ABSTRACT
According to a widely held idol of the tribe, sociology started its career with the discovery of ‘society’ as an entity distinct from and independent of the state (Collins and Makowsky 1972; Goudsblom 1977; Bottomore and Nisbet 1979; Heilbron 1995). Sociology, Aron has argued, marks a moment in human reflection on historical reality ‘when the concept of the social, of society, becomes the centre of interest, replacing the concept of politics or of the régime or of the state’ (1965 I:15). Early sociology, Gouldner agreed, rejected the dominance of society by the state, and more generally, defocalized the importance of politics in order to concentrate upon ‘civil society’ as its principal scientific object (1980:363-4). Most significant in the sociological experience, Elias has written, is the conceptualization of ‘society’ as a self-regulating nexus of events, and as something which was not determined in its course and its functioning by governments (1984:38).
