Social Europe

Joe Bailey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780582316096
• eBook ISBN: 9781317883036
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Since the first edition of Social Europe was published in 1992 profound social changes have occurred throughout Europe as a result of conflicting pressures on the one hand to become more integrated and on the other to protect national interests and identity. This second edition of Social Europe has been fully revised to provide a comprehensive and focused account of basic social issues and structures which provide the context for these changes. Each chapter covers a key topic such as education, crime, gender, health and religion and provides valuable comparisons between the key nation states of Western Europe.

Chapter 1
Social Europe: unity and diversity – an introduction

JOE BAILEY

Is Europe a society? Europe is a geographical unit with, increasingly, its own political and economic institutions. But Europe is not just the official 'European Union' or any particular political and administrative alliance. Within the obvious geographical limits, it is defined by our purposes. Specialist legal definitions and everyday, commonsense meanings are plainly different. It is what some writers would call a 'discourse object' — something which is contested by interested parties all the time.

Europe is a major object of popular concern — both of anxiety and enthusiasm — in our everyday lives. It is the focus of enormous media coverage, of constitutional discussions, of political warnings, of ideological encouragement, of cultural fears. It is plainly the object of sociological investigation (and this is certainly one sense of the word 'society') in social surveys and research reports. But is it a social, as distinct from a political or economic, unit? Is it experiencing the same forces of social change, similar social structures, institutions and organisations? In a 'globalising' world (Albrow 1997) is it an economic and cultural 'space' to be compared with other large blocs in the contemporary world (Therborn 1995)?

Is Europe becoming a society? The current concern about Europe and our place within it may be an important marker of a profound social change taking place. The priority given to the political and economic dimensions of the European community — especially with the bulldozing pressure of EMU (European Monetary Union) as the focus for all current political energy — should not deter us from examining the sociological significance of what is now happening. We should try to locate these dramatic shifts of social organisation in Europe within our understanding of social change generally within the world.

Sociology has been concerned with social change above all else. It came into existence as a discipline to make sense of the dramatic social changes taking place in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sociology's current relevance and importance is that it tries to understand the very profound shifts now taking place in social arrangements. It is somewhat odd, then, that it has neglected Europe as a focus for these concerns. Disappointingly little has been written, in English, by sociologists specifically about Europe as a unit over the last 30 years (for example, Archer 1978; Archer and Giner 1971 for earlier approaches and Therborn 1995; Edye and Lintner 1996; Spybey (ed.) 1997 for recent attempts to fill the gap). Since the Second World War, at least, the significant comparator for British sociologists has been the United States, rather than Europe. The definition of Britain as part of Europe, at least in formal, legal terms, over this same period has pushed other social sciences — especially econornics and political science — into an eager attention to Europe as a major focus for their work. The collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe forced these same social scientists to concentrate on what Europe might mean in territorial and legal terms and on 'another' Europe.

The need of the British to use the United States as their reference point is still there, of course: the power of the English-language community as a social entity per se should not be underestimated and is unlikely to decline. Europe, however, (whatever geographical limit is chosen) is now a rival for attention — but apparently abidingly less so for sociologists than other social scientists. Why? I will provide some reasons later in this introduction.

This book displays the very high quality and useful work that British sociologists are now doing on Europe. As the debate about how European countries are to be united shifts from the preoccupations about markets (that is, a debate dominated by economics) to arguments about inter governmental relations and forms of federalism (a debate about politics) and then back to a concern with labour markets, a common currency and banks (economics again), the social and sociological structures which underpin economics and politics are becoming an obvious, attention demanding issue. Politicians and the general public can see that both incompatibilities and connections between national organisations depend on the 'fit', or the lack of it, between social structures and institutions in different European countries. This book shows how specifically sociological comparison is essential if we are to make sense of the social changes experienced in all European societies as they come to grips with the idea that they are irreversibly connected with one another. All the work done by political scientists, economists, historians and social geographers depends on assumptions about how social institutions and organisations work and how people continue to behave predictably (or not) within them; in other words, upon a sociology. This should not need saying, it is so obvious, but, plainly, it does as the lack of reference to sociological work by other social scientists attests.

Sociology and Europe

What do we mean when we speak of Europe? How is the object 'Europe' constructed in various 'discourses'? For some time now Europe as an economic entity and as a market has seemed dominant, with Europe defined as a set of political problems increasing in urgency but, essentially, revolving around supervening economic concerns. The social is seen as somehow attached and residual (Teague 1989). In fact the social — 'the social area' or 'social dimension' in old EC — and now EU-speak — (Commission of the European Community 1988) —-has been remarkably restricted. Initially this was to matters contained in the European Social Charter (1981) (health and safety, equal opportunities and training all treated as work-related issues). More recently the (so far more rhetorical than real) attempts to erect a 'social model' or a concern with 'social quality' (see Beck, van der Maesen and Walker (eds) 1997, for example) are still in the smothering shadow of an economistic perspective.

This is certainly not a mistaken view of the social but it is a narrow official understanding of it. It is a consequence of the dominance in political debate of economic issues following the priority given to economic integration as the foundation of a genuine European community. The political and military dimensions of unity follow close behind the economic. Issues of cultural and historical difference are treated as separate and parallel matters, but again with little reference made, beyond the journalistic, to their sociological formation. The sociological nature of the different societies in Europe and the possibility of a European society itself is marginalised in all these debates.

This is another way of saying that a sociology of (or for) Europe still has a very low salience in the current political discussions, which are likely to have profound effects on all our lives. The hierarchy of these discussions — economic-political-journalistic-cultural-sociological in sequence — is understandable. The dominance of markets and elections as the shapers of discourse and policy is undeniable. But all these issues are also sociological. It is impossible to talk of matters like the deregulation of a single European currency, a common labour market policy, federalism, common military organisation and the significance of nationalisms without a sociological understanding of the formation and organisation of the societies which will face changes in all these areas. It is not that there is a shortage of data or thought. Whole sections of the quality press are devoted to Europe: publications are increasing rapidly in economics, political science and general cultural commentary. If anything, there is an overload of attention to Europe; but there is a distinct lack of fundamental understanding of Europe as a society — actual or becoming.

Political issues are made: they are not self-evident. Information and argument are deliberately selected by those engaged in publicising an issue in the public arena. In the (re)construction of the meaning of Europe sociology, as a primary form of both description and analysis, must have a much more prominent part. If this contribution is not explicitly demanded by the movers and shakers of European social change, the demand for it will break through by force of events. The sheer instability of our social institutions, as many of the chapters in this book show, will require a sociological understanding of them as unforeseen problems if we do not now begin to consider them as issues which can be influenced, shaped and, indeed, coped with.

Social change and comparison

The current time is extremely significant. The sense that our societies are going through changes which are rapid, unpredicted, unsettling and potentially both dangerous and, perhaps, benevolent is almost palpable. We are all made aware of dramatic events happening — understandings and accords, treaties and agreements, new laws, even, only a short time ago, physical constructions like the Channel tunnel. The understanding of social change is the analysis of the social processes behind these events and which gives them significance. We are unavoidably interested in the future (Bailey 1988, Ch. 6) even if it appears to us just as a series of events. Our current uneasiness about what might or could happen in Europe (and indeed in the interconnected, 'globalised' world as a whole) is informed by 'patterns' of social change. These patterns, attempts to see order within apparent confusion, are what many sociologists have been busy trying to delineate since the subject was formalised. Such patterns are essential to our sense that the world is comprehensible and not formless or arbitrary.

Western Europe has been seen as a set of advanced industrial societies which were the first industrialisers and modernisers (Giddens 1981a). Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe gave birth to both industrial society and to the discipline of sociology which self-consciously examined it. Little wonder that Europe has been the testbed of theories of social change — change seen as inevitable evolutionary 'progress' with some societies in the vanguard; change seen as the diffusion of culture or technology via military conquest or trade; change seen as repetitive cycles or as journeys to an inevitable Utopia or disaster (Therborn 1995 provides the most extensive and gripping account of such narratives). A whole range of theories (or perhaps 'patterns' would be better) have been used to account for the apparent similarities in direction taken by different nation states and, by extension, to explain their variations (Kumar 1978).

The most influential of the modem theories have stressed technological determinism in one way or another. Theories of 'convergence' stated that there was a logic of industrialism which forced political and cultural practices into line with it and which could not be stopped. Values, culture, political organisation and daily behaviour itself tended to develop, albeit by different routes, to the same final social formation required by industrial production (Dunning and Hopper 1966). Theories of 'post-industrialism' (Bell 1973) attempted to describe industrial societies as inevitably shifting to knowledge-based, service economies having solved the problems of production which inspired industrialism. In both cases the machine, whether the steam engine or the micro-processor, was privileged in understanding the source and sequence of change. Technology was seen as the prime mover of societies.

These were patterns which were useful as illuminating devices but which provoked considerable debate about their methodological adequacy and logical basis. They were without doubt creators of a sense of order within historical confusion, of a sequence of events elevated into a process which could be seen to operate across what is now western Europe and beyond. An understanding of social change is almost a psychological requirement. These two approaches with their strong message of social progress and optimism functioned to allow us to deal with the future of our societies as not only connected by trade and treaty but as, essentially, playing out together a benign logic of social development, dependent on a shared technology.

The utility of these particular patterns has now declined. It is hard now to point to a theory of social change which commands majority support in our culture as a whole, let alone among professional sociologists. The retreat from grandiose prescriptions about the future has led to a more cautious approach to long-term change (though see Albrow 1997 as an interesting exception). The chapters in this book display a careful attempt to map sequence and direction in social changes taking place but do not attempt grand theories of social change itself. Several show that technology is by no means a clear magnet for change and is an unreliable basis for understanding its patterns. Towers' chapter on health and illness discusses the very uncertain effects of development in medical technology on health policy and the conflicts over its place in health improvement. Lane's discussion of 'industrial orders' demonstrates the dominance of institutional and political features in shaping the use of manufacturing technology in industrial competition between societies. Glasner shows that the new technology has not remedied persistent gender imbalances between men's and women's work.

The need to understand social change as a holistic pattern, however, is still there, but, as Archer commented some years ago, the best starting point is an historical examination of patternings rather than the dogmatic imposition of abstract theoretical models (Archer 1978). One of the most impressive current attempts to analyse the developmental trends and institutional features of modern industrial societies has been that in one section of the work of Anthony Giddens (1981b, 1985). For Giddens 'modernity', a new social order, emerged in Europe, characterised by four institutional dimensions: capitalism, industrialism, surveillance (the state control of information and monitoring) and military power. These dimensions are basic and irreducible to one another; that is, they are the fundamental social formations which we need to describe in order to understand how a particular society developed and to compare this development with other societies. They are a vocabulary for understanding social change and a description of the 'building blocks'. They are not an abstract theoretical model but rather a distillation and generalisation of actual historical patternings.

What is significant about Giddens' work — and there are other similar attempts, for instance, by Lash and Urry (1987) — is that it is a quintessentially sociological approach to understanding the similarities and differences between societies. It is directed not at the superficial appearance of economic and political behaviour, at the fluctuating and the transitory, at events, but tries to lay out the very basic forms of social organisation through which change or stability in different societies occurs. It is the language of the patterning of history. This is a significant part of sociology's job.

Similarities and differences

The intention of this book is to flesh out the significance of these categories, or similar ones, and to contribute to the empirical understanding of European social structure now against this categorical background. The chapters here describe and analyse particular social changes, not social change itself. Sociology makes sense of the world by linking levels of description and analysis in this way, and perhaps more coherently than any other social science.

If we wish genuinely to compare how, say, social control is accomplished, as Levi and Maguire do, or religious belief and belonging are still significant, as Davie does, in the countries of western Europe, we will arrive at a description of likenesses and differences. If we wish to go further and make sense of these similarities and divergences, we will need an account of the basic social formations which we can observe varying or converging and into which health and social control fit. This is what a comparative sociology of social change can do. It provides a template to make events and information understandable when seen together. The cost of not doing this is that we retreat into a naive evolutionism whereby societies are treated as more or less advanced along some preordained path of development which is, somehow, naturally 'given' and visible through the data themselves. Recent writers on social change have proposed exactly such a forshortened and self-serving account of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Series Editor's Preface
• Preface to the first edition
• Preface to the second edition
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• 1 Social Europe: unity and diversity - an introduction
• PART ONE Changing Social Structures
• PART TWO Responding Social Institutions
• Index