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Social Cohesion as a Real-life Phenomenon: Exploring the Validity of the
Universalist and Particularist Perspectives
Abstract:
Unlike most studies on social cohesion, this study explores the concept as a real-life macro-
level phenomenon. It assesses to what extent the conceptions of social cohesion suggested by
several macro-level approaches represent coherent empirically observable forms of social
cohesion. Additionally it discusses two perspectives on social cohesion - the universalist and
the particularist perspective. The former would expect social cohesion to be related to stages
of socio-economic development. The latter hypothesizes enduring, regionally unique regimes
of social cohesion resisting the homogenizing pressures of modernization. The paper finds
evidence for both perspectives. On the one hand, a syndrome of social cohesion was
identified consisting of trust, equality, order (i.e. lack of crime) and consensus on basic values
which correlates closely with indicators of socio-economic development. This finding
supports the universalist perspective. On the other hand, and consistent with the particularist
perspective, the study found regionally unique patterns for Latin America, Eastern Europe
and Scandinavia.
Introduction
Globalization, and the socio-economic restructuring and migration processes it
involves, have put social cohesion decidedly on the political agenda. Politicians in
Western Europe fear that the rapid economic changes and the ongoing influx of
migrants are steadily undermining the glue that holds society together. These concerns
have only been fanned by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the
London and Madrid Underground, and by the steady process of individualization,
which according to many politicians can be blamed for producing atomization and
disengagement, considered to be the opposites of social cohesion.
Despite the increasing salience of the term social cohesion in policy circles,
there is little clarity on its meaning as scholars so far have not been able to reach
agreement on a definition of the concept. In fact, although inspired by Durkheim’s
relatively parsimonious concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity, contemporary
scholars have only complicated the concept by showing the distinct propensity to
understand social cohesion as a multidimensional and multilevel phenomenon
representing some desirable state of affairs. Put differently, many modern approaches
provide elaborate and rather ideal and utopian understandings of the term. Judith
Maxwell (1996, 3), for instance, understands social cohesion as “building shared
values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income,
and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common
enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same
community”. Even the relatively parsimonious definition suggested by Chan et al
(2006, 290) contains several constituent elements: “Social cohesion is a state of
affairs concerning both the vertical and horizontal interactions among members of
society as characterized by a set of attitudes and norms that include trust, a sense of
belonging and the willingness to participate and help, as well as their behavioral
manifestations”.
Remarkably, to my knowledge none of the authors providing elaborate
definitions of the concept have explored whether the proposed constituent
components are interrelated. In other words, are societies characterized by value
consensus also more equal, more trusting, more civically minded, and less criminal?