Table Of ContentTHE STUDY
POLITICS
OF
THE STUDY
POLITICS
OF
MAURICE DUVERGER
Translated by Robert Wagoner
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THIS WORK WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE
Sociologie Politique 3d ed. (PARIS: PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE, 1968)
COPYRIGHT © 1966 BY PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE
First published in Great Britain 1972
Reprinted 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980
Copyright © 1972 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Inc.
Reprint of the original edition 1972
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Designed by Barbara Kohn Isaac
ISBN-13:978-0-442-30698-4 e-ISBN-13 :978-94-009-3171-8
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-3171-8
NCN 5592 40 6
Foreword
If the study of politics is to be rewarding both intellectually and
practically it must. by definition. concern itself with the great issues
which arise in the real world and with the fundamental arguments
which occur about their nature and the possible solutions to them.
Abstract political philosophy which is not informed by the experi
ence of practice will become sterile. A study of constitutions and the
machinery of government can become dry-as-dust and hence boring
unless the underlying principles are analysed and grasped. But theo
ries of political change divorced from an understanding of consti
tutions and institutions will degenerate into mere phrase-mongering.
Attempts to apply the techniques of the natural sciences to politics
will lead to model building for its own sake and thence to arid and
barren intellectualism unless it is understood that it is impossible to
quantify the intangible. Indeed. anyone-sided approach to politics
and consequent failure to grasp the essential wholeness of the sub
ject is bound to end in disaster.
The study of politics is a study of changing human relationships
in dynamic societies. Thus it involves. since the present and hence
the future are shaped in part by the past. an appreciation of history.
Conflict of interest over the use of relatively scarce economic resources
is central to the subject. A failure to understand the role of techno
logical change and innovation entails the neglect of a vital facet of the
process. Above all. since it is ideas that lead to action. it is the de-
v
VI FOREWORD
velopment of conflicting theories about men in society that is central
to the subject.
It is the great virtue of Duverger's book that he has sought to
achieve a presentation of the essential wholeness of the subject, and
has succeeded. He has structured his book so as to illumine the basic
theoretical conflicts between Marxism and liberal democracy. In so
doing he sheds light on what has been for a century now the most
important intellectual and practical issue in the field of politics. The
book is thus supremely relevant for the contemporary reader.
The Study of Politics first appeared as the major part of Socio
Logie Politique, which was published in France in 1966. The ap
pearance of an English edition will make available both to the stu
dent and the interested layman an outstanding introduction to the
subject-an introduction which will undoubtedly be used as a basic
book for many years to come.
K. W. WATKINS.
University of Sheffield.
Contents
Introduction 1
THE CONCEPT OF "SOCIOLOGY" 1
THE CONCEPT OF "POLITICS" II
A GENERAL VIEW OF POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY 18
PART I Political Structures 21
1. Physical Structures 2~
24
GEOGRAPHICAL STRUCTURES
DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURES ~6
2. Social Structures 54
55
TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLS
INSTITUTIONS 67
95
CULTURES
P ART II The Causes of Political Antagonisms 109
3. Individual Causes ll2
INDIVIDUAL APTITUDES 112
122
PSYCHOLOGICAL CAUSES
vii
VllI CONTENTS
4. Collective Causes
THE CLASS STRUGGLE
RACIAL CONFLICTS
CONFLICTS BElWEEN "HORIZONTAL" GROUPS
PART III From Antagonisms to Integration
5. The Forms of Political Conflict
THE WEAPONS OF COMBAT
POLITICAL STRATEGIES
6. The Development of Integration
THE NOTION OF INTEGRATION
POWER AND INTEGRATION
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTEGRATION
Notes
Index
Introduction
Neither the word "sociology" nor the word "political" has a clearly de
fined meaning by itself, so we must start off by explaining how the
words are used in this book. One of the difficulties of the social sci
ences is the lack of any fixed terminology. Every scholar must define
his own vocabulary.
THE CONCEPT OF "SOCIOLOGY"
The term "sociology" was invented in 1839 by Auguste Comte (in his
COUTS de philosophie positive, vol. 4) to designate the science of so
ciety. Comte had earlier used the term "social physics" in the same
sense, but later replaced it with "sociology," because the Belgian math
ematician Quetelet had applied the term "social physics" to the statis
tical study of moral phenomena (1836), which Comte called "a vicious
attempt at appropriation" of this term. Since Comte's time, the use of
the word "sociology" has changed little. There are those who would
like to restrict it to a kind of general social science, a science of syn
thesis which would combine the conclusions of special research con
ducted within each particular social discipline.> This concept is just not
acceptable since research and synthesis cannot be separated in scien
tific matters: every piece of research is linked to hypotheses, to
theories, to some provisional initial synthesis. Consequently, for most
2 INTRODUCTION
sociologists, "sociology" continues to designate the entire body of the
social sciences, and we will use the term here in this sense. Accord
ingly, each particular social science can be indicated by adding a mod
ifier to the word "sociology"-economic sociology, religious sociology,
political sociology, sociology of the family, and so forth.
The Development of a Scientific Sociology
Comte placed great emphasis on the scientific notion of sociology.
Even the birth of the discipline is tied to the fundamental idea that
one must apply the methods of observation used by the natural sci
ences to the study of social phenomena. Emile Durkheim later con
curred, saying that we must treat social facts "as we treat things." We
will see later on that modern sociologists do not entirely subscribe to
this view.
This positivist attitudenarked a genuine intellectual revolution.
Until the eighteenth century, social facts were studied primarily from
a philosophical and ethical point of view. An effort was made to de
fine not what society is but what it ought to be in terms of metaphysi
cal and religious beliefs about the nature of man, the purpose of life,
and the like. The very notion that man and society could be studied
"like things,"' in a scientific manner, seemed sacrilegious.
In this initial phase, the method for analyzing social facts was essen
tially deductive, predicated on certain principles, certain objects of be
lief. There was no possibility of experimentally proving the basic
premises. Conclusions were drawn from these principles through logi
cal reasoning. The results were thus "normative," that is, they were
used to define the rules (or "norms") that would allow "a good society"
to function in accordance with the metaphysical and moral principles
laid down as the basis for reasoning. Instead of being based on "reality
judgments," expressing the true nature of men, things, and events, this
method was based upon "value judgments" which confronted men,
things, and events with a priori definitions of good and evil, right and
wrong, definitions that were regarded as absolute and sacrosanct.
Rules of conduct or "norms" were deduced from these value judg
ments.
From the earliest times, certain writers did, of course, endeavor to
study social facts scientifically. Aristotle was a pioneer in this respect,
and, later, Machiavelli (The Prince, 1532) and Jean Bodin (The Re
public, 1577), but their works were exceptions. Moreover, they re
flected to a considerable extent the general tendency toward a philo
sophical and ethical study of social facts. Scientific analyses were
INTRODUCTION 3
interlarded with value judgments. The general orientation of research
continued to be normative.
The turning point occurred with Montesquieu, whose Spirit of
Laws (1748) is the first treatise in political sociology. "We report here
what is and not what ought to be," declared the lord of the manor of
La BrMe, who provided the world with a good definition of laws in
the scientific sense of the word: "the necessary relationships that derive
from the nature of things." But his work, too, long remained an iso
lated effort. Aside from economic sociology, it was not until the nine
teenth century that research in social science made successful strides in
the direction of objectivity. If Comte first thought of christening the
new science "social physics," he did so with the clear intent of using a
term that would denote the importance of adopting the same methods
of observation that characterize the natural and physical sciences. This
basic attitude still serves to define sociology in our time. The social sci
ences are sciences to the extent that they seek, like the natural sciences,
to describe and explain real phenomena by means of observational
techniques and to formulate "reality judgments" rather than "value
judgments." But in the meantime, the general concept of science has
also changed.
The Modern Conception of Scientific Knowledge
Within the last fifty years the concept of science has undergone radical
changes, with reverberations in the field of sociology.
THE QUESTION OF DETERMINISM Lively debates fint occurred among
the philosophers of the 1930's on the subject of the limits of determin
ism, the very basis of scientific research. For science to be able to ex
plain "the necessary relationships that derive from the nature of
things," these relationships must indeed be necessary; in other words, a
specific antecedent A must always and inevitably produce a specific re
sult B. This is what we mean by "determinism." Now atomic studies
have suggested that physical relationships are not strictly deterministic,
that for a given antecedent A there may be several results B, C, D, and
so on, without our knowing for certain which one will prevail. We
know only the relative probability of each (Louis de Broglie 1). On the
other hand, in certain other areas we have been able to formulate a
kind of "relationship of uncertainty": the more precise and deter
mined one element in a group of elements becomes, the less true this
1 French physicist. known for his research on quantum theory.
