Levels of Social Structure

The word structure comes from the Latin verb struo, to join together, build, arrange, or order. Struo is related to the Greek verb stornymi, to spread smooth or level (Rosen 1980: 32). Etymologically, structures are constructed unities that exhibit an internal architecture by virtue of having their component parts smoothed out into levels by the reticulating operations of analysis and synthesis. When these operations are performed over the domain of social relationships, intergroup relations, and social institutions, the result is an analytical model of the levels of social structure. By levels of social structure one means the layered demarcation of the elemental and supervening components of a complex association (however defined analytically) into a series of units of increasing scale and complexity. The differentiated and/or encompassing elements, units, and relations constitute a social ontology offered up as a template for further analysis, explanation, and theoretical integration.

Levels of structure can be found in all the sciences. In biology, the series runs as follows: molecule, cell (subsuming cellular organelles), organ, organism, population, species, community, and biotic environment. Each level incorporates the prior one as its working parts in a new relational configuration and exhibits new emergent properties as a consequence of their dynamics. Although many scientists believe that analysis “cuts reality at the joints”—making levels of structure the ontological building blocks of the world—levels schemes undergo dramatic revision over time. Even determining the number of levels is problematic. In the biological series above, some scientists consider cellular organelles a level and population a sublevel, while others see a confusing mixture of two series, the genealogical and the ecological. Particularly in the social sciences, it is wise to think of levels epistemologically—as analytical efforts to break a complex whole into articulated parts until a base of interacting elements is fixed by postulation.

Levels talk in the social sciences ranges from indistinct hand-waving to well-ordered models of the levels of social structure. The latter efforts hue closely to the implicate order of the biological series above. Most begin with a postulated analytical primitive (either an element or a process) that gives rise to the smallest unit of social structure, which is then “aggregated” or “compounded” into the complete series. Alternatively, the most comprehensive unit is demarcated first and the series unfolds by subdivision. Few concepts qualify for this kind of treatment. The most common are family, territory, role, system, and social relationship. Mixed series may represent synthetic efforts or reveal analytical confusion. A metatheoretical literature now exists to evaluate levels schemes (Kontopoulis 1993; Luhmann 1995). Successful efforts accomplish the following tasks. They

• Demarcate the major units and levels of structure of theoretical interest (the social ontology)
• Explain the emergence of more complex units from the dynamics of the antecedent level(s) (upward structuration)
• Describe the internal relations, processes, and systemic effects at each level (system dynamics)
• Explain how antecedent units are transformed by being integrated into more complex units (downward structuration)
• Use the levels scheme in the explanation of social facts

Five groups of models of the levels of social structure, 13 models in all, are presented next. The 13 were selected for their heterogeneity, influence, and ability to illustrate metatheoretical issues. Levels schemes that include social structure as a level of reality without decomposing it into sublevels unique to itself are omitted from consideration, as will be idiosyncratic schemes that incorporate dialectical or dualistic elements or combine vertical and horizontal planes (e.g., Gurvitch 1950). For a discussion of the relationship between levels talk and theory integration, see Ritzer (1981).

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