Structural Balance: a clarification
Abstract
to empirical test. Variables are, therefore, not something 'out there' which competing models are used to explain; instead, one's perception and definition of a variable depends on the model being employed. The 'needs' of Systems, to take one example, only become a variable within the terms of a certain analytical framework. 'The choice of syntax and vocabulary', as Laing has put it, 'are political acts which define and circumscribe the manner in which 'facts' are to be experienced'.3 Mouzelis' argument is rather different. He appears to acknowledge the status of Structural- Functionalism and Action as models but suggests that they should be regarded as 'not mutually incompatible but complementary' (iii). In support of this conclusion, he points out that both are capable of explaining conflict, change and (presumably) stability. Now I do not deny that this is so. However, it seems to me that this strengthens the case for regarding them as competing rather than as complementary frames of referent The positivist Systems per- spective equates the natural and the social worlds and purports to show how transcendental systems define Man's behaviour. The action perspective, drawing on Weber and Schutz, points out the socially constructed, meaningful nature of