Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) developed a wide‐ranging foundational sociology that has often been read as lacking a theory of politics, power and violence. This article argues that this view can be contested and outlines a reading of Durkheim's work that reveals that it places power and violence at the centre of its concerns through the concept of social energy. The discussion examines aspects of Durkheim's work on education, the family, gender, suicide, politics and war. It argues that Durkheim's theory centres on the way that social energies are produced and distributed. The heart of the theory suggests that in social development social energy can be centralised and concentrated in an absolute form, and as societies become more complex and institutionally balanced energies are dispersed towards the individual and this shift is the underlying cause for the move towards the cult of the individual and human rights. But this is not an inevitable progression as societies can experience tensions that shift social energies into tyrannical forms.
", language="", issn="0020-8701", doi="10.1111/j.1468-2451.2009.01687.x", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2009.01687.x" }