Revision summary
Conflict causes change when it rewrites class, domination, or law (Marx, Weber, movements). Change causes conflict when regulation lags and new claimants appear (Durkheim, Ogburn, Merton). Coser: conflict can also integrate. Parsons’s equilibrium underplays the causal arrow from conflict. Explain both directions with Indian industrial and Mandal illustrations.
Model answer
Introduction
Social conflict is a struggle over values, resources, or honour. Social change is a transformation of structure. Conflict produces change when it rewrites rules. Change produces conflict when new groups and strains appear.
Body
Conflict as cause of change
- Karl Marx: class struggle is the motor that can transform a mode of production.
- Max Weber: charismatic rupture and party struggle recast legitimate domination.
- Social movements turn collective action into new law, as in labour and feminist gains after Ann Oakley made care public.
Change as cause of conflict
- Emile Durkheim: a new division of labour without moral regulation yields anomie and conflict.
- William F. Ogburn’s cultural lag: technique outruns norms, then fights over law.
- Robert K. Merton: new goals and blocked means produce deviant conflict.
- Industrialisation and Mandal-type office change in India generated caste and class conflicts as consequences.
Both, not a circle empty of content
- Lewis Coser, after Georg Simmel, argued that conflict can integrate as well as split.
- Talcott Parsons underplayed conflict as a cause; the statement corrects that calm.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD CON[Social conflict] --> CH[Social change] CH --> CON MARX[Class struggle] --> CH LAG[New strains anomie] --> CON
Conclusion
Conflict causes change when it reorganises production, domination, or law. Change causes conflict when new strains and claimants appear. Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Merton explain the two arrows. Neither arrow is automatic success.
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