Intro and Ch.1 - Chriss, Social Control

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Introduction and Chapter 1

• James J. Chriss

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• F. Ivan Nye
• Direct control all the actual or possible
  restraints that can be marshaled against deviance
  (sanctions)
• Internal control socialization internalization
  of norms and values in the personality
  (motivational complex)
• Indirect control bonds of attachments between
  persons (relationships)

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• Michael Katovich
• Social control is not inherently evil
• Emphasizes cooperative bases of control (everyday
  life) four basic types
• Instrumental control meshing of tasks to
  accomplish collective goals
• Ceremonial control more fleeting and episodic
  than instrumental control acknowledging the
  worth of the other

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• Michael Katovich
• Interpersonal control investment of selves and
  identities in ongoing lines of shared activity
  (more expressive than instrumental)
• Categorical control identification and action
  on the basis of structural or categorical
  identities (rather than personal identities)
• These categories can be simplified under the
  broader concept of informal control

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• James Beniger
• From the beginning of life on earth (more than
  one billion years ago) there have developed four
  levels of control
• Emergence of organic matter struggle for
  survival control of environment and survival of
  the fittest
• Imitation first appearance about 100 million
  years ago learning patterns of behavior in
  groups (rapid advance with language)

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• James Beniger
• Increased food production more organized
  activities around food surpluses (agriculture)
  social inequalities increased with sedentary
  lifestyles
• Industrial and post-industrial eras beginning
  175 years ago technological innovations in
  transportation and distribution systems,
  including computers and information information
  is the basis of the new Control Revolution

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• Jack Gibbs
• Control as sociologys central notion three
  basic forms, based on objects of control
• Inanimate control human control of inanimate
  objects (increased control over environment)
• Biotic control human control of plant and/or
  animal organisms (excluding humans)
• Human control human control of human behavior
  (internal and external)
• Social control is merely one type of external
  human control

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Five Alternative Approaches to Control

• 5. Talcott Parsons
• Functionalism, a macro, systems-oriented
  perspective
• Four functional problems, AGIL
• Four types of control
• Informal (I), norms of everyday life, influence
• Legal (G), legal norms, power
• Medical (A), ability to fulfill role
  requirements, capacities
• Religious (L), realm of ultimate values

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What is Social Control?

1. Social control all those mechanisms and
   resources for assuring norm-conforming behavior
   (p. 18)
2. Social control becomes a topic of scholarly
   attention with the establishment of American
   sociology (1875 1894)
3. Major founders were Lester F. Ward (1841 1913)
   and Edward A. Ross (1866 1951)

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What is Social Control?

• New social forces industrialization,
  secularization, urbanization, immigration,
  contributed to the releasing of individuals from
  group control
• Émile Durkheim transition from mechanical
  solidarity to organic solidarity (Table 1.1, p.
  25).
• The great social dilemma how to produce
  self-controlled individuals?
• Religion was the earliest and best answer
• But with secularization, what then?

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Weber on Power and Domination

1. Persons often act on the basis of the existence
   of a legitimate order.
2. Power the ability of actors to carry out their
   will despite resistance
3. Domination probability that a command will be
   obeyed by a person or group
4. Weber understood domination to mean authority.

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Weber on Power and Domination

• Ideal types of authority
• Legal belief in the legality of rules and the
  authority of those to issue commands
• Traditional established belief in the sanctity
  of long-standing customs (the elders)
• Charismatic devotion to the exceptional
  qualities of an individual
• With modernity and increasing rationality,
  legitimate authority is dominated by the legal
  type

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Carl Schmitt

• German political theorist and legal scholar
  (1888-1985)
• Briefly a member of the Nazi party (1933-1936)
• Today read by far-left intellectuals for his
  critique of liberalism
• All politics and social control can be boiled
  down to friends vs. enemies

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The Rise of the State

• Authority can be extended to the collective level
• Political authoritarian association
• The state a political institution which claims
  a monopoly of the physical use of force over a
  specific territory
• Distribution of power varies by political system
  (e.g., constitutional democracy versus autocracy)

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The Rise of the State

• States maintain legitimacy to the extent that
  they assure both
• Facticity reality of the legal order backed by
  the coercive power of the state (instrumental)
• Validity citizen acknowledgment of the
  propriety of the legal order (expressive)

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Rationalization

• Cultural movement beginning with Enlightenment
  (17th century in Europe)
• Emphasis on planning, measurement, systematic
  observation, quantification, predictability,
  uniformity, records, and standardization.
  Examples
• Imposition of surnames by Spanish against
  colonial subjects in the Philippines
• McDonaldization
• Gift cards and registries