1. What is the motivational problem of social order?
2. Does Parsons think that the social system needs to meet the needs of every individual? Why or why not?
3. What is the relationship between social system meeting individuals’ minimum needs and the social system motivating them to perform the expected responsibilities for the survival of the social system? Please cite precise excerpt(s) from the article.
4. Using America as a case, how does the social system allocate “opportunity, prestige, and power” so as to prevent the “motivational problem of order?”
Merton
1. How are predictions about the natural world different from predictions in the social world? Why does this matter for unanticipated consequences?
2. What are the reasons given for why “immediacy of interest” can influence/lead to unanticipated consequences of purposive action?
3. In what ways is Merton contributing to Parson’s concept of the individual actor and its role in a functionalist system?
Coser
1. What kind of group tends to suppress conflict within its ranks, and why?
2. What happens to feelings of hostility over time in these groups?
3. What is a safety-valve institution, and why is it functional according to Coser?
4. What role does segmental participation have in whether conflict is functional to social structure or not? Provide 2 examples and be ready to explain them in detail.
5. How is conflict a means for minimizing social isolation? What is the relationship between conflict and his idea of Unity?
Mills
1. Mills thinks the balance of power metaphor doesn’t work. Why?
2. What is the “triangle of power?” In what ways do the leaders in this triangle determine how the rest of society’s members experience their lives?
Dahrendorf
1. According to Dahrendorf, how does the pluralism-superimposition scale affect the violence of a conflict? What about its intensity?
2. What is relative deprivation, and what is absolute deprivation? How do they relate to the intensity and violence of conflict?
3. Dahrendorf contends that violence and intensity are key to class conflict. How are these 2 elements important to class conflict variability?
Collins
1. Why are humans conflict prone, according to Collins, and how does he view coercion as a resource?
2. How does the ratio of giving orders to taking orders in a workplace map onto the common division of upper, middle, and lower classes?
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