2. Chapter 2 - Theoretical framework
2.3 Why do political generations clash within the nation-state?
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said to be part of the same actual generation; while those groups within the same actual generation which work up the material of their common experiences in different specific ways, constitute separate generation units32.
2.3 Why do political generations clash within the nation-state?
One of the main critiques that can be done to Mannheim's work on political generations is that he did not elaborate on why new political generations clash with older ones within the nation-state and why political generations can lead to social change.
One of the main assumptions regarding the inter-generational struggle is that new political generations tend to clash with older political generations because new political generations seek more political power, which is hegemonised by "older" political generations. Generations constitute a new “Self” of the nation-state against an internal
“Other,” a previous generation. Roskin of Kuhn’s paradigmatic transitions established that the ontology of a nation-state is remade to some degree by an emerging generation against the one in power. Such transitions are characterised less by a “passing of the torch” than a contentious period of intense, negative identification struggles.33
Regarding generational struggles between new political generations and the old, such transitions come about through two mechanisms. The first of these is the so-called
“formative experience,” anomaly, or social moment that creates the generational cohort;
the second is a component of intense intergenerational struggle—sometimes termed
“revolutionary” or “destructive.”34
When explaining the importance of formative events as phenomenon that can shape political generations during their formative years, Anthony Giddens's notion of critical situations is vital for their understanding. A critical situation is a set of circumstances which -for whatever reason- radically disrupts accustomed routines of daily life.
Conventions and social codes maybe be abandoned and new ones produced on spot.
32 Karl Mannheim, "The Problem of Generations". In Essays on the sociology of knowledge, ed.
Paul Kecskemeti, 276-320.(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul LTD, 1952), 304.
33 Brent J. Steele and Jonathan M. "Introduction: The Evolution of Generational Analysis and International Theory" In Theory and Application of the "Generation" in International Relations, ed. Brent J. Steele and Jonathan M, Acuff. 3-25, (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2012), 10.
34 Ibid, 26.
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Under crisis, agency comes to the fore, often reshaping prevailing social structures.35 In addition, these critical situations are also able to create a new identity due to the fact that the "new" cannot accommodate itself in the existing identities. Generational analysis scholars see these as catastrophes or crises that provide the “exogenous shocks”
that make possible a new identity. Yet in two important respects, the shocks may be endogenous as well. First, such shocks are “made possible” because of the sedentary thinking of a generation in power, which fails to see data that disconfirms its implementation of policies. Second, an incoming generation can then connect such crises to the policies, the mindset, and the agency of a generation in power. Identities can change, but they can also remain static for periods of time, as Kratochwil reminds us.36
Another scholar who is critical to understand why "exogenous shocks" are important for the development of a political generation is the British sociologist Philip Abrams. The British sociologist contributed to the field studying Mannheim's ideas and looking, in particular, at the role of identity in generations. As Mannheim, Abrams also believed that historical and institutional discontinues are important for the development of a generation37. To prove that, in his book Historical sociology, he brought out Bereleson's work, which suggested that a whole political generation may have been developing for whom the socio-economic problems of their youth served as bases for permanent political forms... Presumably an age generation can be transformed by political events and social condition...a generation that retains its allegiances and norms while succeeding generations are moving in another direction38.
Adams also suggested that the individuality and society are socially constructed. The identity - is considered as the link between both individual and society's dimensions - and has to be studied within the historical and social framework. Subsequently, Abrams
35 Christopher G. A. Bryant, David Jary, Anthony giddens: Critical assemsents ( New York:Taylor and Francis, 1997), 312.
36 Brent J. Steele and Jonathan M. "Introduction: The Evolution of Generational Analysis and International Theory" In Theory and Application of the "Generation" in International Relations, ed. Brent J. Steele and Jonathan M. ACuff. 3-25, (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2012), 11.
37 Carmen Leccardi and Carles Feixa, "El concepto de generación en las teorías sobre la juventud," Última decada 34 (2011):19.
38 Abrams Philips, Historical Sociology (Somerset: Open books publishing ltd, 1982), 258.
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defined identity as the consciousness in which history of the individual life and social history are interwoven39. In addition, when expanding the notion of identity and generations, he also suggested that if a new sociological generation is to emerge, a new configuration of social actions, the attempt of individuals to construct identity must coincide with major and palpable historical experiences in relation to which new meanings can be assembled. (...) But it is historical events that seem to provide the crucial opportunities for constructing new versions of such meanings. Such opportunities are seized, in turn, most avidly and imaginatively by those who are most actively in the market for such meanings (identities). Hence the peculiar connection of youth and generations. And the more the overall configuration of a society leaves the mode of entry new individuals open to negotiation the more likely it is that those individuals will put together a sense of themselves as being historically unlike their predecessors; will make something culturally or politically of their distinctiveness as youth. Such attempts create the world of youth as a stage of life history. But sometimes such attempts also seize on historical experiences, of war, revolution, crisis or liberation for example. (...) an age group located at such a moment in history can create a new social generation. Life history and world history coalesce to transform each other.
Identity is made within the double construction of time40.
According to Abrams, one generation, in the sociological sense, is the period of time in which one identity is constructed based on the resources and meanings that are socially and historically available. Therefore, a sociological generation do not follow each other based on a recognisable temporal cadence established by succession of biological generations. Hence, there is not a normalised time to measure and predict their rhythm, as a result, from a sociological perspective, one generation can last 10 years or centuries.41
39 Carmen Leccardi and Carles Feixa, "El concepto de generación en las teorías sobre la juventud,", Última decada 34 (2011):18.
40 Abrams Philips, Historical Sociology (Somerset: Open books publishing ltd, 1982), 256.
41 Carmen Leccardi and Carles Feixa, "El concepto de generación en las teorías sobre la juventud, "Última decada 34 (2011):18.
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To explain the intergenerational struggle, Thomas Kuhn's theory on "Paradigm shift"
can enable us to understand such a phenomenon. It serves as the perfect analogy to explain why "new" political generations struggle with the "old" ones. When researchers, operating under their old paradigm, begin to notice that their empirical findings do not come out the way they are supposed to, disquiet enters into the profession. Anomalies or counter instances crop up in the research and throw the old paradigm into doubt. Then an innovator looks at the data from another angle, reformulates the basic framework, and introduces a new paradigm. Significantly these innovators tend to be younger men who, "being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them.42 The new paradigm does not triumph immediately and automatically.
Now there are two competing, antithetical paradigms; each demands its separate world view. The discussants are bound partly to talk through each other because they are looking at the same data from differing angles. The new paradigm makes progress, however, because it claims it can solve the problems that have led the old one to a crisis. The new paradigm makes particular headway among younger workers. The old practitioners may be beyond conversion; they simply die out. This "paradigm shift" is what Kuhn calls a "scientific revolution," and these "revolutions close with a total victory for one of the two opposing camps43. When analysing the Sunflower Movement and its political generation, it is interesting to observe how the Sunflower Movement displayed a new way to understand politics. It can be argued that what the student movement questioned was the existing "paradigm" that does not seem convincing for them. Therefore, Sunflower Movement's bottom line was a "paradigm shift" that led them to challenge the social and political status quo hegemonised by
"old" politics embodied in the current KMT.