Ralf Dahrendorf’s intellectual path is characterized by the continuous crossing of boundaries—geographical, disciplinary, and between different spheres of activity. To describe it, he uses the German term ‘Werdegang’ (Dahrendorf 2002): an evolutionary path, which proceeds ‘by trial and error’, in private and public life as well as in scientific research, without losing coherence and rigor, in the search for the best conditions so that it can unfold freely. He was not only a social scientist also a publicist, politician, and consultant, as well as a founder and director of scientific institutions. All his activities were permeated by his singular faith in the power of liberty.
Ralf Dahrendorf can be described as a ‘classic’ of sociology. Particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, he published works such as ‘Soziale Klassen und Klassenkonflikt in der industriellen Gesellschaft’ (1957; ‘Social Classes and Class Conflict in Industrial Society’), ‘Homo Sociologicus’ (1958), ‘Gesellschaft und Freiheit’ (1961; ‘Society and Liberty’), and ‘Gesellschaft und Demokratie in Deutschland’ (1965; ‘Society and Democracy in Germany’), which are still regarded as groundbreaking in role theory and conflict research, and which continue to stimulate scientific discussion to this day (and which are still in use today; see Mey 2000; Münch 2004; Lamla 2005; Kocka 2009; Leonardi 2014; Matys and Brüsemeister 2012; Ackermann 2016; Kühne 2017).
Dahrendorf’s sociology is clearly based on the reception, reflection, and criticism of numerous social scientists. This concerns for example Herbert Spencer, Robert Merton, and Erving Goffman, but also David Riesman as well as, later, Amartya Sen and critical Jürgen Habermas. Max Weber and—in critical debate—Talcott Parsons’ structural functionalism, as does Karl Marx’s theory, have special significance for his sociology. His scientific-theoretical as well as his political view of the world was strongly influenced by one person: Karl Popper. About Popper writes Dahrendorf that he owes his thinking “more than that of any other author” (Dahrendorf 1992, p. 183) and that this influence is reflected in his understanding of the productivity of social conflicts and, particularly, in his interpretation of a liberal view of the world. This positive attitude toward conflicts, as well as his critical attitude toward the self-evident, shaped his thinking, which is why an essential aspect of Dahrendorf’s understanding of sociologist and society lies in a ‘double inconvenience’: “The sociologist is always uncomfortable; but life in society is also always uncomfortable for him” (Dahrendorf 1968, p. 94). Consequently, he has always chosen ‘uncomfortable’ themes to be developed in his intellectual work as well as to be placed in political life. The years of training are vital to understanding Dahrendorf’s research interests, the method, the way of dealing with the relationship between theory and practice, between science and politics, and the liberal perspective. The path of his studies is not at all linear and presents some disciplinary passages that, later, have ended up characterizing his approach in an original way.
Ralf Dahrendorf was characterized by a pronounced publishing activity: “It is reflected in an impressive number of manuscripts on books, speeches and lectures, newspaper and magazine articles and interviews” (Meifort 2015, p. 303). The special challenge of dealing with the works of Ralf Dahrendorf, apart from their scope, is—following his already mentioned positive assessment of conflicts and scientific critiques—the further development of already published texts and their re-publication in other contexts (e.g., in anthologies). This kind of publishing implies a certain ‘dispersal’ and fragmentation of central thoughts of sociology, political philosophy, and theory of science in Ralf Dahrendorf’s work. It is therefore incumbent upon the author of this synopsis to (re)order his work in an introduction and to establish connections that are difficult to understand at first glance from the large amount of text material. The focus will be on his sociological and political-philosophical work as well as his statements on the social transformation process in Eastern Central and Eastern Europe, plus his reflection upon the social feedbacks of globalization, which—as will be explained in more detail—are of great topicality. As his career shows, Ralf Dahrendorf was—throughout his life—a person who actively participated in political processes, albeit with varying intensity. This is also documented in his numerous written references to day-to-day political issues. In this book, these references are taken up when they are necessary for understanding Dahrendorf’s principal patterns of argumentation.
The objective of finding a way to reconcile theory and practice has been accompanied by a constant search for an appropriate method to achieve it: “Methodology is the central theme of my life. I do not believe that there is a simple relationship between the scientific world and the political world. I have always rejected the notion that politics can in any way be a ‘translation’ of social sciences in practice, and I have also rejected the idea that political experience is particularly significant for a social science: they are two worlds with different time scales, with different fundamental orientations. This does not mean that we cannot think of intermediate institutions that develop social science in a way that is similar to politics and policy” (Leonardi 1995, p. 146). In this way of conceiving the relationship between social sciences and political practice, Jürgen Habermas considers Dahrendorf one of the few to have continued a classical tradition, which gives sociology the task of ‘capturing its own era in thought’, using his professional knowledge as a tool to update the diagnosis of modernity, in which the acceleration of social complexity develops relentlessly. This way of interpreting his own role as an intellectual, makes the work of Ralf Dahrendorf complex to reconstruct and to systematize, because of the crossing of the disciplinary boundaries and the spheres of activity: “Often Dahrendorf has started to new shores to remain entirely himself” (Habermas 1990, p. 69). A way of conceiving one’s own commitment, inspired by Karl Popper, which has become a real “method of life”: “No one knows exactly what is good and what is true. Therefore, we must always look for new and better answers. However, this can only be done where attempt and error are not only allowed but also encouraged, and therefore in an open society. The first task is, therefore, to defend it when necessary and to develop it at all times” (Dahrendorf 2004, p. 124).
Although Ralf Dahrendorf is generally acknowledged as a ‘classic’ of sociology, particularly in terms of his contributions to role theory, conflict theory, but also to liberal political philosophy, until a few years ago there were no synthetic introductions to his work. In recent years two such introductory syntheses have appeared, in Italian by Laura Leonardi (2014) and in German by Olaf Kühne (2017). These two introductions are highly complementary in their content. While Olaf Kühne’s introduction focuses strongly on Dahrendorf’s terminology and contribution to sociological basic concepts and is very closely related to Dahrendorf’s writings, which are mostly initially published in German, Laura Leonardi’s introduction is more strongly oriented toward the late phase of Dahrendorf’s work and more strongly oriented toward the influences and effects of Dahrendorf’s writings. Due to the strong complementarity of the two introductions and the lack of such an introduction to the ‘classic’ Dahrendorf in the English language, we have decided to synthesize our books to complement the more recent literature and to publish them in English. The result is this introduction. This introduction is aimed in particular at people who (for the first time) want to approach Dahrendorf’s thinking, certainly mostly students of social and political sciences, but it is also aimed at a ‘periphery’ audience, not exclusively academic, interested in understanding what theories and concepts to use, and how to use them, for the understanding of social and political phenomena that characterize a constantly changing reality. The approach is not so much the separate treatment of the individual (classical) texts of Dahrendorf as an approach that is thematically structured, i.e., even over several decades of Dahrendorf’s publication activity, the individual themes are subject to a process of evolution that should be depicted. Because of Dahrendorf’s great ‘inner interdependence’ of concepts, there are always cross-references that run counter to the linear logic of a book. In concrete terms, this means that it is sometimes necessary to resort to concepts that are more appropriate to deal with in another context. This challenge is met in two ways in this volume. Particularly central concepts, such as that of the ‘life chances’, are characterized briefly where the context suggests them and discussed in detail later. For other concepts, a reference is made to the chapter or section in which they are discussed in more detail. The presentation of the development of the individual concepts is based quite closely on the texts by Ralf Dahrendorf, often combined with literal quotations, in order to give readers ...
