Bio: (1934-2020) British sociologist. Walter Runciman studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University, and has taught at the same faculty since 1971, until his death. He explored many areas of sociology: political sociology, social stratification and classes, social justice, historical and comparative sociology, and sociological theory. In the later period of his career, Runciman developed his sociological theory based on an evolutionary perspective.

                                            Social Justice

In his book Relative Deprivation and Social Justice (1966), he uses historical and survey data to show how the feelings of social justice and class consciousness, that individuals have, are relative rather than an absolute category. Individuals compare their situation in relation to those they consider similar to themselves. It is the comparison with reference groups that gives people a sense of satisfaction or injustice and affects their attitude toward social justice. Runciman believes that there are three principles based on which inequalities in wealth and status can be justified: need, personal value, and contribution to the common good. The inequalities that are the product of these principles are fair and may serve as a justification, for those who have fared worse, why their position is such as it is.

However, Runciman believes that there should be a limit to permissible inequalities, as well as a sense of inclusion that will include those with less wealth or poorer status in a shared commitment to basic norms and expectations prevalent in society. Inclusion should also include economic measures that will prevent poverty and thus ensure that everyone lives a normal life and participates in social life. Measures that will ensure social inclusion are: equalization of income, full employment, a high level of social protection, and high redistributive taxes. Non-economic measures of inclusion are the realization of great equality of chances for achieving education, as well as the full democratic participation of all citizens. Runciman believes that no spontaneous development of class consciousness will lead to a class action, which would enable the realization of such social justice.

                                      Theory of Stratification

Runciman developed his theory of stratification, which he first presented in the article "Towards a Theory of Social Stratification" (1974). His theory studies social stratification in industrial societies, and, according to it, the class division of society represents a special case of general stratification. He wants to build a framework for the categorization and description of stratification systems, starting from the ideal types of industrial societies. He develops these ideal types by asking five key questions for analysis: 1) who rules and who is subordinate, 2) the type of allocation of material goods, 3) the degree of respect and esteem, 4) In how many distinct groups can society be divided into (whose members share common economic, social and political interests), 5) how much mobility is there between different groups?

Runciman further gives a simplified description of different historical societies using ten parameters he chose: the basis of power distribution, the degree of its concentration, the degree of cohesion among power holders, their distance from those without power, their responsibility to others, their degree of circulation, mode of recruitment elite, the criterion of ritual status, the corresponding ideology and the "Achilles' heel", i.e. a weak point of the stratification system. In the end, he gives six ideal types of industrial societies, each with its own special basis of power: class – property; elite - force or cunning; caste – ethnicity; pluralistic - technical skill; socialist - a place in the bureaucratic system; and revolutionary - leadership.

By combining two or three ideal types, Runciman forms five real types of industrial countries: 1) neo-capitalist (a mixture of class and pluralistic types); 2) social-democratic (class, pluralistic and socialist); 3) state-socialist (socialist and elite); revolutionary-socialist (revolutionary and pluralistic) and 5) ethnocratic (caste and elite). These real types correspond to (in order): Great Britain, Sweden, the Soviet Union, China, and South Africa. Runciman then singles out five constants that are key to the stratification of industrial society: "the presence of the ruling elite, differentiated remuneration, the reputation of professional roles, quasi-group awareness of interests, and a degree of openness to social mobility" (Runciman, 1974). Each of these five constants contains three variables.

                                     Classes in Britain

In the article "How Many Classes Are There in Contemporary British Society" (1990), Runciman introduces a modified approach to stratification. He starts from the assumption that every class structure is composed of a set of roles. Each person has several different roles, but only employees have work roles, which are the most important. Classes represent groups of close roles that are grouped in relation to the economic power that those roles have in the institutional processes of production, distribution, and exchange. Economic power has three types of sources: ownership of the means of production, control over the work or process of production, and skills, qualifications, and abilities that enable employment. Belonging to a class, for each individual, is determined by a combination of these three factors of economic power.

Finally, Runciman concludes that there are seven classes in Britain: 1) upper, 2) upper middle, 3) middle-middle, 4) lower middle, 5) skilled working class, 6) unskilled working class, and 7) subclass. The most significant difference, compared to similar class schemes of other authors, is the inclusion of a subclass in the class scheme. He sees the subclass as a group that does not have any of the three sources of economic power. Since this fact excludes them from the labor market, they are completely dependent on social assistance. Most of them belong to ethnic minorities or are single mothers, but their dependence on social assistance classifies them into a subclass, not ethnicity or gender.

                             Evolutionary Theory of Society

Runciman develops his general theoretical approach in the three-volume book A Treatise on Social Theory (1983, 1989, 1997). In the first volume, which deals with the methodology of the social sciences, he singles out three main methods suitable for sociology: theoretical-neutral reporting on empirical facts; theoretical explanations of social structure, and phenomenological "description" of people's lives. In the second volume of the book, subtitled Substantive Social Theory (1989), Runciman presents his theoretical approach based on the sociobiological evolutionary theory of social development and the struggle between different forms of social power. In every society, there are three sources of power: the means of production, the means of persuasion, and the means of coercion. He defines society as a set of social roles through which people try to control these three sources of power. The process of evolution of human societies is composed of competitive selection between different roles. Social roles in social and cultural evolution act analogously to how biological species (their mutual competition and selection) act in natural evolution. He gives further development of his evolutionary theory in the books The Social Animals (1998) and The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection (2009).

Main works

Social Science and the Political Theory (1963);

Relative Deprivation and Social Justice: A Study of Attitudes to Social Inequality in Twentieth-Century Britain (1966);

Sociology in Its Place (1970); 

A Critique of Max Weber’s Philosophy of Social Science (1972); 

„Towards a Theory of Social Stratification“, in Frank Parkin (ed.) The Social Analysis of Class Structure (1974);

A Treatise on Social Theory (1983);

A Treatise on Social Theory, vol. 2: Substantive Social Theory (1989);

„How Many Classes are There in Contemporary British Society?“, in Sociology (1990);

A Treatise on Social Theory, vol. 3: Applied Social Theory (1997);

The Social Animal (1998);

Hutton and Butler: Lifting the Lid on the Workings of Power (2005);

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection (2009).