Theories of Illegal Drug Use Issue

What structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction share is an impulse to describe the relationship between individual and the framework of society in which he or she operates on a variety of issue fronts. But the desire that each perspective may contain for clarity and utility in the project of understanding controversial issues does not mean that they are identical in their emphases.

Functionalism is a perspective that seems to have dominated social theory in the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth century and that formed the basis for varieties of contemporary social theory. Emile Durkheim, who is considered the father of sociology, can also be considered the father of the analytical methods of functionalism, which involve application of the scientific method to the task of examining the form, function, and substance of contemporary society

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e and social change. It "concerns equally the normal structure of dominant and subordinate interest groups that make up the larger part of the iceberg [of conflict] submerged below." Institutions that form the integrated whole can lose legitimacy and be challenged on that account, but not necessarily with the effect of destroying society. Rather than tearing society apart conflict performs 'group maintaining functions in so far as it regulates systems of relationships', functioning as 'safety valve' mechanism producing an 'equilibrating and stabilising impact'. Conflict creates new norms and values, re-establishes unity between different groups and the boundaries between them and redresses potentially disruptive inequalities in power and authority. A society lacking conflict ossifies and stagnates; societies in which conflict has become institutionalised are correspondingly more stable and integrated than those with rigid structures (Swingewood 247). The main conflict theorist is Georg Simmel, who stresses the antagonism between institutions of society, social policy, and the effect of policy on human development in society. In other words, interplay between individual and society is structured as a dialectic of competing prioriti
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