The Power of the Stranger

Structures and Dynamics in Social Intervention - A Theoretical Framework

Gert J.F. Leene, Theo N.M. Schuyt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754670629
• eBook ISBN: 9781317019473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The decline of the welfare state in Western Europe has led to an increasing role both for citizen-led initiatives and for philanthropy in easing, solving or preventing social problems. Care and everyday help is being provided by strangers - people driven by enthusiasm and commitment but unfamiliar with the pitfalls of social intervention. Utilizing research on social intervention over the past twenty-five years, this book presents a new theoretical framework for a number of basic principles which are paramount in social intervention at the individual level, at group level and at societal level. Taking Simmel's ideas of the stranger or third element as inspiration, the authors argue the importance of reflection on the role and significance of this third element - the advisor, the consultant, the social worker, or the middle-manager - when analyzing and improving the methods used in social intervention. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, practitioners, students and policymakers who are interested social intervention.

Chapter 1

The Third Element

A person with a problem never runs to a theorist for help. But neither does he rush to a helping professional. Chances are that he will try to work things out for himself and hope to muddle through somehow. If the going gets worse, he might involve his family or friends, or possibly acquaintances who will listen, like bartenders. Only as a last resort and with considerable discomfort does a person with a problem become a ‘client’ being ‘interviewed’ by a ‘practitioner’. Why does a person with a problem go to a practitioner? He goes hoping that this stranger with her theories, her research information, her practice skills, and a host of other abstract tools will enable him to do a better job with his problems than he by himself or with his close associates has done. On the face of it, this is a paradox: that a stranger with good intentions and viable abstractions can make a difference in problem solving. (…) Unless the practitioner can do something different from what the client has already done, there is little chance that she will be more successful than he. (from Bloom 1975, The Paradox of Helping)

1.1 The Stranger

The above quotation refers to a crucial aspect of every social intervention, the simultaneous union of nearness and remoteness, which Bloom even elevates to the status of ‘the paradox’. In social intervention, individuals and organizations seek help and support from another, from a stranger, someone from outside. They are not able or are not willing to arrive at a solution themselves and so they look outside their own circle. They end up consulting an ‘outsider’, someone with the supposed power and skill to change the existing situation. Simmel produced an incisive and illuminating analysis of the sociological significance of the stranger, and of his specific qualities. The stranger ‘is fixed within a certain spatial circle, but his position within it is peculiarly determined by the fact that he does not belong in it from the first, that he brings qualities into it that are not, and cannot be, native to it. The union of nearness and remoteness, which every relation between men comprehends, has here produced a system of relations or a constellation which may, in the fewest words, be thus formulated: The distance within the relation signifies that the Near is far: the very fact of being alien, however, that the Far is near’ (Simmel 1921: 322). From a historical perspective, the trader or travelling salesman is the prototype of the stranger. ‘In the whole history of economics the stranger makes his appearance everywhere as the trader, the trader his as the stranger’ (idem). ‘Trade can always absorb more men than primary production, and it is therefore the most favorable province for the stranger, who thrusts himself, so to speak, as a supernumerary into a group in which all the economic positions are already possessed’ (p. 323). Simmel distinguishes five specific ‘sociological characteristics of the stranger’:

a. Mobility. ‘With this mobility, when it occurs within a limited group, there occurs that synthesis of nearness and remoteness which constitutes the formal position of the stranger; for the merely mobile comes incidentally into contact with every single element but is not bound up organically, through the established ties of kinship, locality, or profession, with any single one’ (pp. 323–324).

b. Objectivity. ‘Because he is not rooted in the peculiar attitudes and biased tendencies of the group, he stands apart from all these with the peculiar attitude of the “objective”…’ (p. 324).

c. Confidant. ‘… that often the most surprising disclosures and confessions, even to the character of the confessional disclosure, are brought to him, secrets such as one carefully conceals from every intimate’. (p. 324).

d. Freedom from convention. ‘… he is the freer man, practically and theoretically; he examines the relations with less prejudice; he submits them to more general, more objective, standards and is not confined in his action by custom, piety, or precedents’(pp. 324–325).

e. Abstract relations (pp. 323–327). ‘Finally, the proportion of nearness and remoteness which gives the stranger the character of objectivity gets another practical expression in the more abstract nature of the relation to him. This is seen in the fact that one has certain more general qualities only in common with the stranger, whereas the relation with those organically allied is based on the similarity of just those specific differences by which the members of an intimate group are distinguished from those who do not share that intimacy’ (p. 325).

What may the relevance be of Simmel’s analysis of the stranger in relation to the subject matter we actually want to investigate: social intervention? It should already be apparent that some of the stranger’s capacities, such as objectivity, the role of confidant and freedom from convention, are in themselves important resources when it comes to setting change in motion. However, before we pursue this notion and proceed to look at other examples of Simmel’s work, we will first consider social intervention as a type of relation. There are a number of paths which can be taken in order to achieve personal goals or realize organizational objectives. Here we will identify four of them.

1.2 Ways to Fulfil Needs

Social intervention can take place at the moment that a person, whether he likes it or not, does not have the power to achieve what he wants. The individual in question would prefer to do it on his own, but for whatever reason, he is not capable. A helper jumps in – social intervention takes place – with the intention of making it possible for the individual to arrange his or her own affairs. In general, one can conclude that no one finds it pleasant to depend on help, just as few people look forward to taking on the role of helper for extended periods of time. Nonetheless, everyone helps others and helping is seen as a normal part of human interaction. Helping interactions are therefore usually of a temporary nature. They are discontinuous activities and of changing character: individuals will now assume the role of helper and now the role of the one asking for help.

For the purposes of this study, we define helping – and social intervention in general – as ‘contributing to the needs of another or others’ (Luhmann 1975). Social intervention is concerned with a special kind of ‘fulfilment of needs’, namely by way of involving a third party. We will use a few examples at the micro and the macro levels to try and clarify this.

People as a rule attend to their own needs. This applies to both material and immaterial needs. If they do not succeed a problem results. To illustrate, we can take an everyday situation. Someone, man or woman, has problems in a personal relationship. A relationship is a bonding between individuals in which certain needs are fulfilled. When this fails to take place, the person can experience this as a problem. What can he or she do? From what alternatives can they choose? In such a situation, one he or she has not desired, there are four choices. The first is to end the relationship, give up the need altogether, and the problem seems, at first glance at least, to disappear. A second option is that the person discusses the problem, talks about it, asks the other party to alter his or her behaviour, and so on. The situation is debated, deliberated, arguments heard, behaviour is adapted and readapted and the relationship can then continue in a satisfying manner, eradicating the problem. It may progress this way, but it could also happen that the situation becomes explosive. Serious arguments ensue. Battle is engaged, and in battles, power strategies are inevitably involved. People accuse one another of all sorts of things, attempt to be proven right and try to emerge from the fray as the winner. If the partners consider the survival of the relationship more important than the battle over the problem underlying the conflict, then it will be necessary to negotiate for some time. Differences will have to be set aside. Conflicts or power struggles and negotiation succeed one another, at least when both parties wish to continue the relationship. In this situation, in everyday terms, the power struggle is likely to lead to negotiations.

A fourth possibility is to call in help. After what is usually an extended period of arguments and negotiations, the parties decide to seek help because they want the relationship to continue but are unable to sort it out themselves. They find someone else to talk it over with, a friend, member of the family or a professional counsellor/helper. By seeking help, one also makes it clear that the battle and/or the deliberation has failed to bring about a solution.

This illustration, however simple and familiar it may seem, leads us to distinguish four basic strategies for people to deal with the problems they encounter in satisfying their needs: 1) relinquish/give up the need, 2) assume/apply power, 3) negotiate and 4) call in (outside) help.

This example, with these basic strategies, takes place at the micro level. To see if one encounters the same patterns for solutions in dealing with more complex conditions, when groups, institutions and collective units encounter problems in realizing their (collective) needs, we can look at another example, in this case from the social history of Western Europe, during the struggle against poverty in the nineteenth century: social interventions are always closely involved in this particular subject.

In most Western European countries at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, the industrial revolution resulted in serious increases in the numbers of the poor. As the new working class emerged, labourers lived under impoverished conditions, crowded around industrial centres in large cities. At first, little initiative was taken by the workers themselves to rectify their poverty. People accepted their condition or slid into even more desperate circumstances. In terms of our model, people gave up (on) trying to satisfy their need. A little relief was available in this early period, in the form of help, which was primarily the responsibility of the churches and private initiatives, and which took shape in aid for the poor and charity. Local authorities took on a very small portion of that care. Religious motives played a role, as did the interest in preserving social order (De Swaan 1989; Van Leeuwen 2000). Later in the nineteenth century, the liberal bourgeoisie became active, and along with their participation in poverty management, this group voiced a new motive, pointing to the need for development and schooling for the poor. Humanitarian, or enlightened concerns were here the basis for the help being offered.

In the case of the working class, real change only came about when the workers took matters into their own hands and organized themselves. At first, power was developed within the workers’ movement. The syndicated strategy of strikes, social unrest and forcing workers’ rights was responded to both by individual capitalists and parliamentary representatives from the churches and the bourgeoisie with some social lawmaking in income security and health care (power strategy and the workers’ movement). Later, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the workers’ movements in most Western European countries took the parliamentary route – in part through universal voting rights – in order to improve the position of the workers (negotiation strategy).

This illustration at the collective action level shows the same distinctions in basic strategies for resolving problems: 1) give up satisfying the need, 2) assuming power, 3) negotiation and 4) accepting help.

1.3 ‘The Triad’

Social intervention at both micro and macro levels implies the use of something or someone else to achieve the objective. Simmel (1908) has examined the sociological significance of this use of the ‘third element’. According to Simmel, people are constantly turning ‘dyads’ into ‘triads’.1 Simmel treats the triad as a universally found pattern of human behaviour: people are perpetually creating triads.

Individuals, groups and collectives employ the ‘third element’ to resolve many problems, and in this manner, create ‘triads’ or triangular relationships. Can Simmel’s analysis be useful in studying the phenomenon of social intervention? Does calling on a helper constitute the third element? And, if this should be so, how can Simmel’s analysis be illustrated or explained? Indeed, Simmel himself seems to have answered the question unasked

This peculiar closeness between two is most clearly revealed if the dyad is contrasted with the triad. For among three elements, each one operates as an intermediary between the other two, exhibiting the twofold function of such an organ, which is to unite and to separate. Where three elements, A, B, C, constitute a group, there is, in addition to the direct relationship between A and B, for instance, their indirect one, which is derived from their common relation to C. The fact that two elements are each connected not only by a straight line–the shortest but also by a broken line, as it were, is an enrichment from a formal sociological standpoint. Points that cannot be contacted by a straight line are connected by the third element, which offers a different side to each of the other two, and yet fuses these different sides in the unity of its own personality. Discords between two parties which they themselves cannot remedy, are accommodated by the third or by absorption in a comprehensive whole. (italics added) (Simmel 1950: 135).

Whenever the direct relationship is problematic, people can resort to an indirect route, a third party who arranges change, but also conciliation. ‘The appearance of the third party indicates transition, conciliation, and abandonment of absolute contrast (although, on occasion, it introduces contrast)’ (Simmel 1950: 145). As well as discussing the change effected by the third party, Simmel explains something about the way in which this happens. ‘It is sociologically very significant that isolated elements are unified by their common relation to a phenomenon which lies outside of them.’ (Simmel 1950: 145). It is precisely the distance that is created by the triad that opens the opportunity for change, a subject which we will later discuss at greater length.

Simmel’s analysis of the triad distinguishes three types of third party. The first type is the mediator. This person mediates between two parties if they have a problem that they are not able to resolve. The mediator helps the parties solve the problem. In the case of mediation, the responsibility for resolving the problem remains in the hands of the two initial parties, and the third party has only a mediating – in other words, a helping – role. Otherwise, the third party is of the second type, which Simmel refers to as arbitration. Here as well, two parties have a problem, but they put the solution of the problem in the hands of a third party, the arbitrator. When the arbitrator reaches his decision, the others are bound to it, as they have relinquished their own power. The third type is the tertius gaudens, the ‘laughing third party’. Here, the problem of the other two is used by the third party to his own advantage. This third party does not stand to profit from the resolution of the problem of the other two. Instead, he will attempt to see that the conflict continues. To demonstrate this last type, Simmel uses historical examples, such as: Divide et impera – divide and conquer – which was the power strategy used by the Roman Empire, the tertius gaudens.

1.4 The ‘Broker’

Studies in cultural anthropology have also examined the phenomenon of people making use of an intermediary to achieve their purposes (Boissevain 1978; Bax 1970), employing the term ‘brokerage’. Certain observations are relevant – and related – to what Simmel has observed. In ‘Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions’, Boissevain examines people who bring other people into contact in exchange for profit (Boissevain 1978). He calls them brokers, and sees them as entrepreneurs and social manipulators. ‘A broker is a professional manipulator of people and information who brings about commun...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The New Strangers
• 1 The Third Element
• 2 Elaboration of a Triadic Social Intervention Model
• 3 Legitimacy: Contracts
• 4 Values
• 5 Attitude: How to Handle Asymmetry
• 6 The Role of Magic and Rituals
• 7 Community Work as a Third Element
• 8 Dynamizing the Western European Welfare State Model
• 9 Needs and Philanthropy
• Index