Parsons' "Structure" in American Sociology

Abstract

At the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in 1987, a session held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the The Structure of Social Action drew a large and interested audience. Had the commemoration been held 20 years earlier, it is quite likely that it would have occurred entirely within the framework of Structure itself. Speakers would have treated the work as an exercise in general theory, as a hugely successful attempt to provide an explanatory framework for empirical sociology. They would have assessed the box score of empirical and theoretical progress since its publication in 1937; spoken about recent developments in the field; and probably would have concludedwith an important dissent registered here and there-that in the thirty years following its appearance significant accumulation and elaboration had occurred. The Structure, in other words, would at that time have been taken as a founding event in a relatively consensual, proto-scientific discipline. For even as late as the mid-1960s, Structure was still seen as Parsons had originally presented it: as a framework of accumulated theoretical knowledge, on the basis of which predictions could be made and compared (favorably) with what social scientists had subsequently discovered about empirical fact. Ten years ago, by contrast, such a commemoration would not have taken place. The profession at that time was involved in a massive effort to overthrow Structure and, in doing so, to free itself from what was thought to be the pernicious influence of functionalist thought. Structure was still viewed as an exercise in general explanatory theorythough as an ideological document as wellbut it was now widely felt by many that contemporary empirical reality no longer fit 1 This paper is dedicated to Bernard Barber, on his retirement from Barnard College and Columbia University, in recognition of his theoretical achievements and with gratitude for his personal and intellectual collegiality. This paper was prepared, at Bernard Barber's suggestion and with his encouragement, for the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in Chicago, Ill., August 1987. the model, if ever it had. Those leading this struggle-theorists like Gouldner, Garfinkel, Blumer, Giddens, Collins-believed that the theory articulated by Structure was something social science should, and probably would, safely leave behind. Yet here we are, another ten years later, still talking about Structure and, indeed, commemorating it. The announcement of Structure's death turns out to have been premature, as was the announcement of Parsons'. In fact, it is possible that, with the exception of Habermas, no post-classical sociological theorist is more talked about today in Europe and the United States than Parsons himself, though this talk is certainly more reflective and selective than it was twenty years ago. And since I have brought up Habermas, let me make the obvious point: Who could possibly know what in the devil Habermas is talking about if they did not know Parsons work? In the last decade Habermas has decided that Parsons must not only be his Hegel but his Ricardo, that it is Parsons whose ideas he must internalize and dispute (Alexander 1985; cf. Sciulli 1985), if his new version of critical theory is going to fly. Why now, why still? To honor the publication of Structure-Parsons' first and finest single work-we must answer these questions. The first answer is rather obvious: we find that sociologists are still talking about their empirical problems in explicit relationboth positive and negative-to the problems that Structure first posed. Jonathan Turner, one of my partners in the ASA symposium, has just published The Structure of Social Interaction (1988). His title is not fortuitous. It signals that Turner has written his new book to argue against what he claims to be a monistic bias in the Parsonian approach to action. Turner is confident, moreover, that Parsons' title of fifty years ago is still so well known that his play on words will be immediately recognized. The same evidence that Structure remains our contemporary can be found in the work of Harold Garfinkel, my other partner on the platform of the ASA commemoration, whose paper is being pub