CONSENSUS

THEORY
Consensus Theory
History
Most social theory has historically been based in notions of consensus.
Not until the 18th-century revolutionary tradition did the essential idea of
conflict take center stage. Writers such as Plato and Rousseau had stressed
means of avoiding conflict by creating the ingredients for consensus. Only
when Marxist, anarchist and racialist theories began to develop in the middle
of the 19th century did notions of conflict replace those of consensus in social
theory. According to such radical ideas, consensus was impossible unless
differences in power and wealth were eliminated.
Consensus Theory
Features
Consensus revolves around culture. Culture, in its most reductionist
definition, are the norms by which the majority in a society have decided it is
useful to operate. Defenders of culture hold that cultural norms exist because
they have withstood the test of time and have proven themselves in the
arena of history. Conflict theory attacks this approach by holding that culture
itself is the creation of the privileged few.
Consensus Theory
Consensus theory is a social theory that holds that a
particular political or economic system is a fair system, and
that social change should take place within the social institutions
provided by it.

Consensus perspective assumes that societies have an inherent

tendency to maintain themselves in a state of relative
equilibrium through the mutually and supportive interaction of
their principal institutions.

In consensus theory social order and stability and social

regulation form the base of emphasis. In other words consensus
theory is concerned with the maintenance or continuation of
social order in society
Consensus theory contrasts sharply with conflict theory which
holds that social change is only achieved through conflict.

Under consensus theory the absence of conflict is seen as the

equilibrium state of society and that there is a general or
widespread agreement among all members of a particular
society about norms, values, rules, and regulations.

The consensus theory serves as a sociological argument for the

furtherance and preservation of the status quo.

In consensus theory, the rules are seen as integrative, and

whoever doesn’t respect them is a deviant person.