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Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf, Baron Dahrendorf, (; 1 May 1929 – 17 June 2009) was a German-British sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and liberal politician. A class conflict theorist, Dahrendorf was a leading expert on explaining and analysing class divisions in modern society. Dahrendorf wrote multiple articles and books, his most notable being Class and Conflict in Industrial Society (1959) and Essays in the Theory of Society (1968).
During his political career, he was a Member of the German Parliament, Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Foreign Office of Germany, European Commissioner for Trade, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Education and Member of the British House of Lords, after he was created a life peer in 1993. He was subsequently known in the United Kingdom as Lord Dahrendorf.
He served as director of the London School of Economics and Warden of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. He also served as a professor of sociology at a number of universities in Germany and the United Kingdom and was a research professor at the Berlin Social Science Research Center.
Dahrendorf was known for strongly supporting anti-Nazi activities.Grimes, William. "Ralph Dahrendorf, Sociologist, Dies at 80 ", The New York Times, 22 June 2009. Accessed 10 October 2009. As a child, Ralf was a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, the youngest branch of the Hitler Youth.Stern, Fritz. "Five Germanys I have Known", pg. 225. When Ralf was only a teenager, he and his father, an SPD member of the German Parliament, were arrested and sent to concentration camps for their anti-Nazi activities during the Nazi regime. One of the activities consisted of Dahrendorf distributing leaflets that were encouraging people not to join the regime. After this, his family moved to Berlin. In 1944, during the last year of the Second World War, he was arrested again for engaging in anti-Nazi activities and sent to a concentration camp in Poland. He was released in 1945.Grimes, William. "Ralph Dahrendorf, Sociologist, Dies at 80 ", The New York Times, 22 June 2009. Accessed 22 June 2009.
From 1980 to 2004, he was married to historian and translator Ellen Dahrendorf (née Ellen Joan Krug), the daughter of Professor James Krug. When he was created a peer in 1993, his wife became known as Lady Dahrendorf. Ellen Dahrendorf, who is Jewish, has served on the board of the Jewish Institute for Policy Research, been chair of the British branch of the New Israel Fund, and is a signatory of the Independent Jewish Voices declaration, which is critical of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.
Dahrendorf's first two marriages ended in divorce. In 2004 he married Christiane Dahrendorf, also known as Lady Christiane Dahrendorf, a medical doctor from Cologne.Pick, Hella. "Lord Dahrendorf, German sociologist and politician who became director of the LSE and a life peer ", The Guardian, 19 June 2009. Accessed 10 October 2009.
From 1957 to 1959, Dahrendorf talked about "this ability to organize as the principle between quasi-groups and interest groups". Quasi-groups are defined as "those collectives that have latent identical role interests but do not experience a sense of "belongingness". Interest groups, on the other hand, "have a structure, a form of organization, a program or goal, and a personnel of members". The interest groups identity and sense of belonging are produced when people have the ability to communicate, recruit members, form leadership, and create a unifying ideology In 1960, he became a visiting professor of sociology at Columbia University in New York.
From 1967 to 1970, he was Chairman of the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie), resigning it when he took up his office at Brussels. Between 1976 and 1979 he led the educational sub-committee of the Benson Commission.
From 1968 to 1969, Dahrendorf was a member of the Parliament of Baden-Württemberg, and also in 1968, his links with Harvard University began. Dahrendorf decided to become a member of the Bundestag in 1969 during the time when Brandt formed his first SPD-FDP coalition government. After joining, he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the foreign minister. Because he was placed third on the ladder of command in the foreign ministry, he did not enjoy the experience. From 1969 to 1970 he was a member of the Bundestag for the Free Democratic Party (the German liberals). During this period he was also a Parliamentary Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1970 he became a Commissioner in the European Commission in Brussels. He was dedicated to the EU as a guarantor of human rights and liberty.
In 1974, the BBC invited him to present the annual Reith Lectures. In this series of six radio talks, entitled The New Liberty, he examined the definition of freedom.
From 1974 to 1984, Dahrendorf was director of the London School of Economics. Ehen he returned to Germany to become Professor of Social Science, at Konstanz University (1984–86).
In 1986, Ralf Dahrendorf became a Governor of the London School of Economics. From 1987 to 1997, he was Warden of St Antony's College at the University of Oxford, succeeding the historian Raymond Carr.
In 1982, Dahrendorf was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1988, he acquired British citizenship. and became known as Sir Ralf Dahrendorf (as only KBEs who are British subjects are entitled to use that title). On 15 July 1993, he was created a life peer with the title Baron Dahrendorf of Clare Market in the City of Westminster. Clare Market is near the London School of Economics, and is also used for car parking by LSE staff. Dahrendorf chose this name to honour the School in this way, and also as a sign of his liberal humour. He sat in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher.
Between 2000 and 2006, Dahrendorf served as Chairman of the Judging Panel of the FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism. He received the FIRST Responsible Capitalism lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. Dahrendorf insisted that even the most basic civil rights, including equality and freedom of expression, be given constitutional legitimacy. On 11 July 2007, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Studies.
In January 2005, he was appointed a research professor at the Social Science Research Center in Berlin (WZB). WZB website
Dahrendorf held dual citizenship in the UK and Germany. After retiring, he lived partly in Germany and partly in the United Kingdom, with one home in London and one in Bonndorf in south-western Germany. When asked which city he considered his home, he once said, "I am a Londoner". He also once said that his life was marked by a conflict between the obligation he felt to the country of his birth, Germany, and the attraction he felt for Britain.
He favoured laws and policies that encouraged personal freedom, a sense of citizenship, and a broadening of social, economic and political opportunities. He argued that Germany's problems stemmed from a belief in absolute answers and in the yearning for an all-powerful leader to put them into effect.
He was survived by his third wife, three daughters, and one grandchild. His death was confirmed in a statement from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said, "Europe has lost one of its most important thinkers and intellectuals".
In analysing and evaluating the arguments of structural functionalism and Marxism, Dahrendorf believed that neither theory alone could account for all of society. Marxism did not account for evidence of obvious social integration and cohesion. Structural functionalism, on the other hand, did not focus enough on social conflict.Dahrendorf, Ralf."Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society." Stanford CA: Stanford University. 1959. He also asserted that Karl Marx defined class in a narrow and historically specific context. During Marx's time, wealth was the determining factor in attaining power. The wealthy and therefore the powerful ruled, leaving no way for the poor to gain any power or increase their position in society.
Drawing on aspects of both Marxism and structural functionalists to form his own beliefs, Dahrendorf highlighted the changes that have occurred in modern society. Dahrendorf believed in two approaches to society, Utopian and Rationalist. Utopian is the balance of values and solidity and Rationalist is the dissension and disagreement. While he believes that both are social perspectives, the Utopian approach is most apparent in modern-day society, leaving Dahrendorf to create a balance between the two views. Dahrendorf discusses literary utopias to show that the structural-functionalists idea of the social system is utopians in itself because it possess all the necessary characteristics. (2025). 9780195421842, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195421842 Specifically, with democracy came voting for political parties, and increased social mobility. He believes that the struggle for authority creates conflict. Money, political power, and social status were all controlled by the same group – the capitalist – which gave the workers little incentive to accept the status quo.
Furthermore, he believes that traditional Marxism ignores consensus and integration in modern social structures. Dahrendorf's theory defined class not in terms of wealth like Marx, but by levels of authority. Dahrendorf combines elements from both of these perspectives to develop his own theory about class conflict in postcapitalism society. Dahrendorf agrees with Marx that authority, in the 19th century, was based on income, and thus the rich bourgeoisie ruled the state. Yet things changed then, where workers formed trade unions and allowed them to negotiate with the capitalist.
According to Dahrendorf, functionalism is beneficial when trying to understand consensus while conflict theory is used to understand conflict and coercion. In order to understand structural functionalism, we study three bodies of work: Davis and Moore, Parsons, and Merton. (2010). 9780078111679, McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780078111679 Dahrendorf states that capitalism has undergone major changes since Marx initially developed his theory on class conflict. The new system of capitalism, known as post-capitalism, is characterised by a diverse class structure and a fluid system of power relations. Thus, it involves a much more complex system of inequality than Marx originally outlined. Dahrendorf contends that post-capitalist society has institutionalised class conflict into state and economic spheres. For example, class conflict has been habituated through unions, collective bargaining, the court system, and legislative debate. In effect, the severe class strife typical of Marx's time is no longer relevant.
Conflict theorists like Dahrendorf often took the exact opposite view of functionalists Whereas functionalists believe that society was oscillating very slightly, if not completely static, conflict theorists said that "every society at every point is subject to process of change". Conflict theorists believe that there is "dissension and conflict at every point in the social system" and "many societal elements as contributing to disintegration and change". They believe order comes from coercion from those at the top, and that power is an important factor in the social order.
In developing his conflict theory, Dahrendorf recognised consensus theory was also necessary to fully reflect society. Consensus theory focuses on the value integration into society, while conflict theory focuses on conflicts of interest and the force that holds society together despite these stresses. In the past, structural functionalism was the commanding theory in sociology, until the conflict theory came along as its major challenger. However, both structural functionalism and conflict theory have received major criticisms. In fact, Dahrendorf asserted that there has to be consensus to have conflict, as he said that the two were prerequisites for each other. The opposite is also true, he believed –– conflict can result in cohesion and consensus. However, Dahrendorf did not believe the two theories could be combined into one cohesive and comprehensive theory. Instead, Dahrendorf's thesis was "the differential distribution of authority invariably becomes the determining factor of systematic social conflicts". "In the end, conflict theory should be seen as a little more than a transitional development in the history of sociological theory. Although the theory failed because it didn't go far in the direction of Marxian theory, it was still early in the 1950s and 1960s for American sociology to accept a full-fledged Marxian approach. However, conflict theory was helping in setting the stage for the beginning of the acceptance by the late 1960s".
Dahrendorf, like Merton, looked at latent and manifest interests and further classified them as unconscious and conscious interests. He found the connection between these two concepts to be problematic for the conflict theory. Dahrendorf believed that the basis of class conflict was the division of three groups of society: quasi groups, interest groups, and conflict groups. Thus, society can be split up into the "command class" and the "obey class". The command class exercises authority, and the obey class has no authority and is also subservient to that of others. With a clear interplay between both class types class conflict theory sought to explain that interplay. Quasi groups are "aggregates of incumbents of positions with identical role interests". Interest groups are derived from the quasi groups and they are organised with members, an organisation, and a program or goal. The main difference between quasi-groups and interest groups is that interest groups organise and have a sense of "belonging" or identity. Darhendorf acknowledged that other conditions like politics, adequate personnel, and recruitment would play a role along with the groups. He also believed that under ideal circumstances, conflict could be explained without reference to other variables. Unlike Marx, however, he did not believe that random recruitment into the quasi-group would start a conflict group. In contrast to Lewis Coser's ideas that functions of conflict maintained the status quo, Dahrendorf believed that conflict also leads to change (in social structure) and development. His belief in a changing society separated Dahrendorf's ideas from Marx, who supported the concept of a utopia.
Marx understood that there are two classes: the rulers who control the means of production and the ruled who work with the means of production. Every society needs both. The conflicts between them causes a destruction of the existing societal order so that it can be replaced by a new one.
On the other hand, Dahrendorf believed that the formation of classes was the organisation of common interests. That further means that people who are in positions of authority are supposed to control subordination, meaning that sanctions could be put into effect against people who fail to obey authority commands, resulting in fines and further punishments. Dahrendorf argues that society is composed of multiple units that are called imperatively coordinated associations. He saw social conflict as the difference between dominating and subject groups in imperatively-coordinated associations.
Marx believed that class formation was based on the ownership of private property. On the contrary, Dahrendorf argued that class formation was always based on authority. He defined authority as a facet of social organisations and as a common element of social structures. There is also another difference between Marx and Dahrendorf concerning the structure of societies. Dahrendorf believed that society had two aspects: consensus and conflict, static and change, order and dissension, cohesion and the role of power, integration and conflict, and lastly consensus and constraint. He saw them all as equally the double aspects of society. On that point, Dahrendorf asserted that society could not survive without both consensus and conflict. He felt that way because without conflict, there can be no consensus, and although consensus leads to conflict, conflict also leads to consensus.
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