to most
manifestations of consumerism and possessive individualism in the larger
economy. After all, the latter typically take place outside of the collegial
form, and they need not jeopardize the integrity of collegial formations
either directly or indirectly.
Still, all members of all collegial formations share an acknowledged range
of expectations regarding the behavior that is acceptable within (and then
around) their own divisions and social units. They expect any interested
party seeking to influence their behavior qua members of collegial formations to (a) present "acceptable" proposals and (b) present these proposals in
"acceptable" ways. "Acceptable" behavior is any behavior that, at the very
least, does not compromise these members' own ongoing behavioral fidelity
to the threshold distinctive to this organizational form itself. Thus, to the
extent that its members are indeed maintaining this formation's integrity,
they are dismissing all proposals submitted by interested parties that
threaten the "social order" - the acknowledged ranges of expectations institutionalized by this organizational form.
As one obvious example, bribery certainly fails to qualify as an acceptable way to present otherwise acceptable proposals to members of collegial
formations. Bribery is an equally unacceptable way to approach members
of bureaucratic and democratic formations, to be sure. But it is by no
means as unacceptable to members of patron-client formations. More importantly, and less obviously, there are types ofproposals that are unacceptable to members of collegial formations and yet acceptable to the members
of all other organizational forms: These are proposals whose adoption by
members of collegial formations would entail their encroaching against the
threshold of interpretability of shared social duties.
Collegial social order as group competition and potential conflict? When
actors maintain the integrity of the collegial form, they institutionalize a
procedural voluntaristic orientation; they institutionalize ranges of expectations that set unambiguous limits to acceptable behavior within and around
existing collegial formations. But these same ranges of expectations by no
means set unambiguous limits to types or levels of stratification within the
larger civil society. Does this mean that the impact of collegial formations
on the stratification system is neutral? Does this mean that, ultimately, the
theory of societal constitutionalism is a "consensus" theory, a social theory
consistent with even extreme material and substantive inequalities?
11.1. Speculations on collegia! formations today
245
Unlike collegial formations' impact on arbitrary exercises of collective

power, which may be captured conceptually because it is invariant, their
impact on the stratification system is more open empirically. The only thing
that can be said about it a priori, and thereby stated conceptually, is that
their impact on the stratification system (a) is not likely to be neutral, and
(b) is no more likely to be apologetic than critical. The best way to conceptualize this impact is to think of collegial formations introducing a "wild
card" into the stratification system of any modern civil society (cf. Collins
1979 focuses more narrowly on the relationship between credentials and
stratification). As actors introduce these formations into sectors, industries, and organizations of a civil society, the presence of these formations
does not immediately affect the substantive inequalities that actors are
experiencing in their everyday lives. Yet their presence does begin to affect
how these substantive inequalities are symbolized and justified, in practice
(chapter 7). As a consequence of this, their presence does indeed begin to
alter how substantive inequalities are maintained, and whether they are
likely to be reduced or increased.
Still, the presence of these formations could, in any given instance, just
as conceivably (a) lend support even to extreme inequalities as (b) direct
sustained challenges to minor inequalities. The key to the type of impact
they are likely to have, in practice, hinges on two factors: First, can existing
substantive inequalities be justified with reasons that, at the very least, can
be kept consistent with the ranges of expectations that these formations
institutionalize? Second, are the actors benefiting most from the inequalities competent in formulating and presenting such reasons? If this can be
accomplished, in principle, and if the actors are competent in demonstrating this, in practice, then the impact of introducing collegial formations
into a civil society is likely to be more apologetic than critical. But if this
cannot be accomplished, or if the actors are not particularly competent,
then the impact of introducing collegial formations is likely to be critical,
and it could be radicalizing.
Consider what happens as actors introduce collegial formations into a civil
society. Power holders and social influential within (and around) the organizations and divisions immediately affected begin to reformulate all of their
policy proposals accordingly, including those designed to maintain or enhance existing substantive inequalities. All proposals - and, thus, any inequalities that they symbolize - are cast into terms consistent with the
ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior that members of collegial formations acknowledge qua members. This seemingly benign and restricted activity of adjustment is not likely to be neutral in its impact on the
stratification system. Substantive inequalities heretofore unquestioned, in
part because of the ways in which they had been symbolized, are now being
symbolized differently (e.g. Gouldner 1976 revolves more generally around
246
such changes). This may either convert them into controversial issues or
bolster them with new sources of legitimacy.7 What is ironic about all of this
is that as the power holders and social influentials who benefit most from
existing substantive inequalities conform most fully to the acknowledged
ranges of expectations institutionalized by collegial formations, their very
behavioral conformity to the "social order" of collegial formations might
exacerbate interest competition and foster outright social conflict.
Collegial formations and middle-class sensibilities. Few social and governmental units within any modern nation-state ensure that the "most reasoned" interests typically prevail within their decision-making processes.
Habermas's point about the pervasiveness of purposeful manipulation and
inadvertent distortion is well taken. Indeed, most complex social units fail
to ensure that the "most reasoned" interests are typically afforded a hearing. Given contemporary systemic pressures, actors' fragmentation of
meaning, and both organizational complexity and functional differentiation, it is likely impossible to ensure even this. As noted in chapter 5,
Habermas's ideal speech situation has never been institutionalized, nor can
it be.8
It is also likely impossible for the members of any complex social enterprise today to institutionalize the expectation that interested parties are
eventually to arrive at some "consensus," whether reasoned or not.9 Interested parties gaining access to any complex enterprise's decision-making
processes are going to be differentiated by function, if nothing else. This
alone renders them competitive rather than predisposed to consensus, even
on the "rules of the game." Yet, as long as their competing proposals do not
threaten the procedural theshold of existing collegial formations, as long as
their proposals remain "acceptable" merely in this sense, interested parties
may be said to be competing collegially. This may be said even as their
behavior becomes ever more disorderly within the wider civil society\ departing ever more from other acknowledged ranges of expectations to the point
of conflict.
In short, when actors exhibit behavioral fidelity to the integrity of the
collegial form within particular divisions of larger organizations, this does
not somehow guarantee simultaneously that the "social order" of these
divisions is consensual, pleasant, or tranquil. Quite to the contrary, the
integrity of these formations may be maintained even as the sensibilities of
middle-class professionals and deliberators are increasingly being assaulted.
The "social order" of these divisions may well be competitive, unpleasant,
and stressful for all involved. After all, like any other set of substantive
norms and lived social fabrics, the sensibilities of the middle class are particular. The voluntaristic orientation of the collegial form, however, is ultimately
a procedural mediation, and not more immediately substantive or particular.
247
It is as detached from the middle class's sensibilities as it is detached from the

sensibilities of the upper class, working class, or lower class. Clearly, it is also
detached from the sensibilities of any and all ascriptive groups, whether
those of majority or minority groups. In short, the collegial is an impersonal
organizational form, in this respect much like the bureaucratic and democratic forms. The great difference between them is that the latter forms
revolve around rational procedures and quantifiable outcomes whereas the
collegial form revolves around voluntaristic procedures and outcomes that
are qualitative, and far more amenable to politicization and controversy.
The empirical issue of whether members of collegial formations retain
the integrity of the latter's distinctively procedural voluntaristic orientation
is altogether independent of any and all substantive empirical issues. As
one example, this issue is independent of whether college or high-school
curricula are either too "European" or insufficiently "Third World" in
substance (a longstanding debate in the United States fueled a few years
back by Bloom 1987). It is possible for the "Europeanists" to prevail by
acting arbitrarily; it is possible for the "Third Worldists" to prevail by
acting arbitrarily; it is possible for their dispute to escalate from competition to occasional conflicts without either side acting arbitrarily. In the latter
case, even occasional social conflicts can be said to remain collegial, to
remain consistent with a nonauthoritarian direction of social change, and,
ironically, to remain consistent with actors' possible social integration.
In short, domestic tranquillity or consensus is not a synonym for social
integration. The former may well be a product of actors' demonstrable
social control, whereas actors' social integration may well result in their
experiencing increasing personal stress and anxiety. The sheer presence of
collegial formations: (a) frames particular spheres within which heterogeneous actors and competing groups may be integrated, and simultaneously
(b) institutionalizes external procedural restraints on drift. It does not,
however, guarantee that actors will defer to the sensibilities of middleclass professionals and deliberators. It also does not guarantee that there
will be any reduction in (a) the extent or intensity of interested parties'
competition and occasional conflicts, (b) the levels of substantive inequalities and types of stratification to be found within a civil society, or (c) the
levels of stress and anxiety that actors experience within any integrative
social order.
In terms of the theory of societal constitutionalism, the central empirical
issue is never whether participants or observing social scientists find actors'
behavior within and around collegial formations to be tranquil, consensual,
or personally pleasing. The central empirical issue is rather whether the
latter's voluntaristic orientation is being maintained by actors' behavior.
Middle-class professionals' and deliberators' personal sensibilities regarding which policy proposals and which ways of presenting them are accept-
248
11. Collegia! formations as external procedural restraints
able have little bearing on whether heterogeneous actors and competing

groups are possibly integrated rather than demonstrably controlled. After
all, these same sensibilities may be respected, to the point of being elevated
to the status of the "sacred," even as "cultivated" middle-class professionals and deliberators are repeatedly and cavalierly violating the integrity of
the collegial form. Indeed, middle-class sensibilities may be respected scrupulously as power holders and social influentials are engaging not merely in
manipulation and control but in outright social and political authoritarianism. Arendt's phrase "the banality of evil," first applied to Adolf Eichmann, often is applied today to middle-class professionals engaging in
corporate crime. The same phrase may be applied to those who are either
purposefully or inadvertently encroaching against the collegial form as they
champion middle-class sensibilities.
Calling to mind the illustration in chapter 1, the managers of research
divisions who compel their researchers to meet the division's production
schedule at all costs might be widely respected and admired for their cultivation and panache within the corporation. The same may hold for their
reputations in the industry and the corporation's local community. In terms
of the theory of societal constitutionalism, however, there is no class,
group, or faction which monopolizes a "culture of sensibility" that is intrinsically nonauthoritarian or integrative under modern conditions. As noted
in chapter 10, there is no substantive core of any national tradition or lived
social fabric that is intrinsically nonauthoritarian and possibly integrative
under modern conditions.11
Heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' fidelity to the collegial
form's voluntaristic orientation clearly mediates each class's, each group's,
and each faction's most objectionable behavior. Within the collegial form,
all actors and interested parties are prohibited institutionally from resorting
immediately to mechanisms of social control that encroach against the
form's threshold restraints. Thus, the Ku Klux Klan, for instance, would
have a difficult time conveying its members' hesitancy to encroach against
this threshold. Nazis' Fuhrerprinzip and Leninists' notion of "democratic
centralism" are outright antitheses of such fidelity. Still, Klansmen, Nazis,
and even Leninists are rarities today, not only in the West but in the East and
Third World as well. And yet, very great ranges of unpleasant and stressful
social behavior remain quite common. These are by no means eliminated or
even muted by the presence of collegial formations. The theory of societal
constitutionalism cannot be read as making grand claims to the contrary. It is
not a social theory of egalitarianism or consensus. Nor is it a sociological
rendering of Robert's Rules of Order or of table manners at black-tie dinners. It is not a sociological rendering of the conduct found (ideally) within
graduate seminars or within any other arena of (relatively) dispassionate
colloquy. As the subtitle of this volume indicates, the theory of societal
ILL Speculations on collegia! formations today
249
constitutionalism is not a consensus theory of any kind, left or right (see

Habermas 1981a,b; and Brennan and Buchanan 1985 respectively).
Societal constitutionalism v. symbolic interactionism. The presence of colle-
gial formations accounts for how nonauthoritarian social orders have addressed the Weberian Dilemma, in practice, in the late twentieth century. It
also accounts for how heterogeneous actors and competing groups have
established and maintained possibilities for social integration, at least
within selected sectors of selected civil societies. But, bringing symbolic
interactionists' most central point into the discussion, whether concrete
interactions are pleasant, comfortable, and orderly or stressful, uncomfortable, and disorderly is something that actors and groups negotiate locally,
and then renegotiate endlessly. Symbolic interactionists (Blumer 1969; Turner and Killian 1957; Strauss 1978) correctly point out that any form of
organization, or any institutionalized normative orientation, can, at best,
only broadly frame actors' and groups' local interactions (also see Leifer
1988 on "local action," and Swidler 1986 on cultural "tool kits"). Within
the latter, actors and groups invariably negotiate and renegotiate their
recognitions and understandings of shared subjective interests, shared
meanings, shared social duties, and acknowledged ranges of expectations.
None of this is somehow reduced or eliminated by whatever norms actors
have internalized prior to interacting, nor by whatever normative orientations forms of organization have institutionalized.
The theory of societal constitutionalism radicalizes this position, however, by pointing out that local negotiations of meanings within (and
around) collegial formations are nonetheless distinctive, in practice. The
interactions taking place within and around these formations are insulated
not only from manifest coercion but also from many subtler mechanisms of
social control, whether formal or informal, purposeful or systemic. This
cannot be said of the interactions or local negotiations of meaning taking
place within any other form of organization, or, clearly, within economic
and political marketplaces. By emphasizing the distinctiveness of the
former negotiations and interactions, the theory of societal constitutionalism brings a critical edge to symbolic interactionism. It brings critical
potential to an otherwise disappointingly relativistic approach to local social action, one that otherwise asserts that all interests and all norms are
ultimately negotiable at local levels. This approach fails to address how
organizational forms, and other meso- and macrosociological factors, affect the type of local social order being studied.
As it stands, symbolic interactionism is sociology's version of Lockean
liberalism. It rests on concepts that prevent social scientists from appreciating that certain institutionalized normative orientations serve all actors and
groups as reliable trip wires marking shifts in the direction of change,
250
including those taking place within local social orders. But where liberal
theorists at least addressed the issue of directionality in some way, albeit by
positing that drift is intrinsically benign, symbolic interactionists simply
bracket the whole issue from sight and mind. Their conceptual framework
rests on the presupposition that ongoing shifts of social change, like the
effects of all other institutional and structural factors, cannot affect actors
in ways that escape their cognition and behavioral reaction within local
social orders (the same may be said of Giddens' structuration theory, 1979,
1984; thus, Alexander's charge, 1987, that interactionists are "pfesentist" is
right on the mark). Yet, only on the basis of procedural voluntaristic restraints that remain "external" to actors' ongoing negotiations and interactions at local levels may heterogeneous actors and competing groups possibly recognize in common whether they themselves are being controlled or
integrated.
Countless mechanisms of social control affect local interactions, of
course, including those framed by the collegial form: from structural or
inadvertent restrictions on acknowledged ranges of expectations regarding
acceptable behavior, to actors' informal feelings of pride and shame (e.g.
see Mayer 1983 on the former and Scheff 1988, 1990 on the latter). The
sheer presence of collegial formations does not somehow reduce or eliminate the appearance of these mechanisms of social control. But the critical
edge that the theory of societal constitutionalism brings to the relativism of
symbolic interactionism may be put in the following way: To the extent that
actors maintain the integrity of the collegial form, they do not permit even
structural or informal mechanisms of social control to push them (or others)
into either purposeful or inadvertent behavioral encroachments against the
threshold of interpretability of shared social duties. Whether the shared
social duties being sanctioned within local interactions are at least being
kept recognizable and understandable to those affected is a matter of some
significance. Symbolic interactionists cannot merely bracket this issue from
consideration a priori by refusing to account for institutional continuity,
and rigidity, and by concentrating exclusively on describing actors' subjective understandings of, and reactions to, their immediate situation; again,
Giddens's "structuration theory" suffers from the same problem (see
Stryker 1980 for the best treatment of interactionism's limitations).
Consider the situation today in many American cities where health-care
professionals strike and take other actions to protest what they believe is
the inadequate health care being provided to those lacking health insurance
or needing emergency treatment (note 7). The professionals may sincerely
see themselves as serving the interests of those least influential in civil
society. Others, including hospital administrators, may sincerely believe
that the professionals are largely operating in their own interests, that they
are mobilizing (news media) support outside the hospital in order to com-
ILL Speculations on collegia! formations today
251
pete more strategically for influence and control within the hospital. The
theory of societal constitutionalism reveals that both sets of actors may be
in error, and it also reveals when and how such strikes contribute to shifts in
social change regardless.
How can it be possible for both sides to be in error? To the extent that an
inadequate level of health care places professionals into lived situations
where they cannot avoid encroaching against the threshold of interpretability of shared social duties, where they cannot avoid meting out health care
capriciously, strikes are related directly to the issue oi professionals' integrity. Ironically, strikes are then related only indirectly to the level of health
care as such. They are not reducible to: professionals' instrumental or
strategic interests, hospital administrators' policies, patients' scope of insurance coverage, or even the supposed "objective" health-care needs of the
general population.
How do such strikes contribute to shifts in the direction of social change?
Clearly, the quality and accessibility of health care that any nation-state
affords its citizens varies greatly in comparative perspective, even across
the Western democracies. It is clearly impossible to select any particular
standard as "objectively irreducible" or "nonnegotiable," one that is unambiguously indicative of whether national health care is improving or declining.12 But it is possible to specify levels of provision of health care at which
professionals are placed into lived situations where they cannot avoid capriciousness and encroachments against the threshold of interpretability of
shared social duties at their sites of employment.
The theory of societal constitutionalism reveals, therefore, that whatever
the "objective" level of national health might be, this is an empirical issue
quite distinct from the following empirical issue: What level of health care
must be provided in order for professionals to maintain the integrity of
their collegial formations within and around health-care facilities? When
any nation-state fails to provide a level of health care that can at least
support professionals' collegial formations, then hospitals and other
health-care facilities are rendered into sites where breakdowns in professionalism, and both inadvertent and purposeful contributions to social authoritarianism, are common. This may be demonstrated by social scientists
empirically, and in comparative perspective. It may be demonstrated by
them independently of officials' (too often politicized) "objective" indices
of public health, and independently of professionals' (too often selfserving) "subjective" impressions of whether any particular level of health
care is adequate or not (see Sciulli and Bould in preparation for an example
and an initial approach to this issue).
Societal constitutionalism v. functionalism's accounts ofprofessionals9 moti-
vations. Parsons conveyed the wrong impression entirely when he argued
252
that "all professions, sociologically, are 'mechanisms of social control' "

(1956: 64-6). The quotation marks notwithstanding, this statement reveals
his failure to distinguish instances of possible social integration from instances of demonstrable social control. More fundamentally, it reveals his
failure to distinguish analytically between individual professionals' internalized normative motivations and the collegial form's institutionalized voluntaristic orientation. Parsons held that individual professionals within complex social enterprises bear "fiduciary" responsibilities. In his view, they are
responsible for maintaining the integrity of (a) their own particular substantive value-commitments,13 (b) the substantive core of national traditions or
lived social fabrices, and (c) a form of organization that he described only
residually, as nondemocratic, nonbureaucratic, and noncompetitive. Having failed to distinguish either voluntaristic action or the collegial form in
more positive terms, he had no alternative conceptually other than to posit
that individual professionals somehow bear all of these responsibilities as a
result of their shared internalized substantive beliefs and normative motivations (Colomy and Rhoades 1988 continue this approach to the professions).
The problems this raises are apparent in two respects. First, individual
professionals may be structurally exposed at their various sites of employment to increasing opportunities to compromise their professional integrity. Second, individual professionals simultaneously experience the same
systemic pressures that all other actors in civil society experience: functional differentation, organizational complexity, and an increasing fragmentation of meaning. Thus, individual professionals' sense of what professional integrity is can only be sustained under these conditions if either one
of two measures is taken. On the one hand, the issue of professional
integrity may be linked directly to political power, if the continued integrity
of collegial formations is made a matter of public policy. On the other, the
issue of professional integrity may be linked directly to social power, if the
continued integrity of collegial formations is made a matter of formal corporate policy in those sectors, industries, and organizations in which professionals are employed collectively.14
In the absence of either of these measures, individual professionals cannot be expected by Parsons or anyone else to be any more capable than any
other sets of individuals in civil society in avoiding succumbing to drift.
Indeed, there are many manifestations of their failure to do so today,
including:
(a) Breakdowns in individual professionals' abilities to detect, and
then collectively to prevent and regulate, increasing instances of malpractice, corporate crime, and other illegal and unethical practices.
(b) Distortions in individual professionals' advice to clients and other
interested parties as a result of their own calculations as Homo eco-
253
nomicus, driven by possessive individualism, rational-choice ethics,

and systemic pressures of rationalization.
(c) Ongoing declines in the aura with which the public perceives professionals, coupled with the public's increasing cynicism regarding professionals' concerns for their clients' interests as well as the longer-term
interests of "the public."
(d) Individual professionals' own increasing, public expressions of cynicism, and their increasing agreement with social scientists who view
professions first and foremost as instruments of "status closure" or
group competition rather than as worthy vocations in themselves.
Parsons saw the issue of professional integrity quite differently, of
course (as have Barber 1963; Merton 1976; and Alexander 1986, 1987
since; also see chapter 8, note 16). For him (and them),15 the issue was
how "pattern-maintenance," the maintaining of the integrity of substantive norms and values of national traditions or lived social fabrics, might
simultaneously be supported by individual professionals and, in turn, support these influentials' senses of professional integrity. With this in mind,
he failed to distinguish the "value-commitments" that professionals share
qua members of collegial formations from the nonrational beliefs that
other actors share qua individuals properly socialized within religious,
ethnic, or other nonrational bodies.16 For him, all value-commitments are
ultimately grounded on individuals' internalization of shared substantive
beliefs of one kind or another (1970c: 342-5; Parsons and Platt 1973: 67). Parsons had no other way of approaching the professions, even as
evidence mounted that individuals professionals' value-commitments are
persistently challenged and compromised by the much more focused "energy" of material incentives at local sites of employment. All evidence to
the contrary notwithstanding, he had to persist in hypostatizing actors'
successful internalization of norms.
Moreover, having closed his social theory to the concept of reasoned social action, Parsons (and Barber, Merton, and Alexander) also had to concede from the outset that individual professionals are like all other actors
within complex and functionally differentiated enterprises: They too cannot
possibly provide generalizable justifications or reasons for their valuecommitments (chapter 10). They cannot justify their value-commitments
with arguments capable of persuading nonprofessionals, or those actors
who have not already undergone the secondary socialization of expert training. As a result, whatever it is that is sustaining the integrity of professionals' residually defined "associations," it cannot be the justifications professionals are providing for artificially protecting them from more immediate
competition within economic and political marketplaces. What must be
sustaining these associations' integrity as well as each individual profes-
254
sional's sense of integrity, by Parsons's account, is the drift of rationalization itself. That is, he correctly posited that functional differentiation is a
systemic social force. Inordinately high levels of "energy" (or material
incentives) would have to be mobilized in order for power holders to
dedifferentiate complex social units in general. But he incorrectly drew the
conclusion that this meant it is becoming increasingly difficult for power
holders to encroach against professionals' associations and professionals'
integrity in particular.17
Once again, the assumption on which Parsons (and Barber, Merton, and
Alexander) had to be operating was that, in addition to (a) Weber's view of
rationalization and (b) Parsons's own view of functional differentiation, as
related systemic pressures, there must also be (c) systemic tendencies toward "integration" and a benign "social order" (Alexander 1987: 36-51,
63-4, 68-9, 83-8 cannot escape this account of social order). This assumption is simply posited. It lacks conceptual support in Parsons's own social
theory and empirical support in practice.
11.2. Collegial formations today: institutionalized restraint beyond
left and right
Collegial formations today institutionalize procedural voluntaristic restraints on a third set of social activities. This set revolves around the
possibility that professionals and deliberators contribute to reasoned social
action in the larger social order - qua members of collegial formations
rather than qua properly socialized individuals who happen to have undergone expert training. Put differently, the contributions that these heterogeneous actors and competing groups make to the larger social order is by no
means reducible to those made by Homo economicus (Coleman 1986,
1990; Hechter 1987) or by expert occupations competing for "jurisdictions"
within economic and political marketplaces (Abbott 1988).
But in which specific respects can the actions taken by individual professionals and deliberators outside of the collegial formations at their sites of
employment be said to contribute to reasoned social action in the larger
social order? In answering this question, these individuals' cognitive contributions to the resilience of external procedural restraints, and thereby to a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change, must be isolated from whatever normative contribution they may also make to social order as such (see
chapter 2, note 6, on R. Stephen Warner).18 Put differently, the cognitive
contributions that individual professionals make to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change qua members of collegial formations is analytically
distinct from whatever normative contribution they happen to make to
social order as such, qua properly socialized individuals who happen to
have undergone expert training.
77.2. Collegia! formations today
255
11.2.1. Collegia! formations' subtle restraint

One possible set of cognitive contributions that individual professionals
and deliberators may make qua members or collegial formations is to
present purportedly "reasoned" cases for those interests in civil society that
are otherwise inarticulate or ineffectively mobilized. Such interests would
include those of the physically, mentally, or socially disadvantaged. This is
what health-care professionals believe they are doing when they strike to
protest inadequate emergency care. The problem, however, is that this set
of cognitive contributions, taken alone, does not contribute intrinsically to
maintaining the integrity of the collegial form and external procedural
restraints on drift. Thus, it does not contribute to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change, nor to expanding heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' prospects for social integration. More importantly in this context, this set of cognitive contributions cannot be said to contribute to
reasoned social action in the larger social order. Quite to the contrary, these
cognitive contributions are consistent with Parsons's use of the term "reason" rather than Habermas's: Individual professionals and deliberators are
merely wielding their social influence in the interests of others.
Because Parsons closed his social theory to any possibility of accommodating a standard of reasoned social action more comprehensive than the
narrow norm of rational action (chapter 10), he had no alternative conceptually other than to define "reason" in terms of the social status of the
presenter of arguments. He lacked any standard by which to define reason
in terms of the quality of the presenter's arguments itself. In this way, he
reduced the concept of reasoned social action to actors' relative (and competitive) social influence within any existing social order.19 This renders
"reason" intrinsically relative to time and place, of course, as does liberalism's hypostatization of the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests and
pluralism's hypostatization of interest competition (chapter 10). Because
Habermas proposes a standard of reasoned social action that revolves
around the procedural qualities of the arguments themselves, his social
theory is capable of moving a significant step beyond this. It can support
the issue of whether and when the actions and proposals of particular social
influential possibly contribute to reasoned social action, and when they
are demonstrably unreasoned. This issue is independent of what these
actors' relative influence actually turns out to be within any given social
order.
Thus, the first set of possible cognitive contributions that individual professionals and deliberators may make to the larger social order is tied
exclusively to whether, and how, they wish to wield their social influence.
But by moving beyond Parsons's residual references to "associations," and
beyond his reductionist treatment of "reason" as social influence, another
256
set of cognitive contributions comes to light. This is the set of cognitive

contributions that individual professionals and deliberators may make to
the larger social order qua members of collegial formations. The continued
presence of collegial formations within a civil society means that even those
social influential and power holders who present their interests most articulately, and who are mobilized most effectively, anticipate a distinct possibility, a palpable contingency, within their institutionalized environments.
They anticipate that their actions and proposals may at some time be
scrutinized and criticized methodically by individual professionals and
deliberators. (This point is developed further below.)
Even if it turns out, in practice, that they are seldom questioned, the
sheer presence of collegial formations within power holders' institutionalized environments nonetheless renders them permanently vulnerable to
this contingency, in principle. It is, of course, strategically rational for them
to endeavor to limit their vulnerability. This is why power holders at least
prepare rationales for their actions and proposals. These rationales, in turn,
are themselves voluntaristic, even if only indirectly so. Any rationale that
contributes in the slightest way to a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change goes beyond the action's or proposal's instrumental rationality or
strictly strategic implications. It also affirms, in one way or another, that
the action or proposal does not threaten the ongoing direction of social
change itself. Such assurances, however implicitly stated, may be thought
of as power holders' expressions of a procedural "public good," and their
contributions to a procedural "social capital."20
Three points may be made about the subtle impact of restraint that this
institutionalized environment contributes to the larger social order, and
these points also relate it to the issue of reasoned social action:
First, this impact of restraint is, in principle, more consistent with
Habermas's critical and possibly grounded standard of procedural reason than with Parsons's standard of social influence.
Second, this impact of restraint may be sustained over time without the
individuals involved internalizing shared normative motivations qua
properly socialized individuals. This is another way of saying that this
impact of restraint may remain strictly cognitive rather than becoming
either affective or habitual. It may be, and is, institutionalized by
individual professionals' and deliberators' behavior within the larger
social order qua members of collegial formations, and not by their
personal beliefs and commitments qua properly socialized individuals.
Thus, they may behave in this way driven by any number of competing
or even inconsistent normative motivations.
Third, because this cognitive impact may well remain detached from
any formal support by governmental or corporate power holders, it
11.2. Collegial formations today
257
may remain strictly informational rather than becoming strategically

compelling. Indeed, this is the case today within all nonauthoritarian
social orders. The alternative is for actors to institutionalize a public
realm proper within a civil society by supporting the integrity of collegial formations as a matter of public or corporate policy.
11.2.2. From the limiting case of social authoritarianism to a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change
Before proceeding, consider how the situation differs within authoritarian
social orders as well as sites of actors' demonstrable social control within
any sector of a civil society. When collegial formations are absent from
institutionalized environments, power holders and social influential are
not vulnerable to the contingency of scrutiny and criticism. As such, their
sole concern is to mobilize the support - or, at minimum, to neutralize the
opposition - of competing power holders and social influential. The latter
may well include journalists and others who purport to "represent" and
"inform" public opinion.
Ironically, these strictly strategic calculations regarding how to mobilize
support and neutralize opposition within social orders marked by the complete absence of collegial formations are consistent in every respect with
Parsons's relativist approach to "reason" as social influence (as are Laumann
and Knoke's and Abbott's accounts of interest competition). In this limiting
case, power holders and social influential indeed fail to anticipate normative restraints of any kind, let alone those that possibly contribute to reasoned social action. This vacuum of voluntaristic orientations within their
institutionalized environments can be filled, in practice, in two ways, however: one that remains consistent with an authoritarian social order and
another that distinguishes a nonauthoritarian direction of social change.
This vacuum is filled in the first way when "moral authorities" surface by whatever route - who begin to compete strategically for social influence
within civil society, along the lines consistent with Parsons's concepts (see
chapter 9, pages 206-8). Unlike the power holders and social influential
already competing strategically in the limiting case, however, the social
influence of emerging "moral authorities" hinges on whether they can challenge all competitors to honor normative restraints on the scope of their
immediate pursuit of self-interest. Their social influence hinges, ultimately,
on whether they can induce power holders and social influential to remain
aware of normative considerations beyond their calculations of instrumental and strategic rationality. Such awareness is a prerequisite to their keeping their behavior consistent with the substantive core of national traditions
or lived social fabrics.
To the extent that "moral authorities' " challenges are institutionalized,
258
an authoritarian social order can be said to be moving away from the

limiting case. What this means, in more positive terms, is that "protected
spheres" of substantive normative restraints are being maintained artificially within a civil society. The problem is that within authoritarian social
orders, such spheres are either tied to transcendental concerns or to
voluntaristic but strictly substantive worldly qualities. The latter is the case,
for instance, with Lockean liberalism's public/private distinction, and with
any legal protections of private property. Numerous authoritarian social
orders in the Third World (and now in the former Eastern bloc) protect
private property in both of its modern senses: as an inalienable location of
individuals' citizenship or "natural rights" vis-a-vis government, and as
alienable capital (Arendt 1951 revolves around this distinction). Other
substantively voluntaristic "protected spheres" that can be kept consistent
with an authoritarian social order include: (a) networks of environmental
groups and activists and (b) networks of museums, preservationist groups,
and other organizations bearing fiduciary responsibilities for a nationstate's cultural and architectural patrimony. The addition of more and
more protected spheres dedicated to substantive worldly qualities remains
consistent with Parsons's reduction of "reason" to social influence and also
can be kept consistent with an authoritarian direction of social change and
actors' demonstrable social control.
By contrast, the vacuum of the limiting case is filled in a quite different
way when collegial formations emerge and institutionalize distinctively procedural voluntaristic orientations within a civil society. Unlike the emergence of substantively voluntaristic "protected spheres," this development
fundamentally challenges the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests
rather than merely restraining the scope of economic and political marketplaces. It moves the competition for social influence and political power
beyond Parsons's relativist treatment of substantive "reason" toward Habermas's critical standard of procedural reason. It moves this competition toward the voluntaristic orientation distinctive to a nonauthoritarian direction
of a social change and to expanding heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups' prospects for social integration.
This transition is not accomplished, however, when interest competition
takes place in the presence of prominent journalists, elected officials, private property holders, and others who purportedly "represent" and "inform" amorphous public opinion. After all, this context for interest competition, this institutionalized environment, may be found both historically
and today within social orders that rest rather exclusively on social control.
Both historically and today, power holders and social influentials within
such social orders hold elections and maintain parliaments, tolerate relatively free print and electronic media, and legally protect private property
in both senses noted above (e.g. Mexico in particular, but Latin America
259
generally). Thus, what distinguishes a sustained nonauthoritarian and integrative direction of social change is not the extent to which increasing
numbers of "protected spheres" of any kind are institutionalized within a
civil society. What distinguishes it is rather the extent to which distinctively
procedural voluntaristic "protected spheres" become functionally differentiated, in practice, from substantive voluntaristic "protected spheres."
11.2.3. From subtle restraint to a lived sense of anticipation
The voluntaristic orientations institutionalized within all nonauthoritarian
social orders and sites of heterogeneous actors' and competing groups'
possible social integration are, ultimately, sets of decidedly nonrational and
yet inter subjective norms. These are distinctively procedural voluntaristic
orientations that are artificially, and always only contingently, suspended
from interest competition within economic and political marketplaces as
well as from power holders' "negotiations of meaning" within local social
arenas. The only modern social orders - national or local - in which all
voluntaristic orientations continue to be negotiated, as symbolic interactionists and pluralists contend, are social orders that rest exclusively on
social control.21 After all, it is within these social orders that members of
the artificially "protected spheres" that institutionalize substantive voluntaristic orientations indeed find that these orientations are never suspended
from interest competition and local negotiations.
By contrast, within nonauthoritarian and integrative social orders, the
professionals and deliberators who are members of collegial formations
operate within and through procedural voluntaristic orientations that literally become and remain suspended in this way. Within these social orders,
both sets of social influential - "moral authorities" who are members of
protected spheres and professionals and deliberators who are members of
collegial formations - comprise an enormous network of hundreds of thousands of individuals. The only quality that they share in common, qua
individuals, is that they are all permanently "available" to scrutinize and
criticize social influentials' and power holders' actions and proposals anywhere within a civil society. They are not somehow confined to their respective protected spheres. Yet, their "availability" in the sense above is ultimately contingent on whether these spheres continue to be artificially (or
nonrationally) protected.
By contrast to Parsons's approach to the professions, professionals' and
deliberators' "availability" qua individuals is certainly not based ultimately
on their socialization and whatever norms they have happened to internalize. After all, professionals within authoritarian social orders may well have
internalized more "moral" norms than professionals within nonauthoritarian social orders. Similarly, by contrast to Lockean and Smithean liber-
260
als' approaches to property, and to constitutional theorists' views of the

constituent force, professionals' and deliberators' "availability" in the late
twentieth century is by no means based exclusively or even primarily on
their wealth, power, or influence as private citizens who happen to own or
control property in either of the senses noted above. Wealthy professionals
and other wealthy private citizens may be found in all authoritarian social
orders.
Within nonauthoritarian social orders, where, when, or even whether
particular individuals within this vast network of those "available" ever
actually criticize power holders" actions and proposals is a matter of secondary importance to the matter of the sheer size of this network itself. Its size
may be reduced quite dramatically, however, and within very brief periods
of time. It is reduced as professionals and deliberators either purposefully
or inadvertently encroach against the integrity of collegial formations, even
as they continue to act rationally (and legally) in their own subjective interests. By contrast, to sustain an ongoing nonauthoritarian direction of social
change is to maintain the integrity of collegial formations. It is to keep the
network of "available" individuals at a size sufficient to institutionalize a
lived sense of anticipation among power holders and social influential even
as the latter continue to compete rationally (and legally) within economic
and political marketplaces.22
11.2.4. Institutionalized anticipation: infrastructure of
nonauthoritarian social orders
Power holders within nonauthoritarian social orders anticipate that their
actions and proposals might be challenged at some point along the line (a)
by "moral authorities" within protected spheres, and, more importantly,
(b) by professionals and deliberators within first one and then another set
of collegial formations.
The first set of professionals and deliberators is comprised of the
members of collegial formations found within these particular power
holders' institutionalized environments. These formations may be
thought of as sectoral collegial formations.
The second set of professionals and deliberators is comprised of the
members of collegial formations found within the very corporations or
enterprises that these particular power holders own or control. These
formations may be thought of as divisional collegial formations.
The presence of sectoral collegial formations renders power holders vulnerable in the sense noted above, and the presence of divisional collegial
formations magnifies their sense of vulnerability. Depending on the vigi-
11.2. Collegialformationstoday
261
lance of individual professionals and deliberators within sectoral collegial

formations, a lived sense of anticipation can be institutionalized that spans
entire industries and sectors of a civil society. The wax and wane of this
lived sense of anticipation is precisely how power holders actually experience shifts between drift and direction within any modern nation-state.
They experience these shifts in their everyday lives, and, clearly, their lived
experiences of directionality might very well strike them (as well as their
questioners and other actors) as more stressful personally than their lived
experiences of unmediated drift.23
Given the presence of peak associations within the civil societies of the
Continent, and the concomitant decline of the division of powers in favor
of neocorporatist "intermediation," it cannot be that civil law courts in
themselves restrain power holders from control and arbitrariness within
civil society.24 Given the presence of the mass media within many unambiguously authoritarian social orders, it also cannot be that a "free press"
or "public opinion" in itself restrains them. For the same reason, it cannot
be that power holders are restrained by the strictly strategic restraints that
their competitors pose within economic and political marketplaces. Similarly, it cannot be that power holders within nonauthoritarian social orders are restrained by the separation of church and state, the public/
private distinction, or the presence of any other substantively voluntaristic
protected spheres in themselves. It is certainly not the case that the surveillance of "private" enterprises by governmental (or internal corporate)
regulatory agencies in themselves restrains power holders from control
and arbitrariness within civil society. And, finally, the hypostatization of
actors' "natural rights," or of their internalized substantive beliefs and
motivations as properly socialized individuals, cannot, in themselves, account for a sustained nonauthoritarian direction of social change under
modern conditions.
What subtly yet significantly restrains power holders within all existing
(and historical) nonauthoritarian social orders is the institutionalization of
a lived sense of anticipation that, at some point along the line, individuals
within the network of those "available" might methodically scrutinize and
criticize their actions and proposals. This institutionalized sense of anticipation is itself a strictly voluntaristic orientation. Its appearance and continued presence within any sector of a modern civil society remains forever a
contingent possibility. Its presence is never overdetermined by modernity
itself. Yet, it is a voluntaristic orientation that even the most heterogeneous, competitive, and conflictual sets of power holders and social influentials in fact recognize and understand in common when a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change is being sustained. This can and does occur
without these power holders and social influential, internalizing any particular sets of normative motivations in common and without them sharing very
262
11. CoUegial formations as external procedural restraints
many subjective interests, if any. It can and does occur without them having
to negotiate any particularly restricted set of substantive meanings within
their local interactions. In short, this institutionalized sense of anticipation
is the irreducible social infrastructure that sustains a nonauthoritarian direction of social change under modern conditions, and it is not established
by the presence of bureaucratic, democratic, or patron-client formations
within a civil society.
Going beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities, this social
infrastructure may well be found, in practice, within particular sectors of
civil societies of modern nation-states that fail to recapitulate most of the
particular political institutions and economic practices of existing Western
democracies. Indeed, this social infrastructure is what augments these institutions and practices in such a way that they may at times contribute, in
practice, to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change. It is precisely
because these institutions and practices are not always augmented by this
social infrastructure that they may be found in various combinations within
any number of authoritarian social orders.
It must be kept in mind that actions taken by individual professionals and
deliberators qua members of coUegial formations, and not the sheer presence of coUegial formations itself, institutionalize power holders' lived
sense of anticipation. By their sheer presence, coUegial formations institutionalize only (a) an acknowledged range of expectations regarding what is
acceptable behavior within and immediately around these formations in
particular, and, with this, (b) a set of external procedural restraints on drift
or on inadvertently arbitrary exercises of collective power. This range of
acknowledged expectations can only be extended across an entire civil
society, however, and thereby sustain a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change when individual members of coUegial formations act in such a way
that power holders anticipate scrutiny and methodical criticisms even when
their actions and proposals are not encroaching against the integrity of existing coUegial formations. But how can this be demonstrated empirically?
The subtle impact of this procedural voluntaristic orientation can be
demonstrated empirically by asking why do power holders ever bother to
prepare rationales for their actions and proposals in the first place? After
all, preparing rationales is essentially a private act. It is also not sanctioned
by law in any modern nation-state. Nor is it something that journalists or
amorphous public opinion "sanction" more informally. And yet within all
nonauthoritarian social orders without exception the leaders of any "responsible" social movement, network, organization, or institution prepare
such rationales, even as they are rarely called on to present them. They do
so because, after all is said and done, they acknowledge that their failure to
do so leaves them unprepared for individual professionals' and deliberators'
queries. This renders them vulnerable, in principle; whenever this failure is
11.2. Collegial formations today
263
discovered, moreover, it is as likely initially to draw as much attention to an

action or proposal as the latter's substance itself.
Putting all of this differently, by preparing rationales, power holders are
not anticipating direct queries from government officials or journalists, or
even adverse public opinion. They readily sidestep all such queries, and
amorphous public opinion rarely affects their interests for very long. How
long did consumers' reaction to the Alaskan oil spill affect Exxon's sales?
Power holders instead anticipate that individuals within the network of
those "available" might pursue some of these queries if rationales are not
forthcoming, and then initiate queries of their own.25 The question that
haunts Exxon executives today, and that drives them to prepare many more
rationales than they will ever be called on to present is: What new findings
by researchers or commission members are likely to bring the Alaska oil
spill again into the public eye in the future, spawning yet other queries?
In short, power holders do not prepare rationales because they anticipate
methodical or sustained examination by government regulators, "public
opinion," or an "investigative press," independently of a sizable network of
professionals and deliberators who are "available" as members of sectoral
collegial formations.26 The significance, pervasiveness, and yet subtlety of
impact of the latter voluntaristic procedural orientation is not vitiated,
moreover, when it turns out that power holders' privately prepared rationales are patently weak as arguments. This impact is not vitiated if the
rationales could not possibly qualify as reasoned in the grand sense that
Habermas envisions. Indeed, it is not likely that any of them ever could.
This impact also is not vitiated, moreover, if the rationales prepared in
private are in most instances never presented publicly. This is typically the
case, in practice.
11.2.5. The uncertain foundation of nonauthoritarian social order
today
As noted at various points in this volume, a public policy of maintaining the
integrity of collegial formations cannot be found anywhere in the modern
world. What can be found within nation-states that sustain a nonauthoritarian direction of social change, however, is the institutionalization of
power holders' lived sense of anticipation of scrutiny and criticism. There
are many sectors, industries, and organizations within contemporary Western civil societies where this sense of anticipation is not institutionalized.
These are the sectors of Western civil societies wherein actors' demonstrable social control rather than their possible social integration accounts for
social order. These sectors also can be said to contribute, however inadvertently so, to social nonauthoritarianism within Western democracies.
Conversely, there are also selected sectors, industries, and organizations
264
of civil societies in the East and Third World where this sense of anticipation has been institutionalized. These are the sectors of these civil societies
wherein actors' possible social integration accounts in some part for social
order. They also can be said to contribute, however inadvertently so, to a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change within nation-states that currently lack most political institutions and economic practices of Western
democracy.
In both cases, these are empirical issues. These are issues amenable to
detailed, falsifiable comparative and historical research. To pose these as
empirical issues, however, is to jettison the presupposition of exhausted
possibilities.
Still, the absence of a public policy of maintaining the integrity of collegial formations means that two crucial bases of a nonauthoritarian direction of social change have not yet been institutionalized anywhere in the
modern world, including within existing Western democracies:
First, individual professionals' own behavioral fidelity to the collegial
form's procedural threshold has not yet been firmly institutionalized.
Such behavior is not sanctioned by law, nor mandated as a matter of
public or corporate policy.
Second, power holders who encroach against the threshold of interpretability of shared social duties are not sanctioned by law. This
remains the case even when their actions and proposals are revealed to
have this effect.
Institutionalizing these two bases of a nonauthoritarian direction of social
change is the very centerpiece of a public realm proper. When individual
professionals and deliberators, or power holders, encroach against the
threshold of interpretability, they simultaneously contribute to drift in two
ways. First, they close off any possibility of contributing to reasoned social
action in the larger social order. Second, and more importantly, they encroach against the integrity of the threshold of the collegial form, and
thereby against the external procedural restraints on drift that this formation alone institutionalizes. To institutionalize these two bases is, by contrast, to sanction all such encroachments by law. It is to establish and then
maintain civil "meaning" regarding what drift and direction are, despite:
actors' (including professionals') increasing heterogeneity, social units' increasing complexity and functional differentiation, and tendencies toward
increasingly rigid levels and types of social stratification.27
Today, with neither social base institutionalized, individual professionals
and deliberators within universities, corporations, associations, and networks of Western democracies seldom refuse to entertain the rationales
provided by elected officials, corporate executives, or other power holders
265
within civil society. They seldom refuse even as these rationales often feign
claims of consistency with the "public interest" of a "democratic society."
Within nonauthoritarian social orders, such feigning is nonetheless an acknowledgement of sorts of the ranges of expectations regarding acceptable
behavior institutionalized by collegial formations. As such, feigning is not
really as serious a problem for a nonauthoritarian social order as it might
initially seem. It certainly does not, in itself, presage a "legitimation crisis" of
Western institutions and practices (Habermas 1973a). The real world, after
all, is not a courtroom, a graduate seminar, or an ideal speech situation.
What is a serious problem, however, is that power holders are not sanctioned by law when it turns out that their efforts to maximize efficient
production or effective administration within private enterprises do indeed
threaten the integrity of sectoral or divisional collegial formations. Unmediated rational action is intrinsically inconsistent with the procedural voluntaristic orientation institutionalized by the collegial form. Yet, it may remain
consistent with the substantive voluntaristic orientations institutionalized by
other "protected spheres." This is the case in the illustration presented in
chapter 1: Scott's demand that William submit tampered data may well be
consistent with the company's (and its employees') immediate material
interests as well as with the substantive norms of environmental, cultural,
and religious protected spheres. Yet this same demand is inconsistent with
professionals' integrity, with the research division's collegial form, and with
this formation's contribution to external procedural restraints on drift.
Scott's conduct is an indication that: power holders' lived sense of anticipation of scrutiny and criticism has not been institutionalized within this
industry, the industry's professionals are being controlled, and the industry
is contributing to drift rather than to direction.28
Even in the absence of a public mandate to sanction instrumental and
strategic actions that encroach against the collegial form, the institutionalization of a sense of anticipation among power holders that characterizes
existing nonauthoritarian social orders carries its own subtle restraint.
First, it at least slows the pace of drift. Second, it simultaneously exposes
the importance of establishing a public realm proper within a civil society.
It begins to reveal that the latter is the social infrastructure upon which a
nonauthoritarian direction of social change can be sustained in the late
twentieth century. Third, it keeps open the possibility at least that selected
power holders and social influentials are capable of contributing to reasoned social action in the larger social order.
Whenever individual professionals and deliberators question power holders, and find that their actions and proposals threaten the procedural
voluntaristic orientation institutionalized by the collegial form, they are
simultaneously elevating a broader standard of reason above the narrow
norm of rational action. This is the case irrespective of whether they are
266
aware of this or not. They are demonstrating, however implicitly or unknowingly, that even if power holders' actions and proposals are indeed
instrumentally or strategically rational, they are nonetheless encroaching
against the threshold of interpretability of shared social duties. They are
simultaneously demonstrating, again however implicitly or unknowingly,
that this disqualifies these actions and proposals as possibly reasoned, possibly integrative, or possibly contributing in any way to a nonauthoritarian
direction of social change.
Still, individual professionals and deliberators today lack direct, institutionalized linkages to social or political power even within Western democracies. This is the case particularly when they question power holders
outside of the divisions and sectors within which they are employed. This is
why power holders may ultimately ignore them even as they continue to
anticipate the possibility of their questioning: Power holders are ultimately
not compelled or impelled to bring their actions and proposals into line
with the threshold of interpretability of shared duties and the integrity of
either sectoral or divisional collegial formations.
11.3. Unwitting beneficiaries of the collegial form
What does it mean, on the one hand, for there to be a vast network of
individuals employed within formations that institutionalize external procedural restraints, and who are thereby "available" to institutionalize a lived
sense of anticipation among power holders? What does it mean, on the
other, for these same individuals to operate without any direct linkage to
political or social power that could result in power holders, being sanctioned to comply with the threshold restraints that ultimately maintain their
formations and thereby keep them "available"?
11.3.1. Positivists' apologetic politics
This state of affairs means, in the first place, that there are students of
society (that is, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, historians,
economists, philosophers) holding positions in the academy and government, and also natural scientists holding public and private research affiliations, who do not aspire to institutionalize a public realm even at the sites of
their own professional practice.29 To the extent that they are not driven
exclusively by the subjective interests of Homo economicus, these social
and natural scientists are otherwise dedicated rather one-sidedly to keeping
the findings of their research scientific, a seemingly laudable substantive
aspiration. However, at the moment that they elevate this aspiration to the
status of an ultimate end, the literal end-in-itself of the research enterprise,
they are simultaneously assuming that this end may be attained within any
11.3. Unwitting beneficiaries ofthe collegial form
267
social order and also within any form of organization. They may share this
unargued assumption during periods of domestic tranquillity. During these
periods, they may casually overlook the scientific enterprise's interrelationship with a quite different aspiration: This is the voluntaristic aspiration to
keep research enterprises consistent with the form of organization distinctive to deliberate bodies, including those of the natural and social sciences
themselves. Under modern conditions, this same form of organization also
happens to contribute to the social infrastructure capable of sustaining a
nonauthoritarian direction of change.
Thus, individual researchers' one-sided aspiration to render their findings scientific, as an end-in-itself, literally obscures from their recognition
and understanding the procedural voluntaristic orientation that universities, research divisions, and other sites of professional practice contribute
simultaneously (a) to any research enterprise itself and (b) to the larger
direction of social change.30 This procedural voluntaristic orientation is as
much an empirical "fact" in the social world as any demographic trend or
pattern, as any index of stratification, as any pattern of group competition.
Yet, scientists (and philosophers of science) continue to emphasize the
scientific qualities of research findings without simultaneously accounting
for the impact that this procedural voluntaristic orientation has on research
enterprises. They fail to account for the impact that different forms of
organization have on the scholarly context in which research findings are
developed, and then, even more certainly, on the scholarly context in
which they are presented, debated, and then either accepted or rejected.
They thereby obscure the collegial form's empirical contribution to researchers' communication communities and to the scientific enterprise as
such. Yet, this form contributes to the social infrastructure that underlies
the very possibility of their maintaining their own integrity as scientists
under modern conditions.31
Positivists' characterizations of what qualifies research findings as scientific are in themselves relatively benign in their impact on the direction of
social change. They are benign as long as these characterizations affect only
the self-understandings of natural scientists. Natural scientists' object domain of study, after all, is ultimately the movement of matter in space (see
Habermas 1968a on object domains). But the very same characterizations
become pernicious once they affect the self-understandings of social scientists, and then practicing professionals and deliberators, because the object
domain here is very different. They become pernicious when they convince
social scientists that (a) the integrity of the enterprise of science is unaffected
by the type of social order or form of organization in which it is embedded,
and that (b) any standard of social change purporting to distinguish authoritarian from nonauthoritarian shifts in direction is intrinsically particular and
normative rather than possibly generalizable and reasoned.32 At the mo-
268
ment that positivists' characterizations of the research enterprise affect social scientists in this way, these characterizations begin to jeopardize the
integrity of the scientific enterprise itself. Moreover, through social scientists' treatments of modern institutions, organizations, social movements,
and networks, these characterizations ultimately affect the institutionalized
environment within which professionals, power holders, and social influentials approach the research enterprise and professional practice generally.
The irony is that social scientists' assumption that standards of social
change are intrinsically normative and particular is itself unscientific. It is
itself a strictly normative belief. It is a nonrational prejudice that they
happen to share with natural scientists and positivist philosophers of science who are addressing a very different object domain. This normative
belief is a reflection of what happens when social scientists characterize the
research enterprise using concepts that remain consistent with a copy
theory of truth: Individual researchers are seen as monads capable of independently establishing the certainty of their (and others') descriptions and
explanations. They are not seen as uncertain describers and explainers who
either operate within collegial formations or some other organizational form,
but never operate independently.33
By contrast, the moment that social scientists view the research enterprise
in terms that remain consistent with a consensus theory of truth, they characterize individual researchers and the research enterprise quite differently.
Here, each researcher's "independent" descriptions and explanations are
conjectures (to use Popper's 1962 apt term). They are conjectures regarding
what "really happened" in the natural or social world. Any researcher's
claim that his or her own conjectures are "true" (more "factual") secures
credibility only within and through ceaseless peer review. The theory of
societal constitutionalism adds to this characterization that under modern
conditions uncertain researchers may or may not orient themselves within
and around a distinct organizational form that, in turn, secures the credibility of peer review itself. The threshold restraints of the collegial form maintain the integrity of peer review, despite systemic pressures of drift that
fragment meaning among researchers and drive them toward patron-client
relationships.34
11.3.2. Intellectuals' ready cooptation and marginalization
The presence of collegial formations whose members lack any connection
to the political or social power that can result in sanctioning power holders'
compliance with procedural voluntaristic orientations also carries a second
meaning. It means that there are intellectuals, artists, and practicing professionals within modern nation-states who are relatively detached, in prac-
11.3. Unwitting beneficiaries of the collegial
form
269
tice, from any identifiable organizational base. Intellectuals, after all, "do
not constitute a corporate body" (Parsons and Platt 1973: 274). To the
extent that they also do not become linked to, or supported by, a network
of collegial formations within their institutionalized environments, they
are, like journalists, mere commentators on the contemporary political and
social scene. For all of their eloquence, they are handily controlled by
power holders and social influentials in one or more of the following three
ways at least:
First, intellectuals may be ignored altogether. If a network of collegial
formations is not already present within a civil society, power holders
may repress intellectuals outright. Yet, if they are wiser, they permit
them to write or say whatever they wish, because, after all, they are
already detached from any organizational base. As a result of this,
they are already incapable of resiliency restraining power holders'
exercises of collective power.
Second, intellectuals may be sought out by power holders, as one quite
minor set of contributors to a lived social fabric of symbols and cultural
"information" that provide upper and middle classes with diversion,
refinement, and entertainment. If a network of collegial formations is
not already present within a civil society, then intellectuals' prospects
of influencing power holders may be less promising than those of
movie stars, sports stars, or stand-up comedians.
Third, intellectuals may be readily coopted. After all, political and
economic elites directly or indirectly control the purse strings of intellectuals' career networks. If a network of collegial formations is not
already present within a civil society, then recruitment into intellectual
"circles" may be largely restricted to the patron-client networks of an
already compromised intellectual elite. Occasional working-class or
lower-class recruits are easily isolated or coopted. Patron-client networks have already been substituted for collegial formations in intellectuals' "institutionalized environment."
Still, the issues that typically concern intellectuals tend to be broader
than the issues addressed by social scientists within universities. Intellectuals debate "meaning," "ideology," and actors' "definition of the situation." They cannot be said to be dedicated exclusively or even primarily
to maximizing "cognitive rationality" or empirical explanation (Parsons
and Platt 1973: 275, 283).35 Because they often lack an organizational
base which is itself dedicated to enhancing actors' recognition and understanding of "meaning" beyond cognitive rationality, intellectuals bring
their talk of "meaning" into universities. But university departments are
270
not organized today to deal with issues posed in this way (Alexander
1986). As a result, intellectuals may be quite isolated even within major
universities.
There does not now exist any specific organizational framework within the university structure for meeting this ideological need, and so far there has not been a
strong demand for it [to be placed within the university]. This structural vacuum
may have been a factor in the vulnerability of the universities in situations of
pressure to which they have recently been subjected (Parsons and Platt 1973: 292).
One of the ways in which intellectuals may nonetheless prove useful to
universities (and other collegial formations) is for them ceaselessly to remind professionals of the importance of maintaining the integrity of collegial formations. The problem with this is that intellectuals ignore the latter's importance as well. They prefer to turn more immediately to the
"heat" of substantive matters of "meaning" rather than to bother with
issues as "cold" as that of collegial formations' procedural threshold. Ironically, the latter is precisely the standard by which they and social scientists
alike may fathom the shifts in the direction of social change that most
immediately affect their own integrity.
Notes
Chapter 1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

1 Henrique Cardoso (1977) documents Latin American researchers' early contributions to
the dependencia debate.
2 Pluralism has been subjected to intense criticisms by a symposium of legal scholars in the
Yale Law Journal (1988).
3 Included among the institutions and practices of Western liberal-democracy are: a mass
franchise and regular elections for major public offices; competing, mass political parties;
relatively autonomous interest associations; relatively autonomous print (if not electronic)
news media within a relatively "free" market of ideas; recognition by state agencies of
actors' formal rights or civil liberties of speech, assembly, and equal opportunity, including
a relatively "free" labor market; and, of course, guaranteed rights to own, control, accumulate, and exchange capital. Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 16) add systematic accounting
for expenditures of public funds. See Sartori (1962) for a standard discussion of these
institutions and practices, Przeworski (1985) for their historical impact on social democracy in Scandinavia, and Bobbio (1987) for an effort to radicalize them.
Social democracies modify these institutions and practices. Most essentially, they restrict
individuals' property rights in an effort to distribute material resources more equitably
and, simultaneously, to maintain or even extend actors' civil liberties. In practice, however, social democracies often modify liberal-democracy further by subordinating the
autonomy of decentralized interest groups to rather centralized "peak associations." A
single interest association stands literally at the "peak" of each functional sector of civil
society, straddling the boundary between civil society and state. From its peak it "intermediates" all actions and proposals from either side: Its leaders monopolize the political
representation of all interests articulated within its sector, and they greatly influence, if not
draft or initiate outright, all state policies affecting these interests (see chapter 4;
Schmitter's [1974] seminal statement; and Fulcher's 1987 review of neocorporatism's relationship to social democracy).
4 The only postwar "bourgeois" or non-Marxist social theorist who was convinced of the
opposite - that concepts may be grounded against normative relativism and simultaneously inform empirical research - was Talcott Parsons. To consider the works of two
other prominent "bourgeois" social theorists, Robert Merton never attempted to ground
concepts against normative relativism, and Niklas Luhmann today does not attempt to do
so. The three distinct phases of Parsons's theory construction all revolve around frameworks of analytical concepts. The only reason that he moved to such a fundamental level,
that of analytical distinctions, rather than remaining (with Merton, and then Luhmann) at
a more "surface" level of ideal types and both empirical and normative generalizations,
was precisely that he was interested in grounding empirical research conceptually. He was
convinced that only in this way could research findings be rendered cumulative instead of
271
272
Notes to chapter 1
remaining incommensurable (see Bershady 1973 for the best treatment of this quality of
Parsons's works). Luhmann is explicit in rejecting this project (1982: 365, notes 5-6).
5 The mainstream at one time included modernization theory, and even today it continues to
revolve in one way or another around pluralist theory (Skocpol 1980; Laumann and Knoke
1987), despite the many criticisms lodged against the latter.
6 This assertion by Tilly is challenged directly in chapter 6 (page 126).
In presenting "eight Pernicious Postulates of twentieth century social thought," Tilly
embraces the lacuna of integrative possibilities and thereby fails to question the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Indeed, he explicitly collapses social integration into
social control in his fifth and eighth postulates (1984: 11, 44-9, 56-7). He also advances
two propositions. First, functional differentiation is not a terribly significant systemic
force within modern nation-states, as Talcott Parsons believed, because dedifferentiation
occurs as well. Second, the analytical distinction between legitimate and illegitimate uses
of force cannot be made in comparative study (1985: 169-91). By dismissing the significance of functional differentiation, however, Tilly ends up with a vision of social order
that is more conservative and complacent than Parsons' own, including that contained in
his indefensible works of the early 1950s (Sciulli in preparation, a). Tilly's abandonment
of any effort to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate uses of force is by no means an
implicit critique of the collective prejudice regarding Western democracy. It is rather the
sort of relativist position that contributes to the latter's elevation by default above significant criticism.
7 The argument here is clearly not that liberal-democratic or social-democratic institutions
and practices are immoral or, for that matter, amoral. The argument is decidedly less
grand: It cannot be said by anyone that these institutions and practices alone are in some
sense "moral," or superordinate to actors' and groups' narrow calculations of their own
immediate material interests. These institutions and practices cannot be said by anyone to
exhaust all "moral" responses to Olson's (1965) free rider problem (also e.g. Hechter
1987), what Parsons (1937a) called the utilitarian dilemma, and what Weber (1914-20)
treated as the entropic drift of rationalization.
8 Jiirgen Habermas's works are a rarity today because they continue the Frankfurt school's
outright rejection of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Yet, his works perpetuate this school's longstanding inability to present critical concepts capable of informing
detailed empirical research in the social sciences.
9 See Hall (1987) for a decidedly moralistic endorsement of Western democracy. Instead of
endeavoring to explore the limits of the presupposition of exhausted possibilities with
grounded concepts, Hall opens the way to a grand, unhesitant apologia for whatever
direction of change Western civil societies happen to take in the future. Bloom (1988) is
the great antidote to this, as moralistic (and polemical) in its own way. Bloom decries not
merely relativism but what he calls "American nihilism."
10 This same definition of social integration is repeated at the end of chapter 2, in the context
of a review of the literature of social control. It is specified somewhat further in chapter 4
when the importance of the collegial form of organization is introduced. In chapter 8 the
definition of social integration is used again, but by this point within the context (and
terminology) of the theory of societal constitutionalism.
11 Michael Hechter (1987) proposes that "solidarity" be reduced to two factors within the
framework of concepts of rational choice theory: actors' degree of material dependence
on a particular group, and the degree to which the group's leadership can monitor (or
"meter," as Hechter puts it) actors' conformity to the groups' shared social duties. In this
way he rightly eliminates all concern with actors' feelings of moral obligation to conform
to group life, since actors' subjective beliefs can just as well be manipulated as genuine
(whereas Etzioni 1988, for instance, wishes to bring such feelings into the very center of
Notes to chapter 1
273
economists' studies of aggregate economic behavior). But feelings aside, Hechter then
follows comparativists and other researchers in failing to consider a further distinction,
one that has a great deal to do with both the presence of group solidarity in itself and
then with the quality of that solidarity: What does "solidarity" mean if the shared social
duties that the groups' leaders enforce can be demonstrated to be controlling and intrinsically particular in substance? Conversely, what does "solidarity" mean if these shared
social duties can be demonstrated to escape reduction to control and particularism? Put
differently, Hechter's theory reduces "solidarity" to successful social control, just as
Durkheim's theory and then Parsons's reduced "integration" to successful social control.
Hechter's reductionism merely substitutes surveillance and material sanctions for Durkheim's and Parsons's hypostatization of actors' purported internalization of shared norms
and moral beliefs. One of the purposes of the present volume is to provide theorists and
researchers with the analytical distinctions necessary to examine critically both materialist and idealist frameworks of concepts, and thereby to avoid both tendencies toward
reductionism.
12 These ideal types can generally be traced to Juan Linz's (1964) seminal essay. For uses of
the latter, see, for example, Oberschall (1973) in sociology and McDonough (1981) in
political science.
13 What is exciting about network analysis is that it indeed offers a new conceptual framework for comparative study, one not directly traceable to derivations of the classics'
theories (S.F. Nadel notwithstanding). See Berkowitz (1982) for a proponent's appraisal of
network analysis, Burt (1980) for a review of the literature, and Wellman (1983, updated
1988) for an influential commentary. See David Knoke (1989) for an effort to bring
network analysis to comparative study (based on principles from Laumann and Knoke
1987).
14 Lieberson is concerned that researchers too often pose problems because they meet statistical criteria rather than because they are informed by theoretical issues (1985: 89). As
opposed to seeking data sets that incorporate variation, and then endeavoring to explain
the variation (1985: 88), Leiberson thinks that "the simple case study could be of considerably greater value than presently appreciated if it is possible to mount such studies with a
very clear appreciation of some crucial issue and if the data are of very high quality such
that the results can be taken seriously" (1985: 105). And he sees this as most useful in
comparative study because statistics (such as international crime data) taken out of their
social contexts are distortions from the outset (1985: 110-13) or succumb to "the fallacy of
nonequivalence" (1985: 114).
15 Durkheim, Parsons, and Giddens are probably the worst offenders (to span generations),
and yet, ironically, Parsons' analytical framework of concepts provides an important basis
for distinguishing social integration from social control and thereby for filling the lacuna
(Sciulli in preparation, a). Both Diana Crane (1982) and Margaret Archer (1987) are
highly critical of Durkheim, Parsons, and functionalism generally for positing that a society likely has a single, dominant culture. Each of them argues effectively for the greater
likelihood of cultural diversity within any social setting, and in particular within any
modern social setting. And yet, ironically, they are very similar to Durkheim in the way
that they collapse the concept of social integration into the broader concept of social
control. As a distinct concept, social integration is controversial because it hinges on
whether parts of a social order that are not based on actors' manipulation, control, or
coercion can be isolated. To fail to distinguish this concept, however, is to concede implicitly that instances of very successful social control - when mechanisms of coercion and
control are most effective, and thereby manipulative - are instances of "social integration." Crane and Archer are as guilty of this Durkheimian tendency as Parsons and
Giddens.
274
Notes to chapter 1
16 The central concern of societal constitutionalism as stated to this point is to address social
change, and in particular to fathom its direction. Yet, the situation presented below, for
purposes of illustration, is static; a hypothetical situation described at a single point in
time. Even worse, it seems to focus on particular individuals rather than on collective
actions. Illustrations of how the direction of social change contradicts the presupposition
of exhausted possibilities cannot be provided, however, until the theory of societal constitutionalism has been presented, at the end of chapter 8. To present them now would
reduce them to assertions. Detailed empirical research has yet to be oriented conceptually
to take static situations, like the one discussed in this section, and trace either how they
evolved historically or how they are shifting today. In short, there is no available comparative study or case study in the literature that demonstrates that static situations like this
one are indeed either increasing or decreasing in frequency within Western democracies
or, for that matter, within Eastern or Third World nation-states. Consider, for instance,
that there is not a single study that compares how corporations that engage in corporate
crimes organize their research divisions and how research divisions are organized within
corporations that have reputations for lawful practices (see Braithwaite 1985 for a literature review). The theory of societal constitutionalism is designed to encourage researchers
to draw such comparisons, and to monitor particular changes within and across private
enterprises.
17 Upon reading this hypothetical illustration, William Lofquist, a graduate student at the
University of Delaware, was reminded of a report he had read of an incident that took
place in 1967 at a B.F. Goodrich Co. installation in Troy, Ohio, purportedly resulting in
the Department of Defense changing its procurement policies. Reported by Kermit
Vandivier, a married, then forty-two year-old, data analyst and technical writer at Goodrich with seven children, it was first published in 1972 and is reprinted in a 1987 anthology
on corporate crime edited by my former colleague David Ermann and Richard Lundman
at Ohio State University. The Troy installation was in 1967 "one of the three largest
manufacturers of aircraft wheels and brakes," even as it employed only 600 people
(Vandivier 1972: 103). The incident in question revolved initially around the relationship
between a new, twenty-six year-old engineer, Searle Lawson, and his immediate supervisor, John Warren, a man who would not tolerate criticism and, as a result, had, over time,
insulated himself from peer review (1972: 104-5):
Warren assigns Lawson hisfirstmajor project. In testing aircraft brakes for an important
new customer, LTV Corp., Lawson finds, however, that they cannot meet specifications
due to faulty design (1972: 106). Warren rejects Lawson's suggestions for redesign because
he wishes to meet the contract's deadline. Lawson responds by moving one step up the
corporate ladder. He shows hisfindingsto projects manager Robert Sink, a hard-working
man who held his present position without engineering credentials but with an ear to
company politics (1972: 107-8). Sink promptly tells the young engineer to follow the
orders of his more experienced supervisor, Warren.
At this point Vandivier enters the picture. He notices irregularities in the data from
Lawson's tests, and also the subsequent efforts to cover up the unwanted results. By this
point, too, the cover-up had expanded considerably. After speaking to Sink, Lawson went
dutifully to Ralph Gretzinger, a test lab supervisor, and requested that he miscalibrate the
instrument that records brake pressure (1972: 110-11). Ironically, Gretzinger, a man
noted for integrity, readily complied, but only because he thought at the time that this was
part of an experiment for internal use only, something which is not unusual. For his part,
Sink had by this time informed his boss, Russell Van Horn, manager of the design engineering section, of the situation as well (1972: 112). And Gretzinger, soon enraged to learn that
the miscalibrated results might well leave the laboratory and be included in the final
Notes to chapter 1
275
reports describes the whole incident to Russell Line, manager of Goodrich's entire technical services section (1972: 113).
Line tells all of the subordinates in the cover-up that each of them is working only on
one part of the puzzle. Because none of them is apprised of the complete picture, he
assures them they are not doing anything wrong. Vandivier cannot believe that this is
Line's position, so he discusses it with him personally (1972: 114). Line is indeed adamant
(1972: 115). With a family to support and bills to pay, Vandivier goes along by doctoringup his qualification report, the report to be issued to LTV Corp. and the United States Air
Force. Out of conscience, he perfunctorily adds a negative conclusion, one readily
dropped by others from the issued report (1972: 118).
Once the aircraft brake comes on line for the Air Force, the young engineer Lawson
personally witnesses planes skidding and near fatal accidents. Upon hearing Lawson's
personal accounts, Vandivier goes to an attorney who advises him to see the FBI in
Dayton. In time, Goodrich officials panic as the Air Force demands to see the raw data
from their tests. Individuals seek attorneys. But even now those involved deny that they
had lied.
Lawson and Vandivier eventually resign, and a year after that they each testify before a
Senate hearing chaired by William Proxmire. Sink testifies for Goodrich's Troy plant. The
Senate committee reaches nofirmconclusion after four hours of testimony, but the Department of Defense purportedly changes its procedures with this incident in mind. Lawson is
now an engineer for LTV Corp., and Vandivier is a newspaper reporter. The Troy plant
redesigned its aircraft brake along the lines originally proposed by Lawson, secured new
contracts with LTV Corp. and others, and increased its profitability. Both Line and Sink
were promoted.
18 On the one hand, charges by sociologists and political scientists of elite authoritarianism or
increasing official repression within Western democracies and the United States in particular are generally dismissed as unfounded or polemical, and correctly so (Wolfe 1973, 1977;
Isaac Balbus 1973; and, for that matter, Horkheimer and Adorno 1944; and Marcuse
1964b). Such charges tend to be ad hoc or impressionistic (e.g. Wolfe 1974), tied to
particular events and left unrelated to any systemic or structural pattern. Or, alternatively,
they are based on unrealizable ideals of "democracy" that contemporary practices understandably fail to meet (Wolfe 1977 and the Frankfurt school, including Habermas 1962,
1973a; also Bloom 1987 on the right). Put differently, such charges are not based on a
conceptual apparatus that allows researchers to isolate patterns of increasing social authoritarianism in comparative perspective; even Franz Neumann (1936) and Otto Kirchheimer
(1961) fail to escape this weakness. On the other hand, charges of "working class authoritarianism" within Western liberal-democracies are usually better received, even if controversial. Yet, these charges are typically based on surveys of workers' attitudes (e.g. toward
ethnic minorities) rather than on studies that establish systemic or structural patterns in
workers' actions (Lipset 1960; Lipset and Raab 1970). Moreover, it is never made clear
how authoritarian attitudes among workers, or among any other segment of the population
for that matter, contribute to a social order becoming authoritarian in practice. It is simply
assumed that this connection is self-evident, but it is not at all.
19 I have not hesitated to incorporate into this volume parts of previously published articles
(especially Sciulli 1986, 1988a, 1989a). Nor have I hesitated to both rearrange these parts
and substantially rewrite them as they were placed into this more elaborate presentation of
the theory of societal constitutionalism. However, there should not be any instance in
which rearranging or rewriting has altered the substance of the earlier articles. Changes in
the theory of societal constitutionalism might come in time, I suppose, but for now readers
should find consistency across these publications. Should readers find inconsistencies of
276
Notes to chapter 2
substance, these can only be mistakes, changes in my thinking of which I am unaware and
for which I cannot account.
Chapter 2. Social integration and social control: the importance of
procedural normative restraints
1 Consider F. James Davis's definition of social control (Davis et al. 1962: 39): "Social
control is the process by which subgroups and persons are influenced to conduct themselves in conformity to group expectations." And then Niklas Luhmann's definition of the
political system (1982: 145): "The specific function of politics is fulfilled at the level of
concrete interaction because [its] decisions are made binding. A decision is binding whenever, and for whatever reason, it succeeds in effectively restructuring the expectations of
those affected and thus becomes the premise for the future behavior. It is a matter, then, of
actual learning, and not just formal validity."
2 Conversely, when actors no longer typically meet acknowledged ranges of expectations
regarding acceptable behavior, then the social unit is "disordered" even if, ironically, competition over scarce resources decreases in intensity and coercion increases in intensity.
3 This calls to mind Niklas Luhmann's concept of autopoiesis, which he defines as system
self-monitoring or reflexivity. He uses this concept to illuminate any social system's
tendency to restrict actors' behavior within roles already given by the system. Like other
theorists discussed momentarily, he fails to distinguish analytically between instances
when autopoiesis is possibly integrative and when it is demonstrably controlling.
Habermas insists that the reasoned/nonreasoned or communicative/noncommunicative
distinction can be made, but Luhmann counters that any such distinction remains patently normative rather than possibly being grounded conceptually against normative
relativism.
4 Some of the best work on informal mechanisms of social control is by Thomas Scheff
(1984: 17-35; 1988; 1990).
5 The Frankfurt school long focused on systemic and institutional forms of social control.
Habermas, for instance, emphasizes the importance not only of "manipulation," which is
purposeful, but also of "systematically distorted communication," which is inadvertent or
systemic. Luhmann (1982: 124, 1972) defines law "as a way of constraining behavioral
expectations [that] is found in every society."
6 Cognitive self-restrictions are being focused on here precisely because they are not reducible to actors' internalization of norms during primary or secondary socialization (see John
F. Scott 1971 on the latter). They are not reducible to blockages within an actor's "personality," whether asocial neuroses or cultivated manners. Put differently, because the selfrestrictions being focused on here are strictly cognitive, they cannot be reduced to actors'
normative motivations and beliefs, whatever these might be and however they might have
been acquired. See R. Stephen Warner (1978) for an impressive statement of Parsons's
tendency to collapse these, a statement to which Parsons responded weakly (Parsons
1978a)/
7 Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 72) use the term "precommitment," citing both John Elster
and Thomas Schelling. Luhmann (1990: 235) puts the matter more abstractly, referring to
the "self-despontaneification" of any "autopoietic system," including a personality system.
Habermas's communication theory revolves around actors' "manipulation" and "distorted
communication."
8 That survey research is also expensive, and appeals generally to researchers who most
casually dismiss the possibility that social order may be based on manipulation or latent coercion is not surprising. Who could make better use of the data of successful
manipulation?
Notes to chapter 2
277
9 Zald (1978) is more difficult to label. See Sciulli (in preparation, b) for an expanded
discussion of these works.
10 By contrast, Luhmann (1990) discusses the welfare state in terms of polar concepts distinctive to each of his systems (including politics, economics, law, science, education, and
others). The result is that many of his criticisms are much sharper. Far more than Janowitz,
Luhmann reveals internal contradictions of the welfare state, or how its very successes are
preparing the way for future structural crises. At the same time, what would actually
constitute a "crisis" in terms of Luhmann's systems theory is by no means self-evident.
11 It should be kept in mind, however, that once the social control/social integration distinction is brought to Janowitz's seemingly more basic distinction, the former distinction
proves to be more basic. It cannot be demonstrated empirically whether particular instances of social control are possibly integrative merely by demonstrating that physical
coercion is not being applied or threatened. But it can be demonstrated empirically that
particular instances of physical coercion might well be integrative rather than demonstrably controlling (see chapter 6, note 32).
12 Chapters 4 and 8 contain related wordings. These wordings are altered slightly in each
chapter as the conceptual framework of societal constitutionalism is presented.
13 James Buchanan, the public choice economist and Nobel laureate at George Mason
University, makes much of the need for students of comparative institutions to address
the "model" of Homo economicus, the strictly self-interested actor, rather than to operate on the assumption that human behavior is typically more altruistic or moral (Brennan
and Buchanan 1985: 46-66; Buchanan 1989: 12-14, 28-321). As he correctly puts the
problem: "The objective should be that of designing institutions such that, if participants
do seek economic interest above all else, the damages to the social fabric are minimized"
(1989: 34). Several fundamental differences between what Buchanan now calls "constitutional economics" and the theory of societal constitutionalism will be noted in this
volume. But his point of departure, the need for any sociological study of institutions to
deal conceptually with the self-interested actor rather than to search empirically for
counterexamples of more altruistic behavior, in practice, is right on the mark. That
societal constitutionalism has the same actor in view will become apparent in the discussion of the Weberian Dilemma in chapter 3. It must be kept in mind that along with the
Hobbesian problem of order, this dilemma was Talcott Parsons' very point of departure
in the 1930s.
14 Anthony Giddens's view of actors' efforts to create, maintain, and change social structures "structuration" - recapitulates this failure in a different terminology (1976, 1979, 1984;
Cohen 1987,1989). He then makes a virtue of relativism by ignoring epistemological issues
entirely and instead moving to what he calls actors' "ontology of flexibility," an oxymoron.
For his part, Niklas Luhmann emphasizes systems'flexibilityin adapting autopoietically to
each other's actions and to "noise" in the larger social system's environment. He sees actors,
then, as both constrained and confused by the complexity and rapidity of social changes
taking place all around them, literally outside of their individual and collective control
(1982, 1986, 1990).
15 Like Habermas (1981a,b), Archer (1987), and many others, Giddens (1979: 75-81; 1981:
66-67, 157-63; 1984: 24, 64) follows Lockwood (1956) in distinguishing between social
integration and system integration. The former refers to dense face-to-face interactions
and the latter to relations between collectivities. Whether "integration" in either sense is
manipulated or latently coerced is something that Lockwood, and then the others, fails to
address methodically (see Giddens's confusing discussions of "exploitation," 1981: 58-61,
239-47; and "domination," 1984: 31-4, 1985: 7-11). Luhmann, of course, concentrates
exclusively on system integration and does not bother to distinguish this from systemic
control (e.g. 1986, 1990).
278
Notes to chapter 2
16 For instance, Jack Gibbs (1981) in particular ties social control to the participation or
intervention of third parties. In many instances of his five types of social control, third
parties are expected to provide authoritative judgments of one kind or another. Similarly,
Donald Black (1984) and John Griffiths (1984) at certain points in their discussions focus
on the importance of actors accepting authorities' legitimacy within situations of social
control.
17 Skocpol (1980) points this out in reference to certain programs of the New Deal in the
United States. Stephens (1980) and Korpi (1983) do the same in reference to the even
greater extension of transfer payments in Sweden.
18 Habermas's work is explored at some length in chapter 5. This same emphasis on systemic
distortion is what led Karl Marx earlier to examine the "commodity form," and how
surplus value is routinely extracted from labor irrespective of capitalists' skills, knowledge,
or planning. It is also what led Max Weber to explore the more general relationship
between "rationalization" and "bureaucratization" (see chapter 3).
19 See, as examples, Skocpol (1980), Skocpol and Amenta (1986: 136), plus Stephens (1980),
Korpi (1983) and Esping-Anderson (1985); also Block (1977), Przeworski (1985), and
Therborn (1987).
20 The same distinction also is missing from more specific discussions of interlocking directorates and "institutional capitalism," and from discussions of "crises" in the welfare state (not
only Janowitz 1976; but Wolfe 1977; Cawson 1982; Therborn 1987; and Luhmann 1990).
21 Robert Dahl (1982) explores the tension between autonomy and control as the overriding
"dilemma" of pluralist democracy. But there are two great limitations with his study. First,
he refers to "autonomy" only in terms of organizations' independence from government.
He must then concede that autonomous organizations may "do harm" (1982: 1-3). Second, he concedes (1982: 4) that he cannot demonstrate which organizations are independent or autonomous even in this limited sense. By contrast, the theory of societal constitutionalism revolves around an operationalizable definition of social integration. It then
extends this definition to organizations and institutions across a civil society rather than
concentrating exclusively on their relationships vis-a-vis governmental agencies. Social
integration replaces Dahl's notion of autonomy, and the former is demonstrated to have
more to do with increasing freedom and reducing harm than the latter. Heinz and
Laumann (1982: chapter 10) explore problems with the notion of autonomy as applied to
the professions.
22 Anthony Giddens (1984, 1987) also wishes to be critical or radical, and lacks a suitable
conceptual grounding for critique or radicalism. To his credit, Luhmann methodically
addresses why critique is incapable of being grounded theoretically, and incapable of
informing actors in practice (1982, 1986, 1990). The theory of societal constitutionalism
ultimately rejects both of these conclusions, and yet Luhmann's systems theory is more
formidable than Giddens's structuration theory precisely because Luhmann consistently
dismisses the possibility of critique under modern conditions. He does not turn inconsistently to ungrounded concepts to support criticisms of existing conditions.
23 See Przeworski (1985) on social democrats' steady accommodation of the restrictions and
opportunities of electoral democracy, and Przeworski and Sprague (1986) for a historical
review.
24 It should be kept in mind that the coup d'etat remains today the most typical way in which
governmental leaders are transferred from office, and by no means elections (Luttwak
1968/1984). In the real world, coups are normal, and elections (to say nothing of revolutions, civil wars, and putsches) exceptional. Coups and elections aside, questioning beyond
the presupposition of exhausted possibilities is taking place in practice today within many
modern nation-states. One of the purposes of the theory of societal constitutionalism is to
provide a conceptual framework that exposes this to empirical study.
Notes to chapter 3
279
25 See Sewell (1985) and Skocpol (1985) for a fascinating debate over these issues as they
apply to the French Revolution, and Laumann and Knoke 1987: 346-72 for an application
to the contemporary United States.
26 Alexander (1983b: 62, 75, 77-80, 94-5, 133-4) collapses integration into "voluntary authority" or voluntary social control (which, in turn, collapses informal, systemic, and selfrestrictive mechanisms of social control). Like other theorists influenced by Parsons, he
appreciates the richness and variety of mechanisms of purposeful social control. But, with
this, he addresses the first question only, and only in part, and he fails to move to the next
two. This is why he reduces the question of "freedom" to an empirical issue (1978). He
fails to see that its institutional and organizational foundations are so distinctive that they
are amenable to conceptual specification.
Chapter 3. Liberalism and the Weberian Dilemma: from restraints on

government to restraints on civil society
1 It is not coincidental that Sheldon Wolin's influential 1960 survey of political theories since
Aristotle ends with Weber's social theory.
2 Liberal theorists often acceded to complacent optimism after Adam Smith's The Wealth of
Nations appeared in 1776. That is, they assumed that the impact of the market on social
and institutional change is ultimately benign, for all of the market's fluctuations and
uncertainties, including economic depressions. This complacency was a major obstacle to
these theorists methodically addressing the concerns raised later by either Marx or Weber
(Friedman 1962 remains an exemplar, and rational-choice theory has brought liberal complacency into the center of sociology). As pre-Smith liberals, the American founders were
in many respects more pessimistic, and more sophisticated conceptually. Yet, Locke's
writings greatly influenced them, and his central concepts (written 1679-80) were far more
amenable to later complacency than Hobbes's (written 1651). Locke ultimately accounted
for limited government by positing that actors within an allegorical state of nature - a
normatively unmediated social arena - are likely to operate on a "natural identity of
interests" in limiting government whereas Hobbes would have none of this. Locke's position became one of the bases for constitutional theorists' positing that a "constituent force"
in civil society is ever-vigilant in restraining arbitrary government (see chapter 10), and the
American founders and framers were greatly influenced by this allegory. There have been
exceptions to liberal complacency in the twentieth century, of course, most notably Joseph
Schumpeter (1942), Karl Polanyi (1944), Friedrich Hayek (1944,1973-9), Hannah Arendt
(1951), and Theodore Lowi (1969); Brennan and Buchanan (1985) continue the Hobbesian tradition today (see Sciulli 1990 on the contributions of Arendt, Hayek, and Lowi).
For all of his insights, even Tocqueville failed as late as the 1820s and 1830s to explore the
implications for democratic government of systemic pressures of social change, other than
to address the problem of democratization which Michels and Weber would later see as a
"leveling" of the governed in the face of oligarchy and bureaucratization (Ortega 1930 and
many others developed this argument, including Kornhauser in the United States).
Schmitter relied on Tocqueville's "art of association" in his early study of Brazil (1971)
before developing his own view of neocorporatism in 1974.
3 Wolfgang Schluchter argues (1981: 86) that Weber's work as a whole may be read as "a
socio-historical constitutional theory of a new type, quite different from traditional constitutional theories" (also 1981: 109-14). It is not clear, however, what Schluchter has in
mind in saying this. Weber is deservedly remembered for a great many contributions, but,
Schluchter notwithstanding, one of them cannot said to be a major (or even minor)
contribution to democratic theory, constitutional theory, or categories related even
vaguely to the problem of a nonauthoritarian direction of social change.
280
Notes to chapter 3
4 "[I]t is justified to see the question of rationality as Weber's central issue" (Schluchter
1981: 10, note 11). See Polanyi (1944) and Arendt (1951) for what remain most impressive
updatings of the sense of drift. By the 1950s, pressures of rationalization were reified by
comparativists into the notion of "modernization" (see Huntington 1971 for an account),
and Weber's pathos was by then overlaid by Americans' Lockean and Smithean complacency and optimism.
5 Luhmann (1990) captures this well today, but without Weber's sense of pathos regarding
the imminence of authoritarianism. Habermas (1989) seems to have resigned himself to
drift.
6 Parsons initially characterized this as a "law of entropy" (1937a: 752), and then later (with
Smelser 1956) converted it into the systemic process of "functional differentiation."
Luhmann has since developed the implications of the latter more than anyone else within
the Parsonian tradition (eg. 1982, 1986, 1990).
7 The statement of the Weberian Dilemma that follows is my best effort to carry out the
logic of Weber's conceptual apparatus, irrespective of what his personal political beliefs
happened to be as articulated in his correspondence and speeches (Mommsen 1959/1974;
Beetham 1974). My statement also accounts for Weber's pathos, as opposed to Lockean
liberals' complacency and optimism. Clearly, Weber on occasion expressed hope in the
future of parliamentary democracy, but can his personal statements be rendered consistent
with his own conceptual apparatus? Any Weber specialist who wishes to rebut my statement of the Weberian Dilemma, or otherwise to demonstrate that it is faulty, must do
more than string together quotations from Weber's personal views regarding parliamentary democracy. The Weber specialist must demonstrate that such personal beliefs by
Weber (or anyone else) are consistent with the conceptual apparatus that Weber developed. I do not think this can be done.
8 Aside from its consistency with Michels's iron law of oligarchy, the Weberian Dilemma is
also consistent with Kenneth Arrow's (1951) impossibility theorem, and Brennan and
Buchanan's (1985: 76) extension of this to what they call the "attenuation of individual
control over collective-choice options." Arrow's point was that even if individuals within
any social unit express their preferences consistently, the unit's collective decisions will not
be internally consistent even if decision-makers follow rules designed simply to combine
these preferences. Brennan and Buchanan's point, in turn, is that even if one person is
certain that others will not change their preferences over time, it is impossible for this
person to predict whether the sequence of actions taken by any social unit will be consistent with his or her own ordering of preferences. What is being emphasized by both points
is that even if all actors operate consistently in their own subjective interests within any
complex social unit, they cannot be expected to control, or even to predict, how the social
unit will react collectively. One result of conceding Brennan and Buchanan's argument,
however, is to come to a conclusion that they would oppose unhesitatingly: If predictability
is to be brought to exercises of collective power within civil society, this can only be
accomplished on the basis of a social infrastructure that in turn challenges, or subordinates, the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests.
9 Why would two conceptually sophisticated economists, wedded so firmly to Homo economicus as their "model," conclude their book with a call for a civil religion? They do so
because, to their credit, they recognize the outer limits of economically motivated behavior for institutional design: "[Economists confuse] the robustness of economically motivated behavior within given constraints and the possible robustness of economically motivated behavior in modifying the constraints themselves" (Brennan and Buchanan 1985:
14). Presumably, only a shared understanding of noneconomic qualities in life, that is of
nonrational norms, can modify the constraints on economic behavior themselves. Thus,
they advocate a civil religion to this end.
Notes to chapter 3
281
10 For valiant efforts to bring consistency and clarity to Weber's three concepts, see
Mommsen (1959/1974), Jean Cohen (1972), Beetham (1974), Burger (1976), Jacobson
(1976), Factor and Turner (1979), Kalberg (1980), Zaret (1980), Levine (1981), Habermas
(1981a: chapters 2-3), Schluchter (1981: 58, 88-9, 108-10, 128-32), Alexander (1983a),
Kronman (1983: chapter 4). Earlier, now "standard" accounts fare no better (Shils 1948,
Hughes 1958, Bendix 1960, Freund 1966, and Guenther Roth's 1968 introduction to Weber's major mature work).
11 Weber fails to acknowledge that rationalization or purposive-rational action hinges on
whether ends are quantifiable. Habermas perpetuates this failure in his own work (1968b,
1973a, 1979,1981a) whereas Marcuse (1964a), surprisingly, is more consistent in appreciating this interrelationship. Etzioni (1988: chapters 8-9) recently defined instrumental rationality in terms of the qualities of decision-making processes itself rather than in terms of
the quantifiable results of efficient production or effective administration (see chapters 7 8 for additional remarks on the importance of the latter). His reasoning is that unanticipated events beyond decision-makers' control (e.g. a dramatic jump in energy prices) may
turn an essentially rational decision into a result which, in retrospect, appears to be
"irrational." But surely Etzioni is mistaken to define instrumental rationality in this way.
Aside from running contrary to Weber's usage, it leaves Etzioni with the problem of
neutrally observing which decision-making processes are more or less rational than others.
This is a far more hermeneutically complex undertaking than economists (whom Etzioni is
addressing) can be expected to undertake. Consider the following counterexample: Let us
say a new technology suddenly rendered the automobile obsolete. Nevertheless, a neutral
observer can still look at automobile manufacturing companies and specify which ones
manufacture automobiles most efficiently by pointing to various quantitative indices of the
production process. That the automobiles manufactured are no longer purchased does not
somehow reduce the instrumental rationality with which they were produced. Hechter also
fails to see that action can only be called rational on the basis of its quantifiable results.
This leaves him in the nether world of fathoming actors' subjective interests: "[Rational
choice] theory treats individual preferences as sovereign, but if it is to yield testable
implications about group behavior, these preferences must be specified in advance. Otherwise the theory is empty, for any behavior can be viewed as rational with the advantage of
hindsight" (1987: 31). He goes on to note (1987: 31-2, note 22) that "the preferences which provide the motivation for all behavior - are exogeneous to the theory, and therefore unexplained." Regardless, literally all of Hechter's examples of rational-choice behavior revolve around enterprises whose ends are clearly quantifiable, from legislative voting
and patronage (1987: chapter 5), to credit associations and insurance groups (1987: chapter 6), to capitalist firms (1987: chapter 7). And yet, he fails to work this into the very
definition of his most central concept. One other point may be made about Hechter's view
of actors' preferences above: to treat actors' subjective interests literally as sovereign is to
treat them as either given or random, rather than as possibly principled or otherwise
warranted (see chapter 4).
12 Alan Sica pursues an alternative tack, tracing Weber's efforts to sublimate his anxiety
over the persistence of the "irrational" in everyday life. The problem pervading Sica's
account is his failure to distinguish the nonrational (literally, the nonpurposive-rational)
from the irrational. This is a distinction that Parsons made, and most methodically so,
across his career (e.g. 1969b for Parsons's best later statement). Indeed, the handiest
summary of Parsons's entire body of work is to say that he was a theorist preoccupied
with nonrational social action. The same failure on Sica's part prevents him from appreciating the importance of Parsons' (1936; 1937a: 185-95) reformulation of Pareto's
concept of the "nonlogical" into the more generally applicable concept of the "nonrational." This accounts, too, for Sica's rough-and-ready slighting of the relationship in
282
Notes to chapter 3
Weber's work between "substantive rationality" and the irrational as Sica defines it
(1988: 209-13).
13 Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 17-18, 22, 27-32, 98-107) substitute "unanimity" over
meta-rules for a natural identity of interests, and Luhmann substitutes "autopoiesis" for
the hidden hand. For Luhmann: "Totally absorbed in its own object, sociology did not
even notice that a reorientation had already started among the natural sciences, begun by
the law of entropy. If this law that declares the tendency to the loss of heat and organization is valid then it becomes even more important to explain why the natural order does
not seem to obey it and evolves in opposition to it. The answer lies in the capacity of
thermodynamically open systems . . . to enter into relations of exchange, i.e. environmental dependency, and nevertheless to guarantee their autonomy through structural regulation" (Luhmann 1986: 4). By suspending the law of entropy and then employing the
concept of autopoiesis, Luhmann brackets the issue of authoritarianism from his concerns.
He accounts for social order as such rather than for nonauthoritarian social order in
particular. In this regard, he is as much a follower of Parsons (Sciulli 1988b) as Alexander
and Munch.
14 The Frankfurt school in general, and Herbert Marcuse in particular, has been roundly
criticized for so categorizing contemporary nation-states, although one cannot say that
they were particularly casual about it. The Frankfurt school is nothing if not methodical.
15 Failing to provide answers to either question in the face of considerable empirical evidence
to the contrary, contemporary Weberians obfuscate the dilemma itself. They accede to
Lockean liberals' complacency by dismissing the entire issue of directionality out of hand
as "normative" or "ideological." By default, therefore, liberals' hypostatization of a "hidden hand" or of actors' "natural identity of interests" is left standing unchallenged conceptually. It is startling, actually, how many theorists and researchers who label themselves
Weberians, or conflict theorists and radical researchers, operate with concepts indistinguishable from those underlying Lockean liberalism. Indeed, is there a single Weberian
theorist or researcher who answers either question by accounting conceptually for the
presence of nonauthoritarian social orders in the late twentieth century?
16 Brennan and Buchanan (1985) also fail to examine external normative restraints methodically, of course. Yet, they end up appealing to a civil religion as the only alternative to
drift. The reason for their rejection of the external, on the one hand, and yet their appeal
to a civil religion, on the other, may be traced to their failure to distinguish between norms
that are voluntaristic and those that are nonrational. In turn, they fail to see that certain
voluntaristic norms are procedural rather than substantive, and thus capable of being
institutionalized independently of any civil religion. The importance of these two distinctions is demonstrated in chapter 7.
17 After all, the other view of modern social change supported by Weber's conceptual framework is just as readily supported by the presuppositions of Lockean liberalism. Any
resilient normative restraint on rational social change invariably fosters authoritarianism.
18 Brennan and Buchanan's constitutional economics revolves around the possibility of
successful self-restriction. But they see this as immutable, tied to actors' inability to
tailor macrosociological institutions and "meta-rules" to their own subjective interests
(1985: 17, 55, 72, 75-81). Thus, they ultimately recapitulate the classic liberal argument
in favor of the "hidden hand" of the market even as they initially raise Hobbesian
criticisms.
19 Theories of "social closure" (Collins 1979; Parkin 1979; Murphy 1988; Waters 1989) take
precisely this tack: Any and all obstacles that actors face in securing access to resources are
treated as manifestations of social closure. One combs these writers' works looking for a
single exception. In the face of existing institutional obstacles, actors' failure to rebel can
only be attributed to their successful manipulation.
Notes to chapter 4
283
Chapter 4. Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism: from

internal restraints on government to external restraints on drift
1 Procedural internal and external restraints have substantive effects, of course. But their
effects are indirect in the following sense. Whatever else they may entail in practice, their
effects, too, must remain consistent with, rather than compromise or jeopardize, the
integrity of the procedural mediation itself. If the latter is compromised, procedural restraints are no longer being maintained, and only substantive restraints can be said to
account for whatever limitations on exercises of collective power happen to persist. Pluralist theory and neocorporatist theory, as examples, are theories of the substantive restraints
that influential in civil society bring to bear on state officials. Friedrich Hayek, Hannah
Arendt, and Theodore Lowi, among others, including the contributors to Yale Law Journal's symposium on the republican civic tradition (1988), roundly criticized such theories
precisely because they overlooked the importance of the integrity of procedural restraints
(Sciulli 1990).
2 Dworkin (1977) hypostatizes rights, but more recently (1985) acknowledges that "principles of legal interpretation" are more fundamental. More surprising, Luhmann hypostatizes rights as well - as a nonnegotiable context framing the legal system's otherwise
unrestrained "reflexivity" and amenability to change (1982: 96-7). This is surprising in
that Luhmann otherwise criticizes all substantive and procedural normative restraints as
anachronistic holdovers within contemporary "autopoietic systems" (1990). Brennan and
Buchanan part company on this matter. Buchanan insists that the positing of values purportedly external to individuals' subjective interests is "not consistent with . . . the 'contractarian vision' " (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 37). If Buchanan ever conceded that
there were such external values, he would then have to concede that they may restrain
Homo economicus, or individuals' strictly self-interested competition within economic and
political marketplaces. By contrast, Brennan "express[es] misgivings about relating the
contractarian position so closely to the denial that objective values exists. It is suggested
that there may be an argument to the effect that objective values exist and that these
include the value of individual liberty" (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 37, note 2). It will
become clear later in this chapter and then certainly after the discussion in chapter 8 that
neither of these positions can account for the possibility of nonauthoritarian social order
under modern conditions of drift. In terms of the theory of societal constitutionalism,
Buchanan's "contractarian vision" is an accomplice in drift. Brennan's hypostatization of
individuals' liberties or rights as "objective values," in turn, cannot remain external to
actors' fragmentation of meaning and groups' functional differentiation, and thereby to
the drift of social change.
3 Brennan and Buchanan add another: "systematic accounting for expenditure of public
funds" (1985: 16). They also insist on the importance of geographic electoral arrangements, but it is unclear why elections as well as representation in parliament cannot be
structured by functional rather than geographic location. In many nation-states, and by no
means exclusively the plural or communal systems of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East,
and South Asia, elections are structured for all intents and purposes in terms of actors'
ethnic or religious affiliations. Lijphart (1977) presented "consociational democracy" as
one way of addressing such situations. It essentially updates John C. Calhoun's "concurrent majority," a proposal originally designed to keep the Antebellum South in the Union.
It concedes to an ethnic, religious, or regional minority a veto power over all national
policies affecting its vital interests. Such arrangements often are negotiated in one way or
another within ethnically, religiously, or regionally divided nation-states; Lebanon is experiencing the limiting case of what happens when they are not, and both Quebec and
Lithuania are testing their respective nation-state's capacity to negotiate a settlement.
284
Notes to chapter 4
4 Habermas (1979:194-5) introduces the concept of strategic action by drawing a distinction

within Weber's concept of purposive-rational action, depending on whether the latter is
directed to things in nature or to actors in society:
(a) Instrumental action follows technical rules and is evaluated by "the degree of
efficacy of the intervention into a physical state of affairs."
(b) Strategic action also follows rules of rational choice but is evaluated by "the degree
of efficacy in influencing the decisions of rational opponents."
Together, these two types of action comprise the "model of purposive-rational action."
Every social relationship, in turn, is either rational, that is strategic, or nonrational, that is
normative. A social relationship is strategic when each actor or group consciously seeks its
own particular advantage in its own subjective interest. It is normative when they endeavor
to secure a mutual understanding of their situation. Habermas (1979: 195-5) uses his own
concept of communicative action to specify when the latter social relationships are reasoned rather than merely normative. For him, communicative action and strategic action
are both "complex cases" or ideal types. They are closer to empirical social action than
analytical concepts or what Habermas calls "pure cases." In analyzing the ideal type of
communicative action, he turns to "pure cases," including actors' cognitive utterances,
their expressive self-representations, and their normatively regulated actions. It is not
necessary to discuss this further in this volume.
All of this can get very complicated in practice, of course. For instance, there is little
separation of church and state in Sweden. The Lutheran clergy are civil servants whose
salaries are paid by the state treasury (Popenoe 1988:138-9). Yet, Sweden may well be the
most secularized nation-state, those of the former Eastern bloc included.
Anderson (1964/1982) clearly conveys the strictly strategic nature of elections in his discussion of Latin American regime changes between civilian and military rule. Still, it cannot
be denied that in a few modern nation-states - still very few indeed - elections have
clearly gained normative status, all evidence of their failure to express any "national will"
or "national mandate" notwithstanding. Put differently, within these few nation-states,
electoral results may well carry a normative mandate that is popularly considered to be
loftier than that of maintaining the integrity of the procedural threshold of interpretability
of law. It will become clear in chapter 6 why this is a strictly normative belief rather than a
contribution to reasoned social action.
Interest group pluralism is quite distinctive to the United States (see Garson 1978 for a
review, and Lowi 1969 for a critique). More generalizable types of group competition
include "neocorporatism," which involves peak associations (since Schmitter 1974), and
"consociational democracy," which involves ethnic sections (see Lijphart 1977; but also
Connor 1972, 1973; and Enloe 1973 for early, influential statements regarding the resilience of ethnic sections despite "modernization").
This issue is formulated more consistently with the theory of societal constitutionalism in
chapter 11. Friedrich (1963) remains a valuable account of the importance of power
holders' "anticipated reactions." Hechter's "theory of group solidarity" literally revolves
around the institutionalization of anticipated reactions, which he calls "metering" or
monitoring (1987: chapter 4). The rare totalitarian regimes (Nazi Germany, Stalinist
Soviet Union, and Pol Pot's Cambodia) are distinctive in that methodical steps were
taken to reduce dramatically even internal substantive restraints on state officials' exercises of collective power. Leaders of "totalitarian" nation-states radically reduced and
realigned the groups permitted to compete, and yet even they could not escape all such
strategic restraints (see Hagopian 1978: chapters 4-5 for a useful overview of this enormous literature).
Yet, this was precisely the grandest proposal of postwar pluralist theory, and it remains
Notes to chapter 4
10
11
12
13
14
285
implicitly at the center of Philippe Schmitter's distinction between societal and state
neocorporatism.
One of the most significant contributions of Laumann and Knoke's discussion of energy
and health policy domains within the United States is that they treat patterns of events as
"scenarios" (1987: 17, 249-70), and examine the "joint space" occupied by actors and
events (1987: 26-42). They find an "absence of any direct effects of resource possession on
event participation" (1987: 284) such that "any organization with a modicum of interest in
the policy issues could easily enter into the debates" (1987: 283). Their point is that the
scenarios within which events are patterned have a certain life of their own. Each set of
policy issues has only some particular moment in the sun, and, presumably, state officials
have great control over these moments. It is during these rare moments that participation
in debates is particularly significant. In this way, Laumann and Knoke portray state officials as far more active than pluralist theory's portrayals of them as mere referees, enforcers, or vector sums. Indeed, they are more specific in characterizing the state's role than
researchers who have insisted that the state's relative autonomy be taken more seriously
(Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985).
It can already be seen how this procedural threshold challenges the faith that Buchanan
has in his "contractarian vision," and in what he calls "constitutional economics" more
generally. Buchanan focuses exclusively on actors' subjective interests and beliefs, and he
adamantly rejects the idea that organizational forms or procedural thresholds can be used
to resiliently restrain actors' self-interested competition within economic and political
marketplaces. In terms of "institutional forms," Buchanan sees only two types: monopolies and markets. It is then an easy matter for him to favor markets and the subjective
interests filling them (Buchanan 1989: 5, 13-17, 26-7, 32, 41-2; Brennan and Buchanan
1985: 7, 21-4, 27-8, 37-45, 49).
With this third assumption, Niklas Luhmann is as much a pluralist as any American
political scientist. He sees a "dual sovereignty" operating within the "legal system": actors'
sovereignty in invoking the law, and thereby the frequency with which the law is invoked in
ongoing social situations; and the sovereignty of lawmakers to change the law, including
the premises on which they make such changes (1972; 1982: chapters 5-6; 1990: chapter 6).
Thus, law is rendered positive (or relativistic) when "we claim an inalienable sovereignty
to decide what the law is to be and even to vary the premises according to which such
legislative decisions are made" (1982: 125-6). The only conditions that Luhmann sees are
that the changes not rattle public opinion sufficiently to change its subjective expectations,
and that both political and legal systems continue to function. The problem of arbitrariness, or drift, drops from sight. Indeed, Luhmann advocates that pluralist theory, the
theory of the sovereignty of competing subjective interests, be generalized beyond groups
and interests into a general principle of system complexity and reflexivity, independently
of all external restraints (1982: 383, note 45; also 1990: 27).
Hayek and Buchanan reject this assumption, and thereby remain Hobbesian, whereas
Hechter and Coleman remain more complacent Lockeans. Hechter in particular is explicit
about this (1987: 62-9, 183-6).
This allegory of the constituent force may sound farfetched, but it underlies the Western
constitutional tradition from the Glorious Revolution to this day. It is discussed more
methodically in chapter 10. What is remarkable about Brennan and Buchanan's continuing
confidence in such a constituent force is that they simultaneously accept Arrow's impossibility theorem and then update it with their own "theorem" of the "attenuation of individuals' control over collectivities" (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 73-81; Buchanan 1989: 39;
chapter 3, note 8). It never dawns on them that heterogeneous actors and competing
groups, operating in their own immediate interests, may never recognize in common what
arbitrary government is - until it is far too late.
286
Notes to chapter 4
15 David Truman (1951) had insisted that robust interest competition contributes to democracy only as long as it is kept confined within resilient "rules of the game," rules which are
independent of this competition or tied to some principle superordinate to the sovereignty of
actors' subjective interests. Moreover, he followed constitutional tradition in positing that a
mythical "constituent force" within civil society ultimately upholds these rules, and this
principle, in the face of flagrant encroachments. Later pluralists correctly ridiculed such
naivete about a constituent force, and symbolic interactionists have always had none of
this. They bracket the entire issue of shifts in the direction of social change from their
concerns. The same may be said of Luhmann (1990), but not of Parsons. Pluralists jettisoned the vague notion of rules of the game and principle as unnecessary to their (and
interactionists') basic argument. They were certain that the latter can rest securely on the
sovereignty of actors' subjective interests, without appealing to any purportedly independent principle. Today, Brennan and Buchanan resuscitate both of Truman's ideas, but
without seeing how the latter hinge on an independent principle: They refer vaguely to
rules of the game (or "meta-rules"), and they evince faith in the workings of an amorphous
constituent force or consensual will within civil society. The conjunction of these two ideas
is literally what they see as the contribution of what they call "constitutional economics"
(1985:22,26-8,51,98-111).
16 Norms of due process refer to procedural guarantees that actors are accorded, particularly
within common-law countries, during criminal arrests, trials, and other formal proceedings
(Fellman 1976; McClosky and Brill 1983: chapter 4). The theory of societal constitutionalism by no means contends that any particular set of such guarantees is irreducible
either to a nonauthoritarian social order or to actors' prospects for social integration, and
thereby capable of informing comparative research. Quite to the contrary, it concedes
(chapter 10) that both the historical and contemporary record of common-law countries in
this regard is as intrinsically particular as that of civil law countries (e.g. Merryman 1969/
1985; Meador 1986; Damaska 1986).
17 Consider the reviews of Marxists' treatments of law by Hugh Collins (1982) and Spitzer
(1983), and also the review of Marxists' treatments of morality by Lukes (1985). Weberians' views of law have already been alluded to, and they are addressed in chapters 5-6.
For feminism, consider the works of Catharine MacKinnon (1983). Her critique of the
"objectivist epistemology" of law embraces all procedural norms, and it is nothing if not
absolutist. Her view of how rape laws should be rewritten, for instance, is a case in point.
By her own accounting, 80-90% or more of the male population could be expected to
qualify immediately as rapists for continuing their present behavior. MacKinnon is not
calling for violent sexual acts to be prosecuted fully. She is calling for each women's
subjective judgment of personal uncomfortableness to be placed beyond question in defining what rape means for her - irrespective of what a man's actions happen to be, and
irrespective of what his subjective impressions are. The first call would be eminently
reasonable, but MacKinnon's call to reduce legality to a "subjectivist epistemology" is
chilling (to say nothing of being oxymoronic). Regarding sociology of law, finally, it is fair
to say that the most mainstream position today treats norms of due process as formalities
or empty shells, e.g., Hawkins (1984) and Braithwaite (1989). The integrity of these
formalities is routinely demonstrated to be jeopardized today by current practices of
criminal and civil courts, e.g., Silberman (1978), Abel (1981), Braithwaite (1982, 1984),
and Clinard and Yeager (1980).
18 Lowi (1969) presents the most methodical critique of this argument. He proposes a resuscitation of what are here called internal procedural restraints on government, and what he
calls "juridical democracy." The problem is that Lowi speaks repeatedly of "principle" as
opposed to group competition but he never specifies what he means (Sciulli 1990). Does
"principle" not mediate "democracy"?
Notes to chapter 4
287
19 See Vile (1967) for the best discussion of the rise and then fall of the division of powers,
the latter even prior to comparativists' recognition of neocorporatism within Western
Europe.
20 Aside from providing a rationale for possessive individualism, Locke's (then) innovative
view of private property in the seventeenth century (Arendt 1958) was linked to the
problem of restraining arbitrary government. This is a linkage that Macpherson (1962)
acknowledges but then brackets from his critical discussion of possessive individualism.
21 See Robert Nagel (1989) for a recent assessment, and a call for the courts to show renewed
respect for internal substantive restraints of popular opinion and group consensus. Because he fails to see the possibility of institutionalizing resilient external procedural restraints on drift, Nagel has no alternative other than to call for a return to substantive
consensus - all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. This is also why Brennan and
Buchanan (1985: 146-50) call for a civil religion - all evidence to the contrary, and all
conceptual gaps notwithstanding. The Law and Economics movement at the University of
Chicago law school is at least more consistent conceptually by treating drift as immutable
and then, like Lockean liberals before them, elevating the sovereignty of actors' subjective
interests to a virtue.
22 On this crisis in the postwar era, consider works from Arendt (1951) to Lowi (1969), then
Sennett (1978), Hayek (1973-79), Maclntyre (1981), Pennsylvania Law Review (1982),
and both Michelman (1988) and Sunstein (1988). The European and Marxist literature
here is enormous.
23 It will become clear in chapter 6 that the effort on the part of American courts to extend
desegregation decisions to more and more juridically defined minorities, and to more and
more activities within civil society (Horowitz 1977; Ely 1980), is typically unrelated to the
effort to extend internal restraints from the state to civil society.
24 Not only radicals (Habermas 1973a) await a crisis in the West. Hayek (1973-9) proposes "a
basic alteration of the structure of democratic government" as "an intellectual stand-by for
when the breakdown of existing institutions becomes unmistakable" (see the remarkable
preface to his third volume). Brennan and Buchanan (1985: ix) do not sound much different: "The wisdom and understanding of the Founders have been seriously eroded in our
time. The deterioration of the social-intellectual-philosophical capital of Western civil
order is now widely, if only intuitively, sensed." They go on (1985: 150): "We must come to
agree that democratic societies, as they now operate, will self-destruct . . . unless the rules
of the political game are changed."
25 Informal processes of social control such as shaming (Braithwaite 1989) and gossiping
(Merry 1984) are not of equivalent importance to a nonauthoritarian social order nor to
actors' possibilities for social integration. Still, these social controls are also eventually
addressed conceptually in this volume.
26 As noted on page 56, under modern conditions there are no institutions of external
restraint that are strategic rather than normative. Robust, strategic competition for material resources or political influence recapitulates the marketplace and the pluralist arena
and are manifestations of drift rather than restraints on it.
27 Consider West Germany's difficulties in granting citizenship to second and third generation Turkish "guest workers." Similar difficulties may be found across Western and Eastern Europe, to say nothing of the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia generally
(Young 1976, Horowitz 1985).
28 In chapter 7 it is shown why this must be further specified. The external restraints are both
procedural and distinctively voluntaristic rather than simply normative.
29 Sciulli (in preparation, b) explores implications of its presence within research divisions of
corporations, and implications of the courts' legal recognition of the integrity of collegial
formations.
288
Notes to chapter 5
30 It is important to keep in mind that Clinard and Yeager (1980) found that sixty percent of
600 major American corporations were under indictment or federal action of some kind
in a twenty-four month period. Moreover, thirty-eight corporations accounted for half of
all of the federal actions during this period. It is not a stretch of imagination, then, to
propose that William's company may routinely treat its researchers in the manner depicted in the illustration. Consider also Goldner and Ritti's (1967) impressive argument
that the "professional ladder" within corporations is, in top management's eyes, a mark
of failure and of second-class citizenship. Unlike the "management ladder," it closes
employees off from ever being considered for managerial openings. Due to this, professionals within corporations lack the status that they are otherwise accorded elsewhere in
the larger society.
31 It should be kept in mind that Weber did not see systemic pressures of drift causally
determining the detailed results of social changes within any particular modern nationstate. He saw these pressures broadly orienting actors and groups, and thereby the
direction of social change. Similarly, to the extent that actors and groups maintain the
integrity of collegial formations, and thereby the integrity of external procedural restraints, then this too broadly orients actors and groups, and the direction of social
change.
32 After formulating this definition and then reading Jack Gibbs's excellent discussion of
social control, two definitions of social control in particular that Gibbs listed (with about a
dozen others) could be rendered consistent with the definition of social integration presented here, if they are reformulated: those by Jerome Dowd (1936) and August
Hollingshead (1941) (Gibbs 1981: 51). Their definitions of social control are distinctive in
that they at least allude to restraints on social forces (which they respectively call "momentum" and "mechanisms of society"). Dowd (1936: 6) uses the term control literally, "as
contra, against, or contrary to, any momentum, as 'guidance,' 'direction'. . . . " Unfortunately, he also treats paternal control as a synonym for social control, and this may be
dropped outright as needlessly confusing his discussion. Dowd goes on to say (1936: 11):
"The . . . controlling agency in any society consists of one or more individuals who, on
account of some kind of prestige, are able to bring people together for some common
purpose, and to induce or compel them to conform to the group interest." This undermines the importance of his discussion of direction by reducing it to purposeful actions
taken by individuals rather than appreciating the importance of the presence of a particular form of organization. Hollingshead comes closer to an appreciation of organizational
forms, but without seeing the importance of any particular form. For him (1941: 220):
"[S]ocial control lies not so much in the mechanisms society has developed to manipulate
behavior in crisis or in the subtle influences so important in the formation of personality, as
it does in a society's organization. . . . [SJocial control inheres in the more or less common
obligatory usages and values which define the relations of one person to another, to things,
to ideas, to groups, to classes, and to the society in general. In short, the essence of social
control is to be sought in the organization of a people."
Chapter 5. Societal constitutionalism's grounding against relativism: from

Weber's legal positivism to Habermas's communication theory
1 As evidence of this failure, Parsons never saw that two of his most suggestive but tentatively developed proposals could have been developed conceptually and brought to empirical research if he had interrelated them methodically with Fuller's principles of "procedural legality." One of these proposals was Parsons's longstanding position, dating from a
famous article of 1939, that the professions are somehow distinct from other expert
occupations (Abbott 1988 continues to collapse these). Aside from referring vaguely to
Notes to chapter 5
289
the norms that he was convinced individual professionals internalize during the secondary
socialization of their formal training, Parsons otherwise never suggested what it is, if
anything, that distinguishes professions. The other proposal, dating from his books of
1951 and 1953, was presented even more tentatively and inconsistently. This was Parsons's
occasional distinction between organizations' institutionalized "normative orientations"
and actors' internalized "normative motivations" (see chapter 8, notes 5-6). Aside from
never developing explicitly what he had in mind, he failed to keep his references to either
concept consistent across his mature writings. One looks in vain in the literature today for
exegetes who have developed this distinction or for critics who have pointed out that it
was left undeveloped. Yet, this distinction is one of the ways out of the "normativist
perspective" that Hechter (and others) otherwise dismisses out of hand (1987: 20-3). One
fails to find the distinction in Scott's (1971) discussion of the notion of the internalization
of norms, or in Jonathan Turner's (1988) more recent survey of theories of motivation,
interaction, and interpersonal structuring. The same may be said of Alexander's (1983b)
volume devoted to Parsons, and of Habermas's long essay and chapter devoted to Parsons
(1980; 1981b: chapter 7).
It is curious that despite his masterful critique of neopositivism (1968a; 1973b), Habermas
has never noted the debate in the late 1950s between Fuller and Ernest Nagel on the factvalue distinction in science and in law: Fuller (1956; 1958b); Nagel (1958); Fuller (1958c);
Nagel (1959). It is even more curious that despite his critique of Weber for succumbing to
legal positivism, Habermas has never referred either directly or in footnotes to Lon Fuller.
Habermas refers indirectly to H.L.A. Hart (1974: 234, note 54) and he has discussed or
referred to contract theorists from Hobbes and Locke to Rawls (1963b: 84ff; 1974: 184,
205; 1981a: 230, 263-5). But he failed to discuss the legacy of common law jurists such as
Sir Edward Coke in his early study of the bourgeois public sphere (1962). Niklas
Luhmann, who studied both sociology and law at Harvard, and attended one course of
Parsons's but not any of Fuller's, cites Fuller as well as the Hart-Fuller debate (e.g. 1972:
20, 290, 345, 348, 363, 370). Luhmann was trained as a lawyer-civil servant in the civil law
tradition. This does not assist him in seeing how fundamentally Fuller's normative procedures of legal interpretability differ from rational procedures of legal enforcement, and
thereby how incompatible the former is with his own legal positivism (eg. 1972; 1982: 90137) and central concept of autopoiesis (e.g. 1986, 1990).
This possibility of credibly claiming grounding remains open even if Habermas's communication theory is replaced in time by another that is less idealized but consistent with a
procedural standard of reason. After all, whether Habermas's critique of positivism and
copy theories of truth holds up against positivists' counterarguments is an issue independent of whether his communication theory holds up against alternative communication
theories that also reject positivism and copy theories.
Again (chapter 1, note 4), the only postwar "bourgeois" or non-Marxist social theorist
with whom I am familiar who sustained a credible claim to grounding was Talcott Parsons.
He turned to analytical concepts precisely because he wanted to ground the social sciences
against normative relativism. That Parsons himself never characterized his social theory as
critical or radical does not mean that it fails to qualify as such. This point is developed in
chapter 10, and it is elaborated at length in a separate volume (Sciulli in preparation, a).
Kronman concedes (1983: 72-3) that Weber used the concept rational-legal in a confusing
way. Indeed, he finds (1983: 73-5) that Weber used the term "rational" in reference to law
in four ways, as: rule-governed, systematic, based on a logical interpretation of meaning,
and controlled by the intellect. For Kronman (1983: 78-9, 89-90, 92-3), formally rational
law refers in Weber's work to a legal order that is separated from ethical concerns, or to a
legal order that is self-contained, comprehensive, and both clearly and self-consciously
applied by specialized enforcers.
290
Notes to chapter 5
6 Habermas has expressed reservations about his formulation of motivation crisis (1982:
279-83), but he stands by his thesis of legitimation crisis. Yet, his most recent reflections
(1989) do not convey that the latter is imminent.
7 "If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares
only for material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a
good man, one who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in
the vaguer sanctions of conscience" (Holmes 1897: 459).
8 Alexander (1983a: 113-17, 204, note 90) and Kronman (1983:94-5) see Weber's concept
of formal-rational law resting on a particular ethical ideal or a substantive postulate, that
of "utilitarian individual freedom." Schluchter (1981: 57-8) sees the "idea of freedom of
conscience" as central to Weber, beyond economic individualism. Yet, Schluchter acknowledges that Weber failed to develop the implications of this beyond economic individualism, and Schluchter himself relies on Martin L. Hoffman's work to do so (1981: 59-61).
9 Also see Macpherson (1962) on "possessive individualism" in seventeenth-century British
political theory, and Summers (1982) on "pragmatic instrumentalism" in early twentiethcentury American legal theory. Habermas's object of study is precisely the same as Parsons's: the "nonrational realm," or literally those aspects of social action that are
nonpurposive-rational (chapter 7). Like Parsons, too, Habermas fails to distinguish the
concept of voluntaristic action within the larger categories of the nonrational and the
normative. Because of this, Habermas cannot appreciate that what he calls "procedural
reason" is voluntaristic, and invariably restrains the drift of purposive-rational social
change rather than broadening and complementing it, as he insists.
10 Schluchter (1981: 88) notes that Weber distinguished the procedural (Jormelt) from the
formal (formal). But Schluchter does not do much with the distinction other than to point
it out. He also places Weber's sociology of law in the context of Weber's treatment of
rationalization (1981: 82-138). But, as Fuller insisted, a law may be formally rational and
effectively enforced and yet not be procedurally reasoned or procedurally warranted.
Kalberg (1980) and Levine (1981) offer helpful discussions of Weber's uses of the term
"rationality" (also Habermas 1977; 1981a: chapters 2-3; and Alexander 1983a: 25-28).
Kronman (1983) offers one of the most detailed discussions of Weber's sociology of law in
English.
11 Habermas has been exploring (1984) how law's formalization in this narrow sense, as
rational procedures of consistent enforcement, undermines the integrity or robustness of
actors' social relations (also 1989 more generally). He refers to this as "juridification."
12 Oliver Wendell Holmes (1897) saw jurists' predictable behavior as critical to the practice of
law and also to advances in legal training and scholarship (see Grey 1989 on the latter).
Yet, he also saw this behavior being directed to citizens rather than to enforcers alone.
13 "Hence the law is not, as Austin formulates it, a rule 'enforced' by a specific authority, but
rather a norm which provides a specific measure of coercion as sanction. The nature of the
law will not be grasped if one characterizes it as does Austin, as a command to conduct
oneself lawfully. The law is a decree of a measure of coercion, a sanction, for that conduct
called 'illegal,' a delict; and this conduct has the character of 'delict' because and only
because it is a condition of the sanction" (Kelsen 1941: 275). "When the delict is defined
simply as unlawful behavior, law is regarded as a system of secondary norms. But this is
not tenable if we realize law's character of a coercive order which stipulates sanctions. Law
is the primary norm, which stipulates the sanction, and this norm is not contradicted by the
delict of the subject, which, on the contrary, is the specific condition of the sanction. Only
the organ [of enforcement] can counteract law itself, the primary norm, by not executing
the sanction in spite of its conditions being fulfilled. But when speaking of the delict of the
subject as unlawful, one does not have in mind the unlawful behavior of the organ"
(Kelsen 1945: 61).
Notes to chapter 5
291
14 The Harvard political scientist Carl Friedrich (1963, 1969, 1972, 1974) developed the
distinction between Autoritat, a Latin term, and Herrschaft, a German term, into the very
basis of his distinction between reasoned authority and (unreasoned) authoritarianism. In
many respects, Friedrich's works remain among the very best historical, theoretical, and
comparative treatments of governmental constitutionalism. Still, he left his concept of
reasoned authority relativistic rather than attempting to ground it, and for this reason his
works fail to move beyond the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
15 This is a major theme for Habermas by 1981. Yet, it was his very point of departure even in
1965 and then in 1967 and 1968 as he elaborated his critique of neopositivism.
16 Habermas's insistence on this point also indicates that his procedural standard of reason is
analytical: At best, only parts or aspects of a complex social action or particular way of life
can be reasoned. Yet, Habermas insists explicitly that his social theory, and its standard of
reason, is not analytical. This is most confusing: Habermas wishes to overcome relativism
in order to ground critique. But he does not see the need to bring analytical distinctions
into the very core of his social theory. Luhmann, by contrast, has no interest in overcoming relativism since he is not interested in critique. He rejects Habermas's position that
there is any generalizable standard of reason, procedural or otherwise. Luhmann readily
acknowledges that this is why his concepts need not be analytical (personal conversation
in Atlanta, Georgia, August 1988, at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological
Association). Habermas's reluctance to acknowledge the need for analytical distinctions
in his project of escaping relativism may be due to his seeing one other implication of
basing a social theory on analytical distinctions: Even if a grounding against relativism is
secured, analytical distinctions move the critique of existing social arrangements away
from the Frankfurt school's absolutism. Put differently, analytical distinctions can support
critique, and even quite radical critique, but they cannot support the Frankfurt school's
absolutist rejection of entire institutional complexes. Quite to the contrary, analytical
distinctions support more specific criticisms, ones more amenable to falsification and
operationalization. Because the Frankfurt school seldom appreciated such qualities of
research, its members never felt particularly constrained to bring specificity to critique
(Jay 1973).
17 This question essentially rephrases Lowi's (1969) central concern in his analysis of American interest group pluralism, and this question also informs the reassessment of the republican civic tradition in the Yale Law Journal (1988).
18 Jay (1974) puts these issues well in exploring the Frankfurt school's reactions to Mannheim's (1929) relational view of "truth." Luhmann has been putting these questions quite
forcefully to Marxists for three decades, but then he goes further by dismissing Habermas's
procedural turn as well. The irony is that Luhmann cites Fuller; Habermas does not (note
2); and yet Fuller would surely side with Habermas on this matter rather than with
Luhmann.
19 Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 27) treat subjective interests as sovereign, and as a result
treat actors as monads - whose interests are given or random - rather than as members of
communication communities whose interests may either be warranted or unwarranted in
these contexts. What is ironic is that they anticipate a subjective consensus among such
monads over basic rules of the game or "meta-rules." They thereby end up closer to
Habermas's ideal speech situation than to Fuller's more practicable threshold of interpretability, but without the support provided by a communication theory.
20 Habermas does not use the term normative orientations. I use this concept in this context
because eventually I will demonstrate that what Habermas calls communication communities are themselves mediated by the normative orientations institutionalized by forms of
organization (chapter 8, especially note 6). For his part, Collins (1979: 58) refers to
professions as "consciousness communities," no different in this respect, says he, than
292
21
22
23
24
25
26
Notes to chapter 5
ethnic groups. In terms of the theory of societal constitutionalism, however, the issue is not
whether an occupational group and an ascriptive group happen to revolve around their
respective members' shared symbols rather than around their instrumental or strategic
calculations of success. Clearly, professions, ethnic groups, and many other social units
(religious, cultural, and affective) rely on their members' "consciousness." The issue is
that ethnic groups typically are organized in patron-client networks whereas professions
proper, unlike other expert occupations, are organized in the collegial form (chapter 8). To
bring this distinction to Collins's The Credential Society is to call into question his argument from beginning to end: from his conceptual distinctions, to his research findings, to
his prescriptions for change.
See Karl-Otto Apel (1972) for an excellent essay criticizing neopositivists' "methodological solipsism"; Habermas (1967b, 1968a, 1973c, 1982) for criticisms of neopositivism and
substantive standards of scientific truth; Radnitzky (1968) for a masterful overview of this
vast literature; and Bernstein (1978,1983) and Apel (1980) for updates and commentaries.
What Habermas fails to see, however, is that qualities of "discourse" are distinctively
voluntaristic (see chapter 7). They are qualities in social life that cannot be reduced to the
quantifiable outcomes of instrumental actions or scientific experiments. (Nor can they be
elevated to the ultimate meanings of symbolic or nonrational actions.) Habermas also fails
to acknowledge that positivism may well be warranted as long as it is kept restricted to
those areas where reductions to such outcomes go unchallenged. These areas may expand
quite considerably over time, moreover, without this threatening or challenging Habermas's procedural turn and communication theory. This point cannot be developed further
here, except to say that Habermas's early discussion of "object domains" (1968a) would
provide a point of departure.
This suggests why Habermas fails to see that qualities of discourse are voluntaristic: At the
level of interpersonal communication, he treats these qualities as "universal pragmatics,"
or as qualities that may be found in every instance of mutual understanding between actors
under ideal conditions. At this microsociological level of analysis, these qualities appear to
be structurally overdetermined by the very nature of ordinary speech itself, rather than
voluntaristic or contingent. But as soon as Habermas attempts to explore how these
qualities may be institutionalized, beyond this level of analysis, their voluntaristic status
comes to the fore. Again, the significance of saying that these qualities are voluntaristic is
explored in chapter 7.
Habermas's major discussions of his communication theory may be found in 1973c;
1976a; 1977; 1981a,b; and 1982. In addition, see several statements by Karl-Otto Apel
(1972, 1979, 1980). Fine commentaries and elaborations include those by McCarthy
(1978: especially chapter 4), Dallmayr (1974, 1976, 1977), Bernstein (1978), Wellmer
(1976), plus collections by Thompson and Held (1982), Geraets (1979), and O'Neill
(1976). Radnitzky (1968) places both Habermas and Apel within the philosophy of
science, and Bernstein (1983) provides an update. See Alexander (1985) for a pointed
critique of Habermas's use of J.L. Austin's concepts, and Antonio (1989) for the charge
that Habermas has not adopted central tenets of pragmatism. Sabia and Wallulis (1983)
contains several essays summarizing Habermas's works. For overviews of Habermas's
relationship to the Frankfurt school and Marxism, see Schroyer (1973), Held (1980), and
Bottomore (1984).
Here is a link between Habermas's communication theory and both American pragmatism
(Antonio 1989; Rochberg-Halton 1986) and the symbolic interactionism of both Anselm
Strauss ("negotiated order") and Ralph Turner ("emergent norms").
Thus, Habermas's limiting case standard of ideal speech provides one basis for specifying
when ranges of expectations of acceptable behavior are "unduly restricted," as noted in
the discussion of social order in chapter 2. But, as will become clear in chapter 6, Fuller
Notes to chapter 6
27
28
29
30
31
293
provides a more practicable standard for locating such restrictions, a standard much richer
in its implications for research.
Habermas does not use the term "artificially protected arenas," but it will become clear in
later chapters why this term applies in this context.
See Fuller (1969: 23-26) on the ideal of reciprocity; Habermas (1976b) on reciprocity as a
grounding; Gouldner (1960) on reciprocity as a norm. Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 22,
27-32,98-100), surprisingly, have the same outlook on consensus and unrestrained participation as Habermas. Ackerman (1980) attempts to apply it in legal theory.
Habermas draws rare exception for Anabaptists. Wuthnow (1987: 230-47), however,
places this in sounder perspective.
By 1971, Habermas clearly and unhesitatingly acknowledged that he could not bring his
communication theory to political practice (1973a: 130-43; 1974: 186-8; 1981: 43; 1982:
220, 232-3, 251-4, 261-3). He conceded that he had to restrict himself to interpersonal
relations and "therapeutic critique" (1968a: chapters 10-12; 1971: 28-32, 37-40; 1981: 201, 41-2). Habermas has never argued, suggested, or intimated that his earlier works,
including his study of the bourgeois public realm (1962), offer him any assistance in
making the linkage to political practice. Commentators, exegetes, and critics have yet to
offer Habermas a viable proposal for the linkage.
See Randall Collins (1986) for an exercise in "Weberian sociological theory" that sidesteps
the problem by acceding too readily to conceptual relativism. Alan Sica (1988) also refuses
to touch the issue of what distinguishes substantive rationality and substantive irrationality
within the Weberian conceptual framework.
Chapter 6. Societal constitutionalism's threshold in practice: from Fuller's

legal theory to societal constitutionalism
1 Hart likely remains the most widely read and influential contemporary legal theorist. He
and Fuller debated the relationship between positivist (enforcement) and normative (interpretative) aspects of law. The chronology of the Fuller-Hart debate is as follows: Hart
(1958); Fuller (1958); Hart (1961); Fuller (1964/1969); Hart (1965); Fuller (1964/1969:
chap. 5). Summers's (1984) discussion of Fuller's legal theory and this debate is instructive
and yet uneven; MacCormick (1981) and Martin (1987) trace Hart's evolving views.
2 There have been many provocative works in legal theory since Fuller's major debates and
works first appeared, of course, including Dworkin (1977, 1986), Ely (1980), Calabresi
(1982), Ackerman (1977, 1980) and Unger (1986). Still, the continuing importance of
Fuller's threshold of procedural legality hinges on two points. First, he remains the only
legal theorist to codify desiderata of interpretability that can credibly claim to ground the
lawful/lawless distinction under modern conditions. With this, he jettisoned any and all
traditional (that is, substantive) natural law standards. Second, Fuller alone opened the
way for social scientists to explore whether the comparative study of law can indeed be
rendered generalizable rather than left to the particularism of each nation-state's "reflexive" positive laws (Luhmann 1982: 90-121; Nonet and Selznick 1978). Unlike the civil law
tradition of the Continent and Latin America (Merryman 1969/1985: 48-55), which revolves around an explicit standard of legal certainty, rather than one of flexibility or equity,
the common-law tradition revolves around an implicit standard of legal interpretability.
Fuller was the first legal scholar to codify this standard and render it explicit. As noted in
chapters 1 and 4, the question is: Can such a standard credibly claim grounding and
generalizability, and thereby orient comparative research that encompasses civil law (and,
for that matter, Islamic law) countries? The interrelationship between Fuller's legal theory
and Habermas's communication theory (chapter 8) establishes, at the least, that this claim
is credible - rather than unwarranted a priori.
294
Notes to chapter 6
3 Fuller is also remembered for his allegory of the complexities involved in interpreting
complex social events: "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers" (1949).
4 Gibbs (1982: 93-4) offers a rare and yet still limited appreciation by a sociologist of the
research potential of Fuller's legal theory, and Elkin (1987: 9-12, 103-9) one by a
political scientist. Black (1984) dismisses "normative" theory out of hand, and yet his
work exhibits a strictly normative, altogether unargued, fealty to the presupposition of
exhausted possibilities.
5 The question broadens when converted into the terms of the theory of societal constitutionalism: How can social scientists distinguish in comparative perspective when a stable
social order is becoming either more controlling or (possibly) more integrative?
6 Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 4-5) also emphasize the importance of enforcement rather
than the importance of interpretability.
7 Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 100-4) follow this second path. They reduce law's legitimacy to the ranges of expectations regarding acceptable behavior that actors happen to
acknowledge at any given point in time. This is why they end up accepting that actors
may agree to "meta-rules" that permit "legitimate lawmaking bodies" to make unannounced or secret changes in the law - as long as the changes do not challenge actors'
existing expectations (1985: 107-8). Luhmann offers the same argument (1972; 1982: 90137; 1990: 187-202).
8 Because Fuller's standard of lawfulness rests on qualities of interpretability rather than on
quantitative indices of effective enforcement, the former may be called voluntaristic social
integration and the latter rational social control. The reasons for saying this are explored in
chapter 7. This would eliminate many of the endless disputes over the normative and
scientific status of "law" as such. Rational social controls (and the effectiveness of enforcement) close off any possibility of social integration whenever they are institutionalized in
and of themselves. As Weber's social theory indicates, they are consistent with any social
order rather than being intrinsically consistent with a nonauthoritarian social order in
particular.
9 Actually, Fuller wavers in characterizing what these eight qualities establish. At times
(1964/1969: 41-9, 101-3), he insists that they are ideals that existing legal orders cannot
fully realize, in practice. At other times (e.g. 1964/1969: 17, 27-8, 39-40, 64-5, 204, 21516; 1969b: 220, 234), he insists, and just as forcefully, that they are irreducible criteria of
the lawful/lawless distinction. The reasons why the latter position is emphasized in this
volume are presented in the text. The former position, ironically, is not consistent with
Fuller's own distinction between a morality of duty and a morality of aspiration; this is
discussed momentarily.
10 This is the restraint against which Brennan and Buchanan are prepared to encroach (see
note 7).
11 Again, only when the threshold of interpretability is interrelated with the collegial form of
organization does its capacity to restrain or mediate inadvertent mechanisms of social
control and the drift of social change come into view.
12 See Hugh Collins (1982), Spitzer (1983), and Lukes (1985) for recent reviews of this
literature, each failing to move beyond Marxism's unsophisticated treatment of law. The
latter is exemplified by Lukacs's 1920 essay "Legality and Illegality." The best treatment of
law by a Marxist, in my view, remains a very early essay written by Marx himself, in 1842:
"Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction." Marx's reasons for ridiculing
state censorship are completely consistent with the common-law tradition and Fuller's
work. Yet, these same reasons are utterly inconsistent with Marx's later references to law,
and certainly to references to law by major Marxist theorists since.
13 See Habermas (1963a,b,c) for methodical criticisms of this understanding of the theory
and practice of revolutions in the West, both by liberals and Marxists.
Notes to chapter 6
295
14 See Selznick (1961) for an influential statement, and (1987) for an explicit statement of a
substantive moral theory. Yet, his other works cannot be said to update a natural law
theory, nor, for that matter, to remain consistent with Fuller's strictly procedural approach
to due process. Instead, Selznick has, over the years, increasingly treated "due process" as
the successful balancing of interested parties' legal claims (Selznick 1969,1978; Nonet and
Selznick 1978). See Dallmayr (1974) for an excellent review and categorization of moral
and ethical theories. Unfortunately, he fails to include Fuller's contribution.
15 For Donald Black (1972 1096; 1976; 1984: 2), law is "governmental social control." All
other mechanisms of social control, and all unofficial ways of expressing grievances, fall
within "normative sociology" (1984: 4). Habermas tailored his communication theory to
escape the same two shoals, of course, even as he concentrated on Weber's legal positivism
in particular. This too suggests that Fuller's procedural threshold and Habermas's more
idealized standard of procedural reason may be read in retrospect today as interrelated.
Yet, the former reveals how the latter might be brought to detailed comparative study (and
to practice).
16 If anything, one cannot escape the conclusion that the legal systems of Great Britain and
the United States are less rational-legal than those of the Soviet Union and South Africa.
Kronman (1983: 87-92) discusses why this is the case, albeit in more general terms.
17 As shown in chapter 7, Parsons took the same tack in developing his earliest social theory,
the "voluntaristic schema of action." Aside from passing references to Locke's view of
actors' "natural identity of interests," he largely ignored moral theories. Instead, he concentrated on methodically examining positivists' and utilitarians' unexamined residual
category, the "nonrational." Within this residual category, he (albeit unsuccessfully) proposed that "voluntaristic action" is a distinct concept.
18 Kant distinguished duties of virtue and duties of law. Schluchter (1981: 103ff) brings this
distinction (and others from Kant) to Weber's sociology of domination, and Munch
(1981a, 1982) discusses a "Kantian core" within Parsons's social theory. Brennan and
Buchanan (1985: 100) pin their constitutional economics on Kantian notions of keeping
promises. Given Weber's legal positivism, Schluchter's use of Kantian concepts fails to
yield the critical potential of Fuller's legal theory. Parsons's mature view of law (by the
early 1960s) is more sophisticated. He arrived independently at a position consistent with
Fuller's. Miinch's Kantian reading of Parsons's social theory leads him to emphasize the
"interpenetration" of Parsons's concepts as opposed to their analytical distinctiveness. As
such, the significance of Parsons's eventual "procedural turn," and the latter's consistency
with Fuller's legal theory, is not appreciated.
19 Fuller never stated explicitly that his legal theory is dedicated exclusively to the nonauthoritarian/authoritarian distinction. Parsons is guilty of the same oversight (Sciulli
1988b). In both cases, this renders literal interpretations of their works needlessly contradictory and confusing. For instance, Fuller referred to points of interrelationship between positive law and the two moralities as the "internal morality of law" (1969: 5-9).
But this phrase misleads readers in their efforts to appreciate the critical potential of his
legal theory. His point may be stated more generally, and more accurately, by labeling
these points of interrelationship a normative orientation. The latter hinges on the interpretability of shared social duties, irrespective of whether the latter are positive laws or
more informal expectations regarding acceptable behavior. The term normative orientation is preferred to Fuller's term morality because the latter suggests that actors internalize norms in common whereas the former does not (chapter 8, note 6). Irrespective of
whether the procedural norms comprising Fuller's threshold are internalized by actors or
not (or even acknowledged by them at all), they nonetheless constitute an irreducible
threshold that begins to separate authoritarian from nonauthoritarian social orders, in
practice.
296
Notes to chapter 6
20 Fuller also never stated explicitly that he was talking about aspirations that are openly or
publicly pursued. Yet, his duty/aspiration distinction runs into enormous problems unless
this is added. After all, Nazi death camps were tied to an aspiration of sorts. The same may
be said of the strenuous endeavors by the Marquis de Sade, or by Lucky Luciano, Meyer
Lansky, and other organized crime figures. In all such cases, aspirations were pursued
privately rather than publicly; as such, they could be pursued in the absence of the social
infrastructure of shared social duties.
21 Also see Gibbs (1981: 7-21) on the "consensus problem" regarding norms (and earlier
Scott 1971). Here is where Braithwaite's (1989) theory of reintegrative shaming suffers
problems, as does Brennan and Buchanan's constitutional economics (1985: 29). Braithwaite acknowledges that his theory is less applicable when laws are ambiguous. But he
operates on the assumption that basic criminal law typically escapes ambiguity. If so, then
why is a generalizable morality of duty not available to comparative research other than
Fuller's procedural threshold?
22 All modern nation-states that revolve around a tapestry of patron-client networks, rather
than around some combination of public administrations and collegial formations within
civil society, have indeed institutionalized a culture of evasion. The former, moreover,
likely characterizes the vast majority of modern nation-states today (to say nothing of the
situation historically). Just as importantly, all modern nation-states without exception are
vulnerable to this development under modern conditions (see chapter 8 on patron-client
networks as a form of organization, chapter 9 on Brazil and Latin America generally, and
chapter 11 for alternatives).
23 This poses the duality represented today by rational-choice theory and symbolic interactionism, on one side, and traditional applications of Parsonian functionalism and Durkheimian social theory, on the other. The latter includes Randall Collins's interaction ritual
chain theory (1988: chapters 6, 10). A culture of evasion is a logical product of extending
principles of either rational choice or symbolic interaction across any population. Coleman's (1988) examples of "social capital," including actors' shared feelings of security in
allowing their children to travel alone in familiar (and, by his examples, always ethnically
or religiously homogeneous) neighborhoods, rest on decidedly nonrational, internalized
normative restraints on individuals' rational decision-making. If harassing children brings
pleasure and possible material reward to an assailant, with low likelihood of pain or cost,
on what rational grounds is an actor discouraged from this practice? Coleman turns to the
idea of "social capital" precisely because the institutionalization of rational choice principles is so unappealing that it brings him to reappraise anachronistic alternatives. He
concedes implicitly that once a culture of evasion has been institutionalized, there is
nothing in rational-choice theory that can help resuscitate prior cultures of shared feeling.
24 As the University of Wisconsin political scientist Herman Goldstein points out (1977:
chapter 5), this problem moves beyond that of police discretion or selective enforcement.
It moves to the problem of legislators being unwilling, as active politicians, to publicly
decriminalize activities that they know full well the police routinely fail to enforce. The
police purposefully decide not to enforce certain activities (often "victimless crimes")
precisely because full enforcement in these areas would, in their view, reduce the effectiveness of social control at their street level of operation.
25 Put into terminology adopted in chapter 8, this is the rule-making body's normative
orientation. Whether these actors happen to internalize shared subjective interests or
normative motivations qua well-socialized individuals is a secondary issue.
26 This may well explain why Coleman's (1988) "social capital" withers with modernity (see
note 23). That children may no longer walk alone safely in urban America is unfortunate.
But this supports Coleman's point about social capital only when considered in isolation. Is
it not possible* that a great many social contexts within which children remain safe also
Notes to chapter 6
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
297
happen to be hazardous to adults? Is it not possible that it is precisely in these social

contexts that adults are not treated as reasoning and responsible beings (see chapter 9,
page 209 and chapter 11, note 20)? Why is it not an example of "social capital" to treat
adults in the latter way, even if one unfortunate consequence of this is a reduction in
children's safety? Coleman can only locate enclaves of "social capital" in his sense within
anachronistic situations, such as neighborhoods or schools wherein actors are relatively
homogeneous in class, ethnicity, and religion. The rational-choice framework of concepts
with which he operates does not permit him to assess such situations more analytically, and
critically. Rational-choice theory cannot be used to specify when any direction of social
change within any social context is nonauthoritarian in principle and when it is demonstrably authoritarian, other than to recapitulate liberalism's fondness for those social changes
that usher in and maintain capital and labor markets and interest competition within
government. The safety of children is not a self-evidently critical standard by which to
describe or evaluate the direction of social change (as Popenoe 1988, too, might consider).
This indicates the superiority of Fuller's procedural approach to law over Kelsen's more
immediate concentration on the camaraderie and effectiveness of enforcers.
Of course, there are human "needs" so basic, e.g. food, shelter, and clothing, that providing them is clearly a "direct," substantive advance, one that sidesteps Fuller's procedural
threshold altogether. Even as this is readily granted, it still leaves unchallenged the central
thrust of Fuller's argument: At the moment that any set of power holders moves in even
the slightest way beyond satisfying such basic "needs" of life itself, the problem of the
recognition and understanding of shared social duties immediately comes into play.
Again, this would confirm the proposition that Habermas's communication theory rests on
analytical distinctions, his objections to the contrary notwithstanding.
On Hobbes and the arbitrariness inherent in liberal contract theory, see Arendt (1951:
chapter 5); Habermas (1963a: 62-76); and Macpherson (1962). When Weber pointed out
that British (and American) common law in particular represents a combination, in his
words, of two "nonrational" types of legal practice - which he labeled Khadi justice and
empirical law - he told comparative researchers literally nothing at all about this tradition
of law, either about its theoretical tradition or about its applications in practice. It is not
that Weber was wrong or one-sided in his wording; it is rather that his wording is unhelpful. It conveys nothing at all of significance about his object of study. Moreover, Weber's
vision of strictly "formal legal rationality" is neither clear nor compelling (Kronman 1983:
72-95).
Useem (1984) documents this in Great Britain and the United States, even as his conceptual apparatus veils this from his direct attention.
This directly challenges Tilly's assertion, noted in chapter 1, that the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate uses of force is normative or ideological rather than possibly
generalizable and critical. It also throws into doubt Janowitz's most basic distinction, noted
in chapter 2, between social control and coercive control. See Giddens (1985) for an
absolutist critique of "surveillance"; Hechter (1987) for an uncritical treatment of surveillance, or what he calls "metering"; and Wiley (1987) for a call for greater balance in
response to Giddens.
See Bollen and Jackman (1985) for some empirical support for the point in the text, even
as their definition of "democracy" rests on the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
The latter holds as well for their more recent study (1989).
Fuller (1964/1969: 243-4) lists reviews of The Morality of Law to that date, reviews that
include not only American and international law journals but also American and international social science journals. Summers (1984) reviews these and other criticisms, to which
he himself contributed beginning in 1965 in the Journal of Legal Education and continuing
into the 1970s. In the course of his study of Fuller's work in 1984, Summers acknowledges
298
Notes to chapter 7
that he now considers his criticisms and others' to have been mistaken. He explores the
ability of Fuller's work, as it stands, to rebut the major criticisms to which it was subjected,
and particularly those from Hart. Imagine how formidable Fuller's work would appear to
Summers were its consistency with a grounded concept of procedural reason, and then
with a distinctive organizational form, brought into his reassessment.
35 Again, consider the term employed by Richard Stewart (1983), a professor of administrative law at Harvard Law School: "noncommodity values." He resorts to a residual
category in an effort to describe those norms capable of restraining or mediating the drift
of administrative and regulatory law. Left as a residual category, he fails to locate agents
of change (whether power holders or social influentials) capable of institutionalizing such
values against interest-group opposition. He also fails to demonstrate any relationship
between these values and organizational forms. One result is that even though the
residual category implies that Stewart by no means sees the drift of administrative and
regulatory law as intrinsically benign, the only reforms he suggests involve substituting
market forces for current law - a direct contradiction of his own residual category (Sciulli
in preparation, b: chapter 4).
Chapter 7. Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, I:

voluntaristic action as a distinct concept
1 The journal, founded in October 1890, was by 1935 still called International Journal of
Ethics. By April 1938 it was renamed, and it bears this title today: Ethics. Its contemporary
subtitle recalls its earlier title: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal
Philosophy.
2 Parsons's thesis in The Structure of Social Action was that Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim,
and Weber independently "converged" in exposing "voluntaristic action" in modern
social life even as none of them employed this term. As demonstrated in this chapter,
however, Parsons tended to collapse what he meant by voluntaristic action into the more
general concept of normative action. Regardless, from his initial isolation of normative
concepts within each of the four writer's works, all of Parsons's subsequent work may be
read as an elaborate effort to survey all concepts "external" to the norm of formal
rationality.
3 Rather than the metaphor "standing on the shoulders of giants," which Merton traced so
meticulously (1965), an allegory that better captures Parsons's boldness as a young theorist
is that of Nietzsche's tightrope walker in the early pages of Thus Spake Zarathustra (1892).
A stranger climbs to the highwire, somersaults over the head of the "master" performer
who is carefully making his way across, and alights on the tightrope ahead of him. His
landing disturbs the line only slightly, and yet enough to undo the "master's" balance and
cause him to fall to his death. The master is undone, that is, more by the stranger's
breathtaking deftness than by the master's own missteps.
4 Jonathan Turner argued in 1974 that Parsons could be read as a symbolic interactionist (to
Herbert Blumer's 1975 consternation), and yet by 1988 he devoted his new "theory of
social interaction" explicitly to correcting Parsons's oversight of interaction. Turner's book
turns out, curiously, to provide one of the best arguments in years for undertaking a fresh
reading of Parsons's social theory. It ends with so many tables, and so many unrelated
categories, that even Turner throws his hands in the air and confesses that he cannot
possibly provide a synthesis. He can only summarize other theorists' approaches to motivation, interaction, and structure, repeating points made earlier in the book. What is necessary for synthesis, of course, is greater conceptual abstraction and a new terminology. But
Turner fails to make this move, in part because all along the way he criticizes Parsons for
having done so. Far worse, Turner fails to see that Parsons turned to abstraction precisely
Notes to chapter 7
299
in order not to have to write the kind of concluding chapter that Turner explicitly excuses
himself for publishing.
5 Alan Sica (1988) misreads Parsons's works in this respect. First, he contends that Parsons
followed Weber in overemphasizing the norm of rational action and drift of rationalization. Then, he fails to follow Parsons's lead in sharply distinguishing analytically between
the "irrational" and the "nonrational." The former concept is insignificant for purposes of
methodical social theory whereas the latter concept opens up an enormous vista for ongoing theorizing, even though it is a residual category.
6 Parsons's social theory exhibits its own variation of conceptual closure, and this is explored
in chapter 10: It is closed to accommodating any concept of reasoned social action.
7 Throughout this discussion, the term "actor" refers not only to individuals but also to
either bounded or unbounded collectivities, including social movements, organizations,
and institutions, which at times act as a unit.
8 At least three meanings for the concept may be found in Alexander's four volumes (as well
as his 1978 article): (a) actors' internalized "normative control" (1982a: 81, 84, 96-112;
1983a: 28-9, 58-9, 102-113; 1983b: 24-5, 35-44,119-50); (b) actors' "voluntary" responsibility or choice (1982a: 87, 96-8; 1983a: 98-9, 107-8, 112-114; 1983b: 25-6, 120-27,
214); and (c) actors' "motivation" (1982a: 23-4; 1983a: 39-40, 96, 107, 116; 1983b: 31).
For Alexander (1978), "formal voluntarism" is actors' inherent capacity to volunteer to act
in common, and "substantive voluntarism" is the empirical realization of this capacity.
9 Camic (1989) manages both simultaneously, to render the concept commonplace and
redundant. In this way he indirectly supports the thesis of this chapter. After all, if one is
going to distinguish a concept from normative action or action in general, then one must
specify the analytical aspects that indeed distinguish it. Parsons failed to do this. Camic
brings his considerable exegetical skills to bear in demonstrating that, indeed, Parsons's
usage results in a "concept" that is commonplace, and thereby unnecessary. The question
remains, however: Can voluntaristic action be distinguished analytically, or is it indeed
reducible to normative action as such? It is interesting to note the many commentators
who ignore the problem of defining or systematically discussing voluntarism, eg. Faris
1953; Swanson 1953; Bredemeier 1955; Cancian 1960; Wrong 1961; Bershady 1973;
Rocher 1975; Mitchell 1967; Barry 1970; O'Neill 1972; Madge 1964: chapter 4; Kaplan
1968; Burger 1977. Compare Warner's approach to the problem by 1978, and Wiley's
expression of frustration by 1979.
10 Parsons had several opportunities to do so, especially when responding to critics (1974a;
1975a,b; 1976a, 1977a; 1978a) and when offering retrospective summaries of his evolving
conceptual schemas (e.g. 1968b, 1970a). Yet, Parsons perpetuated the pattern to which
Louis Wirth had called attention as far back as 1939: He remained vague in his later brief,
direct references to the concept. On two separate occasions Parsons endorsed Gerstein's
(1975: 12) view of voluntaristic action: "By a fortunate circumstance, since the appearance
of the last of the Cohen, Hazelrigg and Pope articles, there has appeared a highly relevant
interpretative article by Dean R. Gerstein (1975). Gerstein gives a clear and accurate
summary of this conceptual scheme as it was presented in The Structure of Social Action, of
the uses to which it was put in that book and of its continuity with the later theoretical
developments involved in the 'four-function paradigm' . . . [which] has been much used
ever since" (Parsons 1976a: 362, note 2; also 362, 364). Parsons's second endorsement
came in 1977 (1977b: 2) in his "General Introduction" to Social Systems and the Evolution
of Action Theory. But Gerstein's definition falls into the third set of definitions above, and
it fails to bring any greater specificity to the concept than Parsons's own references.
11 See chapter 11 on "moral authorities" and their "protected spheres." Consider also
Habermas's treatment of Peter Winch's studies of Azande magic (Habermas 1981a: 43-75;
1982: 270). McCarthy is critical of Habermas's earlier response to Winch (1978: 317-33).
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Notes to chapter 7
12 By 1938 Robert Merton set up the "polar types" of "instrumental" societies and "ritualistic" societies, and then discussed anomie and deviance within the middle type of "mores
and institutions" of modern societies. But this is less distinctive and innovative than
Parsons's vague references to voluntaristic action.
13 Another example is the transition from the relatively unemotional preindustrial family to
the more emotionally charged nuclear family, one hinging on the primary socialization of
children as well as companionship and emotional support among adults. "Most scholars
have concluded that in the modern, nuclear family these functions have been conducted at
a far higher level of quality (and equality) than ever before" (Popenoe 1988: 69). But,
again, this quality is strictly worldly. It cannot be attributed to any sacred or transcendental
mandate. Similarly, when Swedes came to fetishize hygiene - mental, bodily, sexual,
dietary - in place of earlier religiously based moralities (Popenoe 1988:119-20), this was a
quintessential move from the nonrational to the voluntaristic.
14 To refer to these aspects of a people's lived social fabric as "sacred" is to miss the point of
distinguishing the voluntaristic from the symbolic or nonrational. It is also to lose any
possibility of eventually distinguishing social integration from social control, and nonauthoritarian social order from authoritarian or manipulative social order. This overextension of the category "sacred" is one of the most important differences within the
neofunctionalist "school" between the theory of societal constitutionalism and both Alexander's emphasis on multidimensionality and Miinch's emphasis on interpenetration. Considering again Popenoe's discussion of the Swedes (note 13), why bother to label a collective fetishization of hygiene, or of any other qualities in social life, "sacred" or "moral"?
15 Menzies (1977), Habermas (1980, 1981b), and many others fail to see Parsons's theses of
entropy and authoritarianism in 1937. German theorists, including Habermas, generally
read Parsons after an initial reading of the quite different concepts and theories of Niklas
Luhmann, the German systems theorist. This gives German commentators a particularly
skewed reading of Parsons, given Parsons's own cultural and intellectual roots in American
pragmatism and the common-law tradition. To be sure, Parsons was heavily influenced by
Continental theories and approaches to social theory - but his work, unlike Luhmann's,
cannot be reduced to this influence.
16 Olson (1965) and Hechter (1987) discount this effort more by how they define the groups
they choose to study than by direct argument. Each concentrates on groups that are
dedicated to attaining quantitative ends of one kind or another rather than addressing
methodically those groups that are dedicated to describing and explaining (or creating and
maintaining) qualities in social life. Each dismisses the latter groups out of hand by saying
simply that their membership size is not as large as that of the former groups. What they
fail to consider is that the form of organization of voluntaristic groups differs from the form
of organization of rational groups (see chapter 8), and that this is far more important than
the size of their respective memberships.
17 Parsons ultimately saw the professions' integrity being supported by systemic pressures
themselves, and this position misdirects his entire mature social theory (see chapter 11).
The most significant problem riddling Luhmann's systems theory, like so many parts of
Parsons's functionalism, is that autopoiesis, or a system's self-monitoring capacities, can
just as readily institutionalize an authoritarian as a nonauthoritarian social order. There is
no rationale in the social sciences, or in the long and impressive tradition of social theory,
for any theorist to dismiss this problem out of hand simply by referring to "social order" as
such. The theorist must rather take note at some point of the type of social order being
implied.
18 Parsons's footnote (1937b: 251 note 2) clarifies the passage somewhat: "To anticipate: the
first of these possibilities is, so long as the norm is a genuine independent variable and not
dependent, that taken in general by idealistic theories, the second by positivistic and the
Notes to chapter 8
301
third by the voluntaristic theory of action. . . . " But the trichotomy, respectively, of the
symbolic, the intrinsic, and the voluntaristic as discussed above better captures the latter's
distinctiveness.
Chapter 8. Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, II: from

voluntaristic action to collegial formations
1 Parsons focused less directly on procedural norms and institutions than did Fuller and
Habermas, and even his indirect references to them came late in his career (from the mid1960s at the earliest). Still, his residual references to collegial formations, and his evolution from accepting Weber's legal theory to independently developing a legal theory
consistent with Fuller's, are in many respects as suggestive as Fuller's and Habermas's
more direct discussions of procedural norms and institutions.
2 It is shown in chapter 10 that constitutional and liberal traditions hinge on the capacity of
the "constituent force" of private citizens to recognize arbitrary government. This expectation was idealized from the start, and it is clearly anachronistic in the late twentieth
century. Yet, constitutional and liberal theories continue even today to hinge on the
presence of an ever-vigilant "constituent force" in civil society. At the moment that this is
questioned, these theories can no longer account either for limited government or
nonauthoritarian social order under modern conditions.
3 Still, even as this behavior is irreducibly necessary to nonauthoritarian social order and
social integration, it is not sufficient: This behavior alone does not realize either possibility,
in practice. This is discussed momentarily.
4 Falsification is the single most important requirement of empirical research in the social
sciences (Popper 1934; Merton 1949/1957; Radnitzky 1968). Habermas (1968a, 1973c,
1979) and Apel (1972, 1980) pose weak counterarguments to this standard, even as they
effectively attack positivism more generally.
5 This is precisely how the theory of societal constitutionalism escapes Habermas's most
central criticism of Parsons's functionalism. For Habermas (1967b: 86): "In the theoretical
framework of [Parsons's] action theory, motives for action are harmonized with institutional
values, thus with the intersubjectively prevailing meaning of normatively binding behavioral
expectations. . . . But we may presume that . . . repressed needs that have not been reabsorbed by social roles, transformed into motivations, and sanctioned have their interpretations nevertheless" (also see the introduction, viii, for a different translation). The theory of
societal constitutionalism disrupts the "harmonizing" to which Habermas correctly objects
in two ways. First, it emphasizes the distinction between (a) institutionalized normative
orientations that are both voluntaristic and procedural and (b) internalized normative motivations that are nonrational or else voluntaristic but more directly substantive (see note 6).
Second, it provides a standard by which to recognize whether institutionalized normative
orientations possibly are contributing to reasoned social action. This standard is voluntaristic, and thereby practicable; yet, it is also irreducible, and thereby generalizable and
possibly grounded.
6 The distinction between normative orientations and normative motivations dates to Parsons's early works: (1935, 1937a), and it remains an important conceptual advance for all
of his inconsistency in presenting it across his career. In his well-known article of 1938,
"Science and the Social Order," Robert Merton also referred tentatively to the same
distinction. To refer to shared normative motivations is to identify a set of actors who have
internalized (or negotiated) the same sets of substantive norms in common. This already
presupposes, of course, that these actors have undergone very similar processes of either
primary or secondary socialization. Or else it presupposes that they have been very similarly affected by their symbolic interactions or by their structural positions.
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Notes to chapter 8
Wrong (1961), Stryker (1980: 64), and others rightly call for the notion of socialization
to be extended by an interactionist variant, and network analysts emphasize positions of
"structural equivalence." In any event, it is being presupposed that these actors are, in
certain important respects, more or less homogeneous. By contrast, to refer to normative
orientations is to refer to an institutionalization of norms within a complex social unit.
Institutionalized norms may broadly orient actors in common, irrespective of how heterogeneous these actors might otherwise be. That is, if these orientations are indeed firmly
institutionalized, actors who otherwise operate on the basis of quite diverse subjective
interests and normative motivations may nonetheless be able to recognize and understand
in common when the integrity of these norms is being maintained or encroached against.
Whether they then accept these norms, or prefer to be oriented by them, is a matter quite
different from whether they are at least capable of recognizing and understanding them in
common. The theory of societal constitutionalism builds on this distinction by distinguishing, in turn, between the possibility of social integration and demonstrable social control,
and between procedural voluntaristic restraints and substantive voluntaristic restraints. In
both instances the former concepts rest on actors' shared normative orientations, whereas
the latter can rest exclusively on actors' shared normative motivations. Again, it must be
emphasized that to say that actors recognize encroachments against institutionalized normative orientations is not to suggest at all that they thereby agree in common that such
encroachments are to be prevented or punished. Quite to the contrary, some actors (e.g.
rebels, disbelievers, iconoclasts, etc.) may believe that encroachments are virtuous and are
to be promoted and rewarded. The point is rather that they nonetheless recognize in
common when normative orientations are being encroached against.
7 Is it possible that the current wave of "democratization" across the East, and earlier across
Latin America, is a product of the recognition by power holders that Western democratic
institutions contribute to actors' demonstrable social control? Is it possible, therefore, that
this current wave has little to do with power holders' appreciation of the supposed "moral
superiority" of these institutions as such? Put differently, when the evidence clearly demonstrates that other mechanisms of social control are far more costly to institutionalize, even
Eastern and Latin American power holders may arrive in time at the following conclusion,
on the basis of strictly rational-choice calculations: Western institutions of social control
are more likely to preserve their privileges as individuals than their membership in a party
or peak association that attempts to place external substantive restraints on rationalization
itself.
8 They are also not consensual (see chapter 9). Parsons saw only four distinct forms of
organization, the first being what he called the "competitive" (in economics) and the other
three being the bureaucratic (in politics), the democratic (in societal community), and the
associational or collegial (in pattern maintenance). He never provided definitions for this
typology. Moreover, for present purposes the "competitive" form is dropped entirely in
favor of the patron-client form. Competition is not a form of organization. It either refers
to an economic marketplace, an institutionalized environment within which organizations
of any form may or may not be found, or else it refers to a political marketplace, an
institutionalized environment that is pervasive and immutable (chapter 4). The patronclient form, by contrast, revolves around actors' networks of personal loyalties, and it may
be found across the Third World, the East, and the West. Young people in Western liberaland social-democracies, for instance, typically find their first jobs through parents' or
relatives' personal networks rather than through any "competitive" search. The development of networks of personal loyalties also remains a major goal in any professional
career, and yet these networks are a constant source of threats to professionals' maintaining the integrity of the collegial form.
9 This is why Habermas insists, for instance, that when majority rule is detached from the
Notes to chapter 8
303
conditions of ideal speech, it remains procedurally rational but cannot be procedurally

reasoned. This is also why both liberal and pluralist theorists operate on the assumption
that actors' subjective interests are given or random: They are to be treated equally,
irrespective of how actors arrived at them. To ask actors to warrant their subjective
interests in terms of any principle is to challenge the sovereignty of subjective interests.
Liberals and pluralists alike cannot permit this without exposing the outcomes of economic
and political marketplaces to normative or nonrational restraints of one kind or another
(chapters 4, 9).
10 The patron-client form is also nondemocratic and nonrational, but it is a substantively
voluntaristic organizational form. At times it may rigidify into a more strictly nonrational
organizational form (see note 13 below).
11 When arbitrary exercises of collective power are popularly acclaimed, this may be thought
of as a one-sided development of democratization. It is helpful to recall that the "republican civic" tradition of the American founders was always seen, for better or worse, as
fundamentally distinct from either formal democracy or formal equality. It was seen bringing reason and prudence into the political arena. Yet, it was never seen restraining even
the most grievous excesses of possessive individualism within the marketplace or any other
manifestations of the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests within civil society. The
relationship between republicanism, democratization, and capitalism is currently under
debate by legal scholars {Yale Law Journal 1988). Bellah et al. (1986) make much of
republicanism as well, along with the biblical tradition, but they fail to specify what they
have in mind. They fail to do so because they fail to distinguish external substantive
restraints, such as those posed by religion and a sense of calling, from the external procedural restraints institutionalized by a multiplicity of collegial formations across a civil
society. The republican civic tradition may indeed be resuscitated on the latter basis, but
not on the former. Bloom's hyperbole (1987) is a product of his failure to draw this
distinction. He begrudgingly recognizes that external substantive restraints once provided
by classical music, classical theory, and biblical teaching cannot be resuscitated today, and
this realization drives him to distraction. Luhmann (1990) also fails to draw this distinction, but then he substitutes autopoiesis and other systems concepts for external procedural restraints - and thereby defines away the Weberian Dilemma altogether. His might
very well be the first Lockean systems theory: Instead of positing that actors have a natural
identity of interests in maintaining limited government, he sees subsystems working
autopoietically to this end.
12 A consideration in the background of the theory of societal constitutionalism that cannot
be brought into the foreground in this volume is that comparativists must begin to come to
grips today with a state of affairs in the late twentieth century that differs substantially
from that found in the immediate postwar era: the end of the thrust of liberal democratization, or of emphases on individuals' rather than groups' political inclusion. Even within
Western democracies, many national political cultures no longer revolve unambiguously
around the unquestioned value of ensuring individuals' inclusion; instead, groups mobilize
for collective "representation." This applies as much to labor unions and other class
organizations as it does to ethnic and religious sections or peak associations. It is difficult
to assert that the thrust of individual democratization remains unquestioned in the late
twentieth century, once one coldly considers: (a) ethnic and religious communalism across
the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia; (b) the persistence and, if anything,
the increasing extent of ethnic mobilization across the West and the former Eastern bloc;
(c) the rigid exclusion of the bottom forty percent of the population from Brazil's (and
other Latin American countries') arrangements of neocorporatism and patron-client relationships; (d) the strident disinclination of West European nation-states to consider the
eligibility of their "guest workers" for citizenship (even as many of these "guests" have
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Notes to chapter 8
resided in their respective countries for over a generation, and many of their children have
known no other country); or even (e) the increasingly rigid exclusion of an estimated
twenty or twenty-five percent of the American population from any effective role in the
pluralist arrangements distinctive to American politics. What comparative researchers
must come to grips with is the following question: How are advanced and modern nationstates to be studied which have for all intents and purposes accepted in the late twentieth
century that anywhere from twenty to forty percent of their populations are permanently
excluded from any and all prospects of effective representation within their major agencies
of government and major social units of civil society, and also from any and all prospects of
upward social mobility? Gans (1988) is one of the rare contemporary American sociologists to pose this issue. One of the major themes of early status attainment research (Blau
and Duncan 1967; Featherman and Hauser 1978) was that with the end of migration from
farm to town, upward mobility across generations flattens out, except for people who were
otherwise excluded ascriptively from earlier opportunities for upward mobility (e.g.
blacks, women, and others). Aside from operating on the basis of the presupposition of
exhausted possibilities, comparativists also have operated on another presupposition: That
the thrust of individual democratization became an irreversible foundation of modern
political cultures during the postwar era, not simply in the West but worldwide. Both
presuppositions fail today to account for an already enormous and ever-growing amount of
evidence to the contrary. To their credit, Offe (1983) and Laumann and Knoke (1987) call
into question this and other "normative" democratic theories.
13 The following three definitions of patron-client relations or clientelism, from John Duncan
Powell, James C. Scott, and Ernest Gellner, are as representative as any in the literature:
"At the core of the patron-client relationship lie three basic factors which at once define
and differentiate it from other power relationships which occur between individuals or
groups. First, the patron-client tie develops between two parties unequal in status, wealth
and influence. . . . Second, the formation and maintenance of the relationship depends on
reciprocity in the exchange of goods and services. Such mutual exchanges involve noncomparable goods and services, however. In a typical transaction, the low-status actor
(client) will receive material goods and services intended to reduce or ameliorate his
environmental threats; while the high-status actor (patron) receives less tangible rewards,
such as personal services, indications of esteem, deference or loyalty, or services of a
directly political nature such as voting. Third, the development and maintenance of a
patron-client relationship rests heavily on face-to-face contact between the two parties; the
exchanges encompassed in the relationship, being somewhat intimate and highly particularistic, depend upon such proximity" (Powell 1970: 147-8).
"The patron-client relationship - an exchange relationship between roles - may be defined as a special case of dyadic ties involving a largely instrumental friendship in which an
individual of higher socioeconomic status (patron) uses his own influence and resources to
provide protection or benefits, or both, for a person of lower status (client) who, for his
part, reciprocates by offering general support and assistance, including personal services,
to the patron" (Scott 1972: 124-5).
"Patronage is unsymmetrical, involving inequality of power; it tends to form an extended system; to be long-term, or at least not restricted to a single isolated transaction; to
possess a distinctive ethos; and, whilst not always illegal or immoral, to stand outside the
officially proclaimed formal morality of the society in question" (Gellner 1977: 4).
14 They are restrained, of course, by their strictly practical and strategic anticipation of what
might happen should they ignore this normative orientation and instead operate more
immediately on the basis of material interest alone. See chapter 11 on a "public realm" or
the implications of maintaining the integrity of collegial formations within a civil society as
a matter of public policy.
Notes to chapter 8
305
15 It is argued in section 8.4 that societal constitutionalism's emphasis on the significance of

the presence (or absence) of collegial formations brings greater specificity to John Meyer's
(and others') references to organizations' "institutionalized environments."
16 Because Parsons defined professionals' form of organization as a residual category, he
persisted across his career in stressing the importance of individual professionals' "secondary socialization," their coming to share internalized value-commitments (Parsons 1937b,
1939, 1952a; Parsons and Platt 1973). His emphasis on individuals' shared qualities rather
than on the qualities distinctive to a form of organization continues to run through references to the professions by social theorists indebted to Parsons's ideas, even as they have
since dropped even residual references to the collegial form (Alexander 1978,1983b, 1986,
1987, 1988; Munch 1981a, 1982, 1987; Barber 1983; Colomy and Rhoades 1988). One of
the reasons the theory of societal constitutionalism was developed was to account for
professionals' integrity despite systemic pressures of drift to the contrary, including professionals' own heterogeneity, their failure, really, to internalize shared value-commitments
(see chapter 9, pages 194-6 and chapter 10, pages 228-31). At the moment that the
threshold of interpretability is demonstrated to be interrelated with the collegial form
exclusively (chapter 6), Parsons's emphasis on individual professionals' qualities may be
jettisoned. It may be replaced by an emphasis on the voluntaristic orientation that collegial
formations institutionalize by their sheer presence within a civil society. Moreover, individual professionals' loss of integrity can then be specified empirically. It can be specified by
exploring whether their behavior maintains or encroaches against the integrity of the
collegial form at their own particular work sites. The norms which professionals may (or
may not) have internalized during their training have very little to do with whether they
maintain their formation's integrity or their own integrity as professionals, in practice (see
Sciulli and Jenkins 1990 on the professions literature).
17 The legal realist Michael Moore (1989: 935ff) concedes this for what he calls the "modest
interpretive claims" of certain types of legal practice: the interpretation of statutes and
constitutional law rather than the common law.
18 Weber saw "collegiate bodies" in irreversible decline, under pressures of rationalization.
Andrew Abbott (1988) fails to see the distinctiveness of this form of organization in his
impressive study of the professions. The best effort to bring the Weberian conceptual
framework into some harmony with the evidence of collegial formations in advanced
societies is by Malcolm Waters. He (1989: 956) defines "collegial structures" as "those in
which there is a dominant orientation to a consensus achieved between the members of a
body of experts who are theoretically equal in their levels of expertise but who are specialized by area of expertise." The problem here, however, is that references to "dominant
orientation to a consensus" and "theoretically equal" but "specialized" are not only vague
but open the door to all sorts of organizations feigning collegiality for purposes of manipulation (either of their own membership or of clients). Waters himself is much concerned
about professionals' "privileges" and their contribution to "social closure," to upholding
unnecessary or unjustifiable status divisions across a civil society. Given his vague definition of collegiality, such concerns are as warranted as the opposite concern: that collegial
structures might allow just about anyone into the professions and that equality might be
pursued at the expense of expertise. The theory of societal constitutionalism emphasizes,
by contrast, that as long as this form's integrity is being maintained, in practice, then
actions taken by professionals within collegial formations cannot be reduced to mechanisms of social control or manipulation. Moreover, their actions are not likely to be
consensual at all (see chapter 11, pp. 243-9 of this book). Their actions nonetheless
remain consistent with possibilities for social integration, not only within collegial formations themselves but across other parts of the larger civil society (see chapter 11). That not
all actors across a civil society have utterly equal access to what is indeed a rare possibility,
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Notes to chapter 8
social integration, is not a sign of social closure. Even more, by no means does the charge
of social closure establish a ground on which to criticize the external procedural restraints
that collegial formations indeed contribute to a civil society. The latter is a public good or
social capital even if they rest firmly on social closure in Waters's sense.
19 Indeed, Collins sees the professions revolving around normative social controls (1979: 48,
58-72, 171-2), political power plays against competitors (1979: 50-3, 71), and patronclient networks or personal cliques (1979: 55-8, 91, 200). Because he fails to notice the
form of organization distinctive to professions proper as opposed to expert occupations
that secure monopolies over their services by way of a power play alone, he calls for the
abolition of credentials (1979: 179-204) - much as Milton Friedman did now nearly a
quarter century ago (1962: chapter 9). Collins and Friedman alike fail to acknowledge two
important bits of information in their rough-and-ready prescription: First, the abolition of
credentials is utter utopianism, and they both know it. Unlike Friedman's early call for
education vouchers, which had a variety of intrinsic merits that even opponents were
compelled to acknowledge, this prescription will never be proposed as policy, let alone
ever acted on, within any modern nation-state (see Freidson 1984b for a methodical
discussion of this issue). Neither Collins nor Friedman specifies social influential or power
holders who could reasonably be expected to initiate a public dialogue put in these terms.
Second, were it acted on, it would expose a modern nation-state to the Weberian Dilemma
shorn of its most resilient institutional mediation against authoritarian drift. The result
would be far different from the egalitarianism that Collins imagines (1979: 69-71, 199),
and yet far closer to Friedman's vision. He blithely advocates extending the "principle" of
caveat emptor from competitive retail stores and automobile mechanics to competitive
(and self-selected) physicians and surgeons, lawyers, and therapists.
20 Thus, collegial formations may well decline inadvertently, without Collins having to prescribe an end to credentialling (see note 19). They may decline as professionals encroach
against the integrity of this form's threshold, possibly with the assurance from conflict
theory and laissez-faire economics that professions are indeed reducible to personal
cliques, power plays, and unwarranted monopolies. Encroachments then appear to be
either insignificant or liberating. Waters (1989) is similarly concerned that collegial formations are responsible for, or contribute to, social closure. He too misses the point: The
integrity of collegial formations is voluntaristic, and thereby always and everywhere only
contingently institutionalized. Being voluntaristic, their continued presence in civil society
is clearly not compatible with any effort to maximize strictly quantitative indices, including
those supporting egalitarian distributions of material resources as an end in itself. To
criticize collegial formations for resisting unmediated egalitarianism is to ignore why any
truly deliberative body is ultimately inegalitarian. If Waters believes that any nation-state
would experience less social closure and greater egalitarianism if the integrity of deliberative bodies were not maintained by the procedural threshold of interpretability of shared
social duties, then why not defend such a proposition directly? Similarly, would Collins
hold to his call for the abolition of credentials when the issue is posed in this way, in terms
of forms of organization and the problem of drift, rather than in terms of what he calls a
"sinecure society" and the problem of monopoly?
21 Meyer's work was mentioned in Chapter 1. See Meyer and Rowan (1977); Meyer, Scott,
and Deal (1981); and Meyer and Scott (1983). See Zucker (1988) for a collection devoted
to the "institutional approach."
22 This provides a good example of how epistemological issues exceed the scope of application of methodological techniques, despite positivists' position to the contrary. The positivist is committed to the view that any empirical study in the social sciences whose methodology escapes criticism cannot possibly "distort" the "meaning" of the events under study.
Notes to chapter 8
307
By contrast, the discussion of Meyer's work in the text provides an example of postpositivists' counterargument: Only a social theory or a framework of concepts can address the
matter of whether empirical findings, taken as they stand, distort the meaning of social
events.
23 In fairness to Meyer, the same criticism may be lodged against Hannan and Freeman's
population ecology approach to organizations as well as Habermas's communication
theory and Luhmann's systems theory. What is ironic is that Parsons's AGIL schema, of all
things, can be used to draw such distinctions, even though his social theory has long been
criticized for being too abstract (Craib 1984). It should be kept in mind that the origins of
the institutional approach to organizations may be traced to Parsons's social theory of the
1950s (e.g. Scott 1981/1987), prior to his formulation of the AGIL schema.
24 Early on in the professions literature, Lewis and Maude (1952), for instance, refused to
consider the first possibility for the professions.
25 It may now be seen how the theory of societal constitutionalism may be related to network
analysts' emphasis on how actors' and groups' behavior is affected by their "structural
equivalence." The theory of societal constitutionalism instructs researchers to explore
whether structural equivalence itself is substantively immediate or mediated by voluntaristic procedures. If the former, then the behavior in question is reducible to the workings of
mechanisms of social control; if the latter, then the behavior in question is possibly integrative. To date, network analysts tie their work exclusively to immediate manifestations of
structural equivalence, and they accede to the presupposition of exhausted possibilities.
The theory of societal constitutionalism begins to reveal that once this is balanced by
taking note of when actors' structural equivalence is mediated by voluntaristic procedures,
network analysis may jettison the presupposition of exhausted possibilities. It may thereby
inform detailed studies that distinguish sharply between actors' structural equivalence
within authoritarian and nonauthoritarian social orders.
26 Jack Gibbs (1981: 129) correctly notes that operationalization rests on findings that are
intersubjectively understandable or "concordant" rather than resting on the "reliability of
measure." For him, the "criterion of concordance" involves: "The amount of agreement
among independent observers in the observations they report about the same events or
things, whether those observations pertain to the application of a definition, a formula, or
an instrument." This position is consistent with Habermas's consensus theory of truth
rather than with any copy theory of truth.
27 One alternative, that of abandoning quantitative indices of egalitarianism as the standard
of comparison in favor of one or another substantive standard of the quality of life, is
guaranteed today to be even less fruitful. Consider Popenoe's (1988) standard of the
quality of child care within the family or, worse, Bloom's (1987) standard of the quality of
undergraduate education. Why can't the prospects for social integration within a civil
society steadily increase even as children's quality of family life declines and even as the
undergraduate curriculum becomes less rigorous? On what basis can it be claimed that the
lived experience of children or of undergraduates is a credible standard by which to gauge
the direction of social change in comparative perspective?
28 Michael Kennedy (1987), for instance, focuses on the extent to which engineers in Poland
had supported the Solidarity movement before the latter came to power. He does not
consider whether engineers' nascent collegial formations and those of other professionals
in Poland provided Solidarity with the possibility of institutionalizing restraints on the
government's or the party's actions, once workers invariably demobilize. But Kennedy's
work is clearly suggestive in this respect. Openings for social integration may be well be
initiated by workers' movements within the Eastern bloc that attempt to restrain the governments' and the party's excesses. But these openings can only be institutionalized, ironically,
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Notes to chapter 9
by a formation that is distinctive to middle-class professionals. The collegial form is not

likely to remain in place either within labor unions or most manufacturing work sites.
Chapter 9. Procedural institutionalization beyond the Western democracies:
three bases of voluntaristic restraint
1 To say nothing of the utopianism that pervades the social sciences. Without saying a word
about neo-Marxism, the Frankfurt school, and then Habermas's standard of the ideal
speech situation, consider the standard by which Daniel Bell (1976) and Robert Bellah
(1975; Bellah et al. 1986) criticize modernity: substantive values. Consider, too, Brennan
and Buchanan's (1985) related call for a "civil religion" to normatively frame Homo
economicus. Consider the standard underlying Frank Parkin's (1979), Randall Collins's
(1979), and Raymond Murphy's (1988) critiques of social closure: actors' unmediated
access to resources, or else unmediated competition in the marketplace. Consider, finally,
the utopianism of any free-market theory, including its various sociological restatements.
2 Scott (1981/1987: 136-7) notes the problems involved in specifying whether any organization is responsive or not.
3 A more recent example is the savings and loan scandal in the United States, the most costly
in American history. By all current accounts in the New York Times, the leaders (and
staffs) of both the relevant congressional committees and executive agencies were quite
aware that this scandal was building steadily for well over a decade. With the Bush
Administration not wishing to take the blame for Reagan policies of deregulation, and
with committee and agency leaders not seeing any reason to initiate the coming public
debate, the scandal was literally permitted to build. It is a product of "politics as usual,"
and not of unusual or exceptional government malfeasance.
4 Such prejudices include: traditionalism; communalism or regionalism; class, ethnic, or
gender particularism; or religious fundamentalism. Habermas may legitimately be read
taking this position in his debate with Gadamer. Bloom (1987) rails against this position,
without clarifying what his alternative is.
5 First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978), rehearing denied 438 U.S.
907 (1978).
6 I am not asserting at the moment that any one of these policies is either reasoned or
unreasoned. I am at the moment provoking the reader to attempt to articulate what
qualifies any of these policies, or opposition to them, as reasoned.
7 This paragraph rephrases a longstanding concern of constitutional theorists (articulated by
Ely 1980, Aleinikoff 1987, and Sunstein 1987). Consider also how this captures what
Luhmann is driving at with his term autopoiesis. Officials' actions are essentially selfmonitoring and self-regulating, within government agencies' own decision-making processes. Luhmann would be the first to admit, moreover, that the notion of autopoiesis
reveals nothing at all about whether the direction of social change is nonauthoritarian or
authoritarian.
8 Alexander's (1983b) account of multidimensionality in Parsons's social theory hinges on
Alexander's acceptance of Parsons's position regarding the significance of internalized
norms. Alexander repeatedly and consistently labels internalized mechanisms of social
control "voluntaristic" and "integrative." He never distinguishes the concept of voluntaristic action from normative action in general or from actors' free will in particular (also
Alexander 1987). Miinch's (1981a, 1982) connecting of Parsons's social theory to Kantian
imperatives, and his emphasis on "interpenetration" of roles, results in the same sort of
labeling. In these instances, as in Parsons's works originally, the lacuna of integrative
possibilities is perpetuated. The presupposition of exhausted possibilities is then removed
from possible discussion and questioning.
Notes to chapter 9
309
9 McClosky and Brill (1983: 9-11) point out that the American colonies were riddled by
"petty despotisms" and "competing orthodoxies" rather than marked by "tolerance and
mutual respect." Prior to 1789, nearly every colony had an established religion, for instance. But consider in comparative perspective the relationship today between first
amendment freedoms and the electronic media. The American founders clearly believed
in an unbridled press in their day, and they indeed experienced their share of scurrilous
political reporting (as did President Lincoln later). But this was reporting by an essentially
local press to a readership embedded within a far larger population of illiterates and
semiliterates (and religious tolerance remained more a matter of local preference than
becoming a matter of principle). This did not change until well into the twentieth century,
and in particular until the mass production of the radio dramatically expanded the audience for news and entertainment. In engaging in comparative research today, one wonders
whether citizens in any and all modern nation-states without exception can only be "free"
if television and radio is as unregulated as it is today within the United States. Many
Western democracies subject their electronic media to much more direct governmental
regulation, including Great Britain. Would citizens of a modern nation-state really suffer if
its electronic media were more controlled even as, say, the quantity and quality of its print
media and public library holdings were superior to that in the United States or Great
Britain, and, to go one step further, even as many more average citizens actually read the
print media and used the libraries on a routine basis than is the case within the United
States or Great Britain? Again, an empirical criterion for determining whether actors are
integrated or controlled within any modern nation-state is by no means provided by
whether its electronic media is relatively unregulated. It is rather whether collegial formations may be found across sectors, industries, and organizations of its civil society. If such
formations are found, in practice, then greater national control over electronic media is a
matter of secondary importance. By contrast, a nation-state that contains a relatively
unregulated electronic media, and that adopts more and more Western institutions and
practices even as it continues to lack collegial formations, may well be a contemporary
exemplar of successful control under modern conditions (Mexico and Brazil may well
qualify here, along with an increasing number of nation-states in the Third World). The
exemplar may no longer be a nation-state that strictly controls its electronic media, or that
prohibits free elections; these controls are costly and they are no longer necessary in order
to manage a population effectively today.
10 Rather than continuing to emphasize the importance of extending actors' "natural rights"
in civil society, Selznick (1987) now joins Bellah, Bell, and Brennan and Buchanan in
prescribing a civil religion or what he calls a "communitarian morality" (see Etzioni 1989
for a review of this literature).
11 But not as far beyond the common-law tradition. As Haar and Fessler (1986: chap. 2)
remind us, the latter indeed addressed instances of purposeful arbitrariness within civil
society, particularly when it affected commerce. For example, English courts prohibited
common carriers from refusing to accommodate any and all customers by the midfourteenth century.
12 Evan misleadingly labels this extension "organizational constitutionalism," Selznick calls it
"industrial justice," and Stewart calls it "organizational jurisprudence." Evan is actually
interested in extending interest competition, American pluralism, from government to
organizations within civil society. A better term for his proposal, and those by Selznick and
Stewart as well, is "organizational interest representation" or "organizational pluralism."
13 These questions recapitulate Habermas's longstanding distinction between observers' perspectives of society as systems of behavior and actors' perspectives of society as lifeworlds
of action (1981a,b). For him, any social theory that remains tied exclusively to the former
perspective, such as Luhmann's systems theory and much of Parsons's functionalism,
310
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Notes to chapter 9
cannot possibly be critical or radical. Any critical theory proper ultimately informs actors
from their perspectives.
Giddens often raises the issue of what happens when actors' routines or daily lives are
radically disrupted, say by being interned in a concentration camp (1979:123-6; 1984: 5 1 64). I cannot find any instance in which he presents a standard for recognizing in comparative perspective when, apart from such extreme situations, actors' senses of "ontological
security" are either increasing or decreasing. Presumably, this is reducible in Giddens's
work to actors' subjective opinions, as Buchanan and other liberals would insist.
It must be kept in mind that as much as forty percent of Brazil's population currently lives
in poverty and is largely divorced from patron-client networks. I cannot find Brazilian
specialists who point to internal processes that are likely to lower this percentage. Moreover, Brazilian police even today continue to torture criminal suspects, and otherwise
operate outside of internal procedural (and substantive) restraints. It is likely that local
and regional patrons, and the clients that they protect, are not treated as capriciously by
the police.
The unraveling of the newly elected Brazilian president's radical economic reform, within
only three weeks of Fernando Collor de Mello's first day in office on 15 March 1990, is not
surprising (Brooke 1990).
Barrington Moore (1966) is less convincing in asserting the opposite proposition than
many readers may recall. His thoughts on India in particular reveal his commitment to the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Liberal democracy is a voluntaristic possibility
within the systemic rise of capitalism; neither it nor any other alternative form of government is as systemically overdetermined as is capitalism itself.
Consider Hawkins (1984) on vicissitudes of British water pollution enforcement and Braithwaite (1982) on problems of enforcing government regulations and his (1989) proposal that
local "shaming" take some precedence over generalizable enforcement. Silberman (1978)
discusses the sorry state of formal restraints and protections in American criminal courts.
Lowi's (1969) critique of American pluralism revolves around numerous examples of
encroachments within distinct policy arenas (whereas Laumann and Knoke 1987 ignore
this).
It is well to keep in mind that the "bourgeois public" first emerged as discussion groups
dedicated to the arts. Only later did these deliberative bodies turn to politics (Habermas
1962). The poets and playwrights involved in Eastern European politics today therefore
continue a long tradition (Goldfarb 1989).
Studies of the Eastern bloc prior to the fall of 1989 might well reveal unambiguous
evidence of collegial formations within certain sectors of selected civil societies. It may also
be the case that the leaders of the various reform movements emerged from these very
sectors. I have not seen works by Soviet specialists or specialists on Eastern Europe which
monitor movements of internal procedural restraints from civil society to government.
Yet, Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, and other East European nation-states are likely
experiencing such movement (and, of course, reversals and setbacks, too), each in its own
way. Burawoy and Lukacs (1985) are suggestive. Yet, they look at machine shops in
comparative perspective rather than at sites where either deliberative bodies or professionals may be found, and because of this their work is not directly of use to the theory of
societal constitutionalism. Turning to the West, Christopher Stone (1982) considers only
the reverse movement of internal procedural restraints, from government to civil society.
Then again, he does not consider the possibility of an Eastern country becoming
nonauthoritarian even as it fails to institutionalize most liberal-democratic practices.
Selznick (1969) sees much more of an interrelationship between developments in civil
society and those in the state.
In the most methodical interviewing of Soviet emigres to the West prior to the fall of 1989,
Notes to chapter 9
22
23
24
25
26
311
Millar and his associates found that thirty percent favored state ownership of heavy industry, and forty-eight percent favored state-provided medical care (1987: 27-8). Given these
views among those that had left the Soviet Union, is it a stretch of the imagination to
wonder whether the percentage may well be much higher across the Soviet Union and
former Eastern bloc?
Here again, as in other respects, the cynicism (or realism) of social influential outside of
the West is, if anything, consistent with current Western social, political, and legal theories
and research. There are no influential natural-law theories today. The two most prominent
legal theories today, other than Fuller's, are those by H.L.A. Hart and Hans Kelsen, and
they are remarkably congenial to Charles Anderson's account of how social influential in
Latin America operate as they assess power contenders' claims. No one in the West has
proposed any credible or practicable way of revitalizing the division of powers (but see
Stewart 1985 for an effort in administrative law). If anything, Western sociologists, political scientists, and even legal scholars would agree much more readily that this is insignificant. The notion of "natural rights" has long been ridiculed in social theory and legal
scholarship alike. The controversy surrounding Dworkin's (1977) emphasis on rights is a
manifestation of how far the theoretical and research literatures even in legal scholarship
have moved away from supporting substantive restraints on purposeful exercises of collective power.
Anyone who has ever rejected a friend's manuscript - whether for a refereed session of a
professional association's annual meeting or for a grant - and who did so because the
paper was not as instructive or compelling as other submissions, has in essence upheld the
integrity of a collegial formation rather than subordinated this to a personal network. Not
simply scholarly activity but nearly all professional practice in one way or another involves
institutionalizing collegial formations so sufficiently that participants' personal networks
are kept subordinate to the integrity of deliberation. Indeed, the quality of any academic
department may be described and evaluated rather quickly by exploring whether its hiring
and promotion practices rest routinely on their senior professors' personal networks or on
some set of relatively generalizable standards that typically subordinate the impact of these
influences. Unfortunately, a great many academic departments might be more accurately
described as patron-client networks than as collegial formations (see note 26). Can it be
that the educated public's increasing recognition of this has something to do with the
declining prestige and "moral authority" of universities and colleges across the West?
This later period also saw the slow, uneven rise of the modern professions, and thereby the
rise of new collegial formations in civil society. All five of the accounts noted above ignore
this development. They instead look for collegial formations elsewhere in civil society and
fail to find them. The professions literature, in turn, revolves around the issue of expert
occupations' competition for "jurisdictions" (Abbott 1988) rather than around professions'
distinctive form of organization regardless of whatever jurisdiction they happen to carve
out.
See the discussions of the "constituent force" later in this chapter and in chapter 10 for
examples of the sorts of burdens involved, and how constitutional theory once hinged on
the expectation that actors are indeed capable of bearing this literally impossible burden
immediately.
There is an opportunity to apply principles of societal constitutionalism to the United
States that might be of particular interest to sociologists (see note 23). Recall that one of
the most controversial propositions of pluralist theory was that as long as there are no de
jure blockages to any group's access to compete for political influence, then one cannot say
that any interest in society is being discriminated against, distorted, or otherwise ignored.
Thus, the blockages of Jim Crow laws in the South were indeed discriminatory because
they prevented interests from coalescing into group formations. But beyond this, pluralists
312
Notes to chapter 9
continue, one would be hard-pressed since the mid-1960s to find comparable blockages
today. Instead, the issue at hand becomes whether gays or other sexual minorities are to be
classified in the same way as racial or ethnic minorities, or whether affirmative action is
reverse discrimination, based on de jure blockages of its own. Pluralists conclude that one
of the ways in which Americans' low turnout in both presidential and local elections may
be explained, as compared to much higher turnouts in all other liberal- and socialdemocracies, is that Americans are more pleased with their current political arrangements
than are other electorates with theirs. Americans' apathy is a sign of confidence in the
system rather than a sign of disaffection or coming delegitimation. Now a comparison to
other levels of organization comes into play.
William V. D'Antonio and Steven A. Tuch (1989) have offered essentially the same
explanation for low voter turnout in American Sociological Association elections: Members are pleased with the organization and do not bother to vote. The point of societal
constitutionalism is that D'Antonio and Tuch might well be right, even as pluralists may
well be wrong, or vice versa. This whole controversy may be converted into an empirical
issue rather than left to speculation. D'Antonio and Tuch would be confirmed in their view
to the extent that researchers demonstrate that more and more collegial formations have
been extended not only across the association but also across the academic departments
and other work sites of the profession's membership. This may not be the case at all and
clearly a methodical case study is in order. Similarly, are researchers likely to find that the
integrity of collegial formations has been increasingly secured across sectors of American
civil society? If, instead, encroachments have been increasing, then researchers may point
with specificity to increasing instances of manipulation and latent coercion within particular sectors, industries, and organizations of American civil society. They may point to such
instances even as groups' access to policymakers is not formally blocked and even as open
elections continue to be held.
27 This way of putting the issue may be converted into a direct response to Lowi's pathos
regarding the drift of American interest-group pluralism: Interest groups in the United
States may continue to compete for influence in a more unstructured way than in any other
modern nation-state. But at the point that their competition subordinates the significance
of either internal or external procedural restraints, Lowi and other researchers may specify
when pluralism is becoming increasingly manipulative, controlling, and susceptible to
social authoritarianism. Lowi's account is compelling because he indeed demonstrated that
this point was already being reached by the mid-1960s. The law journals today team with
indictments of "pluralism" for undermining the integrity of the courts, and of legal interpretation generally. This is precisely why the Yale Law Journal (1988) devoted a special issue
to the civic republican tradition: Legal scholars are searching for a practicable alternative
to the drift of what Hurst called pluralism's bastard pragmatism. Too often, however, they
merely end up calling for expanding the scope of the economic marketplace instead of
pluralism's political marketplace (see Stewart 1985, but the University of Chicago's law
and economics movement generally).
28 In the United States today, twenty percent of all children are raised in poverty; among
Hispanic and black children, the figure is forty percent. The life expectancy of black males
in America's inner cities is actually lower than that of males in Bangladesh. A quarter of
the American population lives in substandard housing (to say nothing of the homeless),
and each year a quarter of all eighteen-year-olds fail to graduate from high school. Medical
care, certainty of employment, unemployment insurance, and social security benefits are
among the most uneven in the advanced world. The infant mortality rate and rate of
illiteracy in the United States are both higher than in some Third World countries. See
Gans (1988) for an account of the way of life and outlook for lower middle income groups
in the United States, a group insulated somewhat from the poor. Their disillusionment and
Notes to chapter 9
313
disaffection with institutions is pervasive, and yet in survey research these actors express
general satisfaction with their personal lives. Is this only because alternatives have not
been available in practice?
29 Nietzsche's and Freud's critiques of religion were not phrased much differently, even as
the latter were directed to religion's impact on individuals rather than to its impact on
forms of organization.
30 This is exactly what Evan (1976) and Selznick (1969) propose, respectively, as "organizational constitutionalism" and "industrial justice." Neither defines "rule of law" in terms of
the threshold of interpretability (see pages 189-91 above). Each instead defines it in terms
of the extent to which organized interests are represented and "balanced" in legal proceedings (also see Dobbin et al. 1988). Evan does this explicitly and consistently. Selznick cites
Fuller in his opening chapter and thereby alludes to a more critical definition of "rule of
law." But thereafter his examples of "industrial justice" as well as his own conceptual
apparatus recapitulate the reductionism just noted. Aleinikoff (1987) explores how "balancing" undermines the courts' integrity. Louis Siedman (1987) wonders whether "principle" might again be used to "maintain" some "boundary" against the floodgate of interested parties seeking recognition by the courts. Finally, Michelman's (1988) and Sunstein's
(1988) opening contributions to the Yale Law Journals Symposium on the Civic Republican Tradition revolves around critiques of pluralism, and the need, however vaguely
presented, to return to the integrity of deliberation.
31 See chapter 6, notes 23,26 and chapter 11, notes 6,20. Also see Brennan and Buchanan
(1985) for an explicit statement of the social contract theorist's reification of actors'
subjective interests at the expense not only of objective interests but also of any and all
possible intersubjective interests. Richard Stewart (1983) tries to get at the notion of intersubjective interests with his term "noncommodity values," as does Philip Selznick (1987)
with his "idea of a communitarian morality." In each instance, however, they fail to
distinguish voluntaristic qualities that are procedural from those that are substantive. This
moves them too far in the direction of objective interests, and traditional notions of
natural law (Selznick 1961). Hechter (1987: 125-45) illustrates the inability of rationalchoice theory to distinguish intersubjective interests from strictly subjective ones. As he
explores the "limits of compensation in capitalist firms," he notes corporate managers'
difficulties in monitoring how much effort each worker contributes to production.
Whether corporate managers employ outside contractors or dedicate their own personnel
to monitor work sites, this raises a "second-order monitoring problem" (1987: 131-3).
How can corporate managers know that enforcers are being vigilant? What Hechter
cannot address with the concepts of rational-choice theory is whether the rules being
enforced are themselves warranted, such that enforcers' (and workers') subjective senses
of their legitimacy might be established and maintained over time even in the absence of
effective monitoring in his sense. Instead, Hechter talks vaguely of "trust" within "obligatory groups" as opposed to sanctions within compensatory groups (1987: 140). He acknowledges, however, that his conceptual framework leads him to hinge the survival of
obligatory groups not on whether trust is established within the group but rather on
whether its members lack any viable option of leaving the group. His discussion of "internal labor markets" within corporations revolves around the issue of restriction alone
(1987: 141-3).
32 Wolin (1960) remains a major study of changing senses of time and space in classical
political theory, from Aristotle to Weber.
33 It is well to keep in mind that public-choice theory in political science and economics
emerged in the 1950s, in the works of Downs, Buchanan and Tullock, Niskanen, and
others, with the proposition that elected and appointed officials are literal political entrepreneurs. They can be expected to act in their own interests exclusively, unless restrained
314
Notes to chapter 10
institutionally from doing so. For instance, William Niskanen proposed in 1971 that bureaucrats will seek to maximize the size of their bureau's budget, unless otherwise restrained (Buchanan 1989: 14-16). Buchanan is quite blunt about the point of departure of
public-choice theory (1989: 12): "[T]he assumption that political agents will use any discretionary power that they possess to further their particular private interests can, we believe,
be justified even where there seems to be ample empirical evidence to the contrary, on
grounds essentially analogous to those for using Homo economicus in the monopoly context." Given this point of departure, when it comes to institutional design (1989: 34): "The
objective should be that of designing institutions such that, if participants do seek economic interest above all else, the damages to the social fabric are minimized."
34 It is neither unwise nor rhetorical to recall that Hitler was fairly elected, and that a fairly
elected (albeit intimidated) parliament retroactively absolved him of fault in the Rohm
purge (to say nothing of later events). This retroactive decision clearly encroached against
the integrity of threshold restraints, and it just as clearly undermined the integrity of
parliament's own collegial form. Yet, all of this remained quite consistent with maintaining
the integrity (openness and fairness) of elections. If the Nazis had wished to continue (or
even to extend) elections, this consistency would have been demonstrated, in practice
(Juan Per6n provided some evidence of this later). It is indeed a truism that the plebiscite
is the tool of the clever dictator.
35 This notion of "wasted time" is closer to Arendt's distinction between private property as
place for citizenship and private property as alienable capital (1951, 1958) than to
Luhmann's discussion of why, "in order to be autonomous, a system must first of all 'have
time' " (1982: 143). Luhmann explores how distinct subsystems (such as politics, law, and
education) become differentiated as the ongoing drift of social change unfolds, whereas
Arendt addresses the importance of mediating this drift itself.
36 Laumann and Knoke (1987: 377) demonstrate that something of an informal neocorporatism is emerging within the United States, which they call "elite interest group pluralism."
Chapter 10. External restraints: prospects for reason and "tradition"

1 This opening section explores implications of the discussion of Habermas's social theory in
chapter 5, particularly on pages 96-9. For his part, Luhmann relativizes the concept of
rational action, with the result that it, too, cannot claim grounding in comparative research: "The sort of rationality I have in mind no longer allows itself to be fastened rigidly
to any fixed point nor to be directed toward preset goals. To reduce it to a formula,
[system] rationality must now be able to combine a high degree of randomness with a high
degree of specification" (1982: 268).
2 Parsons' AGIL schema, which is tied to the notion of functional differentiation, also
provides a basis for understanding the direction of social change. This is the case, however,
within the context of six reformulations of Parsons's concepts (Sciulli in preparation, a).
3 Today in the United States, David Duke, a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, has
essentially updated this local slogan in winning election to Louisiana's state legislature,
promoting his National Association for the Advancement of White People (to each his
own), and now running for the United State Senate seat currently held by Bennett Johnston.
Leo Strauss (1953) demonstrated impressively how Weber's ideal types and perspectivism
lead to nihilism, even as Strauss's natural law alternative is not defensible. The most compelling part of Bloom's (1987) otherwise surprisingly sketchy diatribe against contemporary
"American nihilism" is how the various faculties responded to the demands of armed
students at Cornell. Is it incorrect to say that this response was merely one manifestation of
the Cornell faculty's functional differentiation, fragmentation of meaning, and willingness
to negotiate even the integrity of the university's collegial formations? Does the Cornell
Notes to chapter 10
6
7
315
faculty (or any other) uphold the latter in the face of any interested party's concerted
demands - whether those of trustees, alumni, administrators, or mobilized students?
Moving beyond the focus of this volume, at the moment that Parsons's framework of
analytical concepts is thrown open conceptually to the possibility of accommodating a
concept of reasoned social action of any kind, his "functionalism" literally metamorphoses
into a critical social theory. It metamorphoses into a social theory that is as intrinsically
critical as any variant of neo-Marxism. Yet, this new critical theory is ironically far more
amenable to informing detailed empirical research than any variant of neo-Marxism
(Sciulli in preparation, a). Luhmann sees that Parsons's social theory is available for such a
move because of its claim to translate all other theories: "Commensurability, incidentally,
is equivalent to the translatability of a theory language. Whoever pursues this translatability in Parsons' sense, must eventually renounce the knowledge of contingent truths [in
favor of necessary truths] and must also abjure a theory of evolution" (1982: 395, note 6).
Luhmann warns against any move to convert Parsons's social theory into a critical theory,
based on any grounding. He advocates instead that systems theories be developed that
distance themselves from all previous social theories, including Parsons's: "Renouncing
[Parsons's] generalizing techniques, however, means giving up the automatic translatability of all other theory languages into one's own. This renunciation, in fact, can be justified
by the distinction between ordinary language and the various media of communication.
Translatability is a structural requirement of language but not a requirement of the communication medium 'truth' " (1982: 395, note 5).
Postwar writers who have come closest to seeing this are a diverse lot, including: Arendt
1951, 1963; Loewenstein 1957; Habermas 1962; Friedrich 1963; Vile 1967; Fuller 1964/
1969; Lowi 1969; Selznick 1969; Parsons and Platt 1973; Bell 1976; Evan 1976; Sennett
1978; Hayek 1973-9; Gouldner 1979; Ackerman 1980; Apel 1980; Maclntrye 1981;
Schluchter 1981; Unger 1986; Hall 1987; Yale Law Journal 1988; Braithwaite 1989; and
Waters 1989.
See Klockars (1985: chapter 5) for a review of the question of police discretion. See Muir
(1977) for an influential statement on which Klockars draws.
Gadamer (1960,1966,1967) sees this, and then, like Parsons, interprets "prejudice" as the
benign, unavoidable prejudging in which actors engage within any particular lived social
fabric.
Bendix (1960), for instance, does not include the term in his index, nor does Parsons
(1937). Schluchter (1981: 108) insists that "substantive rationalization" is a "counter principle" to that of legality; the former involves "the intrusion of ethical imperatives, utilitarian pragmatism or political maxims" into the autonomy of law and administration, resulting in a lack of calculability. It is, therefore a "regression." Levine (1981: 12-13) is similar,
adding that substantive rationality "reflects the desire to achieve motivational integrity,"
whereas formal rationality refers to action "within a calculable order." Sica (1988: 209-10)
is more blunt, noting that when Weber relates substantive rationality to irrationality he is
more interesting than when he treats them as conceptual opposites. But examples of
substantive rationality are scarce everywhere.
The critical theorists of the Frankfurt school attempted this as well, from the 1950s to the
early 1970s. Parsons's writings offer no evidence that he ever understood how dramatically
Habermas's early works in general, and his critique of neopositivism in particular, were
simultaneously "turning" critical theory away from this effort. Habermas clearly devoted
much more time to studying Parsons's writings than Parsons ever devoted to his (Habermas 1967b: 74-88; 1980; 1984). Still, Habermas fails to appreciate how far Parsons's
framework of analytical concepts advances beyond Weber's ideal types and normative
relativism, irrespective of Parsons's decision to close his social theory to the concept of
reasoned social action. Habermas takes no notice at all of Parsons's residual category of
316
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11
12
13
14
15
Notes to chapter 10
collegial formations, for instance, nor does he note Parsons's increasing (albeit vague)
references to procedural institutions. Habermas (and others, including Max Horkheimer)
engaged Parsons in colloquy in 1964 on the occasion of the Fifteenth German Sociological
Congress in Heidelberg in commemoration of the centenary of Weber's birth (Stammer
1965/1972). But Parsons's thinking about procedural institutions and law was relatively
undeveloped in 1964 and, regardless, he was called on to respond directly to Weber's
methodological positions regarding value-relevance and value-neutrality.
Indeed, such a shift is what institutionalized external procedural restraints restrain. Within
an institutionalized environment containing these restraints, policing may simultaneously
become more accountable. It need not remain localized and thereby susceptible to personal favoritism, prejudice, and other manifestations of arbitrariness.
Donald Black (1984) stresses implications of heterogeneity, functional differentiation, and
diverse styles of life in his study of mechanisms of social control (but see note 15).
This is the logical fallacy of any sociology of knowledge. Since Mannheim (1929) this has
been the approach to the competition of ideas, social arrangements, and institutions
preferred by social scientists who accede most immediately, most unreflectively, to normative relativism. The fallacy is that any new idea, social arrangement, or institution likely
originated in one particular place, or at best one particular region. This is as true of ideas,
arrangements, or institutions that are indeed intrinsically particular as those that turn out
credibly to claim consistency with a generalizable standard of reason. Thus, to trace any
idea, arrangement, or institution to its site of historical origin is a worthy project in and of
itself. But this does not establish a priori that the former is intrinsically particular rather
than possibly consistent with a generalizable standard of reason. For instance, Fuller's
legal theory is readily traceable to the historical experiences of Anglo-American countries.
This in and of itself does not somehow establish that his concepts are intrinsically particular rather than possibly contribute to reasoned social action.
There is no good reason for the world's peoples to learn English as a preferred second
language, as opposed to French, Spanish, German, or for that matter, Japanese or Russian, other than as a strategic response to America's postwar geopolitical hegemony and,
until recently, dominant position in the world economy. There is nothing intrinsically
generalizable about English or about any other language.
Sets of substantive aspects of "tradition" readily transferred to new sites short of being
imposed on outsiders include cuisine, popular music, and popular culture generally. How
they are recognized and understood by "outsiders" is another matter entirely, of course.
Are American movies ever recognized and understood similarly by Hindus and Sikhs in
Punjab?
Luhmann draws the distinction between "genetic and functional methods of inquiry,"
pointing out that "the original genesis of institutions demands special structural preconditions" but then, later, the "maintenance of an autonomous legal system, for example, does
not require the continued existence of its initial preconditions" (1982: 126-7). What
Luhmann sees as generalizable across autonomous legal systems is the dynamic interrelationship between what he calls the "dual sovereignty" of (a) the contingency of whether
the law is invoked or not in particular social situations and (b) the contingency of which
premises are drawn upon in coming to legal decisions. For him, as more and more social
situations are "juridified" or defined as legal situations, and as legal decision-making
adapts legal premises over time in an effort to accommodate social complexity, the legal
system becomes more and more detached from any and all "external" normative justifications. Luhmann's view of law is, thus, far less rigidly "positivist" than Habermas (chapter
5) would lead one to believe. Yet, it lacks any threshold of legality other than the
dedifferentiation of the legal system into other systems, whether religious, political, or
some other.
Notes to chapter 10
317
16 The "impact" of successful efforts to block the transfer of voluntaristic and procedural
aspects of national traditions also is invariant and equally generalizable: unmediated social
control and susceptibility to social authoritarianism.
17 Nor, of course, can they treat all analytical aspects of all traditions as if they were ultimately or even primarily based on actors' shared material interests or their positions of
"structural equivalence" within a social structure. The literature on structural equivalence
spawned by Lorrain and White (1971), along with the literature on network analysis more
generally (see Burt 1980 and Berkowitz 1982 for reviews), is impressive precisely because
contributors to these literatures attempt to explain actors' solidarity and collective action
by resisting as long as possible an appeal to their supposed internalization of shared
substantive norms. This is also the strength of exchange theory and rational-choice theory.
Yet, the notion of structural equivalence seems to offer a potentially richer account of
solidarity and collective action than does exchange theory's and rational-choice theory's
hypostatization of actors' individual calculations of immediate strategic interests. The
single greatest defect of the Parsonian tradition is that Parsonians continue to appeal much
too readily to actors' supposed internalization of shared substantive norms, rather than
resisting such appeals as long as possible in an effort to exhaust all other explanations for
actors' solidarity and collective action. At the same time, this point may be reversed to
indicate the greatest strength of the Parsonian tradition: To the extent that theorists (and
researchers) indeed resist appealing immediately to internalization, and instead endeavor
to exhaust all other explanations for heterogeneous actors' and competing groups' solidarity and collective action, the Parsonian tradition remains the richest reservoir of analytical
distinctions available to sociologists for accounting for the great diversity of solidary units
to be found within modern nation-states.
18 It is difficult to read Rousseau's Social Contract (1762), for instance, as contributing to
discussions of strategic let alone resilient normative restraints on arbitrary exercises of
collective power. Montesquieu and then Tocqueville were in many respects the first theorists to introduce such ideas in France in a methodical way. Sieyes and others raised such
issues at times, of course, both during and after the revolution. But a debate among
influential in France along these particular lines cannot be found that compares to that
which occurred first in England and then in the American colonies. See Arendt (1963) and
Habermas (1963a,b,c) for reflections, respectively, on the authoritarian and radical implications of theoretical discourse in eighteenth-century France, and Masters (1970) for an
influential treatment of Rousseau in English.
19 Consider the American framers. Their mandate in going to Philadelphia was at best to
amend the Articles of Confederation. When Madison presented the Virginia Plan, and it
became the focus of discussion, this exemplified the unlimited power of the constituent
group. Consider, too, that only fifty-five people attended these meetings, and only forty
really participated. Moreover, their proceedings were held entirely in private, the public
being barred from observing and the participants being prohibited from discussing the
proceedings outside Constitution Hall. The Federalist Papers, published in the New York
press, were among the first efforts to inform the public of what the constituent group had
accomplished (for an excellent discussion of the framing, see Diamond, Fisk, and
Garfinkel 1966: chapter 2).
20 Luhmann correctly emphasizes that this overloads the personality system (1990: 204):
"[N]ot until . . . the last third of [the eighteenth] century did the modern concept of public
opinion arise as the 'secret' sovereign and as the invisible authority of political society.
Public opinion was stylized as a paradox, as the invisible power of the visible. And in this
semantic form it became the culminating idea of the political system. For the first time the
result of communication itself was taken as substantive, and thereby became the medium
of further communication. This . . . was purchased at the cost of a severe overloading of
318
21
22
23
24
Notes to chapter 11
the concept which was accompanied with an equally strong idealized concept of the individual. For those who advocated this new idea, public opinion itself now assumed the task of
censorship and exercised it objectively and impartially. While more conservative authors
looked upon this impartiality with skepticism because it appeared to them one-sidedly
directed towards critique and change."
Indeed, consider what happened after the American Revolution (Diamond, Fisk, and
Garfinkel 1966: 16). It is estimated that over 60,000 Loyalists, and possibly as many as
100,000, fled to Canada or England - out of a total nonslave population in the American
republic of only three million! Nearly as much property was confiscated in the new American republic as in the later French Revolution, and, actually, a proportionally greater
number of people fled the American republic than fled the Jacobin repression. Of course,
far fewer were executed outright in the American republic.
It is well to keep in mind that these early theorists could still assume the resilience of
external substantive restraints of tradition and religious fundamentalism. Part of the reason
that they failed to anticipate the mass-based authoritarian regimes and occasional totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century is that they never anticipated even the most zealous
absolute monarch going that far. They never anticipated that a monarch would flagrantly
violate norms that proscribe mass dislocations and exterminations of one's own citizens.
Laumann and Knoke find that policy domains within the United States are "substantially
balkanized" rather than centralized (1987: 376-7), and yet: "[MJutual recognition creates
and sustains the legitimacy of core actors' involvement in domain issues and events. . . .
[TJhese results are comparable to those reported by studies of communication density
within far more homogeneous or functionally interdependent sets of organizations than
the group interviewed for this project" (1987: 375). The question that the theory of societal
constitutionalism brings to this finding is whether these activists' mutual recognition and
seeming consensus is procedurally mediated or really substantively immediate. Is elite
consensus within the United States really the product of some substantive alternative to
Brazilian elites' patron-client networks - as traditional Parsonian analysis would lead one
to believe? Or is it instead a product of, and ultimately reliant on, the mediation provided
by procedural voluntaristic norms and institutions? These are empirical issues that fall
outside the pluralist-elitist and pluralist-neocorporatist debates.
Unlike the case with "elite pacts" within those nation-states of the Third World that are
attempting the transition from military rule to civilian rule and "liberalization," e.g.
O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead (1986).
Chapter 11. Collegial formations as external procedural restraints: prospects

for a public realm
1 Their effect on labor markets is more complicated and cannot be explored in this volume.
2 It should be pointed out that Olson himself used this term once, in quotation marks
(1965: 76).
3 Similarly, even if one accepts the logic of much of the Marxian argument regarding the
alienation of labor, one cannot conclude that the issue of arbitrary power has been raised
or addressed (Sciulli 1984).
4 Works by Pamela Oliver and Gerald Marwell on the "critical mass" lay a foundation on
which this argument may be based, e.g. Oliver, Marwell, and Teixeira (1985); Oliver and
Marwell (1988); Marwell, Oliver, and Prahl (1988).
5 "A sense of obligation will arise when a stabilization of interactional expectancies has
occurred" (Fuller 1969b: 219-20).
6 Hechter (1987: chapter 7) can only account for actors' behavior within such a division
when they are "captured," when they cannot leave the division for employment elsewhere
Notes to chapter 11
10
11
319
(see chapter 9, note 31). The problem Hechter faces is that millions of professionals and
deliberators within scores of modern nation-states are by no means immobilized in this
way, even as a great many may be.
Recent strikes by health-care professionals in major cities such as San Francisco and New
York, for instance, have this flavor to them, and this example is used elsewhere in this
chapter (see pages 250-1, 255). Overloaded with clients in emergency wards and strapped
for resources and personnel, those who are most professionally committed to providing
quality health care are often the leaders of these strikes. One suggestion beyond the scope
of this volume, however, is that the success of such strikes likely hinges on the extent to
which the integrity of collegial formations in other fields is being maintained locally,
regionally, and nationally. To the same extent that professionals in other fields already
have learned through experience that they cannot maintain these formations' integrity in
the face of social and governmental units' instrumental responses to systemic pressures of
drift, health-care professionals' strikes are not likely to "influence" either policymakers or
"the public" greatly.
This is Luhmann's strongest counterargument to Habermas's communication theory. At
the same time, Luhmann fails to address a significant problem. Weber's work demonstrated that if external normative restraints of some kind are not resiliency maintained,
then there is no good reason to believe that these units can sustain the integrity even of
internal procedural restraints on purposefully arbitrary exercises of collective power, including those by arbitrary government. Luhmann's systems theory dismisses this whole matter.
Baylis (1980) and Waters (1989) see consensus as basic to collegiality. They do so because
they assume the latter rests on substantive norms rather than on a procedural threshold.
As a result, they also assume that members of collegial formations are homogeneous and
consensual rather than increasingly heterogeneous and competitive. Even in passing,
Laumann and Knoke (1987: 160-1) operate on the same two assumptions.
The same may be said of other forms of organization, of course: As long as conflicts or
disruptions do not threaten the integrity of the bureaucratic, democratic, or patron-client
forms, interested parties may be said, respectively, to be competing bureaucratically,
democratically, or clientelistically. The point being made in the text about actors' competing collegially, however, is that their continued fidelity to the collegial form's procedural
voluntaristic orientation distinguishes this competition from that taking place within and
around any other formation. Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 98) offer an expression of
faith, nothing more, in Homo economicus's consensus over "meta-rules." Laumann and
Knoke (1987: 185) argue that elite decision-makers in energy and health policy domains in
the United States operate on a "consensus" only in regard to "a common perception of the
key players and nonplayers [in their domain] - not consensus about particular policy
options." They hastily add, however, that these elites are caught by surprise whenever the
issues in their domain are posed in any way other than strategically or instrumentally
(1987: 383-6). This is precisely what happens, of course, whenever the rules of the game
are brought into question.
This brings into view one of the arguments in favor of recruiting individuals into collegial
formations from as many classes as possible and from as many subcultural groupings and
lived social fabrics as possible: The integrity of the collegial formation must never be
confused, in practice, with middle-class sensibilities, nor with the substantive sensibilities
of any other class or group. This is not an argument consistent with affirmative action as it
is currently designed in the United States. Instead, it is an argument in favor of keeping the
integrity of the procedural threshold of interpretability superordinate to any and all substantive standards of performance. In this way, Bloom's (1987) polemic against gender and
racial groups may be demonstrated to miss the mark. He launches his polemic against the
backdrop of a substantive normative ideal that is unrealizable today, and he fails to explore
320
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Notes to chapter 11
either the importance of, or the limits to, the university's collegial form. The central
problem with affirmative action is not its intent but rather that it codifies a competition
between groups (increasingly between African- and Asian-Americans) that is defined not
merely substantively but ascriptively, and crudely so at that. A multicultural society intent
on integration tends toward intermarriage, but affirmative action raises greatly the symbolic and material obstacles to such choices. A greater irony is that much more could be
accomplished to assist the lower and working classes, and accomplished much more
quickly, if the integrity of procedural norms were kept superordinate to the middle class's
substantive sensibilities. In this way many more of the obstacles to mobility facing members of lower and working classes as well as members of ascriptive groups could be
removed.
Laumann and Knoke (1987: 348-72) point out that the health-policy domain in the United
States differs from the energy-policy domain in that the former revolves around "resource
deployment" or a "resource dependence" system whereas energy revolves around a "resource mobilization" system. Their point is that subordinates or consumers in the healthpolicy domain have greater influence with superordinates or producers in determining
policy outcomes. This point may be rephrased in the following way in terms of the theory
of societal constitutionalism: What is meant by an adequate or acceptable level of health
care for the money spent is less subject to strict quantification than what is meant by an
adequate or acceptable level of energy supplied for the money spent. Since adequacy or
acceptability is subject to greater symbolization in the health-policy domain, subordinates
or consumers invariably have greater influence. Rather than simply mobilizing resources
as they compete within economic and political marketplaces, elites in the health-policy
domain also must consult with their "dependents" regarding issues of "deployment."
One value-commitment that Parsons saw researchers bearing within universities, research
centers, and elsewhere is to maximize what he called "cognitive rationality" (Parsons and
Platt 1973).
See Braithwaite (1982) on "enforced self-regulation;" Stewart (1983) on "noncommodity values" in regulatory law; Sciulli (in preparation, b) on implications for societal
constitutionalism.
The next three paragraphs address not only Parsons's treatment of the professions but also
the related treatments by the other three theorists just noted.
Collins (1979) does the same, of course, explicitly treating professions as nothing more
than "consciousness communities," equivalent in every respect to ethnic groups.
Niklas Luhmann (1988) is very similar, stressing the importance of the relationship between differentiation and "autopoiesis." Social systems' self-regulation as distinct social
units replaces all references (a) to collegial formations, (b) to voluntaristic action more
generally, and (c) to normative restraints on the drift of rationalization. In many respects,
then, Luhmann reifies autopoiesis in precisely the way that Stinchcombe (1986) reifies
"reason:" Both are strictly systemic qualities quite independent not only of actors' motivations but also of organizations' orientations.
Also consider Habermas's critique of Nietzsche for failing to address adequately actors'
cognitive interests (1968a: chapter 12). Despite numerous suggestions to the contrary,
Nietzsche ultimately reduces reason to a mere perspective backed up by power. This is
very evident, for instance, in the closing pages of The Genealogy of Morals (1887).
Laumann and Knoke (1987: 347, note 2) and other network analysts continue to employ
this reductionist concept as their very definition of power, as does Abbott (1988) in his
pathbreaking study of professions. This ensures that they cannot distinguish actors' demonstrable social control from their possible social integration, irrespective of what the evidence happens to be.
Recall that Coleman (1988) referred to social capital in reference to whether children can
Notes to chapter 11
21
22
23
24
25
26
321
walk the streets safely (see chapter 9, page 209; chapter 6, notes 23, 26). By contrast, the
social capital being discussed in the text rests on the relationship between the threshold of
interpretability and whether adults are treated as reasoning and responsible actors. Whenever power holders prepare (or later present) rationales for their actions and proposals
that move at all beyond their strictly instrumental and strategic rationality, they are implicitly treating the actors that they are addressing in this way. This treatment is social capital
or a public good, in and of itself.
Lauman and Knoke find (1987: 381) that "the boundaries between public and private
sectors are blurred, and irrelevant, even in noncorporatist societies" like the United
States. Because the public/private distinction is blurred in every modern nation-state,
however, it can no longer inform detailed comparative study. What needs to be addressed
instead is whether and where voluntaristic procedural orientations persist, and whether
and where they collapse.
Przeworski (1986: 57-8) wrongly emphasizes the importance of the uncertainty of electoral outcomes and of other governmental actions as the key factor in the transition to
"democracy." It was explained in the opening chapter why this obscures more than it
reveals about whether actors are controlled or possibly integrated. As examples, as the
results of elections and the actions of government in Mexico, or in Chicago, become more
uncertain, will this tell social scientists anything at all about whether politics has become
more democratic? Moreover, will this tell them anything about whether heterogeneous
actors' and competing groups' possibilities for integration are increasing or decreasing
within either social order? Przeworski himself acknowledges that it does not, concluding
his essay by noting: "Yet what we need, and do not have, is a more comprehensive,
integral, ideological project of antiauthoritarianism that would encompass the totality of
social life" (1986: 63). The theory of societal constitutionalism is designed to contribute to
such a project, provided that the word "ideological" is dropped from Przeworski's call.
Thus, the theory of societal constitutionalism can at a certain point charge laissez-faire
liberals within complicity in authoritarian drift, much as Arendt accused them of this in
1951. Hayek is a more sophisticated liberal than Milton Friedman, for instance, because he
sees that the "rule of law" is both superordinate to the liberal market and something of a
restraint on it. Moreover, the theory of societal constitutionalism can radically question
actors' subjective impressions of their own interactions whereas researchers employing
concepts of symbolic interactionism or structuration theory must ultimately treat these
impressions as a fixed datum.
Formal lawsuits or other formal judicial proceedings are excluded from consideration in
this discussion. If the integrity of sectoral and divisional collegial formations is being
encroached against, and in particular within a civil-law country, there is no reason to
believe that the courts can maintain their integrity. Not only Nazi Germany and Fascist
Italy but also military and civilian dictatorships of Latin America and the former Eastern
bloc have amply demonstrated this.
This approach to the social infrastructure of nonauthoritarian social order is consistent
with how "public opinion" is characterized by social scientists who study it methodically,
rather than with how it is hypostatized by those who think a constituent force protects
Western democracies from malevolent drift. In political science, since V.O. Key (1942,
1961), public opinion has been seen by specialists as mediated by and through "issue
publics" or what sociologists call significant others or opinion leaders. In sociology, Turner
and Killian (1957: chapters 9-11) point out that "keynoters" even mediate crowd behavior, and they review the various filters through which public opinion is expressed.
Newspapers and electronic news media which remain "free" but operate within nationstates that lack a network of collegial formations (e.g. Mexico) do indeed become altogether latent in their social energy. They become strictly informational, like service
322
27
28
29
30
31
Notes to chapter 11
libraries or entertainment centers. See Joshua Meyrowitz (1986) for an illuminating

discussion of the respects in which electronic media differ from print media in their social
impact. See Anthony Leeds (1964) for a now classic discussion of how "information"
within Brazilian newspapers and media supports the entire system of stratification even
as it simultaneously publicizes some "circulation of elites," or advances by talented
children of the working classes into the elite.
Parsons's later references to professions, universities, and intellectual networks may be
read as a weak substitute for a public realm proper - one posed within a conceptual
framework already closed to the concept of reasoned social action (Parsons 1969a; Parsons
and Platt 1973). It is also useful to compare the practicability of instituting a public realm
in civil society with the utopianism of Collins's call (1979) to abolish credentials.
The theory of societal constitutionalism directs social scientists to explore, for instance,
whether such behavior by middle-class professionals within private enterprises is a more
serious challenge to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change than the working class's
subjective attitudes, whatever they might be, toward ethnic or religious minorities (see
Lipset 1960; Lipset and Raab 1970 on the latter).
The strongest point in Bloom's (1987) assessment of university education is by no means
his characterization of undergraduate students but instead his characterization of his
former colleagues at Cornell. Again, he assesses a faculty in terms of an ultimately unarticulated substantive ideal of the university's mission and of the undergraduate curriculum. With this, he is as intrigued by the situation on the Continent as he is depressed by
that in the United States. By contrast, the theory of societal constitutionalism assesses a
faculty (or any other body of professionals or deliberators) in terms of the presence or
absence of collegial formations, irrespective of whether the individuals involved agree in
substance regarding the university's mission or the undergraduate curriculum. With this in
mind, let us assume that faculties on the Continent indeed uphold an undergraduate
curriculum and express a sense of the university's mission that come closer to Bloom's
substantive ideal. What needs to be addressed by Bloom and others, however, is whether
collegial formations are really to be found anywhere within French, German, or Italian
universities, either historically or today. Or, alternatively, are patron-client networks or
hierarchical decrees more likely to characterize their hiring, promotion, and reviewing
decisions? Is Bloom prepared to defend this because it results in outcomes that come closer
to his unarticulated substantive ideal? If so, then Bloom's position regarding the university
is not noticeably different, in principle, from Catherine MacKinnon's position regarding
rape: Both positions hypostatize some particular group's unmediated subjective judgments
of what the university or rape is, at the expense of the threshold of interpretability.
See Merton (1938b, 1942) and Hall (1987) for very different accounts of how science
supports a democratic society. See Brennan and Buchanan (1985) for a very different
account of how the hypostatization of science threatens & democratic society. See note 31
on Merton and note 34 on Brennan and Buchanan.
Merton (1938b, 1942) argued some time ago that there is a relationship between "democracy" and the integrity of scientific research. His way of putting the issue then, as well as later
in his career, suffers from three limitations: First, his view of democracy fails to escape the
presupposition of exhausted possibilities. Second, and relatedly, his view of democracy is
also relativist or quite American-centered in value-commitment rather than generalizable
(and then either favorable to American institutions or not). Third, Merton fails to distinguish encroachments against science from those against "all other institutions" of moral
authority (1938b: 258), including religious institutions. His criticisms of Nazism in 1938, for
instance, were for this reason and others surprisingly weak: "It would be misleading to
suggest that the Nazi government has completely repudiated science and intellect. The
official attitudes toward science are clearly ambivalent and unstable. (For this reason, any
Notes to chapter 11
323
statements concerning science in Nazi Germany are made under correction.)" His oftencited four "institutional imperatives [which] comprise the ethos of modern science" (1942:
607-15) - universalism, "communism" of substantive findings, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism - begin to distinguish science from other institutions of moral authority.
But they still lack clear thresholds that could enable researchers (or observers) to specify
when the integrity of scientific enterprises in particular is being encroached against. Thus,
Merton's weak statements regarding science within Nazi Germany.
32 Donald Black's (1984) approach to social control is an exemplar not only of the relativism
of contemporary social science but of its increasing nihilism. He proposes to "predict and
explain" why different mechanisms of social control appear "in different quantities" within
different social settings regardless of their purpose or consequences. This is merely relativistic as long as he restricts himself to ignoring their consequences for particular individuals
or substantive interests. It becomes nihilistic, however, once he ignores the consequences
for organizational forms, and thereby for both internal and external procedural restraints.
Black is indeed indifferent to these empirical issues (1984: 6). His thesis is that increased
variation in the mechanisms of social control within a society "is a direct function [in the
mathematical sense of this term] of social diversity" (1984: 17), and that social diversity
also increases variations in judges' rulings (1984: 18). Since it has "become increasingly
difficult to predict the disposition of cases with the written law alone," Black concludes
(1984: 18-19): "[T]he rules have been losing their importance. The widely held view that
law is essentially an affect of rules [and Black cites Hart 1961 and Fuller 1964/1969] may
thus be an historically grounded notion that is becoming obsolete." The rules lose their
importance, however, only within the purview of Black's positivist social science. The
latter revolves around characterizing students of society as monads dedicated to copying
objective states of affairs. But this does not mean that the rules are losing importance for
citizens who happen to be living within any particular modern nation-state, or for social
scientists who happen to be working within any particular form of organization. Black's
positivist social science cannot address the distinction between authoritarian and nonauthoritarian directions of social change, nor the distinction between social scientists' possible social integration and demonstrable social control. Yet, he has not somehow demonstrated scientifically that these distinctions are merely subjective, or beyond conceptual
grounding and empirical operationalization. Black's proposed "general theory of social
control" thereby ignores the institutional and organizational preconditions which account
for the possibility of Black's own research being undertaken within and around collegial
formations. Jack Gibbs (1981: 75) is troubled by the relativism and nihilism of the scientific
study of social control. But he, too, does not know what to do about it. He points out, for
instance, that a Gestapo agent and a British bobby "cannot be treated as equivalent." But
he fails to provide a single conceptual distinction in terms of which they might be treated
differently. He instead concedes that this distinction, as well as any defense of due process,
for instance, is strictly a value judgment.
33 Ironically, Habermas's consensus theory as well as liberal social contract theories, including Brennan and Buchanan's constitutional economics, share this weakness with positivists' accounts of science. They, too, fail to discuss forms of organization standing between
consensual individuals and the legitimate state. Recall, too, that the civil-law tradition is
oriented to the certainty of enforcement, and framed by bureaucratic formations of lawmaking and law enforcement. The common-law tradition is oriented by the interpretability
of the rules, and framed by collegial formations that, for instance, permit lower courts to
call into question the decisions of national lawmaking bodies and the actions of law
enforcement agencies (Merryman 1969/1985).
34 Brennan and Buchanan (1985: 37-45) are opposed to defining democracy by analogy to
science and the pursuit of truth rather than by analogy to an economic marketplace and
324
Notes to chapter 11
the sovereignty of actors' subjective interests. They are opposed to this precisely because
the former subordinates majority rule to some standard or principle of truth, and thereby
challenges their "contractarian vision." But what they fail to appreciate, even though
Buchanan is a Hobbesian rather than a Lockean, is that this elevates actors' subjective
interests, and the concomitant drift of interest competition within economic and political
marketplaces, to the only standard of reason in individuals' relationship to the state (or to
any other powerful enterprise). They fail to see that there is an intersubjective standard of
reason that is indeed superordinate to actors' subjective interests. This standard is procedural and voluntaristic rather than substantive or "objective." Brennan and Buchanan
adamantly oppose treating democracy by analogy to science, therefore, only because
they wrongly accept positivists' accounts of the scientific enterprise (1985: 40-1). Given
this questionable point of departure, their opposition to bringing any objective standard
or copy theory of truth to politics follows quite logically. The problem is that this
prevents them from considering how the voluntaristic orientation and social duties shared
by all scientists who maintain their professional integrity are indeed related to the
nonauthoritarian/authoritarian distinction.
35 Compare Parsons's references to intellectuals to Arendt's distinction between "hommes de
lettres" and "intellectuals" (1963: 115-22). Her distinction rests on her vision of a public
realm that directs social change rather than leaving it to drift.
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Name index
Abbott, Andrew, 54, 167-169, 183, 254,

257, 288n, 305n, 311n, 320n
Abel, Richard L., 286n
Ackerman, Bruce A., 40, 293n, 315n
Adler, Frank, 18
Adorno, Theodor W., 145, 275n
Adriaansens, Hans P. M., 134
Alapuro, Risto, 10, 40
Aleinikoff, T. Alexander, 44, 68, 71, 77, 89,
308n, 313n
Alexander, Jeffrey C , 10, 18, 23, 28, 31,
133-134, 145, 147, 220, 250, 253-254,
269, 279n, 281n-282n, 289n-290n, 292n,
299n-300n, 305n, 308n
Allen, William Sheridan, 216
Althusser, Louis, 32
Amenta, Edwin, 31, 35-36, 278n
Anderson, Charles W., 35, 193, 211, 284n,
311n
Antonio, Robert X, 18, 98, 292n
Apel, Karl-Otto, 99, 128, 292n, 301n, 315n
Archer, Margaret S., 273n, 277n
Arendt, Hannah, 57-58, 200, 222, 248, 258,
279n-280n, 283n, 287n, 297n, 314n-315n,
317n, 321n, 324n
Arrow, Kenneth X, 280n, 285n
Austin, X L., 102, 290n, 292n
Balbus, Isaac, 275n
Bales, Robert F. See Parsons, Talcott
Barber, Bernard, 18, 159, 253-254, 305n
Barber, Elinor. See Merton, Robert K.
Barry, Brian M , 299n
Battle, John M., 222
Baum, Rainer C. See Loubser, Jan
Baylis, Thomas A., 319n
Beeghley, L., 133-134
Beetham, David, 280n-281n
Bell, Daniel, 34-35, 45, 77, 308n-309n,
315n
Bell, Wendell, 19
Bellah, Robert N., 45, 77, 303n, 308n-309n
Bendix, Reinhard, 9, 34-35, 41, 78, 281n,
315n
Bentley, Arthur F., 67
Berger, Joseph, 23
Berkowitz, S. D., 273n, 317n
Berman, Harold J., 206
Bernstein, Richard X, 104, 292n
Bershady, Harold X, 18, 219, 272n, 299n
Birman, Igor, 222
Black, Donald, 3, 27-28, 31, 94, 111, 278n,
294n-295n, 316n, 323n
Blau, Peter M., 41, 304n
Block, Fred, 31-32, 278n
Bloom, Allan, 17, 78, 146, 178, 247, 272n,
275n, 303n, 307n-308n, 314n, 319n-320n,
322n
Blumer, Herbert, 70, 249, 298n
Bobbio, Norberto, 271n
Bollen, Kenneth A., 194, 297n
Bottomore, Tom, 292n
Bould, Sally, 18, 251
Bourricaud, Francois, 134
Braithwaite, John, 5, 13-14, 19, 25, 78, 183,
189, 274n, 286n-287n, 296n, 310n, 315n,
320n
Bredemeier, Harry C , 299n
Brennan, Geoffrey, 23-24, 31, 44-45, 47,
60, 68-69, 71, 77, 98, 112, 215, 249, 271n,
276n-277n, 279n-280n, 282n-283n,
285n-287n, 291n, 293n-296n, 308n-309n,
313n, 319n, 322n, 323n
Brill, Alida, 60, 69, 286n, 309n
Brooke, James, 310n
Buchanan, James M., 23-24, 31, 41, 44-45,
47, 57, 59-60, 68-69, 71, 73, 77, 98, 112,
169, 209, 215, 222, 249, 271n, 276n-277n,
279n-280n, 282n-283n, 285n-287n, 291n,
293n, 294n-296n, 308n-310n, 313n-314n,
319n, 322n-323n
349
350
Bucher, Roe, 30, 67
Burawoy, Michael, 34, 310n
Burger, Thomas, 281n, 299n
Burin, F. S.,92
Burnham, Walter Dean, 201
Burt, Ronald S., 31, 194, 273n, 317n
Burton, Michael G. See Higley, John
Calabresi, Guido, 293n
Calhoun, John C , 283n
Camic, Charles, 134, 299n
Cancian, Francesca, 299n
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 5, 27In
Cawson, Allan, 278n
Chambers, William, 201
Charlton, JoyC.,30
Chomsky, Noam, 102
Clinard, Marshall, 13, 286n, 288n
Cohen, Bernard P., 9
Cohen, Ira, 18, 277n
Cohen, Jean, 281n
Cohen, Jere, 134, 299n
Coke, Edward, 289n
Coleman, James S., 6, 24, 41, 48, 133,138,
209, 254, 285n, 296n-297n, 320n
Collins, Hugh, 286n, 294n
Collins, Randall, 1, 4, 15, 28, 54, 98-99,
169-170, 245, 282n, 291n-293n, 296n,
306n, 308n, 320n, 322n
Colomy, Paul, 19, 252, 305n
Comte, Auguste, 201
Connor, Walker, 61, 284n
Cook, Karen, 133
Coser, Lewis A., 4
Craib, Ian, 307n
Crane, Diana, 170, 183, 273n
Crozier, Michel, 41
Dahl, Robert A . , 6 3 , 278n
Dallmayr, Fred R., 104, 292n, 295n
Damaska, Mirjan R., 286n
D'Antonio, William V , 18, 312n
Davis, F. James, 376n
Deal, Terence E.,306n
DeMott, Deborah A., 122, 159, 166
Diamond, Martin, 317n-318n
Dobbin, Frank R., 313n
Domhoff, G. William, 31-32
dos Santos, Theotonio, 5
Dowd, Jerome, 288n
Downs, Anthony, 313n
Dryzek, John S., 26, 43
Duke, David, 314n
Duncan, Otis Dudley, 304n
Durkheim, Emile, 5, 30, 132, 146, 148-149,
202, 273n, 298n
Duverger, Maurice, 200
Name index
Dworkin, Ronald, 40, 60, 77, 283n, 293n,
311n
Dynes, Russell, 18
Dynes, Wallace, 19
Edelman, Lauren. See Dobbin, Frank R.
Effrat, Andrew. See Loubser, Jan
Eisenstadt, S. N.,9, 163
Elkin, Stephen L.,294n
Elster, John, 276n
Ely, John Hart, 40, 49, 68, 77, 287n, 293n,
308n
Enloe, Cynthia H., 61, 284n
Ermann, David, 274n
Esping-Anderson, Gosta, 10, 175, 278n
Etzioni, Amitai, 26, 28, 41, 272n, 281n,
309n
Evan, William M., 41, 189-190, 309n, 313n,
315n
Evans, Peter B., 2, 31, 191, 285n
Factor, Regis A., 281n
Faris, E.,299n
Featherman, David L., 304n
Fellman, David, 60, 286n
Fessler, Daniel Wm., 190, 309n
Finsterbusch, Kurt, 19
Fisk, Winston Mills, 317n-318n
Frankel, Tamar, 159, 166
Freeman, Michael, 307n
Freidson, Eliot, 306n
Freud, Sigmund, 30, 202, 313n
Freund, Julien, 281n
Friedland, Roger, 194
Friedman, Milton, 279n, 306n, 32In
Friedrich, Carl J., 40, 75, 78, 222, 233, 284n,
291n, 315n
Fulcher, James, 33, 61, 271n
Fuller, Lon L., 16-17, 57, 65, 72, 76, 82,
87-89, 93-94, 97-98, 105-117, 119-120,
122-123, 128-129, 131, 150-151,153,
156, 196, 288n-293n, 294n-298n, 301n,
313n, 315n, 318n,323n
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 308n, 315n
Gans, Herbert, 15, 32, 304n
Garfinkel, Herbert, 317n-318n
Garson, G. David, 72, 284n
Gellner, Ernest, 163, 304n
Geraets, Theodore F , 292n
Gerstein, Dean R., 18, 133-134, 219, 299n
Gibbs, Jack, 27-28, 31, 136, 278n, 288n,
294n, 296n, 307n, 323n
Giddens, Anthony, 4, 31, 98, 174, 250,
273n, 277n-278n, 297n, 310n
Gold, David, 31
Name index
Goldfarb, Jeffrey C , 310n
Goldner,F. H.,62,288n
Goldstein, Herman, 63,120, 296n
Gouldner, Alvin W., 41, 134, 245, 293n,
315n
Gretzinger, Ralph, 274n-275n
Grey, Thomas C , 92, 290n
Griffiths, John, 28, 278n
Grossman, Joel B., 70
Haar, Charles M., 190, 309n
Habermas, Jurgen, 2, 16-17, 32, 36, 41, 45,
57, 63, 72-73, 75, 78, 88-105, 109-110,
113, 121, 123-126, 128-129,131,150151,153-154, 156, 159, 185, 200, 210,
222, 226, 234, 236-238, 240, 243, 246,
249, 255-256, 258, 263, 265, 267, 272n,
275n-277n, 281n, 284n, 287n, 289n-294n,
297n, 299n-302n, 307n-310n, 314n-317n,
319n, 323n
Hagopian, Mark N., 284n
Halas, Elzbieta, 19
Hall, John A., 6, 69, 272n, 315n, 322n
Hall, John R., 19
Hammond, Michael, 19
Hannan, John, 307n
Hansen, Roger D., 164
Hao, Pan, 19
Hart, H.L.A., 64, 94, 107, 289n, 293n,
298n, 31 In, 323n
Hauser, Robert M., 304n
Hawkins, Keith, 97,112, 286n, 310n
Hayek, Friedrich A., 44, 57, 113, 222, 279n,
283n, 285n, 287n, 315n, 321n
Hazelrigg, Lawrence E., 134, 299n
Hechter, Michael, 6, 24, 36, 43, 45, 48, 6869, 98, 133, 138, 202, 208, 215, 243, 254,
272n-273n, 281n, 284n-285n, 289n, 297n,
300n, 313n, 318n
Heinz, John P., 278n
Held, David, 292n
Higley, John, 194
Hobbes, Thomas, 43, 124, 138-139, 279n,
289n, 297n
Hobhouse, L. T.,40
Hoffman, Martin L., 290n
Hollingshead, August B., 288n
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 64, 92, 107, 290n
Homans, George, 133
Horkheimer, Max, 145, 275n, 316n
Horowitz, Donald L., 68, 287n
Hughes, H. Stuart, 281n
Huntington, Samuel P., 4, 280n
Hurst, John Willard, 187-189, 312n
Jackman, Robert W., 194, 297n
Jacobs, David, 19
351
Jacobson, David C , 281n
Jaguaribe, Helio, 5
Janowitz, Morris, 28-31, 35, 277n-278n,
297n
Jay, Martin, 41, 291n
Jenkins, J. Craig, 36
Jenkins, Patricia, 19, 168, 305n
Johnson, Harry M., 134
Kalberg, Stephen, 45, 281n, 290n
Kant, Immanuel, 295n
Kaplan, Harold, 299n
Kaplan, Howard B., 23
Katznelson, Ira, 35
Kelsen, Hans, 64, 93-94, 290n, 311n
Kennedy, Michael D., 19, 307n
Kerbo, Harold R., 35
Key,V. O.,Jr.,321n
Killian, Lewis M., 36, 249, 321n
Kirchheimer, Otto, 275n
Klockars, Carl B., 19, 119, 315n
Knoke, David, 32, 36, 61, 70-71, 74, 76,
185, 187, 257, 272n-273n, 279n, 285n,
304n,314n,318n-321n
Kornhauser, William, 279n
Korpi, Walter, 9, 175, 278n
Kronman, A., 91-94, 281n, 289n-290n,
295n, 297n
Ladd, Everett Carll, Jr., 201
Lakatos, Imre, 128
Larson, Magali Sarfatti, 1, 54, 169
Laumann, Edward O., 32, 36, 61, 70-71,
74, 76, 185, 187, 257, 272n, 273n, 278n279n, 285n, 304n, 310n, 318n-321n
Law and Contemporary Problems, 119
Lawson, Searle, 274n-275n
Lechner, Frank, 19
Leeds, Anthony, 322n
Lehmbruch, Gerhard. See Schmitter,
Philippe C.
Leifer, Eric M., 249
Levine, Donald N., 19, 281n, 290n, 315n
Lewis, Roy, 307n
Lidz, Victor M. See Loubser, Jan
Lieberson, Stanley, 273n
Lijphart, Arend, 283n-284n
Lindblom, Charles E., 42
Lindsay, A. D.,40
Line, Russell, 275n
Linz, Juan J., 179, 273n
Lipset, Seymour Martin, 9, 34-35, 41, 275n,
322n
Llewellyn, Karl, 107
Lo, Clarence, 31
Locke, John, 279n, 287n, 289n, 294n
352
Lockwood, David, 277n
Loewenstein, Karl, 40, 315n
Lofquist, William, 19, 274n
Lorrain, Francois, 317n
Loubser, Jan, 134, 147
Lowi, Theodore, 59, 61, 63, 67, 72, 113,
186, 279n, 283n-284n, 286n-287n, 291n,
310n, 312n, 315n
Luhmann, Niklas, 4, 32, 62-64, 70, 75, 78,
89, 94-95, 98, 113, 134, 147, 174, 185,
192, 211, 220, 223, 271n-272n, 276n278n, 280n, 282n-283n, 285n-286n, 289n,
291n, 293n-294n, 300n, 303n, 307n-309n,
314n-317n, 319n-320n
Lukacs, Janos, 41, 124, 294n, 310n
Lukes, Steven, 286n, 294n
Lundman, Richard, 274n
Luttwak, Edward, 278n
MacCormick, Neil, 293n

Maclntyre, Alasdair, 78, 287n, 315n
MacKinnon, Catherine A., 71, 118, 286n,
322n
Macpherson, C. B., 59, 243, 287n, 290n,
297n
Madge, Charles, 299n
Madsen, Richard. See Bellah, Robert N.
Maines, David R., 30, 42
Mann, Michael, 4, 6, 100
Mannheim, Karl, 41, 215, 291n, 316n
Marcuse, Herbert, 275n, 281n-282n
Marsh, Robert, 19
Marshall, Alfred, 132, 149, 298n
Martin, Bill. See Szelenyi, Ivan
Martin, Michael, 293n
Martins, Luciano, 194
Marwell, Gerald, 318n
Marx, Karl, 2, 5, 26, 40, 68, 124, 201, 238,
278n, 279n, 294n
Maryanski, Alexandra. See Turner, Jonathan H.
Masters, Roger, 317n
Maude, Angus, 307n
Mayer, John A., 28, 250
Mayhew, Leon H., 134
McAdam, Doug, 36
McCarthy, John D., 18, 36
McCarthy, Thomas, 292n, 299n, 301n
McClosky, Herbert, 60, 69, 286n, 309n
McDonough, Peter, 164, 194, 273n
McNall, Scott, 19
Meador, Daniel John, 116, 286n
Menzies, Ken, 134, 300n
Merry, Sally Engle, 287n
Merryman, John Henry, 286n, 293n, 323n
Name index
Merton, Robert K., 4, 19, 41, 215, 253-254,
271n, 298n, 300n-301n, 322n
Meszaros, Istvan, 78
Meyer, John W., 9, 19, 151, 157, 171-173,
305n-307n
Meyrowitz, Joshua, 322n
Michelman, Frank, 287n, 313n
Michels, Robert, 41, 202, 279n-280n
Miliband, Ralph, 31
Millar, James R., 311n
Milsom, S.F.C., 233
Mintz, Beth, 31
Mitchell, William C , 299n
Mizruchi, Mark S., 19, 31
Mommsen, Wolfgang J., 280n-281n
Moore, Barrington, 9-10, 34-35, 41, 78,
31 On
Moore, Michael S., 305n
Morris, AldonD., 36
Mosca, Gaetano, 202
Muir, W. K., 315n
Munch, Richard, 134, 220, 282n, 294n295n, 300n, 305n, 308n
Murphy, Raymond, 1, 15, 28, 54, 282n,
308n
Nadel, S. F.,273n
Nagel, Ernest, 107, 289n
Nagel, Robert F.,287n
Nedelmann, Birgitta, 18-19
Nelson, Benjamin, 78
Nemedi, Denes, 18
Neumann, Franz, 92, 275n
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 202, 298n, 313n, 320n
Niskanen, William, 313n-314n
Nonet, Philippe, 293n, 295n
Note, 70, 183
Oberschall, Anthony, 36, 273n
O'Connor, James, 31
O'Donnell, Guillermo A., 5, 75, 164, 194,
318n
Offe, Claus, 160, 304n
Oliver, Pamela E.,318n
Oilman, Bertell, 34
Olson, Mancur, 36, 104, 202, 243, 272n,
300n, 318n
O'Neill, John, 292n, 299n
Ortega y Gasset, Jose, 279n
Panitch, Leo, 10
Pareto, Vilfredo, 47, 132, 138-139, 146147, 149, 202, 281n, 298n
Parkin, Frank, 1, 15, 28, 282n, 308n
Parsons, Talcott, 4, 16-17, 23, 28-30, 4 1 -
Name index
43, 87-88, 90, 95, 98, 108-109, 131-135,
138-140, 145-151, 153-154, 160, 174,
183, 187-189, 214, 217-219, 221-232,
243,251-259, 269-273n, 276n-277n,
279n-280n, 281n-282n, 286n, 288n-290n,
295n, 298n-302n, 305n, 307n, 308n,
314n-316n, 320n-321n, 324n
Pennsylvania Law Review, 40, 60, 77, 287n
Perrow, Charles, 9, 41, 61

Platt, Gerald M., 28, 183, 253, 269-270,
305n, 315n, 320n, 322n
Polanyi, Karl, 279n-280n
Pope, Whitney, 134, 299n
Popenoe, David, 1, 178, 207, 284n, 297n,
300n, 307n
Popper, Karl, 102, 128, 215, 268, 301n
Poulantzas, Nicos, 32, 41
Pound, Roscoe, 107
Powell, John Duncan, 304n
Prahl, Ralph, 318n
Proctor, Ian, 134
Przeworski, Adam, 10, 34, 64, 176, 178,
271n, 278n, 321n
Purcell, John F.H., 164
Purcell, Susan Kaufman, 164
Quadagno, Jill, 35, 185
Raab, Earl, 275n, 322n
Radnitzky, Gerard, 292n, 301n
Rawls, John, 289n
Ressell, Terence, 19
Rex, John, 4
Rhoades, Gary, 252, 305n
Ridge way, Cecilia L., 23
Ritti, R. R.,62, 288n
Rochberg-Halton, Eugene, 292n
Rocher, Guy, 299n
Roniger, L., 163
Rosefielde, Steven, 222
Ross, Edward A., 27
Roth, Guenther, 281n
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 317n
Rowan, Brian, 9, 151, 157, 306n
Rudolph, Lloyd I., 41
Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber, 41
Rueschmeyer, Dietrich, 2, 31, 285n
Sabato, Larry X, 32
Sabia, D. R., Jr.,292n
Samuelson, Paul, 209
Sanders, Jimy, 194
Sartori, Giovanni, 40, 27In
Scheff, Thomas J., 27, 159, 250, 276n
Schelling, Thomas, 276n
353
Schluchter, Wolfgang, 42, 78, 279n-281n,
290n, 295n, 315n
Schmidt, SteffenW., 163
Schmitter, Philippe C , 5, 9-10, 36, 61, 73,
75, 175, 178n-179n, 194, 208, 271n, 279n,
284n-285n, 318n
Schroyer, Trent, 292n
Schumpeter, Joseph A., 279n
Schwartz, Michael, 31
Sciulli, David, 17, 31, 34, 109, 139, 168, 200,
219, 227, 251, 272n-273n, 275n, 277n,
279n, 282n-283n, 286n-287n, 289n, 294n,
305n, 314n-315n,318n,320n
Scott, James C.,304n
Scott, John Finley, 29, 133-134, 276n, 289n,
296n
Scott, W. Richard, 9, 306n-308n
Selznick, Philip, 41, 189-191, 209, 241,
293n, 295n, 309n-310n, 313n, 315n
Sennett, Richard, 287n, 315n
Sewell, William H., Jr., 279n
Shell, K. L., 92
Sherman, Lawrence, 120
Shils, Edward A., 281n
Sica, Alan, 281n-282n, 293n, 299n, 315n
Siedman, Louis Michael, 77, 313n
Sieves, Abbe, 317n
Silberman, Charles E., 286n, 310n
Sink, Robert, 274n-275n
Sirianni, Carmen, 34
Sitton, John F., 200
Skocpol, Theda, 2, 9-10, 31, 34-36, 272n,
278n-279n, 285n
Smelser, Neil J., 9, 36, 42, 280n
Smith, Adam, 68, 279n
Soltan, Karol, 19
Sorel, Georges, 202
Spitzer, Steven, 286n, 294n
Sprague, John, 64, 278n
Stammer, Otto, 316n
Stelling, Joan, 30
Stepan, Alfred. See Linz, Juan J.
Stephens, John D., 10, 175, 278n
Stewart, Richard B., 41, 189, 209, 298n,
309n-310n, 312n-313n,320n
Stinchcombe, Arthur L., 214, 320n
Stone, Christopher, 70, 310n
Strauss, Anselm, 30, 67, 249, 292n
Strauss, Leo, 145-146, 314n
Streeck, Wolfgang, 75, 208
Stritch, Thomas. See Schmitter, Philippe C.
Stryker, Sheldon, 19, 250, 302n
Sullivan, Teresa, 19
Sullivan, William N. See Bellah, Robert N.
Summers, Robert S., 64, 107, 290n, 293n,
297n-298n
354
Sunstein, Cass R., 287n, 308n, 313n
Swanson, Guy E., 299n
Swidler, Ann, 231,249
Teixeira, Ruy, 318n
Therborn, Goran, 32, 34, 36, 278n
Thompson, James D., 61
Thompson, John B., 292n
Tilly, Charles, 2-3, 6, 9-10, 32, 34-35,
272n, 297n
Tipton, Steven M. See Bellah, Robert N.
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 279n, 317n
Truman, David, 61, 69, 286n
Tuch, Steven A., 312n
Tullock, Gordon, 313n
Turkel, Gerald, 18, 91
Turner, Jonathan H., 30, 36, 133-134, 249,
281n, 289n, 298n, 321n
Turner, Ralph H., 292n
Turner, Stephen P. See Factor, Regis A.
Unger, Roberto Mangabeira, 70, 293n, 315n
Useem, Michael, 31-32,183, 297n
Vandivier, Kermit, 274n-275n
Van Horn, Russell, 274n
Vile, M.J.C., 76, 113, 234, 287n, 315n
Walker, Henry A., 9
Wallace, Ruth, 18
Wallulis,J. T,292n
Warner, R. Stephen, 19, 134, 254, 276n,
299n
Warren, John, 274n
Warren, Roland L., 137
Waterbury, John, 163
Name index
Waters, Malcolm, 52, 282n, 305n-306n,
315n, 319n
Weber, Max, 9, 26, 31, 40-48, 60, 64, 6768, 76, 81, 88, 90-96,104, 106, 109, 111,
115, 127, 132, 135, 137-139, 145, 149,
154, 200, 202, 209, 215, 222, 224-226,
231, 238, 278n-281n, 288n-290n, 295n,
297n-298n, 301n, 305n
Weil, Frederick D., 126
Wellman, Barry, 41, 273n, 292n
Wellmer, Albrecht, 98-99
Wells, RichardS., 70
Wessely, Anna, 19
White, Harrison C , 317n
Whitehead, Laurence, 75, 194, 318n
Wiarda, Howard J. See Schmitter, Philippe
C.
Wiley, Norbert, 297n, 299n
Wilier, David, 19,133
Williamson, Oliver E., 191
Winch, Peter, 216, 299n
Wirth, Louis, 299n
Wolfe, Alan, 35, 275n, 278n
Wolin, Sheldon, 279n, 313n
Wright, Erik Olin, 31, 34
Wrong, Dennis H., 299n, 302n
Wuthnow, Robert, 293n
Yale Law Journal, 40, 71, 77, 200, 233,
271n, 283n, 291n, 303n, 312n-313n, 315n
Yeager, Peter C , 13, 286n, 288n
Young, Crawford, 287n
Zald, Mayer N., 18, 31, 36, 277n
Zaret, David, 281n
Zucker, Lynne G., 9, 306n
Subject index
Actor, definition of, 299n

Affirmative action, 319n-320n
AGIL schema, 87, 307n, 314n
Alienation, 99
Marx's concept of, 2, 6, 16, 318n
Altruism, 277n
American democracy, realist appraisal of,
72-73. See also Pluralism
American politics, substantive drift of, 188
Anachronistic nationalism, 58
Analytical concepts, 219
Analytical distinctions, 218
Anglo-American tradition, analytical restatement of, 191-196
Anomie, 146, 300n
Anticipated reactions, 61
institutionalization of, 260-265, 284n
Arbitrary government, 62-64, 68-69, 75,
285n, 287n. See also Collective
power, arbitrary exercise of
restraints on
codified in Western tradition, 76
internal, 189
internal normative, 72
internal procedural, 71
internal substantive, 75-76
voluntaristic, 198
Argentina, 194
Aspirations. See also Morality of aspiration
public, 116-118, 296n
Authoritarianism, 8, 38-39, 43, 179,
282n
drift toward. See Drift
elite, 275n
governmental, 69
in non-Western nation-states, 15
political (and social), 43-47
social, 40-41, 57, 114, 257-259
external procedural restraints on, 82
in Western democracy, 13-15, 275n
working-class, 275n
Authoritarian/nonauthoritarian distinction,
8, 139, 217
Autonomy, Dahl's concept of, 278n
Autopoiesis, 113, 276n-277n, 282n-283n,
289n, 300n, 303n, 308n, 320n
Autoritat, 94, 291n
Bastard pragmatism, of interest-group politics, 208, 312n. See also Interestgroup pluralism
institutionalization of, 208-209
Behavior. See also Collegial form(ation), actors' behavior within and around
acceptable, 244
acknowledged ranges of expectations
of, 23-24, 110, 156, 211-212, 243244, 292n, 294n
altruistic, 277n
deviant, 23
economically motivated, limits of, 280n
subjectively unacceptable, 24
B.F. Goodrich Co., 274n-275n
Bourgeois legality, 123-124
Bourgeois public (sphere), 200, 209-210,
222, 234-239, 310n
Brazil, 194-196, 310n
Bribery, 244
Bureaucratization, 42-44, 46, 137, 163, 201
restraints on, 145-148
Capitalism
and inadvertent social control, 32-33
institutional, 278n
and purposeful social control, 31-32
reform and, 33
Charismatic leadership, 43
Citizenship, criteria for, 79, 287n
Civil law, 293n, 323n
Civil religion, 44-45, 49, 77, 280n, 282n,
287n, 308n-309n
Clientelism, 163, 201, 304n
355
356
Coercion, 23-24, 126, 276n
latent, 31, 35
legal, 91
Coercive control, 28-29
Coercive order, law as, 290n
Cognitive contributions, of individual professionals and deliberators, 254-257
Cognitive rationality, 269, 320n
Collective action, 317n
Collective force, legitimate vs. illegitimate
uses of, 3, 272n, 297n
Collective power
abuses of, restraints on, 15
arbitrary exercise of, 239-241, 303n. See
also Arbitrary government
in civil society, 13
inadvertant, 110
by private enterprise, 41, 76
purposeful, 62-64,109-110,187,189205
exercise of, 15-16
predictability of, 280n
innovative exercise of, 43
purposeful exercise of, 59, 72, 121
Collectivities, self-regulation of, 29-31
Collegial form(ation), 17, 77, 82, 87, 90,
114, 121-122, 128-130,143,159160, 164-170, 209-210, 220-221,
228, 232, 259, 292n, 294n
actors' behavior within and around, 153,
160-161
availability for transfer or generalizability,
233
characteristics of, 240
compared to constituent group, 233-241
contingency of, qualities and, 169-170
and contingency of qualities, 167
contribution to scholarly context of research, 267
current status and future prospects, 242270
definition of, 80, 164
in residual terms, 160-162
and direction of social change, 8, 153-154
distinctiveness of, 80-81, 167
distribution of, 183
divisional, 157, 260-263
encroachments against, 165-167,178,306n
and group competition and potential conflict, 244-246
historical decline of, 197, 199-202
institutionalization of, 173
as public policy, 205-213
as institutionalized restraint beyond left
and right, 254-266
integrity of, 170, 178, 183, 260, 306n,
311n
Subject index
and public policy, 178
interrelationship with threshold of interpretability, 129
invariant impact and permanent presence
of, 239-241
links to social power, 242-254
local negotiations of meaning within, 249250
loss of qualities, implications of, 167-169
and middle-class sensibilities, 246-249,
319n
orienting hypothesis regarding, 175
and possessive individualism, 242-243
sectoral, 157, 260-263, 321n
sites of, 129
social bases for, 187
and social order, 243-254
and social stratification, 243-254
subtle restraint by, 255-257
support from public policy, 178, 183-184,
205-213, 221-222, 257
unwitting beneficiaries of, 266-270
voluntaristic orientation of, 166, 205-206,
242-248, 262
Common-law theory, 16, 65-66
Common-law tradition, 124, 293n-294n,
297n,323n
Communication
nondistorted, 100
quality of, 102
systematic distortion of, 32, 276n, 278n
Communication communities, 100-101,
291n
Communication theory, 125
Habermas's, 2, 16, 88, 101, 109, 121, 128,
276n, 289n, 292n-293n, 295n, 297n,
319n
Communicative action, 2, 6, 96-106, 121,
124-125, 151-152, 284n
in courtrooms, 124
Communism, 99
Communitarian morality, 209, 309n, 313n
Comparative research
beyond left and right, 175-179
beyond presupposition of exhausted possibilities, 179-180
limits of, 1-10
proposals for, 175-180
and reasoned social action, 220-221
Comparativism, 9-10
and collective prejudice of presupposition
of exhausted possibilities, 14
Competition, 209, 302n
group, in collegial social order, 244-247,
319n
Compliance theory, 26
Concordance, Gibbs's criterion of, 307n
Subject index
Concurrent majority, 283n
Conflict, 209
in collegial social order, 244-246
Conflict theory, 28, 99
Consciousness communities, 291n-292n,
320n
Consensus, 246
and collegiality, 319n
Consensus theory of truth, 101-102, 105,
159, 268, 307n, 323n
vs. societal constitutionalism, 243-249
Consociational democracy, 283n-284n
Constituent force, 68-69, 202, 222, 285n286n, 301n, 321n
vs. constituent group, 233-239
Constituent group, 232-233
characteristics of, 239
compared to collegial formations, 233241
vs. constituent force, 233-239
restricted impact and temporary presence
of, 233-239
Constitution (U.S.), framing of, 317n
Constitutional economics, 44, 48, 277n,
282n, 285n-287n, 295n-296n, 323n
Constitutional theorists, 40-41, 279n
Consumerism, 242-244
Contractarian vision, 283n, 285n
Copy theory of truth, 99, 101-102, 104, 128,
159, 289n
Corporate crime, 5, 13-14, 274n, 288n
Corporatism, 179
Council system, 200
Coup d'etat, 278n
Credentialling, 245, 306n, 322n
Criminal law, 117
Critical Legal Studies movement, 77
Cultural diversity, 273n
Culture of evasion, 119-120, 296n
Decision-making processes, 280n-281n
Deliberative bodies, rise and decline of,
within civil society, 200
Demagogues, 125
Democracy, 323n-324n. See also
Consociational democracy; Liberal
democracy; Social democracy; Western democracy
and integrity of scientific research, 322n
nonliberal, 10
possibilities for, 178
Democracy/authoritarianism distinction, 8
Democratization, 191, 200-201, 205, 209210, 302n-303n
Dependencia, 1, 27In
Depth hermeneutics, 103
Diagnosis, 167
357
Directionality, 214, 224
Parsons's concept of, 188-189
Discourse
artificially protected arenas of, 103, 293n
symmetry-requirement of, 103
voluntaristic qualities of, 292n
Division of powers, 59-60, 62, 73, 75, 189,
261,287n, 311n
Domestic policy-making, 62-63
Domination, 94, 277n
legitimacy of, Weber's definition of, 91
rational-legal, 91, 95-96
Drift, 41-43, 64, 70, 78-79, 90, 96, 98, 109110, 114, 147, 280n, 287n, 314n
liberal-democratic institutions as accomplices in, 60
macrosociological, 82
manifestations of, 42-43
microsociological, 82
negative implications of, 57
problem of, 43-44
problem of recognizing, 187-189
restraints on, 43-45, 55, 131, 145-148,
210-211
external, 164
external procedural, 79-81, 287n
institutionalization of, 151, 153
as intrinsically unreasoned, 224-228
voluntaristic action as, 144-145
theorists' complicity in, 222-224
unmediated, 45-46
Drift/direction distinction, 187-189, 217218, 221
Due process, 295n
norms of, 71, 286n
Duties of law, 295n
Duties of virtue, 295n
Duty. See also Morality of duty; Social duties
vs. aspiration, 117-118
Eastern bloc, 4-5

civil law systems in, 116
collegial formations in, 176, 307n-308n,
310n
conflict and struggles within, as policy debates, 35-36
developments in civil society vs. developments in state, 310n
workers' movements within, 307n
Economic individualism, 290n
Egalitarianism, 38
Elected officials, 211, 314n
Elections, 59-67, 278n, 283n, 321n
in Latin America, 193
strategic nature of, 60, 284n
Subject index
358
Electoral participation, 312n
in United States, 201, 312n
Elite consensus, within United States, 318n
Elite interest group pluralism, 314n
Elite pacts, 75,194, 318n
Elite solidarity, 31-32
Elitism, 61
Empirical research
conceptual grounding of, 2-3, 27In
resource mobilization approach to, 36,
204
Empirical study, in social sciences, 306n307n
Energy-policy domain, 320n
Entropy, 225
law of, 280n, 282n
Ethics, 298n
Ethnic communalism, resilience of, in Third
World, 61
Ethnic groups, 292n
Exchange theory, 174, 317n
Expert occupations, 170, 306n
Exploitation, 277n
External normative restraints, on interest
competition, 46-51, 282n
External procedural restraints, 55, 140, 224,
226-227
conceptual grounding, 79-81
on drift, 287n
invariant impact of, 79-81
importance of, 56-59, 151-152
on inadvertent or systemic exercises of collective power, 55-56, 187
indirect effects, 283n
institutionalization of, 79-83, 90, 122, 221
institutionalized, threshold of, 153
institutionalized by collegial formations,
232-233
vs. internal procedural restraints, 81-83
normative or nonrational status of, 79
qualities of, 79
on social authoritarianism, 82
substantive effects, 283n
voluntaristic status of, 90, 202-205
and wasted time and space, 211-213
External restraints, 56, 58. See also External
normative restraints; External procedural restraints; External substantive
restraints
on bureaucratization and drift, 145-148
on drift, 164
on inadvertent exercises of collective
power, 55
institutions and norms of, 55, 77-83
External substantive restraints, 224, 303n
on inadvertent or systemic exercises of collective power, 55-56
institutions of, 77-79

vs. internal, 224
Factions, 42-43
Falsification, 301n
Feminism, 71, 286n
Fiduciary relations, 159
Force. See also Collective force
Formal rationality, 315n
Fragmentation of meaning, in modernity,
41-43, 45, 51-52, 54, 67, 70, 78, 96,
98, 109, 147, 283n
Frankfurt school, 5, 41, 92, 272n, 276n,
282n, 291n, 315n
rejection of presupposition of exhausted
possibilities, 272n
Free-rider problem, 243, 272n
Functional differentiation, 55, 67, 70, 98,
280n, 283n, 314n
Functionalism, 16, 174, 273n, 301n
Good life, 116
Governmental constitutionalism, 75, 291n
agent of change for, 233
institutions of, 73
vs. societal constitutionalism, 57, 232-233
Governmental power, proscriptions on, 5962,70,78. See also Division of powers
Great Britain, legal system of, 116, 295n
Group competition, 60-64
Health-care professionals, strikes, 250-251,
255, 319n
Health-policy domain, 250-251, 320n
Herrschaft, 94, 291n
Hobbesian problem of order, 41, 47
Hobbesians, 285n
Homo economicus, 45, 59, 67, 252-253,
277n, 280n, 283n
Ideal speech situation, 101-105, 246, 291n292n
Ideal types, 218
Impossibility theorem, 280n, 285n
India, 310n
Industrialization, 202
social implications of, 40
social theorists' analyses of, 40
Industrial justice, 309n, 313n
Institutional capitalism, 278n
Institutional forms, 285n
Instrumental action, 51, 284n
Instrumental calculation, 42, 281n
Instrumental rationality, 28In
Instrumental theorists, 32
Instrumental versus ritualistic societies, Merton's polar types of, 300n
359
Subject index
Integration, 223. See also Social integration;
System integration
Intellectuals, 324n
cooptation and marginalization of, 268279
Interactionism, 30-31, 69-70, 286n
Interaction ritual chain theory, 296n
Interest competition, 42, 44-45, 47-48, 5 9 60, 67, 72, 190, 257, 283n. See also
Bastard pragmatism, of interestgroup politics
contribution to democracy, 70, 286n
external normative restraints on, 46-51,
282n
pluralists' concept of importance of, 6870
strategic nature of, 60-64
Interest-group pluralism, 188, 284n
drift of, 312n
Interest group politics, in United States, criticisms of, 1
Intermediation, neocorporatist, 74-75
Internal labor markets, 208
within corporations, 313n
Internal normative restraints, 60
on arbitrary government, 72
procedural, 58, 64-67
substantive, 60-64
Internal procedural restraints, 55,121,166
contingency of, on government, 197-199
extension from government to civil society, 204
vs. external procedural restraints, 81-83
on government vs. private enterprise,
189-191
Habermas's oversight of, 123-126
indirect effects, 283n
integrity of, 231-232
normative, 58, 64-67
organizational expression of, 159-164
proliferation of, 199
and purposeful arbitrariness, 189-205
on purposeful exercises of collective
power, 55-56, 123, 154
by private enterprise, 189
strategic, 58, 64-67
substantive effects, 283n
threshold of interpretability, 111, 124126, 154-159
grounding against normative relativism,
156, 159
irreducible nature of, 156, 158-159
voluntaristic nature of, 156-158
as voluntaristic action, 196-202
Internal restraints, 58. See also Internal normative restraints; Internal procedural
restraints; Internal substantive restraints; Procedural mediation
contemporary crisis of, 67-72
directly substantive, 60
institutions and norms of, 55, 59-77
power, 55, 59
strategic, 60
Internal substantive restraints
on arbitrary government, 75-76
power, 55-56
strategic, 60-64
International Journal of Ethics, 298n
Intersubjective interests, 209, 313n
Intrinsic means-end schema, 134-135
Irrational action, 281n-282n
Japan, internal labor market in, 208
Judicial review, 59
Juridical democracy, 286n
Juridification, 290n
Labor mobilization, 61
Labor-movement theory, 33, 175
Lacuna of integrative possibilities, 2-3, 5,
37, 54, 69, 272n, 308n
Latin America, 1,193-194
Law, 276n
as coercive order, 290n
formalization of, 93, 290n
formally rational, 93, 290n
formal-rational, 290n
internal morality of, 295n
Luhmann's view of, 316n
Marxism's treatment of, 71, 115, 286n,
294n
objectivist epistemology of, 286n
procedural integrity of, 115
rational, 92, 289n
Weberians' views of, 71, 286n
Weber's definition of, 90-91
Law and Economics movement, 77, 287n
Law enforcement, 64-67, 227, 316n
effectiveness of, 109, 120, 122
indices of, 111
by specialized enforcers, 110-111
Lawfulness, Fuller's standard of, 294n
Law journals, 40
Lawless/lawful distinction, Fuller's, 109,
294n
Law of entropy, 280n, 282n
360
Laws, positive, 95, 115. See also Procedural
threshold of interpretability of positive laws
arbitrary, 110
enforcement, 109
rationalization of, 94
Lebenswelt, 229-230
Legal formalism, 107
Legal interpretation, 64-67
Legalism, 92
Legal positivism, 88-96, 107, 117, 289n
Fuller's alternative to, 115-116
Legal procedures, as secondary traditionalism, 94-95
Legal realism, 107-108
Legal system
dual sovereignty in, 285n
social interactions underlying, 107-108
Legal theory, 31 In
Fuller's, 87-89, 105-110, 128, 151, 293n,
295n
Hart's, 107, 293n
Parsons's, 295n, 301n
Legitimacy, 95-96
Legitimation, concept of, 91-92
Legitimation crisis, 76, 92, 105, 126, 290n
Liberal democracy, 43, 310n. See also Western democracy
institutions and practices of, 1-2, 27In
Liberal democratization, individuals' vs.
groups' political inclusion in, 303n304n
Liberalism, criticisms of, 114-115
Liberalization, 191, 200, 205, 209
Liberal theorists, 40-41, 279n
Liberal theory, and pluralist theory, 68-69
Lived social fabrics, 229-230
Lockean liberal tradition, 40-41, 43-44, 4648, 280n, 282n, 285n
Magic, 141
Majority rule, 160-161, 302n-303n, 324n
Manipulation, 31, 35, 50, 276n, 282n
Market, hidden hand of, 46, 282n
Market economy, 115, 222, 242
Market society, 40-41, 43
Marxism, 15-16, 31, 33-34, 36, 41, 71, 92,
104, 133
criticisms of, 114-115
structuralist, 5
as tradition of theory and research, 33-34
treatment of law, 71, 115, 286n, 294n
treatment of morality, 71, 286n
Mass society, 41
Media
in nation-states that lack collegial formations, 321n-322n
Subject index
regulation of, 309n
Meta-rules, 286n, 291n, 294n, 319n
Metering, 284n, 297n
Methodologists, 17-18
Modernization, 280n
nonauthoritarian response to, 45. See also
Social change, nonauthoritarian direction of
Modernization theory, 4, 272n
Monopolist theory, 168-169
Monopoly, 306n
Moral authorities, 140, 257-259
Morality, 115-116
Fuller's concept of, 117
Marxists' treatment of, 71, 286n
Morality of aspiration, 116
Morality of duty, 116-117
vs. morality of aspiration, 294n
Moral theory, substantive, 295n
Motivation crisis, 290n
Nation-states
ethnically, religiously, or regionally divided, 283n
modern
authoritarian vs. nonauthoritarian, 46
bureaucratized vs. nonbureaucratized,
46
totalitarian, 284n
Natural law, 115, 295n, 313n
criticisms of, 114-115
rational, 123
substantive norms of, 78
Natural rights, 47, 57, 60-64, 66, 73-74,
123, 189-191, 198, 210, 261, 283n,
309n,311n
Nazism, Merton's criticisms of, 322n-323n
Negotiated order, 30
Neighborhood,137-138, 142-143
Neocorporatism, 5, 10, 61, 175, 179, 271n,
279n, 283n-284n
criticisms of, 1
European, 73-75
informal, in United States, 314n
societal, 179-180
societal and state, 285n
state, 179-180
Neo-Marxism, 6, 92, 98-99, 124, 126
Neopositivism, 101, 128, 289n
criticisms of, 101, 292n
Habermas's critique of, 291n
Network analysis, 174, 273n
Newspapers, in nation-states that lack collegial formations, 321n-322n
Nihilism, 216, 314n
of contemporary social science, 323n
Noncommodity values, 209,298n, 313n, 320n
Subject index
Nonrational action, 132-133
and transcendental ends, 139-140
Nonrational realm, 140-141
Normative action, 225
vs. voluntaristic action, 144
Normative breakdown, 146
Normative mediation. See also Interestgroup pluralism
Normative orientations, 213, 295n
encroachments against, 302n
institutionalization of, 301n
vs. normative motivations, 158, 301n302n
of rule-making body, 120-121, 296n
Normative relativism, 2-3, 6, 108-109, 115,
127, 224
Normative restraints, 186, 220, 223. See also
External normative restraints; Internal normative restraints
directly substantive, 55-56
external to systemic drift, 131
pluralism's critique of, 67-72
substantive, 55-56, 60-64, 225
Normative sociology, 295n
Normative theory, 108, 294n
Nuclear family, 300n
Organizational constitutionalism, 309n, 313n
Organizational forms, 162-164, 210. See
also Collegial form(ation); Patronclient networks
bureaucratic, 163, 168, 247, 319n
democratic, 160, 163, 168, 247, 319n
Parsons's typology of, 302n
Organizational interest representation, 309n
Organizational jurisprudence, 309n
Organizational pluralism, 309n
Organizations literature, five empirical issues for, 172-173
Organizations research, 41
proposals for, 171-175
Parent-child relationship, 218
Parliamentary democracy, Weber's views on,
280n
Parsonian Dilemma, 228
Party machines, 201
Patron-client networks, 59, 163, 168, 194,
205, 292n, 296n, 302n-304n, 319n
in Brazil, 194-195
in intellectuals' institutionalized environments, 269
Peak associations, 205, 261, 284n
effects of, on Western democratic institutions, 74
intermediation, 74
361
leaders of, 73-74
neocorporatist, 5, 59, 73-75, 27In
Peer review, 268
Pluralism, 179, 191, 286n, 312n. See also
Interest-group pluralism; Organizational pluralism
American, 310n
criticisms of, 27In
critique of normative restraints, 67-72
as critique of Western institutions and traditions, 72-73
Pluralist interest groups, 59
Pluralist theory, 44, 61, 272n, 283n, 285n,
311-312
and liberal theory, 68-69
postwar, 284n-285n
Political machine, 210
Political parties, 59-60
mass, 210
rise of, 200-202
Political sociology
conceptual limitations in, 33-37
critical, 35-36, 278n
postwar concerns of, 41
social control in, 30-33
Political system, definition of, 276n
Political theory, 40, 279n
Positivism, 102, 266-268, 292n, 306n-307n,
323n. See also Legal positivism
Habermas's critique of, 88-89, 289n
Possessive individualism, 244, 287n
and collegial form, 242-243
Postmodernism, 98
Power. See also Collective power; Governmental power
arbitrary, 13. See also Arbitrary government; Collective power, arbitrary exercise of
Power holders, anticipation of challenges to
actions and proposals. See Anticipated reactions
Pragmatism, 98, 292n
Prayer in public schools, 70
Precommitment, 276n
Prejudice, 225-226, 315n
Press, freedom of, 261, 309n
Presupposition of exhausted possibilities, 23, 7, 36, 69, 98,108,126-128,158159, 175, 204-205, 214-215, 217,
219, 226, 231-232, 272n, 294n, 308n,
310n
as collective prejudice, 3-4
comparative research beyond, 179-180
conceptual alternative to, 2
and conceptual limitations in research, 10
Frankfurt school's rejection of, 272n
Subject index
362
Presupposition of exhausted possibilities
(cont.)
as normative generalization, 5
Private property, 258, 314n
Private/public distinction, 57, 62, 68, 70, 7475, 207, 239, 258, 321n
Procedural aspiration, 129
Procedural duty, 129
Procedural legality, 87, 122-123
Fuller's principles of, 288n
as irreducible threshold, 109-121
Procedural mediation, 55-56, 60, 96-97, 99,
283n
Procedural norms and institutions, importance of, 150, 301n
Procedural reason, 16-17, 88-89, 96-106,
123-128, 258
purposive rationality and, 96-99
Procedural restraints. See also External procedural restraints; Internal procedural restraints
extension of, from government to civil society, 208-211
in system of shared social duties, 112-113
Procedural threshold of interpretability of
positive laws, 60, 64-67, 72, 76, 82,
105-106, 113,284n, 291n
Fuller's concept of, 16-17, 110, 151, 293n
relationship to procedural grounding, 121,
126-128
Professional-client relationship, 218
Professional integrity, 51-53, 66, 252-253
normative standards of, 54
Professionals. See also Health-care professionals
Professions, 288n-289n, 291n-292n
Alexander's view of, 253-254
within authoritarian social orders, 259
Barber's view of, 253-254
collegial formations in, 31 In
criticisms of, 1
form of organization distinctive to, 305n306n
integrity of, 305n
Merton's view of, 253-254
Parsons's treatment of, 227, 253-254,
320n
Protected spheres, 203, 207-210, 212, 223,
241,258-259
within civil society, 166, 169-170
Protocol statements, 102
Psychoanalysis, 103
Public choice, 36
Public-choice theory, 174, 204, 313n314n
Public interest, 234
Public opinion, 238, 258, 261-262, 321n
Public policy, voluntaristic, 207
Public realm, 257, 264, 304n, 322n

within civil society, 240-241
Purposive-rational action, 44-45, 281n,
284n. See also Rationalization
conceptual limitation of, 138-139
and survey research, 136-137
Weber's standard of, 91-92
Rape laws, 286n
Rational action, 51, 135, 214, 314n
quantifiable ends, 136
standard of, narrowness of, 51
Rational-choice theory, 6, 36, 48, 174, 204,
272n, 279n, 281n, 296n-297n, 313n,
317n
Rationality. See also Formal rationality; Substantive rationality
vs. reason, 214
Weber's concept of, 93, 290n
Rationalization, 280n. See also Purposiverational action
drift of, 64. See also Drift
entropic drift of, 272n
implications of, 41-43
response to systemic pressures of, 202
systemic pressures of, 46
unmediated drift as, 45-46
Rationalized myths, Meyer's concept of,
171-172
Rational-legal, 109, 295n
Weber's concept of, 289n
Rational means-end schema, 160
Rational realm, 140-141
Realism, 102
Reason
intersubjective standard of, 324n
objective or substantive standard of,
96
Parsons's concept of, 255
procedural turn to, 99-101
vs. rationality, 214
as social influence, 257
Reasoned authority, concept of, 291 n
Reasoned social action, 97-98, 214-215,
217, 222, 256
and comparative research, 220-221
Reciprocity, 293n
Reform politics, rise of, 201
Relativism, of contemporary social science,
323n
Religion, 313n. See also Civil religion; Protected spheres; Separation of church
and state
state, 79, 118
substantive norms of, 78
Republican civic tradition, 200, 312n
Republicanism, 233, 303n
Subject index
Research. See also Comparative research;
Empirical research; Organizations
research; Scientific research; Survey
research
and collective prejudice, 8-10
conceptual framework in, 10-11
context of, and organizational forms, 267
Marxism and, 33-34
Research enterprise, characterization of,
267-268
Resource mobilization, approach to empirical research, 36, 204
Resources, competition over, 23, 276n, 287n
Revolution, 294n
Ritual behavior, 139-140
Rule-making body, normative orientation
of, 120-121, 296n
Rule of law, 208, 313n, 321n
Rules of the game, 68, 286n, 291n
Sacred qualities, 142-143, 300n
Savings and loan scandal, 308n
Scandinavia, 5,175
neocorporatism in, 13-15
social democracy in, 1, 271n
Scientific research, 267
integrity of, and democracy, 322n
Selective enforcement, 119-120, 296n
Self-despontaneification, 276n
Self-interest, 277n. See also Interest competition
Self-restriction, 24-25, 50, 282n
cognitive, 25, 276n
unnecessary, 25-27,110
Separation of church and state, 60,62,73,
284n
Shaming, 310n
reintegrative, Braithwaite's theory of, 296n
Small-town values, 308n
Smithean complacency, 279n-280n
Social action
irrational, 281n-282n
nonrational, 281n-282n
reasoned, 97-98, 214-215, 217, 222, 256
and comparative research, 220-221
Weber's concepts of, 9
Social authoritarianism, 40-41
Social capital, 209,256,296n-297n, 320n321n
Social change
direction of, 7-8, 56-57, 105, 187-189,
274n, 288n. See also Drift/direction
distinction
and collegial formations, 77
drift of. See Drift
nonauthoritarian direction of, 122, 140,
148, 257-259, 261
363
prospects for, 15, 36, 46, 48-51, 72-73
social infrastructure of, 14-15,37-39,
49,69,77,127,163-164,207,236,262
systemic pressures of, 40, 279n
Social closure, 54, 305n-306n, 308n
theories of, 282n
Social control, 8, 216, 272n. See also Social
integration/social control distinction
American literature of, 27-33, 37
Black's approach to, 323n
definition of, 276n, 288n
excessive, 28
formal, 42-44
inadvertent, 27, 37, 294n
capitalism as mechanism of, 32-33
influentials' competition as mechanism
of, 33
informal, 24-26, 29, 43, 276n, 287n
institutional or systemic, 25-26,29,31,276n
internalized mechanisms of, 308n
Janowitz's concept of, 28-30
in literature, 27-33
mechanisms of, 24, 27, 41, 250, 316n
purposeful, 27, 31, 37-38, 94, 114, 279n
capitalist state as instrument of, 31-32
rational, 294n
restraints on, 37-38
in social theory and political sociology,
30-33
systemic, 69
third parties in, 278n
voluntary, 279n, 282n
Social democracy, 34, 61
criticisms of, 1
institutions and practices of, 271n
in Scandinavia, 1, 27In
Social duties, 25
as optional performances, 117-118
overextension of, 117-119
shared, 25, 37, 60, 64-67, 110, 112, 117
clarity, 112
congruence, 113
constancy, 113
evasion of, 119-120
generality, 112
interpretability, 93
noncontradiction, 112-113
possibility, 113
procedural restraints on, 112-113
promulgation, 112
prospectivity, 112
recognition and understanding of, 297n
retroactive enactments of, 112
threshold of interpretability, 113, 156,
243, 266
threshold restraints, 113
voluntaristic nature of, 156-159
364
Social integration, 143, 150-159, 273n
concept of, 5-8
definition of, 28-30
implications of, 37-39
definition of, 83-84, 272n, 288n
heterogeneous actors' and competing
groups', 27-28, 30, 36-39, 140
nonliberal or nonmarket, 128-129, 298n
possibilities for, 187, 206-207, 220, 248249, 258
specifying, 154
vs. system integration, 277n
voluntaristic, 294n
Social integration/social control distinction,
3, 6-7, 10, 27-28, 51-54, 56-57, 67,
111-114, 124, 139, 158, 189, 252,
272n, 320n
Social movements, heterogeneous actors'
and competing groups' integration
within, 36-39
Social order, 6, 174, 243, 246-247, 254,
273n, 300n
authoritarian, 259
vs. nonauthoritarian, 295n
and cognitive limitations, 25-26
within collegial formations, 243-246
definition of, 23
legitimacy of, 31, 278n
Lockean, 132
nonauthoritarian, 114, 147-148, 259
foundation of, 263-266
infrastructure of, 260-263
power holders in, anticipation of challenges. See Anticipated reactions
social infrastructure of, 187, 32In
problem of, 243
relativist definition of, 23-24
spectrum of types of, 177-178
Social sciences, 50
accession to relativism and subjectivism,
98
and critical theory, 219
Fuller's contribution to, 109-121
reason in, 100
Social solidarity, 243
Social stratification, 264
Social systems, self-regulation of, 320n
Social theorists, 17-18, 40
Social theory
critical, 89, 289n
Habermas's, 291n
Parsons's, 217-220, 223, 255, 295n, 308n,
315n
conceptual limitations and dilemma,
226-227
Subject index
radical, 89, 289n
Weber's, 41, 294n
Social unit
absolutist critique of, 105
actors' self-restriction within, 24-25. See
also Self-restriction
disordered, 23-24, 276n
ordered, 23-24
subjective interests with, 280n. See also
Interest competition
Societal constitutionalism
agenda for, 48-51
agent of change for, 233
conceptual grounding of, 123-128, 221
vs. consensus theory, 243-249
as critical theory, 15-17, 89
foundations of, 121-130
four analytical distinctions of, 54-56
vs. functionalism's accounts of professionals' motivations, 251-254
vs. governmental constitutionalism, 57,
232-233
normative means of, 122-123
vs. other non-Marxist theories, 221-222
qualitative ends of, 128-130
vs. symbolic interactionism, 249-251
theory of, 7-8, 38, 66, 152-153, 204, 248249, 321n
comparative research informed by, 175180
conceptual foundations of, 17
conceptual openness of, 220
orienting hypothesis, 175
presuppositions, 174-175
and research, 274n
synthesis of procedural duties and procedural aspiration, 127
threshold of interpretability, characteristics of, 154-159
vs. tradition, 77-83
Sociology. See also Weberian sociology
postwar concerns of, 41
Sociology of law, Weber's, 71, 87-88, 286n,
290n
Solidarity, 132, 272n-273n, 317n
elite, 31-32
Solidarity Movement, 307n
South Africa, legal system of, 116, 295n
Sovereignty, monarch's versus constituent
force's, 234
Soviet Union, legal system of, 116, 295n
Speech acts, 16, 102
Statistics, as distortions, 273n
Strategic action, 284n
Strict constructionism, 77
Structural equivalence, 307n, 317n
Structuration, 277n
Subject index
Structuration theory, 174, 250, 278n
Subjective interests. See also Interest competition
balance of power between, 68
social contract theorist's reification of,
313n
sovereignty of, 67-68, 79-81, 108-110,
223-224
Substantive norms, shared, actors' supposed
internalization of, 317n
Substantive rationality, 45, 225-227, 315n
Weber's concept of, 16-17, 282n
Substantive rationalization, 315n
Substantive reason, 258
Substantive restraints, 283n. See also Internal substantive restraints
extension of, 207-208
Surveillance, 297n
Survey research, 276n
and purposive-rational action, 136-137
Sweden, separation of church and state in,
207, 284n
Swedes, fetishization of hygiene, 300n
Symbolic interactionism, 72, 108, 147, 174,
216, 292n, 296n, 298n
Symbolic means-end schema, 134-135
Systemic drift. See Drift
System integration, 277n
Systems theory, 32, 98
Lockean, 303n
Luhmann's, 89, 174, 278n, 319n
Talking clubs, 237-238. See also Bourgeois
public (sphere)
Therapeutic critique, 125
Threshold of interpretability. See also Procedural threshold of interpretability of
positive laws; Societal constitutionalism, threshold of interpretability
of internal procedural restraints, 111,
124-126, 154-159
Totalitarianism, 284n
Tradition, 224-226, 228-232
anachronism of, 77-79
analytical aspects of, available for transfer, 230
prospects for, 232-241
substantive aspects of, transferred to new
sites, 316n
as transferable, generalizable, and invariant in impact, 230-231
Tribal nationalism, 58
Truth. See also Consensus theory of truth;
Copy theory of truth
procedural turn to, 99-101
365
United States
application of societal constitutionalism
to, 311-312
authoritarianism in, 14-15, 275n
constitutional crisis in, 76-77
energy and health policy domains within,
285n
internal labor market in, 208
legal system of, 116, 295n
lower middle income groups in, 312n
postwar, 4
poverty in, 312n
Universalization thesis, Habermas's, 103
Universal pragmatics, Habermas's, 102
Universal syntactics, 102
University faculty, 322n
Urbanization, 202
Utilitarian dilemma, 43, 272n
Utilitarianism, 133
Utopianism, 308n, 322n
Value-commitments, 252-253, 320n

Value-neutrality, 216
Value-rational action, 45
Value relativism, social scientists', 214-215,
221,223
Values, objective, 283n
Voluntaristic action, 17, 151, 220, 225, 298n,
308n
as central to conceptual schema, 148-149
as contingent institutions, 145-148
definition(s) of, 131, 133-134, 299n
differentiation of, in practice, 152-153
distinct concept of, 134-143
external procedural restraints as, 202-205
importance of, 131
institutionalization of, 145-148, 164
internal procedural restraints as, 196202
in literature today, 133-134
vs. normative action, 144
Parsons's concept of, 90, 295n
and qualitative ends, 140-143
as restraint on drift, 144-145
substantive and procedural, differentiation of, 152
three meanings of, 144-149
Voluntaristic means-end schema, 134-135
Voluntaristic restraints
bases of, 187-205
external procedural, 90, 202-205
internal procedural, 196-202
procedural vs. substantive, 302n
Voluntary authority, 279n
366
Wasted time and space, and external procedural restraints, 211-213, 314n
Weberian Dilemma, 79, 110,114,140,145146, 148, 153, 184-187, 222, 249
Fuller's alternative to, 115-116
as negative liberalism, 43-45
resolution of, 46-51
Weberian pathos, vs. liberal complacency,
43-44
Weberians, 71
views of law, 71, 87-88, 286n, 290n
Weberian sociology, 293n
limits of, 51-53
Welfare state, 33
crises in, 278n
Janowitz on, 28-29
Luhmann on, 277n
Western democracy, 206, 221
Subject index
authoritarianism in, 13-14
comparison to protection rackets, 3
criticisms of, 1, 3
encroachments against internal procedural
restraints in, 198
institutions and practices of, 1-2, 27In
legitimation crisis of, 76, 92, 105, 126,
290n
moralistic endorsement of, 272n
moral status of, 4-5
Western Europe, 5
neocorporatism in, 73-75
Western institutions and traditions
Habermas's absolutist critique of, 105
pluralism as critique of, 72-73
problems for, 75-77
Other books in the series

J. Milton Yinger, Kiyoshi Ikeda, Frank Lay cock, and Stephen J. Cutler: Middle
Start: An Experiment in the Educational Enrichment of Young Adolescents
James A. Geschwender: Class, Race, and Worker Insurgency: The League of
Revolutionary Black Workers
Paul Ritterband: Education, Employment, and Migration: Israel in Comparative
Perspective
John Low-Beer: Protest and Participation: The New Working Class in Italy
Orrin E. Klapp: Opening and Closing: Strategies of Information Adaptation in
Society
Rita James Simon: Continuity and Change: A Study of Two Ethnic Communities
in Israel
Marshall B. Clinard: Cities with Little Crime: The Case of Switzerland
Steven T. Bossert: Tasks and Social Relationships in Classrooms: A Study of
Instructional Organization and Its Consequences
Richard E. Johnson: Juvenile Delinquency and Its Origins: An Integrated
Theoretical Approach
David R. Heise: Understanding Events: Affect and the Construction of Social
Action
Ida Harper Simpson: From Student to Nurse: A Longitudinal Study of
Socialization
Stephen P. Turner: Sociological Explanation as Translation
Janet W. Salaff: Working Daughters of Hong Kong: Filial Piety or Power in the
Family?
Joseph Chamie: Religion and Fertility: Arab Christian-Muslim Differentials
William Friedland, Amy Barton, and Robert Thomas: Manufacturing Green
Gold: Capital, Labor, and Technology in the Lettuce Industry
Richard N. Adams: Paradoxical Harvest: Energy and Explanation in British
History, 1870-1914
Mary F. Rogers: Sociology, Ethnomethodology, and Experience: A
Phenomenological Critique
James R. Beniger: Trafficking in Drug Users: Professional Exchange Networks in
the Control of Deviance
Andrew J. Weigert, J. Smith Teitge, and Dennis W. Teitge: Society and Identity:
Toward a Sociological Psychology
Jon Miller: Pathways in the Workplace: The Effects of Gender and Race on
Access to Organizational Resources
Michael A. Fala: Dynamic Functionalism: Strategy and Tactics
Joyce Rothschild and J. Allen Whitt: The Co-operative Workplace: Potentials and
Dilemmas of Organizational Democracy
Russell Thornton: We Shall Live Again: The 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance
Movements as Demographic Revitalization
Severyn T. Bruyn: The Field of Social Investment
Guy E. Swanson: Ego Defenses and the Legitimation of Behaviour

Liah Greenfeld: Different Worlds: A Sociological Study of Taste, Choice and
Success in Art
Thomas K. Rudel: Situations and Strategies in American Land-Use Planning
Percy C. Hintzen: The Costs of Regime Survival: Racial Mobilization, Elite
Domination and Control of the State in Guyana and Trinidad
John T. Flint: Historical Role Analysis in the Study of Religious Change: Mass
Educational Development in Norway, 1740-1891
Judith R. Blau: The Shape of Culture: A Study of Cultural Patterns in the United
States
Fred C. Pampel and John B. Williamson: Age, Class, Politics and the Welfare
State
Thomas J. Fararo: The Meaning of General Theoretical Sociology: Tradition and
Formalization
Lewis F. Carter: Control and Charisma in Rajneeshpuram: The Role of Shared
Values in the Creation of a Community
David M. Heer: Undocumented Mexicans in the United States
Kenneth Baugh, Jr.: The Methodology of Herbert Blumer

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Several theories and conceptual frameworks in political science, legal scholarship,

and sociology address issues of governmental authoritarianism, abuses of power,

The Arnold and Caroline Rose Monograph Series

Theory of societal constitutionalism

Theory of societal constitutionalism

The right of the

Cambridge University Press

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Chapter 1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical

Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism

Chapter 2. Social integration and social control: the importance

Chapter 4. Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism:

Origins of the analytical distinctions and conceptual

Chapter 5. Societal constitutionalism's grounding against

Chapter 11. Collegial formations as external procedural

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism

1.1. Limits of comparative research

1.1.1. A presupposition and a lacuna

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

their most conservative and apologetic colleagues both a presupposition

1.1. Limits of comparative research

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

LL Limits of comparative research

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

tionalists, symbolic interactionists, rational-choice theorists, organization

1.1. Limits of comparative research

First, it allows them to specify when social integration is a possibility,

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

Even though empirical researchers today share the lacuna of integrative

1.1. Limits of comparative research

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

1.2. Two issues of societal constitutionalism and an illustration

1.2. Two issues of societal constitutionalism and an illustration

This volume challenges the presupposition of exhausted possibilities at its

A young chemist, William, is employed in one of a dozen or so large

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

1.2. Two issues of societal constitutionalism and an illustration

divisions, or across the research divisions of the industry - or is this an

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

1.3. Societal constitutionalism as critical theory

The multiplication of William's situation within a Western nation-state and

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

conceptual grounding against the relativism of actors' subjective interests

1. Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory

Conceptual foundations of societal

2. Social integration and social control:

2.1. Social order and social control

It is useful to begin by characterizing social order in positive terms rather

2. Social integration and social control

2.1. Social order and social control

when actors endeavor to avoid shaming (Braithwaite 1989). Second, they

2. Social integration and social control

concepts. In the first place, actors' self-restrictions may not be purposeful

2.2. Social control in the literature

2.2. Social control in the literature

The enormous American literature of social control, from Edward A. Ross's

2. Social integration and social control

2.2.2. The distinct concept of social integration: a preliminary

22, Social control in the literature