An ambivalent legacy: From Durkheims’s (un-)political sociology to Bourdieu’s religio-sociological theory of the state

Abstract

The paper deals with the ambivalent legacy of Emile Durkheim’s thought in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on the contributions of both authors to political sociology and the sociology of the state, which are reconstructed from their underlying premises in the sociology of knowledge. In a first step, the paper reveals weak spots in the political sociology of Durkheim, who conceived of the state as the “brain” of society, largely ignoring the role of power balances, social conflicts as well as concrete constellations of actors and interests. In a second step, it is shown how crucial aspects of Bourdieu’s sociology of the state are, on the one hand, built on Durkheimian foundations, while, on the other hand, he aims to overcome the French founding father’s deficits by including ideas of Max Weber and integrating them into an extended analytical framework for a sociology of power and domination. However, the comparison between the two authors unveils that Bourdieu did not simply adopt Durkheim’s state-centric account of society – rather, to his “Durkheiman legacy” also belongs a methodological religio-sociological universalism that orients his entire theory of society and ultimately limits its analytical potential, as becomes obvious in his theoretical handling of the state.