Abstract
Before I deal with the question of conflict ‘constitutive’ and ‘phenomenal’ (and its relation to law) I need to discard an ideological use of the distinction that only tends to confuse the issues in order to set up easy targets. This ideological use of the distinction mis-identifies phenomenal conflict with equilibrium, consensus and conservatism, and constitutive conflict with change. Associated with this, there has been a deep divide in much sociological literature between perspectives furnished by such purportedly exclusive alternatives as conflict and consensus. Conflict theory and consensus theory are all too often seen as seeking their departure from, gaining their leverage from, and positing some kind of teleology to, mutually exclusive alternatives. This in turn has occasionally led to simplistic equations of consensus to social structure and conflict to social dynamics. Confrontations on that basis have not been rare. For example, Lewis Coser’s analysis of the function of social conflict of upholding group structures has been criticised by conflict theorists as depleting the radical potential of conflict theory.1 This dichotomisation simply confuses the issues. Conflict is as much inimical to social structures as it is intrinsic to them. Co-operation contains conflict as it does consensus.2 Of course whether one approaches questions from the point of view of conflict or consensus pre-empts much of what one finds, yet it is simplistic to deny the value of either theory by imputing pre-destinations or pre-commitments (constancy/dynamics) to either.
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Notes
See Rex (1961) and Coser’s answer in (1965, 5 and passim)
‘The more one thinks of it the more he will see that conflict and co-operation are not separable things, but phases of one process which always involves something of both.’ (Coser, 1956, 18. Also Coser, 1965, ppl 1, 26.) See also Simmel: ‘Contradiction and conflict not only precede unity but are operative in it at every moment of its existence.’ (1955, 13)
‘The kind of theory we have been suggesting is, by its very nature, a theory of social disruption and social change. Finally, something should therefore be said about the rather unexpected theory that conflict contributes to the stability of systems.’ (Rex, 1981, 72)
The question can of course be approached from the point of view of the ‘reflexive value of negation’. We know what it means to trust because we know what distrust is, we love ‘relexively’ in the mirror of the lack of love: in a similar way co-operation draws from conflict: not only are they not mutually exclusive forms of interaction, but conflict is built into cooperation itelf as secret regulative, i.e. as reflexive negation.
‘Wie ist soziale Ordnung möglich?’ In Luhmann (1975c)
An early comprehensive discussion of Double Contingency is contained in (1972). As this is Luhmann of the pre-autopoiesis turn, one must be careful in selecting what part of this work is consistent with his later writings. Indeed that discussion has been qualified later in (1984, ps 148-190) (Earlier in 1971, pp44ff, later, indicatively, 1990c). The following discussion draws, with caution, from both periods.
Luhmann, 1984, 165
Luhmann, 1984, 165
Parsons, 1962, 105. Also for a more detailed account, Parsons and Shils, 1951, pp3-29
ibid, pp15ff
Luhmann, 1972, 17
Quoted in Luhmann, 1984, 175. Cf Weick: A mutual equivalence structure can be built and sustained without people knowing the motives of another person, without people having to share goals, and it is not even necessary that people know the entire structure or know who their partners are. What is crucial in a mutual equivalence structure is mutual prediction, not mutual sharing.’ (1979, 100)
… other structures which are then integrated into other component systems of the whole action system, a displacement that obscures the function of the normative in society-see also Luhmann, 1972, ch1, n.23
Luhmann, 1984, 175
Luhmann, 1975a, 73-74
Luhmann, 1984, pp149ff
ibid., 212
ibid., 192
Normatively co-expecting, which means that the third party’s expectation will not be discredited should Alter not behave as expected, only disappointed.
For a similar argument outwith the systems framework see Aubert (1983). One of the most penetrating analyses employing Luhmann’s insights is Guenther’s (1993).
Parsons, 1951, 38-39
Roles, stresses Dahrendorf are more than just patterns of human activity. The connection with expectations is crucial. Roles are ‘expected modes of behaviour corresponding to social positions.’ Dahrendorf, 1968, p35
Miller, 1992, 10
Context-indeterminacy is thus also settled by the system self-referentially, as the system establishes itself as the arbitrer of the co-ordination problem
Problems of alienation, role-strain etc therefore come about due to the synchronicity of multiple/competing systemic role ascriptions
Luhmann, 1984, p601, pp610ff
At a third level of self-referentiality, Luhmann identifies ‘Reflexion’ as the final controller of selectivity, setting further conditions for the integration of communications in complex systems. (1984, 610)
Luhmann, 1971, 46
It needs to be clarified that all this is at a level prior the the distinction normative/cognitive expectations that we will analyse in the next section.
‘the foundation of social order and the corresponding uncertainty of expectations’ (Luhmann, 1981, 99). See also 1992a, 94-95
It is a bit early to identify the ‘political’ at this stage, before the absorption. This can only be explained at a later stage, after the limitations of the process of ‘absorption’ into different templates is illuminated.
‘Autocatalytically’ Luhmann will add: ‘[double contingency] ermoeglicht, ohne selbst verbraucht zu werden, den Aufbau von Strukturen auf einer neuen Ordnungsebene … Dabei ist, deshalb kann man von Auto-katalyse sprechen, das Problem der doppelten Kontingenz selbst Bestandteil des Systems, das sich bildet.’ (1984, 170)
Teubner, (1989)
And Habermas’s critique of Luhmann is paricularly harsh in this respect. He contends that, in Luhmann, language affords no solid basis upon which ego could meet with alter in a consensus about something. ‘For communication, language is used-but this simply permits signs to be substituted for meaning … Supra-subjective linguistic structures would entwine society and individual too tightly with one another. An intersubjectivity of mutual understanding among agents that is achieved via expressions with identical meanings and criticizable validity claims [has no place in Luhmann]. [Neither does] the commonality of any intersubjectively shared context of meaning and reference-that is to an explanation of communicative participation in a lifeworld that is represented in a linguistic world-view.’ (Habermas, 1987, pp370ff)
See also Minow, 1987, passim, Winter, 1991, 1002
Sunstein, 1988, 1569
In Sullivan, 1988, 1717
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Christodoulidis, E.A. (1998). Law and the Double Contingency of Conflict. In: Law and Reflexive Politics. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3967-0_8
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