The collision results from disorderly behaviour breaking these rules of conduct. Looking at this event we can see the complexity of the ordering of the social. We can see several different sorts of rules or norms for managing disorder in this illustration. There are understandings or expectations of how driving should proceed, of how people involved in an accident should speak to each other (breached by the companion’s behaviour), and of the procedures that are to be followed. Here, social order contains and manages disruption because a sort of code of behaviour is in place to deal with what happened. The extract, written for an insurance company, is in itself an instrument for this management. It is written for a particular context and purpose, in a style different from, for example, telling a friend what happened.
Introduction
Micro and macro
Social scientists often distinguish between different levels of social life: micro – the smallest scale, often meaning particular interactions between people; meso – an intermediate level referring to social organisations or institutions, or patterns of behaviour; and macro – the large-scale patterns, systems or structures of social life.
Governance
Governance concerns the action or manner of governing, the exercising of authority, or of being governed.
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In this chapter I will discuss social order as a central issue in social life and for the social sciences. In Section 1, I start by looking at how everyday life is ordered in many imperceptible ways, to set the context for presenting, in Section 2, two