Alain Touraine on sociology after sociology: from society to the subject

Introduction: The Crisis of the Classical Paradigm

Alain Touraine (b. 1925), one of the leading French sociologists of the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, in his later works ("Sociology", "Critique of the Modern Age", "Thinking Otherwise", "After the Crisis", and others), put forward a radical thesis on the necessity of overcoming "classical sociology", whose intellectual mission, in his opinion, has been exhausted. This classical sociology, based on Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, was, according to Touraine, "sociology of society": it regarded social facts as things, studied institutions, structures, and systems, explaining the behavior of individuals by the action of external social forces (class, norms, rationalization). Touraine claims that in the conditions of late modernity (or postmodernity), society as a whole, integrated system, governed by clear laws, has ceased to exist. In its place have come fragmented, globalized flows of information, capital, and cultural patterns. Therefore, sociology must find a new object and a new method.

Key Thesis: From "Society" to "Social Action" and "Subject"

The core of the project "sociology after sociology" is the change of paradigm.

Critique of "society": Touraine believes that the concept of "society" has become a meta-social ideology, a myth that hides real conflicts and processes. It implies a common culture, centralized institutions, and clear boundaries — all of which are eroded by globalization, multiculturalism, and the information revolution. The sociologist can no longer study "French society" or "industrial society" as some monoliths.

New object: social movements and cultural conflicts. The focus should be on not order, but on the production of society by actors themselves in conditions of conflict. For Touraine, the main actors of modernity are not classes in the Marxist sense, but social movements (environmental, feminist, minority rights movements), which are engaged in a struggle not for the redistribution of wealth, but for control over "historicity" — over the basic cultural models of production, knowledge, and ethics, through which society creates itself.

Return of the Subject: This is the most important and original turn. Touraine declares: "Let us return to the social sciences the actor we ourselves expelled." "Subject" for Touraine is neither the autonomous individual of Enlightenment nor the completely determined product of structures. It is a project of self-construction of the individual, carried out in the struggle against the logics of apparatuses (market, state, technocracy), striving to suppress it. The Subject is not a given, but a demand, a difficult conquest. Sociology should study the conditions for the emergence of the Subject.

Method: sociological intervention (intervention sociologique)

To study this new object, Touraine and his school developed an original method — "sociological intervention".

This is not just participant observation. The method implies long-term work (dozens of meetings) with a group of activists of a social movement (for example, workers of a factory occupying the enterprise, or participants in an environmental protest).

Researchers are not neutral observers. They actively "intervene," bringing the participants of the group into conflict with each other, offering them to analyze their own actions, reveal their hidden motives and contradictions. The goal is to provoke the group into self-analysis (self-analysis) and help it formulate its own identity, goals, and perceptions of the opponent, that is, to transform from a simple social group into a true historical action.

In this way, the sociologist becomes not an expert explaining the actions of people, but a "mediator" or "director" who helps actors find their own voice and become creators of their own history. Science here serves not abstract knowledge, but emancipation.

Interesting fact: One of the most famous cases of the application of the method of sociological intervention was the study by Touraine and his team of the movement of students and workers in May 1968 in France. Touraine saw these events not as a political revolution, but as a cultural revolution, the birth of a new type of social conflict aimed at controlling communication, education, and everyday life, that is, "historicity."

Diagnosis of modernity: program and market

Touraine analyzes modern society as a field of struggle of two main "logics" or "apparatuses" that suppress the emergence of the Subject:

Market Logic (economic modernization): Global capitalism, reducing everything to a commodity, consumer, and economic efficiency. It destroys collective identities and social ties.

Program Logic (technocratic rationality): The power of experts, bureaucrats, managers, and algorithms, striving to manage all aspects of life (from education to health care) according to the criteria of productivity and control.

These two logics, often conflicting with each other, form a system of domination that displaces man from the center of his own life. Against them, according to Touraine, is only the demand to be a Subject — that is, a being capable of combining instrumental rationality with the protection of his personal and collective freedom and identity.

"Sociology after sociology" in a global context

Touraine's project is a response to the challenges that sociology faced at the end of the 20th century:

Crisis of Marxism and theories based on the concept of "society".

Rise of postmodernism with its relativism and rejection of "great narratives". Touraine rejects the postmodernist breakdown of meaning, but accepts its critique of totalizing theories. His subject is an attempt to build a new narrative, but not total, but personal and collective at the same time.

Individualization and fragmentation: Touraine proposes a concept that allows analyzing society, not denying these processes, but placing the struggle for subjectivity at their center.

Example of influence: Touraine's ideas about social movements as the main actors of historical change have had a huge impact on the study of "new social movements" (environmental, feminist, antiglobalist). His emphasis on cultural conflicts and identities anticipated the "cultural turn" in the social sciences.

Criticism and Legacy

The project of Touraine was criticized for:

Excessive normativism and moralism: Sociology risks turning into a philosophy or sermon about what a "good subject" should be.

Unclear concept of "Subject": It balances between philosophical abstraction and a psychological concept, making its operationalization in empirical research difficult.

Elitism of the method: "Sociological intervention" is very resource-intensive and applicable only to small, active groups, limiting its use.

Conclusion:

Alain Touraine in his concept of "sociology after sociology" has made a radical epistemological break. He has proposed to move:

From studying structures to studying action.

From analyzing integration to analyzing conflict as a creative force.

From the figure of the individual determined by society to the figure of the Subject struggling for self-determination.

From the role of the sociologist as a neutral scientist to the role of a mediator and participant in the process of social creation.

His project is not just a new theory, but a call for the humanization of social sciences, their return to the service of human freedom. In a world where global forces of the market and technocracy seem omnipotent, Touraine reminds us that history is not over, but is created in everyday conflicts, where people can — and must — defend their right to be not cogs, but authors of their own lives. "Sociology after sociology" is a sociology of hope, centered on the fragile but indestructible human striving for freedom and recognition.
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