Structural functionalism, especially in the work of Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton, and their students and followers, was for many years the dominant sociological theory. However, in the last three decades it has declined dramatically in importance (Chriss, 1995) and, in at least some senses, has receded into the recent history of sociological theory. This decline is reflected in Colomys (1990a) description of structural function?alism as a theoretical "tradition." Structural functionalism is now mainly of historical significance, although it is also notable for the role it played in the emergence of neo-functionalism in the 1980s. After offering an overview of structural functionalism, we will discuss neofunctionalism as a possible successor to it as well as an example of the recent movement toward synthesis within sociological theory (Abrahamson, 2001). However, the future of neofunctionalism itself has been cast into doubt by the fact that its founder, Jeffrey Alexander (personal communication, October 17,1994), has arrived at the conclusion that neofunctionalism "is no longer satisfactory to me." He states, "I am now separating myself from the movement I started."
For many years, the major alternative to structural functionalism was conflict theory. We will discuss Ralf Dahrendorfs traditional version of conflict theory, as well as a more recent integrative and synthetic effort by Randall Collins.
Before turning to the specifics of structural functionalism and conflict theory, we need, following Thomas Bernard (1983), to place these theories in the broader context of the debate between consensus theories (one of which is structural functionalism) and conflict theories (one of which is the sociological conflict theory that will be discussed in this chapter).
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