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FOREWORD

In the beginning is the relation. Pierpaolo Donati makes this his motto and repeats it several timesin the following chapters. It intentionally echoes the opening of St Johns Gospel: In the beginning

vas the word Ev p4 iv aw because he wants to shock his readers in Orecognizing his foundational statement for sociology as being exactly that Historically, socialscientists have been immunized against taking social relations seriously. In the canon of sociologythey are synonymous either with social relation, such as queuing for a bus or shopping, which I

cave the individuals involved unchanged; they remain mere aggregates. Alternatively, in the holistic

version, agents are moved around the board as collective rrger, who are robotically responsive tosystemic forces but whose social relations are a matter of indifference; even mobilization is a nonrelational term.

Donati needs to use the same shock tactics again and again. Thus, for example, he reversesthe first Durkheimian rule that the subject matter of sociology is social facts with the

corrective that social facts are social relations. In other words, here is no question ofsubtracting the individuals and l cavingbehind a residue that can be dubbed the social,because

nothing at ah would remain, Any relational good is indivisible in the sense that an attempt to

divide it destroys the very social relationship that generates it. Relational goods cannot be parcelledout amongst those producing them. Thus, divorcing couples cannot lake away their private shares of

the marriage; they can only divide up their possessions and even their children between hem. The

marriage itself is dissolved and thus qua talis no longer generates anything because the relationship

no longer exists. Relational goods reside in the relationships that link orbond the membersconcerned. Hence, no-one can lake away pan of the orchestra or the football game as their personal

property; they can only take themselves away from the orchestra or the team. In short, (he

social order is a relational entity. sui generi sbecause emergent in kind.

Substantively, social science has become so engrossed by market exchange relations andpolitical command relations that social relations havebeen squeezed out. Yet, in fact, the

former are merely interactions procedural transactions thatproceedby instrumental rationality.

They do not generate the relational good that is characteristic of friendship. Which belongs loneither of the friendsbut is shared and valued by both. Hence for a quarter of a century,

Donati has been fulminating against the Iib/Iab oscillation inpolitics and economics a likebecause commodification and command (increasing bureaucratic regulation) both generate

relationalbads, destructive of human relations.Instead, what he champions is the French Revolutionary slogan that quickly dropped off (heEuropean and is now off the Global agenda fraternity. Its promotion is the pursuit of the common

good in society, not the Total Good or the greatest good of the greatest number, because the latternses if the well-being of some is discounted or discarded. Contractual agreements and electoral

systems are of practical use, but they have nothing to do withgenerating the common good. Inother words, relational sociology fosters its own emancipatory project. based upon valorizing free-giving, reciprocal relations rather than exchange or command relations, the socialprivate (thirdsector), and the complex of friends and family (fourth sector) as the planks building up a robustcivil society.

In fact, it is a very rare occurrence in sociology, unlike the natural sciences, to have thesimultaneous invention of a remarkably similar approach from entirely independent sources. The

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independent development of these twoperspectives, over much the same period, is because ofmore than the regrettable linguistic barrier that still impedes Anglo-italian exchanges, although that

has played itspart. Equally importantly, the development of each was rooted in entirely

different parts of the history of social theorizing they come from different stables. The firstgeneration of critical realist carne from Marxism or conflict theory and found their common

enemy in empiricism. Donati made his way along a very differentpath from Simmel, by way ofan engaged critique of Parsons and later of Luhmann. Theoretical starting points and the firstadversaries that ones new 1 perspective confronts are background influences that continue to

remain salient. Personally, 1 regard relational sociology and critical realism as fullycomplementary, both as meta-theories and as explanatory programmes. But that does not precludenoting their differences because this is precisely where the two can enrich one another.

Tobegin with -and this is no inconsequential -British readers (more so than Nort Americans) willnot encounter their familiar array of heroes and villains amongst (he theorists Donati takes

most seriously. Instead, in thisbook. they are invited to engage as seriously with Parsons and

his critics as with Luhmann and systems theory in general. Donati himself provides a radicalcritique of these sources. but on the basis of a deep conversancy with this thinking. What is

considerably more important is that he takes the central Parsonian concern with social ordervery seriously indeed. wilstproviding his own critique of normative integration and evermore extreme forms of functional differentiation.

Conversely, critical realist have frankly never been very concerned or convinced about social order

(1 include myself in this censure, until my exchanges with Pierpaolo increased over the lastdecade). Such attention as we Anglo- American realists have given it has accentuated power

relations and necessary compromises and concessions between interest groups etc. This, in myview, is because we have up to the new millennium taken a negative stance towards social order as

the barrier to social transformation. There are oId exceptions (nostalgia for the traditional workingclass community and its values) and there are new exceptions (the recent and surprising

enthusiasm of some for both habits and habitus).Nevertheless, the fact remains that critical realismdoes for have a theory of social integration: when it exists we admit it, but why it exists other than

as a tense balance of opposing interests and accompanying ideational manipulation We haveseriously failed to theorize.

This is perhaps, the main ground on which Donatis relational sociology contains much thatwe can tearn from, about relations, relational goods, and relationality (relations betweenrelations). Given the complementarity of the two perspectives, this can be assimilated

without compromising our commitment to ontological emergence, to episiemological

relativity, or to judgemental rationality because the three pillars of realism are upheld in

common. How much better, more fruitful, and vastly more sophisticated this can be thansome of the forced reconciliations with antipathetic approaches that have recently been

advocated.First and last, relational sociologists and critical realists care deeply about the humancapacity for fulfiment and the human liability to multifarious forms of suffering. As it

becomes increasingly popular to blur the human/non-human distinction in social theory,

nothing could be more welcome than to find that in relational sociology we encounter not

just an abstract theoretical convergence but a shared commitment to the promotion ofhuman thriving.

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Margaret S Archer

Kenilworth, March 2010