RALPH DAHRENDORF’S CONFLICT THEORY OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION AND ELITE THEORY

Abstract

Dahrendorf’s conception of social differentiation poses some interesting theoretical problems inasmuch as it, owing to its putative associations with Marx’s framework, is regarded as a class theory, but in fact displays also some salient characteristics of stratification approaches, while lacking some core characteristics of class theory. Upon scrutiny, however, it turns out that it is most closely related to the framework of elite theory. This is revealed when Dahrendorf’s treatment of social differentiation is compared with some approaches representative of the aforementioned theory.