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.

thumb|I.G Patel And R.G Dahrendorf, 1993

Biography

Family

Dahrendorf was born in Hamburg, Germany, on 1 May 1929, the son of Lina and Gustav Dahrendorf and brother of Frank Dahrendorf. As a child, Ralf was a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, the youngest branch of the Hitler Youth. 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.

Marriages and children

Dahrendorf was married three times. He married his first wife, Vera, in 1954. She was a fellow student at the London School of Economics. Together they had three daughters: Nicola, Alexandra and Daphne Dahrendorf. Nicola Dahrendorf has worked for the United Nations and as the West Africa Regional Conflict Adviser to the UK Government.

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.

Education and career

Ralf Dahrendorf studied philosophy, classical philology, and sociology at Hamburg University between 1947 and 1952. He continued his academic research at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper as a Leverhulme Research Scholar in 1953–1954, gaining a PhD degree in sociology in 1956. At this early stage in Dahrendorf's academic career, he took an interest in Marxist theory and wrote his PhD thesis on Karl Marx's theory of justice. After completing his doctorate he returned to Germany, where he was a professor of sociology at Hamburg (1957–1960), Tübingen (1960–1964) and Konstanz (1966–1969) universities.

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. 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.

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.

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. 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. 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. This new theory is said to have taken place in reaction to structural functionalism and in many ways represents its antithesis. The conflict theory attempts to bring together structural functionalism and Marxism.

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. 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. 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. The essence of Dahrendorf's ideas about the future of the liberal order is about identifying both latent and manifest tensions at the different levels in which they exist, the potential for conflict, and identifying the options available for solutions and resolving conflict.

Authority

Dahrendorf opposed those who studied authority on an individual level. He was very critical of those who focused on the psychological or behavioural characteristics of the individuals who occupy such positions. He went even further to say that those who adopted that approach were not sociologists. The groups of society in different associations are drawn together by their common interests. Dahrendorf explains that latent interests are natural interests that arise unconsciously in conflict between superordinates and subordinates. He defines manifest interests as latent interests when they are realised. In conclusion, Dahrendorf believes that understanding authority to be the key to understanding social conflict.

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. Quasi groups are "aggregates of incumbents of positions with identical role interests". 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. His belief in a changing society separated Dahrendorf's ideas from Marx, who supported the concept of a utopia. Marx believed that the battle between the different classes formed the concept of class phenomenon.

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.

Relationship to other classical theorists and perspectives

Unlike many of the other works published by social theorists in the 1950s, Dahrendorf's work acknowledges the same class interests that worried Marx. Like Marx, Dahrendorf agreed that conflict is still a basic fact of social life. Dahrendorf believed that class conflict could have beneficial consequences for society, such as progressive change. Nevertheless, Dahrendorf still shares key ideas with structural functionalists, such as a general faith in the efficacy of political and economic institutions. Like Weber, Dahrendorf criticises Marx's view that the working class will ultimately become a homogeneous group of unskilled machine operators. Dahrendorf points out that in postcapitalist society there are elaborate distinctions regarding income, prestige, skill level, and life chances. Dahrendorf's pluralist view of class and power structures and belief that hierarchies of authority are inevitable in modern societies also reflect Weberian ideas. The prize awards the winning research project with 50,000 euros, enabling winners to not only continue their research but explore different communication ideas. There is a jury made up of high-class scientists and media personalities that help decide who should receive funding for their projects. The most recent winner of the Ralf Dahrendorf Prize was the Children Born Of War. Children Born Of War – Past, Present, Future, saw researchers from eleven research institutions in the European Union study the life courses of children, fathered by foreign soldiers and born to local mothers, who were conceived during and after armed conflicts – a topic about which families, local communities and entire societies, often remain silent. Examples include children of the occupations during and after the Second World War in Germany and Austria, or children conceived through rape during the Bosnian War.

  • 1977: Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) awarded by the University of Bath.
  • 1977: elected member of the American Philosophical Society
  • 1977: elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences
  • 1982: Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
  • 1989: Grand Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • 1993: Life Peer (Baron Dahrendorf)
  • 1997: Theodor-Heuss-Preis
  • 1999: Medal of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
  • 1999: Honorary Senator of the University of Hamburg
  • 2002: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
  • 2003: Pour le Mérite

See also

  • Dahrendorf hypothesis
  • List of liberal theorists

References

  • 2011 Dahrendorf Symposium – Changing the Debate on Europe – Moving Beyond Conventional Wisdoms
  • 2011 Dahrendorf Symposium Blog
  • Straddling Theory with Practice – Conversation with Sir Ralf Dahrendorf by Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies; 4 April 1989
  • Daily Telegraph obituary
  • Biography at the Liberal Democrat History Group
  • New York Times Obituary
  • Lecture of Dahrendorf (25 May 1989) about 'The Decline of Socialism' at Gresham College (audio and pdf transcript)

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