Luhmann, Niklas (1927–1998)

Niklas Luhmann is considered one of the most important, if not the most important, recent German social theorists. His life project consisted of the development of a systems theory of society. Starting out as a short-term student of Talcott Parsons, Luhmann soon began working out his own original approach, which differs from that of Parsons in three respects. First, it responds to the charges of conservatism raised against Parsons by arguing for the primacy of functions over structures. Functions can be fulfilled by different social structures; hence, structures may change without threatening the existence of the social order. Second, Luhmann argued that communication, rather than action, has to be taken as the basic concept in social theory, on the grounds that the concept of action overemphasizes the actors' intentions. Third, he adapted from biology the notion of autopoietic systems that are open to their environment (in the sense of possessing the capacity to scan their environment for information) for just the reason that they are operationally closed; that is, their reproduction depends exclusively on intrasystemic processes and not on inputs and outputs. This was in contrast to the central importance of inputs and outputs in the previously dominant conception of social systems as operationally open vis-à-vis their environment. In Luhmann's theory of society the concept of power comes into play on several levels; in its most specific form, power is the name for the symbolically generalized communication medium of the political system that today we call the state.

Luhmann's conceptualization of power is shaped by his methodological commitment to constructivism. Concepts, he argues, while being the instruments that allow us to understand the [Page 392]world, at the same time necessarily blind us to certain aspects of the world; therefore, social theory cannot build on the conceptual framework of actors but must rather construct new conceptual forms that enable the sociologist to observe how actors observe and describe the world. This constructivist commitment to second-order observations guides Luhmann when he develops his basic assumptions concerning the notion of power in a critique of what he calls the classic concept of power, that is, the capacity of acting according to one's own will even in face of opposition. According to Luhmann, this classic concept of power, formulated most prominently by Max Weber, rests on ontological assumptions that are untenable but, nonetheless, typically held by actors due to the limitations inherent in their perspective on the world (first-order observation). The classic concept of power reproduces the actors' illusion that causality and intentions are real while in fact, as second-order observation shows, they are constructions contingently ascribing effects to causes (by identifying just two elements within a chain of determinations potentially unlimited in both directions).

Having detached the concept of power from the notions of causality and intentionality, Luhmann then lays out his own approach. He starts from the premise that power can only arise under conditions of uncertainty, that is, conditions that are not completely determined but rather allow for the realization of alternative possibilities. Such conditions are brought about by the functional differentiation of systems: autopoietic systems are fields of uncertainty insofar as their structure is self-produced and does not depend upon external determinations, all of which the differentiation process disrupts. One such uncertainty has to do with the fact that the members of society are dependent upon each other. The insecurity concerning how others will react to one's own actions and the ways one has to take others' actions into account give rise to influence, or the capacity effectively to act with regard to others. The next step in Luhmann's argument consists of distinguishing three different symbolic forms influence has taken. The first he calls insecurity absorption or authority: the imputation that actors could provide reasons for their assertions if they were requested to do so. Such social power remains diffuse and can easily be challenged. A second and stronger form of influence rests on positive sanctions: exchange relations make for quite a robust structuring of actions. Such economic power is limited, however, in that it collapses in case the positive sanctions remain unfulfilled and turn out to be illusory. This is different in the case of the third widespread symbolic form influence has taken in modern society, namely, influence based on negative sanctions. Only such political power, according to Luhmann, proves stable enough to function as the symbolically generalized medium of communication of the political subsystem, the differentiation of which it thereby allows for.

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