Abstract
I attempt in the present paper an analytical approach to the problem of social control, focussing on the structural aspect of the society. The social control, being a crucial factor in the integration of a society, is no doubt one of essential prerequisites for its very existence. It is by no means without reason, therefore, that much disputes have been arisen in this field of sociological theory. However, although many of studies which have been developed so far in this sphere, lay great emphasis on the forms of social control : its agencies, means and kinds, there seems a tendency to neglect its basic conceptual scheme upon which they should be appropriately analysed.
Since the reality of a society appears as a dynamic unity of both actual social actions and uniformities governing them : the function and the structure of the society, the social control as an operation for its “conservation” and the “development”, is necessarily a phenomenen closely linked with these two aspects, i.e. structural and functional. But in spite of this, it must be recognized that the social control is so particularly connected with its structural aspect that, were it not perceived from the structural point of view, it would not been explained adequately. The reason for this is that the social structure, conceived as a set of “invariables” of social realities, provides the ultimate foundation for their integration and their unity.
Moreover, two main aspects must be discerned of the social structure, though they merge into each other : one related, directly with the operation of the social control, and another related with the basis of social order other than social control. Therefore, it must be understood that the social control is connected not with the whole but only with certain parts of the social structure. Then, from the structural point of view, it is exceedingly important to throw further light on the dynamic problem of which aspect of the social structure will be decidedly related to the phenomenon of social control. The present paper intends to answer to a certain degree this fundamental problem.
