Integration
Integration
I. CULTURAL INTEGRATIONDonald N. Levine
II. SOCIAL INTEGRATIONRobert Cooley Angell
I. CULTURAL INTEGRATION
The idea that the diverse parts of any culture normally cohere in some determinate fashion has proven useful in the past in at least five contexts. (1) As an aid to description, the assumption of cultural integration has provided an economical way of summarizing large bodies of cultural data and has facilitated the portrayal of cultures in ideal-typical terms. (2) It has been used to help explain the particular ways in which members of a society accept, reject, or modify items which have diffused from other cultures. (3) Administrators and reformers have been guided by the concept in their efforts to find innovations and modes of introducing change which “fit” most comfortably into existing cultures. (4) The breakdown of cultural integration has been hypothesized as a causative factor in accounting for such phenomena as ennui, suicide, crime, and cultural lability. (5) Philosophers of culture have invoked the ideal of cultural integration as a criterion to be used in the evaluation of cultures.
Although cultural integration has been the subject of few sustained theoretical analyses and even fewer empirical studies, recent developments in modern society and in social theory alike have increased the salience of the concept. The cultural dislocations caused by the accelerated pace of change in our times; the increasing number of roles affected by contradictory cultural standards; greater awareness of cultural contradictions in consequence of higher education, mass communications, and more intimate interaction among people with diverse cultural orientations; and anxiety about such inconsistencies resulting from the importance of rationality in a culture increasingly subjected to universalistic standards—these are some of the sociological factors which appear to have promoted concern about the coherence of culture patterns. In addition, the world-wide modernization of traditional societies has stimulated numerous discussions concerning the integration of traditional and modern culture patterns (e.g., Redfield 1950; Almond 1960; Chicago, University of …1963; Levine 1965).
The practical interest in the subject that stems from such considerations is matched by its significance from the point of view of current social theory. The nine distinguished scholars who signed the 1951 statement on the general theory of action assert that “the internal coherence of a body of cultural patterns is always a crucial problem for the student of culture” (Parsons & Shils 1951, p. 21). Much of the scientific excitement over this concept derives from the fact that so “crucial” an aspect of culture is to a large extent covert, unknown to the bearers of cultures themselves, and must be uncovered through the most imaginative efforts of scientific curiosity. Theoretically, the concept is related to contemporary efforts to deal in a more precise manner with the differential properties of culture systems and social systems and with their interpenetrations.
Indeed, one of the chief rewards of using the terms “culture” and “social structure” as analytic concepts rather than as global categories has been an increasingly differentiated understanding of the forms and dynamics of integration at the collective level. Consistent with the vagueness of those omnibus categories, earlier social scientists used the term integration in a fairly diffuse sense (e.g., Durkheim 1897; Sumner 1906; Benedict 1934). Sorokin’s insistence on the distinction between systems integrated on the basis of functional interdependence and systems integrated in terms of logical and meaningful coherence (1937-1941) may be identified as the bench mark of a new orientation, even though the distinction as formulated by Sorokin crosscuts the dichotomy of culture and social structure. Most subsequent discussions of cultural integration have either repeated this distinction (Cohen 1948; Geertz 1957), elaborated and refined it (Landecker 1951; Parsons & Shils 1951), or else have dealt with cultural integration in the special sense of a phenomenon sui generis (Kluckhohn 1941; Redfield 1941; Kroeber 1948; Eggan 1955; Parsons 1959).
In addition to this movement from ambiguity to specificity in using the concept of cultural integration, social scientists also raised a number of provocative questions about the sources, forms, limits, and consequences of cultural integration, and in at least a few cases (Linton 1936; Sorokin 1937-1941; Redfield 1941; Kluckhohn 1941; Opler 1945) have circumspectly related the concept to bodies of reliable data. In so doing, they have transformed the character of the concept from an assumed principle to an analytic variable and from an evaluative to a nonevaluative category.
Cultural integration—structural variable
The related assumptions that sociocultural systems are characterized by an inner coherence and unity that is essential to their nature and that this integrity is a salutary and valuable property draw on intellectual traditions that are more than two centuries old. Vico and Montesquieu were early modern proponents of the view that the beliefs, purposes, laws, and customs of a society constitute a meaningfully interrelated complex of traits, not a haphazard assortment. Burke and de Maistre stressed the idea that a society is like an organism, the parts of which are in a natural balance that should not be disrupted by arbitrary innovations derived from abstract reasoning. Rousseau, Herder, and Chaadaev espoused the romantic conception that societies are integrated through their embodiment of distinctive principles, that their “mission” is to realize these unique principles and avoid extraneous influences which interfere with that realization. Such perspectives were incorporated into historical studies through the work of men like Burckhardt, Dilthey, and Lamprecht, for whom the task of scholarship was to discern the characteristic configurations of historical periods which reflect a distinctive harmony, world view, or collective spirit (Volksseele)—a mission revived in this century by the efforts of scholars like Speng-ler, Jaeger, and Basham.
Largely because of anthropological work in the 1930s and after, such extreme views of both the extent and the value of cultural integration have been substantially rejected. The rejection of the view of cultures as totally integrated organic unities—which in any case was probably never adhered to by more than a small minority of serious scholars—may be traced in two stages. Despite Malinowski’s implication that all living cultures are fully integrated—"the significance of culture consists in the relation between its elements, and the existence of accidental or fortuitous culture complexes is not admitted” (1931, p. 625—those cultural anthropologists who were concerned with the problem developed the view that integration is not a vital principle to be assumed fully operative in all cultures but is rather a formal property which varies on a continuum from high to low. Ruth Benedict, who has at times been accused of “mystically” imputing such a principle to cultures, stated explicitly that “lack of integration seems to be as characteristic of certain cultures as extreme integration is of others” (1934, p. 223). Cultural integration came to be visualized as an emergent property—not an essential attribute, but the outgrowth of a continuing process of mutual selection and adjustment of elements into a more or less coherent pattern. “It is not,” stated Kroeber, “a growth of parts unfolding from a germ in accord with a pre-existing harmonious master plan. Such an unfolding has often been assumed, insinuated, or asserted …but it remains wholly undemonstrated, and history shows it to be at least partly untrue” (1948, p. 287).
Using cultural integration as a structural variable, students began to analyze the limits of the extent to which any culture could be called integrated. As other investigators came upon data which diverged from her interpretation of Zuni culture, Benedict’s own cases of “extreme integration” were rendered suspect. Following to a large extent in Benedict’s footsteps, Kluckhohn nevertheless observed that most cultures are “permeated by apparent contradictions” (Kluckhohn & Kelly 1945). And Malinowski himself, despite alleged assumptions of the complete integration of cultures, provided eloquent documentation of the clash of normative principles in primitive society (1926). Observations of this sort were paralleled by two main lines of argument against the theoretical possibility of a perfectly integrated human culture. Since change of some sort due to invention, diffusion, or environmental alteration is always going on, no culture can ever have all its elements in a condition of complete mutual adjustment (Linton 1936, p. 357). Even if change were not inevitable, moreover, culture is “borne” only by being institutionalized in social systems and internalized in personalities, and the “structural imperatives” of these systems of action are such as to require more kinds of culture than can be included in any single consistently integrated pattern (Parsons 1951).
Yet, however much scientific estimates of culture’s capacity for integration get revised downward, the consensus is that the study of culture can never again be reduced to the collecting of pebbles. Redfield has stated the case with characteristic elegance: “There is no society the conventional life of which may be described realistically in terms of a series of accounts of customs and beliefs taken one by one so that each is completely reported without reference to any one of the other” (1941, p. 132). And Opler confessed that “…in a good many years of intensive field work I have never found ’ isolated segments of behavior logically unrelated to the remainder of the culture’” (1946, p. 44). Surveying this whole development, Kluckhohn concluded that “the greatest advance in contemporary anthropological theory is probably the increasing recognition that there is something more to culture than artifacts, linguistic texts, and lists of atomized traits” ([1951] 1959, p. 89).
The current view, then, is that integration is a quality of culture that is never perfect but never absent—a structural property that varies from relatively high to relatively low and that can be related empirically and theoretically to other cultural and sociological variables. The increased realism and flexibility with which the concept is now handled has produced a more subtle conception of cultural integration as an ideological category. By the 1930s two traditions in social science converged to create what might be called the pathos of cultural integrity. A number of anthropologists, impressed by the aesthetic coherence of some of the primitive cultures they had encountered, came to view cultural integration as a touch stone of human excellence and euphoria. Edward Sapir maintained that the only culture worthy of the name is that which is “inherently harmonious, balanced, self-satisfactory …the expression of a richly varied and yet somehow unified and consistent attitude toward life …” (1924, p. 410). Others saw cultural integrity as the primary source of individual morale and vitality, of social cohesion, and of a profound outlook on life. A number of sociologists, on the other hand, took their point of departure from the ills of modern society and traced them back to cultural disorganization. The concept of culture conflict became the key to the sociological understanding of crime (Sellin 1938). Sociologists and others depicted contemporary American culture as one shot through with crippling contradictions (Bain 1935; Homey 1937; Lynd 1939). Ralph Linton proclaimed:
…what the modern world needs far more than improved production methods or even a more equitable distribution of their results is a series of mutually consistent ideas and values in which all its members can participate. Perhaps something of the sort can be developed in time to prevent the collapse which otherwise seems inevitable. If not, another “dark age” is in order…. (1936, p. 287)
Such strong views of the virtues of extreme cultural integration and the dangers of malintegration have been tempered by a number of considerations. (1) A very high degree of cultural integration may counteract other values which are important in some societies, such as creativity and novelty, or cultural pluralism. (2) While the integral growth of complex cultures is of great value, it can only be attained at the expense of the development of individual personality. As civilization advances, the conflict between “objective culture” and “subjective culture” becomes increasingly tragic (Simmel 1911). (3) As Linton himself came to stress in later years when dealing with the problems of developing areas, less tightly integrated cultures have greater adaptability; when a new culture element is introduced, “…the closer the integration, the more extensive and immediate the dislocations” ([1952] 1956, p. 86). (4) Cultures are after all not very fragile entities. Their power of persistence has impressed most observers, and they have a regenerative capacity which enables them to resolve contradictions and create new forms of order. What is experienced by a participant or observer as the disorganization and impending doom of a culture may well be simply a phase of adjustment in the process of cultural reintegration (Redfield 1941; Kroeber 1948). (5) No less significant than these substantive insights into the nature of culture has been the increasing sophistication of our method of coping with such normative problems. In accord with the level of complexity on which contemporary social science proceeds, one would no longer maintain that cultural integration as such is inherently valuable or not, but rather ask: What kind of integration of what kinds of contents has what kinds of consequences for whom?
To state the normative problem in this fashion is to return to the scientific problem of analyzing and measuring cultural integration. Contemporary approaches are marked by a great diversity with respect to the forms, processes, and consequences of cultural integration. There is further diversity with respect to the kinds of cultural contents which are referred to in the study of integration. Since the relationship among the diverse phenomena referred to by these varying notions of cultural integration is problematic, a more differentiated treatment of the concept henceforth is indicated. It is symptomatic of the gap between cultural theory and the theory of social structure that, whereas the latter has available a rich and complex conceptual framework, analysis of cultural structure still proceeds—with the notable exception of linguistics—at a level not far from common sense. In one of the most clearly reasoned classifications of types of collective integration (Landecker 1952), nine forms of social integration are distinguished, but only three forms of cultural integration. The following classification of the dimensions of cultural integration is offered as a contribution toward closing that gap.
All the scholars whose work will be reviewed here agree on two points: that culture consists of symbols and that cultural integration has reference to the relationships among these symbols. They differ with respect to (1) the kinds of symbols that are studied—the problem of the contents of culture; (2) the groups whose cultures are studied—the problem of the levels of cultural integration; and (3) the nature of the relationship between symbols—the problem of the forms of cultural integration. We begin with the last of these, since that is where most of the issues lie.
The forms of cultural integration
Configurational or thematic integration
The first type of cultural integration is that made prominent by the work of Ruth Benedict (1934). It refers to an identity of meaning within a diversity of cultural items: their conformity to a common pattern, their embodiment of a common theme. It is integration through similarity. It is illustrated by the extent to which, among the Zuni, marriage customs, dance forms, attitudes toward death, and other aspects of culture all tend to reflect a characteristic interest in sobriety, moderation, and cere-moniousness. The existence of this dimension of integration has been related to the imperative of selectivity: man’s genetic heritage is insufficient to orient him in this world and the potentialities for behavior are innumerable. Therefore, some segment of the total arc of possibilities must be selected in order to provide direction in behavior and meaning in the environment. Students using this approach differ as to whether this principle of selectivity is to be conceived of as a structure (Kluckhohn’s “configuration”), a dynamic postulate (Opler’s “theme”), or a kind of cognitive disposition (Sorokin’s “culture mentality”). They also disagree about whether the canons of choice are unconscious : Kluckhohn used the term configuration to refer specifically to structural regularities that are unconscious and defines the integrating principle of a culture as its “single dominant master configuration” (1943, p. 218), whereas Opler implicitly rejects the premise of the covertness of basic orienting themes in culture as an unnecessary restriction (1945, p. 198). An obvious method of measuring the extent of this type of integration in a culture would be to count the proportion of items which embody its posited integrating principle—a vast undertaking and one that has been attempted only once in this century. Sorokin sought to measure the extent to which various periods in the history of Western civilization were integrated in terms of the “identity of the fundamental principles and values that permeate all (their) parts” ([1937-1941] 1962, vol. 4, p. 11) by devising numerical indices to represent the extent to which the various departments of culture—painting, architecture, music, literature, philosophy, etc.—were informed by one or another kind of basic cultural mentality.
Opler recommends counting unformalized expressions of a theme as well as formalized ones, a task requiring “close observation, accounts of personal experiences, and autobiographical materials,” and also observation of “the intensity of the reaction and the character of the sanctions invoked .. .” when the terms of a theme are violated (1945, p. 201).
With respect to the consequences of configurational integration, it is evident that a very high degree of conformity of the elements of culture to a particular pattern imposes serious restrictions on the freedom of individuals who are inclined toward alternative patterns; there is little scope for the realization of variant and deviant patterns. While, moreover, it has been suggested that cultures which do not subordinate all their parts to a ruling principle give “an impression of extreme poverty” (Benedict 1934, p. 196), the point has also been made that the predominance of a single theme in a culture may have highly disruptive consequences and is to be regarded as socially pathological (Opler 1945, p. 199).
Connective integration
A second type of cultural integration concerns the extent to which the diverse parts of culture are directly connected with one another. In describing this phenomenon of the mutual association of different cultural elements, anthropologists have used terms like “connotative interdependence” (Redfield 1941, p. 352), “systemic pattern” (Kroeber 1948, p. 312), and “assemblage” (Opler 1959, p. 962); and for cultural traits which are discrete and not associated with others, the term “separates’ (Redfield 1941, p. 138). The distinction between this type of integration and that discussed in the first category may be readily illustrated: while, following Weber (1904-1905), one may say that modern Western culture is highly integrated in that its various branches—music, law, science, etc.—are all characterized by a dominant “rationalistic” culture orientation, there has been relatively little association between the worlds of music, law, and science in modern Western culture. Conversely, while there is a close association between military symbols (carrying rifles, martial chants) and devotional symbols (hymns, pious poetry) on the occasion of Ethiopian Orthodox holidays, these two sets of symbols represent directly opposed themes or configurations in Ethiopian Christian culture. In one attempt to study integration in the sense of interconnection, Red-field sought to measure this dimension of cultural organization in four Yucatecan communities by observing the number of “separates” in each. His study supported the hypothesis that connective integration is promoted by isolation and cultural homogeneity. In the relatively isolated tribal community, he found that pagan and Christian complexes were closely interwoven: “…the bee cult is under the care of the Virgin; the patronage of certain saints over certain animals is more explicit . . .” (Redfield 1941, p. 139); whereas in the less isolated peasant village, he found a greater compartmentalization of ideas—for example, “…the care of the hives and the cult of the bee deities remain pagan in nature ... no saint enters into the conceptions . . .” (ibid., p. 136).
The consequences of a high degree of cultural interconnection, Redfield proposed, are the greater efficacy of culture as a design for living, greater durability in style of life, and greater depth of the world view; whereas in the less organized culture of the town, the presumably related characteristics were found to be uncertainty, self-consciousness, restlessness and, frequently, distress. The existence of this form of integration may thus be seen as a response to man’s need for coherence. On the other hand, it seems to be clear that any sort of cultural excellence above the most primitive sort requires the presence of cultural specialists. The extent to which cultural specialization requires compartmentalization and segregation is an important question for the theory of culture, one which has not yet received the attention it deserves.
Logical integration
A third dimension of integration concerns the extent to which cultural items tend to contradict one another. This perspective defines integration not as identity or as inter locking diversity but in terms of logical consistency —a criterion that primarily affects existential beliefs and systems of norms. This type of integration is by definition a response to man’s need for rationality. While this need may not be very fully developed in relatively undifferentiated societies—the existence of such rationalized bodies of culture as philosophical systems or legal codes requires the presence of cultural specialists working under special conditions—the discomfort psychologists have come to refer to as “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger 1957) is presumably endemic in human nature. Students of logical integration have stressed the importance of distinguishing between what appears to an outsider as a logical contradiction and what is “felt as such” by those who live in the culture (Landecker 1951), or inconsistencies which “…present a dilemma with regard to attitude or overt behavior” (Redfield 1941, p. 137). A negative index of the logical integration of culture would thus be the number of experienced “incompatibles,” a variable also examined in Redfield’s study of Yucatan. Adapting Linton’s terms to the study of this phenomenon, Landecker has proposed that cultural integration be measured by (1) the number of inconsistencies among “universals” and (2) the number of inconsistencies among “specialties with societal reference.” Following a line of thought of some prominence in modern sociology, he has also hypothesized that one consequence of consistency among cultural standards is a high degree of “normative integration”: “…the higher the degree of (logical) integration among the standards of a culture is, the higher the degree of behavioral conformity to these standards will be” (1952, p. 398).
Adaptive or functional integration
The “strain of consistency” among folkways which Sumner is famous for emphasizing is not the consistency of pure logic: whatever the contradictions in a culture from the point of view of pure reason, the folkways are “true” and can make anything seem right. Sum-ner stresses rather the adaptive character of culture —traits are ways of satisfying needs—and finds that “…they all answer their several purposes with less friction and antagonism when they cooperate and support each other” (1906, sec. 5 in 1940 edition). The functional integration of culture is an outgrowth of the desire for efficiency. As Sorokin has pointed out, Pareto’s concept of “logical” action really refers not to logical consistency but to functional effectiveness ([1947] 1962, p. 340).
Although it is due to his view of culture as “essentially an instrumental apparatus” that Malinowski in his theoretical writing stresses that culture “…is an integral in which the various elements are interdependent” and rejects the notion that any culture traits can be a nonfunctional survival (1944, p. 150), students of functional integration generally have stressed the imperfections and dislocations in the organization of culture from this point of view. They tend to see changes chronically originating in the technological sector which then upset whatever functional equilibrium had previously been obtained. Because of what Sumner calls the strain of improvement toward better adaptation of means to ends and because instrumental techniques are the foundation on which the whole elaborate superstructure of culture is founded, “…societies are thus constantly trapped into accepting elements which are highly disruptive” (Lin-ton 1936, p. 356). The result is a lack of integration, a “culture lag,” which frequently becomes cumulative and so dysfunctional that sometimes revolution or war is the only way to overcome it (Ogburn 1957).
Stylistic integration
A fifth type of integration is that which emerges from the mutual adaptation of parts of experience felt so intensely that their contrasts and organization produce an emotionally gratifying whole. Its locus is those characteristic modes of behavior and manners of expression we term styles. This type of integration springs not from the rational impulse for logical consistency nor from the practical impulse for instrumental effectiveness—though these may be fused with it—but from the aesthetic impulse for authentic expression of experience in satisfying form. Spontaneity and creativity are the essence of this form of integration; “…where compulsion or physical or physiological necessity reign, there is no room for style” (Kroeber 1957, p. 150). While stylistic integration is usually associated primarily with the fine arts, styles have also been identified in such diverse spheres as social thought (Mannheim 1927), political and economic behavior (Riesman 1950), and science and philosophy (Kroeber 1948; 1957), not to mention the commonly appreciated activities of eating and dressing.
While the concept “style of life” has long been familiar to social scientists from the work of Max Weber, their investigation of stylistic integration is still in the earliest stages; they have much to learn about methods of studying style from scholars in the humanities, for whom it has naturally been a central concept. Kroeber is one of the few social scientists to have dealt at length with the problem of style outside the fine arts. His work supports the idea of applying the term “style” not only to the most diverse branches of culture but also to total cultures—not in the Spenglerian sense of considering a whole culture as a sort of expanded style but in that its several styles “…will tend to accommodate somewhat to one another; so that the whole may come … to possess a fairly high degree of congruence” (Kroeber 1957, p. 152). Such a total-culture style is what Sapir presumably had in mind in his conception of “genuine culture,” illustrated by his thumbnail characterization of French culture as marked by “the qualities of clarity, lucid systematization, balance, care in choice of means, and good taste” and also “overmechanization, emotional timidity or shallow-ness …[and] exaggeration of manner at the expense of content”; it was its lack of such a cultural style that made Sapir so critical of American culture (Sapir 1924, p. 407).
Some of Kroeber’s most stimulating work concerns the temporal dimension of stylistic integration: he argued (1944) that style patterns have specific potentialities that are realized in climactic spurts of creativity and are then exhausted, leading to their abandonment and the generation of new styles, and that periods of societal breakdown and reconstitution are accompanied by losses of style. One of the chief consequences of the attainment of a style pattern is thus the provision of a matrix of creative potentialities, and stylistic integration is the cultural substratum for the flowering of men of genius. [SeeStyle.]
Regulative integration
Common to all the approaches which have just been described is a conception of cultural integration in terms of coherence and harmony. Whether this harmony is defined as identity of pattern, connotative interdependence, logical consistency, functional appropriateness, or stylistic congruence, the point of departure is an assumption that the parts of culture tend for various reasons to be related in a harmonious way. The one-sidedness of this view becomes apparent if one considers the forms of integration in social systems; for in addition to the types of social integration based on conformity to norms, spontaneous interaction, and functional interdependence, sociologists have long recognized the importance of “integrative mechanisms” which deal directly with real or threatened eruptions of social conflict. Accordingly, any classification of forms of cultural integration which omits phenomena specifically related to the manifestation and control of cultural conflict must be considered incomplete.
Examples of three different approaches to the problem of regulative integration may be found in recent literature. (1) As observed above, Opler regards the uninhibited expression of a single theme in any culture as a disequilibrating factor. He defines integration in cultural structure in terms of the equilibrium that is achieved or approximated in most cultures by virtue of the existence of “limiting factors”—circumstances and counterthemes which control the number, force, and variety of a theme’s expressions (Opler 1945, p. 201). Thus, the theme of male superiority in Chiricahua culture is balanced by such factors as uxorilocal residence; so, while it is true that Chiricahua women may not use the sweat lodge, the sweat lodge is not considered a crucial element of their ceremonialism and, moreover, women may obtain supernatural power like men and become shamans. Regulative integration appears as a kind of balance of power among various cultural items. (2) A second type of regulation of divergent cultural patterns is through hierarchical organization. Talcott Parsons has presented highly suggestive analyses of this dimension of cultural structure in two contexts: the hierarchical arrangement of various value-orientations in a culture and the hierarchical ordering of the various types of cultural systems (1953; 1959; 1961). (3) A third example is what might be called the “moral division of labor” (Durk-heim 1897; Levine 1965). Cultural conflict is avoided by relegating divergent patterns to different segments of the population, with the implicit support by each segment of the values of the other, though overtly these may be in complete conflict. Matza’s work on youth subcultures has uncovered the interesting mechanisms of “conventional versions” (1961) and “subterranean convergence” (1964), through which deviant subcultural patterns are kept from total conflict with the dominant patterns.
Integration and the content of culture
If careful comparison of the approaches of different students of cultural integration leads to awareness of a variety of forms or dimensions of cultural integration, a survey of recent work in the field quickly reveals that our perception of what it is that becomes integrated has become no less differentiated. One aspect of this differentiation concerns the diversity of concrete cultures; another concerns the differentiation of analytically distinguishable systems within concrete cultures.
Just as a principal accomplishment of anthropologists working in the 1920s was to replace the generic study of culture by the study of particular cultures, so has the generation of social scientists working in the middle of this century rendered obsolete the concept of an undifferentiated particular culture and demanded the discrimination of various subcultures within any whole culture. Sociologists have identified and described in detail a number of persisting and coherent subcultures in the United States—including those borne by social classes (Warner 1949), ethnic groups (Glazer & Moynihan 1963), age groups (Matza 1961), and many others. Political scientists have found important differences between the subcultures of elites and masses in various nations (Pye & Verba 1965). Anthropologists who have moved from the study of relatively small, isolated societies to more complex societies have found it necessary to distinguish between segmental cultures and national cultures (Steward 1955) or between little traditions and great traditions (Redfield 1956). The call has been sounded for students of cultural integration in complex societies to take explicit account of such internal differentiation in making their analyses (Aberle 1950).
A fivefold schema, based on that proposed by Landecker, would seem adequate to handle the kinds of problems posed by that requirement. “…the first and most obvious structural distinction relevant to a complex group is that between the group as a whole and a smaller group within it. It will be terminologically convenient to call the larger group, when seen as a whole, the ’ compound-group,’ and to call the smaller group …the ’subgroup’” (Landecker 1952, p. 394). The proposed distinction is relative: the same group may be viewed now as a compound-group, now as a subgroup that exists within a much larger group. This distinction generates five questions concerning the cultural integration of complex groups:
(1) Intrinsic subgroup (cultural) integration—the extent to which the subgroup culture is internally integrated;
(2) Extrinsic subgroup integration, horizontal—the extent to which one subgroup culture is integrated with another;
(3) Extrinsic subgroup integration, vertical—the extent to which a subgroup culture is integrated with the compound-group culture;
(4) Compound-group integration, horizontal—the extent to which culture at the compound-group level is integrated; and
(5) Compound-group integration, vertical—the extent to which the total compound-group culture, including its subgroup cultures, is integrated.
This classification would of course be crosscut by that outlined in the preceding section on the forms of integration.
Another type of differentiation to which students of culture have become increasingly sensitive concerns the different kinds of symbol systems within a given subculture. While this area of cultural theory exists in a state of flux, one of the more prominent classifications divides culture into belief systems, normative systems, and systems of expressive symbolism; these in turn have been further subdivided. The analysis of cultural integration from this perspective focuses on the internal coherence of a particular symbol system and its relations with other analytic systems of action. Two categories of problems emerge at once: (1) intra-systemic problems—the degree of integration among the parts of a particular symbol system, say, the empirical beliefs or the expressive symbols of a given subculture; and (2) intersystemic problems—the degree of integration among two or more types of symbol system. The latter category would include such classical problems as Weber’s concern about the relationship between ultimate ideas about reality and practical ethics in the world religions and Mannheim’s concern about the relationship between empirical beliefs and systems of value orientations. Beyond this, there are the many problems having to do with the integration of symbol systems with the other dimensions of action, social systems, and personalities; but at this point the study of cultural integration itself dissolves as a boundary-maintaining system and becomes fused with such complex pursuits as the psychology of knowledge, cultural psychology, and the sociology of culture.
It may simply be noted here that earlier theories which treated cultural integration as epiphenom-enal—reducing it to a function of the rationalization of class interests or the projection of psychological impulses—have given way to a growing awareness that the emergent properties of cultural systems themselves include integrative problems of a distinct order.
Donald N. Levine
[Directly related are the entriesConflict; Culture; Social Structure. Other relevant material may be found in the biographies ofBenedict; Kroeber; Redfield; Sapir; Sorokin.]
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Linton, Ralph 1936 The Study of Man: An Introduction. New York: Appleton.
Linton, Ralph (1952) 1956 Cultural and Personality Factors Affecting Economic Growth. Pages 73-88 in Bert F. Hoselitz (editor), The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Lynd, Robert S. 1939 Knowledge for What? The Place of Social Science in American Culture. Princeton Univ. Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1926) 1961 Crime and Custom in Savage Society. London: Routledge.
Malinowski, Bronislaw 1931 Culture. Volume 4, pages 621-646 in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan.
Malinowski, Bronislaw 1944 A Scientific Theory of Culture, and Other Essays. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
Mannheim, Karl (1927) 1953 Conservative Thought. Pages 74-164 in Karl Mannheim, Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology. Edited by Paul Kecskemeti. London: Routledge. ? First published in German.
Matza, David 1961 Subterranean Traditions of Youth. American Academy of Political and Social Science, Annals 338:102-118.
Matza, David 1964 Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley.
Ogburn, William F. 1957 Cultural Lag as Theory. Sociology and Social Research 41:167–174.
Opler, Morris E. 1945 Themes as Dynamic Forces in Culture. American Journal of Sociology 51:198-206.
Opler, Morris E. 1946 Rejoinder. American Journal of Sociology 52:43-44.
Opler, Morris E. 1959 Component, Assemblage, and Theme in Cultural Integration and Differentiation. American Anthropologist New Series 61:955-964.
Parsons, Talcott 1951 The Social System. Glencoe, III.: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott 1953 A Revised Analytical Approach to the Theory of Social Stratification. Pages 92-128 in Reinhard Bendix and Seymour M. Lipset (editors), Class, Status and Power: A Reader in Social Stratification. Glencoe, III.: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott 1959 An Approach to the Sociology of Knowledge. Volume 4, pages 25-49 in World Congress of Sociology, Fourth, Milan and Stresa, 1959, Transactions. Louvain (Belgium): International Sociological Association.
Parsons, Talcott (1961) 1965 The Dimensions of Cultural Variation. Pages 964-971 in Talcott Parsons et al. (editors), Theories of Society: Foundations of Modern Sociological Theory. New York: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott; and Shils, Edward A. (editors) 1951 Toward a General Theory of Action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. ? A paperback edition was published in 1962 by Harper.
Pye, Lucian W.; and Verba, Sidney (editors) 1965 Political Culture and Political Development. Princeton Univ. Press.
Redfield, Robert 1941 The Folk Culture of Yucatan. Univ. of Chicago Press.
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Sorokin, Pitirim A. (1937-(1941) 1962 Social and Cultural Dynamics. 4 vols. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Bed-minster. ? Volume 1: Fluctuation of Forms of Art. Volume 2: Fluctuation of Systems of Truth, Ethics, and Law. Volume 3: Fluctuation of Social Relationships, War, and Revolution. Volume 4: Basic Problems, Principles, and Methods.
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Weber, Max (1904-1905) 1930 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons, with a foreword by R. H. Tawney. London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Scribner. ? First published in German. A paperback edition was published in 1958 by Scribner.
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II. SOCIAL INTEGRATION
The fitting together of the parts of a social system to constitute a whole has long been a matter of both practical and scientific interest. Historically, the often disruptive effects of the industrial revolution have directed attention to the practical problems of maintaining social integration or achieving reintegration. Both societies and communities have tried to ward off fragmentation or to recapture effective unity once fragmentation has occurred. Scientifically, there are both definitional and theoretical challenges. Is social integration one-dimensional, or is it a phenomenon having a number of facets? What are the useful criteria for judging whether it is present or absent? No questions are more basic, since to deal with social units at all is to be able to distinguish units from non-units, and this requires some notion of integration. Once the problem of conceptualization is settled, there are the far-reaching theoretical problems of the causes of high and low degrees of integration and of their effects on a great variety of other social phenomena.
Social integration is problematic at many levels, from the small group to the society. Although analytically each level may be treated separately, in real life the same group is usually a matter of concern on two levels. On a lower level it is a whole whose parts require integration, but at the next higher level it is a part that is more or less well integrated into some larger whole. Communities, for instance, have their own problems of integration, but they constitute elements in the integrative problem of their society. This article will treat only large social systems, such as cities, whole societies, and international communities; integration in small social systems is treated elsewhere [seeCohesion, Social].
Types of integration
The tendency in recent sociology has been to differentiate types of integration rather than to make the concept unidimen-sional. As Landecker points out in a seminal article (1951), it is useful in the early stages of exploration to determine the relation to one another of different facets of a phenomenon and thus to discover the degree to which it is unified. He distinguishes the following four types of integration: cultural, or the consistency among cultural standards; normative, or the consistency between cultural standards and the conduct of persons; communicative, or the extent to which the network of communication permeates the social system; and functional, or the degree to which there is mutual interdependence among the units of a system of division of labor. Here the last three types of integration will be regarded as subsumed by social integration. Since the distinction between cultural systems and social systems was not widely made before 1951 (Parsons & Shils 1951; Parsons 1951), analyses before that date that deal with the integration of sociocultural systems as wholes will also be discussed.
Durkheim‘ s contributions. The great pioneer in the study of social integration was Durkheim (1893). Picking up two ideas that go far back in the history of social thought, he presented two contrasting types, the first of which is a combination of cultural and normative integration and the second of which is functional integration.
What he called “mechanical solidarity” is the integration of parts through common values and beliefs. These values and beliefs constitute a collective conscience that enables persons and groups to cooperate successfully. In positing this conscience, Durkheim took for granted, without clear proof, both the congruence of the cultural standards and their effective internalization in persons. Since the members of the society express the collective conscience in the same way, just as the molecules in a solid express its fundamental property, he thought the term “mechanical solidarity” appropriate.
In contrast to mechanical solidarity, Durkheim distinguished “organic solidarity,” which is integration through interdependence: the parts of the whole reciprocate services as do the parts of an organism. Durkheim believed that the central contribution of his treatise was the demonstration that the division of labor, which is usually considered only an economic fact, is also a moral fact. Duties spring from the necessary cooperation of specialists—not just the duties specified in a contract, but the legitimate expectations with respect to means, quality of performance, and the like.
Although Durkheim was interested in the integration of the social system, he used two elements of the cultural system—the amount of repressive law and the amount of restitutive law—as indexes of the relative importance of the two types of integration. His theory is that to the degree that the system is one in which persons act alike, there is repressive law; to the degree that it is a system of reciprocating differences, there is restitutive law. He concluded that organic solidarity is becoming proportionately more important as civilization advances, since restitutive law is increasing while repressive law is decreasing.
Sorokin‘s approach. A very different distinction between two types of integration in the sociocultural system is that of Sorokin (1937-1941). Although his emphasis is mainly on cultural integration, one of his types—the “causal-functional” —-is concerned with the operative interdependence of cultural elements in the ongoing social system; thus it includes both cultural and functional integration, according to Landecker’s usage of these terms. The causal-functional type recalls Sumner’s “strain of consistency” among folkways (1906, p. 5). Sorokin did not carry his analysis of this type far, since he believed it inferior to the second type of integration, the “logico-meaningful.” Later analysts among sociologists have preferred to think of functional integration as occurring among roles, groups, or institutions in the social system rather than among elements of culture. Sorokin’s logico-meaningful type of integration is purely cultural, since it refers to the degree to which cultural elements reflect a central theme or principle. This type of integration was extensively explored through history by Sorokin and became one of the facets of the work of other students of cultural integration.
Later theoretical approaches
Subsequent to Sorokin’s work, the separation of normative and functional integration from cultural integration became clearer, and a concern for communicative integration appeared. Analyses related to each of these three will be taken up in turn.
Normative integration
A central motif of Parsons’ work (1937; 1951; 1960) has been the analysis of normative integration. According to his theory, such integration is achieved when the focal elements in the cultural system—the society’s common values—are institutionalized in structural elements of the social system. This occurs at three levels. Most general in application are norms that apply to categories of persons, such as men and women. Less general are the normative controls of collectivities, such as business enterprises and schools. Finally, there are structured roles within collectivities, for example, mother, father, teacher, pupil. Sanctions exist at each of the three levels, as well as the specifications of correct conduct.
There is evidence, however, that normative integration of large systems is not supported exclusively by the normative integration of their subsystems. One of the findings of a study of the German Wehrmacht in World War II by Shils and Janowitz (1948) was that a prime factor in the adherence to national military norms was the social cohesion of basic units like squads. Grod-zins (1956, p. 29) found evidence of the same influence of small groups in the patriotism of Englishmen. This sense of fellowship is different from any of the types of integration discussed in this article, since it depends upon person-to-person relations [seeCohesion, Social].
Because so little research has been done on normative integration, there is little theory that relates it to other aspects of the social system. Folk wisdom has long assumed that external opposition tends to increase the adherence to societal norms because of fears for the society’s survival. This proposition seems to be true, however, only above a certain level of integration already achieved; if the parts of the whole are weakly involved in a collective conscience, outside opposition may destroy the collectivity rather than strengthen it. With respect to internal factors, most students assume that normative integration tends to vary inversely with the size of the society, because of the greater difficulties of adequate internalization of societal norms in complex societies. However, because of the inadequacy of measuring devices, there is no proof that this is true. Again, although leadership is widely believed to make a difference, there are no data on its relationship to normative integration, except for studies of very small groups [seeLeadership].
There is an equal paucity of theory about the effect of different levels of normative integration on other phenomena. Many believe that a high degree of it is a “good thing”: that it promotes social stability, gives meaning to life, and ensures the survival of the system. Others are more skeptical, pointing out that deviance from norms is sometimes creative and that too firm a moral order may lead to lack of adaptability under changing circumstances. Ryan and Straus (1954), for instance, claim that the loose structure of Sinhalese society, with much tolerance of normative deviation, is not a handicap to its integration.
Functional integration
Since the time of Durk-heim, the development of the concept of functional integration has been entangled with the discussion of functionalism in anthropology and sociology. If it is assumed, as has been done by some anthropologists, that the specialized parts of society that survive in the course of evolution are making a positive contribution to the social system, then functional integration is not problematic; it is there by the very nature of the processes of social selection. Since each part is contributing to the welfare of the same whole, all the parts are making reciprocal contributions to one another. However, most sociologists do not take this position. Merton (1949), for instance, holds that each part probably contributes a net balance of functional consequences to the whole; but the dysfunctional consequences obscured by the net positive balance may render the relationship between particular parts anything but beneficial. Thus a chemical plant that brings prosperity to a community by the wages it pays may so pollute the air as seriously to endanger the health of patients in a nearby hospital. In such a case functional integration is weak.
Even the assumption of a net balance of functional consequences is not a necessary one. According to those who take an extremely nominalist view of society, the parts may or may not complement one another; there is no truly organic whole, and functional integration is therefore not essential. Much the same skepticism about the universality of functional integration is evidenced by conflict theorists like Dahrendorf (1957), for whom functional integration would have to be empirically proven to exist in each instance. Whether such proof is essential or not, empirical research using the concept of functional integration cannot be done without having clear criteria for measuring it. As Landecker points out (1951, p. 338) at least two criteria are involved: the degree of specialization and the degree of interdependence. Little work has been done on measuring either.
Most writers have assumed that social integration is equivalent to equilibrium—if not static, then moving. Gouldner (1959) challenges this assumption, at least for functional integration. He states that parts have some tendency toward functional autonomy and that therefore the system’s inclination toward integration creates tension. According to this view, equilibrium thus requires the insulation as well as the integration of parts; if a system has insufficient insulating mechanisms, increasing integration may lead to strife among parts and thus to disequilibrium. Gouldner (1960) makes a more fundamental point about the reciprocal relations that functional integration presupposes: that the contribution of any two parts to each other is often far from equal and that, because of superior power, one may be exploiting the other. He regards this situation as unstable, however, because he believes a norm of reciprocity tends to develop, requiring something like a fair exchange. Following Gouldner’s argument, one can infer that functional integration requires adherence to this norm of reciprocity and hence is related to, if not dependent on, normative integration.
Parsons approaches the same conclusion in a different way (1960). In an essay on Durkheim he approves the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity and hence between normative and functional integration as a fruitful one, but he states that they are connected at a higher level in a manner that Durkheim did not appreciate. Parsons suggests that mechanical solidarity is the expression of common values through the collectivity that is called government. Organic solidarity, on the other hand, derives from the economy—from its norms of property, contract, market relations, and the like. Thus organic solidarity is ultimately dependent on common values, just as is mechanical solidarity. Here Parsons seems to be subsuming functional integration under normative integration by asserting that interdependence is not integrative unless there are norms that control its operation. He does not, however, subordinate organic solidarity to mechanical solidarity, since they are at the same level of institutionalization. He coins the term “diffuse solidarity” to express attachment to common values and to represent the higher category in which they both are subsumed. What the social structure is that realizes diffuse solidarity is not clear from Parsons’ account.
Parsons’ reshaping of Durkheim’s scheme makes it more consistent with Durkheim’s own later work (1912), where there is every indication that he no longer believed that mechanical solidarity was becoming proportionately weaker and organic solidarity stronger. Actually, Durkheim had great difficulty in supporting this proposition when, in the preface to the second edition of The Division of Labor in Society, he tried to indicate how organic solidarity was bound to develop through occupational groups.
Although there is a rich literature on functional analysis, there is little work on the concept of functional integration and even less on its relations to other variables. Human ecologists have been interested in a general way in the causes of high degrees of functional integration and in its effects, but they have not yet provided a satisfactory way of measuring it so that research can proceed. Most of the variables that are thought to conduce to functional integration are not passive conditions but rather rational and purposive actions, such as conducting and applying manpower studies, and regional planning.
Theories about the effects of functional integration are few. One theory—which is almost tautological, since the result is implied in the definition —is that an increase in functional integration will lessen inefficiency and waste. There is little or no theory about the effects of functional integration other than its economic consequences.
Communicative integration
Among those who have been interested in communicative integration are the sociologists Wirth and Shils and the political scientist Deutsch. Wirth shows the importance of the mass media in achieving consensus in modern democracies. However, he sees communicative means as only one causal factor in that consensus.
Consensus is supported and maintained not merely by the ties of interdependence and by a common cultural base, by a set of institutions embodying the settled traditions of the people, and the norms and standards that they imply and impose, not merely by the living together and dealing with one another, but also, and not least important, by the continuing currents of mass communication, which in turn rest for their meaning-fulness and effectiveness upon the pre-existence of some form of a society, which hold that society together and mobilize it for continuous concerted action. (1948, p. 10)
Shils carries the idea a step further, arguing that through the mass media the center and the periphery of modern societies are more closely attached to each other than ever before. He believes that the mutual sense of responsibility thus engendered—which he calls “civility”—represents a new level of consensus: “The mass society is not the most peaceful or ‘orderly’society that has ever existed; but it is the most consensual” (1962, p. 53). To Shils the connection between the periphery and the center largely consists in the attachment of the masses to the central institutional and value system of the society. The communicative factor is thus seen as closely associated with the normative factor.
Deutsch (1953), more consistently than any other social scientist, employs the communication model pioneered by electrical engineers and psychologists [seeInformation theory]. Although he does not explicitly use the term “communicative integration,” his treatment of the concept of nationalism clearly implies it. According to Deutsch, the formation of a “community” by the people of a nation depends on the degree to which they are assimilated (have a common language and a common culture for fidelity in communication) and are mobilized (reached by the mass media and thus capable of national participation). These are concepts that can be applied to collectivities other than nations.
Deutsch’s analysis is persuasive because, if it can be accepted, the communication model might serve to bring together the rather disparate concepts of normative and functional integration. However, the difficulty is that there is much evidence that communication alone is not sufficient to achieve social integration. Units in the same communicative net that understand each other very well do not always cooperate; bitter political battles within a culturally homogeneous and highly educated country would otherwise not occur. It appears that communicative integration may be a necessary, but is not a sufficient, condition of social integration.
If Deutsch’s concepts of assimilation and mobilization are accepted as defining communicative integration, the immediate causes of high degrees of integration are fairly obvious—a common and rich set of symbols and access by all to the mass media. The conditions under which these immediate causes are produced, however, have not been adequately studied, although Deutsch has set forth a number of hypotheses. On the side of the effects of communicative integration, Deutsch is chiefly concerned with the greater efficacy of the policy-forming process that a high degree of integration makes possible. But it must be stressed that communicative integration is only the capability of acting together, not the actuality.
Connections between subtypes
In addition to the causes and effects of integration of the three types dealt with, there is the question of how these three, together with cultural integration, affect one another. Landecker (1952) poses this as an important research problem and offers some interesting hypotheses. One of them is that low communicative integration is associated with low normative integration, at least in modern cities. It is known that anomie is associated with crime, and it can be argued that anomie is a symptom of low communicative integration. But the last connection needs to be demonstrated by research.
The question can be raised whether all the phenomena that deserve inclusion under the concept of social integration can be allocated to one or another of the types. What of the legislative and judicial bodies of modern societies? Are not their activities conflict-resolving and therefore integra-tive? To the extent that judges merely apply existing law, they are helping to ensure that conduct conforms to cultural standards. But legislatures are creating new law, and to a degree judges also perform a creative role. This function does not fall explicitly under any of Landecker’s types as defined. It seems more closely related to normative integration than to the others, because new standards are being created to bring conduct into line with the ultimate values of the society (Angell 1958). But it could be argued that there can be similar problem solving both in the network of communication, as when desegregation breaks down communicative barriers, and in the functional integration of the system, as when new balancing mechanisms are worked out. Perhaps the best way to incorporate such phenomena in an integrative schema is to recognize a dynamic aspect of each type of integration that copes with changed conditions in a systematic way.
Empirical studies of social integration
The amount of thought that has gone into the verbal definition and refinement of concepts of social integration is altogether disproportionate to the amount of empirical research that has been devoted to testing hypotheses. This may be because potential investigators see the integration of large social systems as too global a phenomenon to be amenable to research; but a more likely reason is that a prerequisite type of research—the discovery of the best operational definition for a given concept—has rarely been attempted. It is not at all obvious how a concept like functional integration should be operationalized. Until the various operational definitions have been compared on the basis of their congruence to the intuitive idea, the most effective definition cannot be chosen, nor can the concept be standardized. It is perhaps significant that there have been only two ambitious empirical studies of social integration and that both of them have wrestled with this problem as a preliminary to the testing of hypotheses.
Angell (1951) studied the integration of American cities from the normative standpoint; his aims were to compare the degree of normative integration of 42 cities and to discover the causes of the differences. A measure of integration was derived by combining an index of the rate of crime (reversed) with a positive index of the devotion of the citizens to the community (using community fund figures), and it was validated by testing its covariance with a number of other indicators of normative integration, such as suicides, illegitimate births, and deaths from venereal disease. The integration scores for each city were then correlated with other data. Two causal factors were discovered, unrelated to each other, that in combination yielded a coefficient of —.79 with normative integration. These factors were the heterogeneity of the population in terms of racial stock and national background, and the rate of in- and out-migration of the population. Sample surveys conducted later in four of the cities confirmed the results and pointed to three other factors of probable significance for normative integration—the structure of community leadership, the amount of emphasis given to the community in the schools, and the amount of such emphasis in the churches.
The ambitious study of integration by Deutsch and his associates (1957) focuses on communicative integration, although it has overtones of both normative and functional integration. In this study Deutsch’s general approach to integration that was developed at the national level (1953) is carried to the international level. Thus he seeks to throw light on the causes of that high degree of integration among states that brings them into a so-called “security community,” where the resort to large-scale physical force becomes unthinkable. Historical evidence on ten cases of the formation of security communities in the North Atlantic area is carefully analyzed.
Deutsch et al. define integration as “…the attainment, within a territory, of a ‘sense of community’ and of institutions and practices strong enough and widespread enough to assure, for a ‘long’ time, dependable expectations of ’ peaceful change’ among its population” (1957, p. 5). The research itself fleshes out the skeletal concept in terms of such indicators as mutual sympathy and loyalties; “we-feeling,” trust and mutual consideration; partial identification in terms of self-images and interests; mutually successful predictions of behavior; and cooperative action in accordance with such predictions. All of these concepts are reminiscent of the indicators of integration in small groups and clearly stem from an outlook based in communication theory.
Although Deutsch did not set up specific hypotheses about causal factors, his findings suggest that the data were looked at in terms of communicative integration. The causal factors are grouped into the precedent conditions on the one hand and the characteristics of the movement toward integration on the other. Two prior conditions for integration are emphasized. The first is the compatibility of major values relevant to political decision making. This does not mean that all important values must be similar; those that may be different, such as religious values, may have been made compatible by being “depoliticized.” Nevertheless, there is an element of normative integration here as well as of communicative integration. The other important condition is the capacity of the governments concerned to respond to one another’s needs, messages, and actions quickly, adequately, and without resort to violence (there is a hint of functional integration here, since the needs are said to be differentiated). This capacity depends upon the existence of habits and institutions that insure that messages will be understood and given weight in the decision-making process. The reasoning here appears to be somewhat circular, since integration itself would create such habits and institutions. Finally, in discussing the dynamics of a movement toward political integration, the authors stress the importance of intellectuals and the bridges they build, of the mobility of populations, and of the feeling of a shared way of life.
Future prospects
One must conclude that the states of conceptualization, of operationalization, and of research-validated theory on social integration are all unsatisfactory. Although the concept has here been subdivided into three types—normative, functional, and communicative—and these treated separately, there is little consensus among scholars that this is the best way to proceed.
Of the three types, the concept of normative integration is best defined, thanks largely to the work of Parsons, but even it is somewhat unclear. The concept of functional integration is rudimentary, since no one is certain what slice of reality it represents; there is merely a belief that the division of labor is an integrative phenomenon. As for communicative integration, the meaning of the concept is quite clear—the interconnection of all parts of the system by serviceable channels over which understandable messages flow—but the question remains whether this is not a means to, rather than a kind of, integration. It is small wonder that the connections between such ill-defined subtypes are themselves unclear. The only tentative move toward an ordering is Parsons’suggestion of diffuse solidarity as equivalent to social integration (since it subsumes mechanical and organic solidarity and presumably would subsume communicative integration too).
Perhaps the key weakness in research on integration is the failure of most scholars to express their criteria clearly and to specify the operations for judging the degree of their fulfillment. Hypotheses regarding the causes or the effects of any sort of integration cannot be tested until this is done. Hence the paucity of research results on which theory can be built.
Social integration, then, remains a central concept in the minds of many, but it is a concept that so far has borne little fruit. Time will tell which of two alternatives is to be the destiny of the concept. Either it will fall into disuse because social scientists find the idea too broad and encompassing for a scientific concept, or it will enlist scientific devotees who will shape it and make it useful in the development of sound theory.
Robert Cooley Angell
[Directly related are the entriesCooperation; Systems Analysis, article onsocial systems. Other relevant material may be found inecology,article onhuman ecology; Functional analysis; Planning, social, article onregional and urban planning; and in the biographies ofDurkheim; Sorokin; Sumner.]
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