Differentiation As Practice and Conflict: Contested Boundaries and Social Change in Comparative Perspective

The theory of differentiation is widely considered outdated today and no longer suitable for addressing the analytical challenges of the global present. In view of the classically dominant approaches in this field, this hardly seems surprising, as these are tainted by numerous Eurocentric, modernization-theoretical, expansionist, and teleological assumptions. Building on alternative approaches and thereby overcoming these problematic assumptions, the paper outlines a praxeological-relational research programme that pluralizes and dynamizes the differentiation-theoretical perspective, opening it up to empirical and globally comparative investigations of processes of change, as well as the forces of resistance that oppose them.

The concept of boundaries plays a pivotal role in this context. Different social and institutional domains, such as politics, law, religion, or science, exist in all societal arrangements today. Contrary to older assumptions, however, these terms already signify different things in a global comparison, and their meanings are subject to social and cultural change. The boundaries between such orders are continuously questioned and criticized, intentionally or unconsciously challenged, adjusted, repeatedly shifted, and redrawn, but also defended and protected from other sides. These dynamics mark central areas of conflict within modern societies, which are in a constant state of flux.

Against this backdrop, the paper develops an analytic framework focused on “practices of attribution”, enabling the examination of these dynamic conflict zones and the struggles over boundaries between social domains. It shows how such conflicts generate wide-ranging structural effects that can serve as important points of reference for comparative sociology. At the same time, it is argued that these dynamics are embedded in historical trajectories and cultural contexts, which can explain both different paths of change and their inherent inertia. This analytic approach hence addresses multiple temporal dimensions of boundaries and links local practices of boundary work with long-term processes of social change.