Where does solidarity collide?

In Durkheim's sociology, solidarity is the bond that holds a society together, and he distinguished two kinds. In The Division of Labor in Society (1893) he described mechanical solidarity, found in small and simple societies, where people are alike and cohesion rests on a strong shared body of beliefs and sentiments. Against it he set organic solidarity, typical of complex societies, where a developed division of labor makes people different and mutually dependent, so cohesion rests on interdependence rather than likeness. For Durkheim solidarity is a property of the social order itself, not a feeling any one person carries, and its type can be read from the kind of law a society uses, repressive or restitutive. The word here names how a whole society coheres, which is a different question from whether a group supports its members in a fight or whether anyone is morally obliged to help. This is the classical root from which the other meanings drift.[1]

Unit

A property of a society: the source and type of its cohesion

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Read from social indicators such as the division of labor, shared beliefs, and the forms of law Durkheim compared across societies

In the labor movement and in mutual aid, solidarity means standing together and supporting one another in a shared struggle, captured in the slogan that an injury to one is an injury to all. Fantasia's Cultures of Solidarity (1988) documented how such solidarity is not a fixed attitude but something workers build in action, in strikes and on picket lines, where a common identity and a willingness to bear costs for one another take shape. Wilde's review of the concept in political thought notes how this practical, movement meaning of solidarity was long neglected by social scientists after Durkheim. Here solidarity is a relation of mutual support within a group defined by a shared interest or a common opponent, and it is enacted rather than simply held. The referent is the loyalty and reciprocal aid that let a group act as one, which is not the same as a society's overall cohesion or a philosopher's account of moral duty. It is read, if at all, through the collective action it produces.[2][3]

Unit

A relation within a group: mutual support pledged in shared struggle

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Traced through collective action such as strikes, mutual aid, and refusals to cross a picket line, and the shared identity these build

In moral and political philosophy, solidarity names a normative principle or an obligation of mutual concern, close to the old revolutionary ideal of fraternity and central to Catholic social teaching, where it is a duty owed to the common good. Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989) offered an influential and deflationary version: solidarity is not the recognition of a shared human essence but the contingent, expanding sense of others as "one of us" whose suffering we refuse to ignore. Gould's Transnational Solidarities (2007) treats solidarity as a relation that can cross borders and that grounds obligations to distant others. On these accounts the question is not how a society holds together or how a union wins a strike but what we owe one another and why. Solidarity here is a reason for action and a claim on conduct, an obligation, rather than a fact about how a group behaves. That normative claim is what separates this meaning from the descriptive ones.[4][5]

Unit

A moral relation: an obligation of mutual concern owed to others

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Argued for on normative grounds rather than measured; assessed by the obligations it is said to justify and the reasons given for them

In social psychology and small-group research, group solidarity refers to the strength of the bonds that hold a group's members together and their willingness to cooperate, sacrifice for, and stay with the group. Hechter's Principles of Group Solidarity (1987) built a rational-choice account in which solidarity depends on how far members rely on the group for valued goods and how well the group can monitor and enforce compliance. This meaning overlaps heavily with social cohesion; Friedkin's review shows that cohesion is itself a contested, many-part idea covering attraction to the group, shared identity, and the forces that keep members from leaving. Because solidarity and cohesion are often defined in the same terms and measured with overlapping scales, the two words frequently name much the same thing, a jangle sitting next to the larger jingle. Here the referent is a measurable property of a small group, closer to Durkheim's societal bond scaled down than to the labor or moral meanings. The overlap with cohesion is the trap to watch.[6][7]

Unit

A property of a group: the strength of the bonds that hold members together

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed with group cohesion and solidarity scales and with behavioral signs of loyalty, cooperation, and staying with the group

In bioethics, solidarity refers to shared practices reflecting a commitment to carry costs to assist others with whom a person recognizes similarity in a relevant respect. This meaning comes from Prainsack (2017) in Solidarity in Biomedicine and Beyond.[8]

Unit

Recovery means

Measured by