Social Change Theory Based on Cooperation Is Important For This Complex World

Social change theory is more important than ever in this time of globalization in which everything is changing. Older theories, which ranged between the polarities of the supposed dominance of ideas or the dominance of social belonging in determining social change theory, have waned in importance. Other types of social change theory have focused on limiting or controlling social change and maximizing stability and order. These types of social change theory have favored established power elites and sought to prevent social change.

In today’s world of instant communication, wide availability of new information, and electronic mobilization of dissent, the need for a social change theory that supports freedom and individual initiative within a framework that recognizes individual and group responsibility and boundaries is needed more than ever to guide social change.

The book, Journeys into Justice, is based on the social change theory that social collaboration rooted in common values and focused on doing the work of creating a more just society is highly useful in today’s world. The book explores the unique character of religious collaboration as a social change theory that serves the common good.

Social change theory gained a helpful perspective in the work of sociologist Georg Simmel who developed the viewpoint that conflict is a form of socialization. It is viewed as one key component of social change. With social change there emerges conflict, passion, disorder, and the potential for a reordering of basic policy and structure. Social change theory deals with social costs such as disruption, disorder, and sometimes violence. We need social change theory that enables social change through cooperation.

The reality of conflict as part of social change in a complex world elevates the importance of forms of social organization, such as collaboration, that enable the coming together of diverse interests to work in cooperative effort for positive social change through a sound social change theory. In religious collaboration as described in this book as a social change theory, the ten case histories provide insight into how social change can be accomplished constructively in significant areas of human social need while minimizing the social costs of change.

Want to read more about social change theory? Get your copy of Journeys into Justice today!