Stratification, luttes sociales et démocratie chez Charles Wright Mills

Abstract

This article examines Charles Wright Mills’ sociological works and political thought : it shows how they provide the basis of a reflection on the social conditions of democratic conflict. First Mills’ work questions the impact of social stratification on democratic conflict. Second Mills’ approach of the notion of « mass society » puts emphasis on the way the decline of the autonomy of social orders contributes to a weakening of democratic conflict. Finally, we compare the way Mills and Pierre Bourdieu defend a « politics of truth » : such an analysis emphazises that the autonomy of social orders or social fields is a condition and a stake at once pivotal and ambivalent of democratic struggles.

Keywords

• Charles W. Mills
• Bourdieu
• democracy
• stratification
• conflict