ABSTRACT
Political sociology in Britain in the past has tended to centre on a sort of political market research, and somewhat journalistic accounts of the structure of political parties. Assumed in this is the permanence of the basic framework of British politics. At a time when sociology threatens to break down into a series of sub-disciplines such as organizational theory, or industrial, political, educational or urban sociology, this set of formal concepts, more precisely spelled out than in the past, may help to provide one focus of unity. The social book-keeping tradition of British sociology which arose in a generation whose main preoccupation was with poverty and inequality. Sociologists may refuse to be simply technicians and may attempt to produce a typology of industrial enterprises which does justice to the complexity of the conflicting motivations among managers and workers that are built into them.
