Conflict and Order: Implications for a Research Agenda

Abstract

My sociological activities may appear to the untrained eye as scattered and unfocused. The subjects investigated have included status inconsistents, youth, terrorists, athletes, coaches, racial minorities, governments, multinational corporations, banks, and universities. I have written textbooks for introductory sociology, social problems, criminology, family, and sport. And, I have penned essays on ethics, values, violence, crime, the Superbowl, the Olympics, and the structural transformation of the economy. Despite the seeming disparity in these topics and the variety of social categories studied, there is a strong theoretical thread that brings coherence to these works-the conflict paradigm. This paper examines the implications of this paradigm that guide my current research agenda. The assumptions of the conflict perspective focus research attention in particular directions (the following is taken from Eitzen 1981,1984, 1988). To begin, central to a conflict analysis is that the institutions of society are reflections of the larger society in general and the master institutions of the economy and polity in particular. This means, in effect, that power and wealth are inextricably intertwined and that they dominate the rest of society. I have had a long-standing interest in power and the powerful. This has resulted in research on the corporate inner group, organizational linkages among the corporate elite, entrepreneurial capitalism, interlocking ownership among the major banks, and domestic and international corporate social expenditures. Currently, I am involved in an ongoing project with David R. Simon analyzing crimes by the powerful. This research centers on crimes by corporations and governments. In addition to presenting the rich and plentiful descriptive material on these subjects we are working to reconceptualize corporate and political crimes in a more logical fashion than has been the case in the literature (Simon and Eitzen forthcoming). The primacy of the economy in shaping social life has resulted in a recently published collection of readings (Eitzen and Baca Zinn 1989). This book focuses on the convergence of four forces: microelectronic technology, the globalization of the economy, the swift movement of capital, and the shift of the economy from one based on manufacturing to one based on information and services, and their consequences for society, organizations, communities, and individuals. The profound changes resulting from these forces have led me to investigate further the economic mechanisms that are increasing inequality throughout American society. A second implication of the conflict perspective that guides my current work is a basic mood of skepticism about cultural and social patterns. Existing power arrangements are distrusted because they, by definition, oppress the