Two key starting points:
Sociology was a branch of philosophy when Hegel revived the ancient Greek conception of dialectics. It is now a science.
THAT societies operate under a principle of dialectics is -- disputed.
Hegel's dialectic thinking was adopted by two early branches of sociology
Structuralism started with Hegel's dialectics, applied them to language, and then generalized these principles to be key aspects of our world. Structuralism found its greatest application in sociology. Here is a summary: https://www.philosophybasics.com/movements_structuralism.html
Structuralism is still an active movement in sociology, although not one of the dominant movements today: https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/63/4/1085/2231623
Karl Marx adopted Hegel's dialectic, but rejected that there is a Idealist basis for it. He instead proposed a Dialectic Materialism: https://www.wondriumdaily.com/a-dialectic-view-of-social-development-hegel-and-marx/ https://abhipedia.abhimanu.com/Article/sociology/MTAwMzU1/Laws-of-Dialectics--Paper--I---Fundamentals-Of-Sociology-sociology
Structuralism suffered setbacks when structuralists applied their structural analysis to structuralism itself, and found that their assumed universal principles were embedded in their methodology. Marxism also suffered setbacks when workers utopias did not appear as deterministically predicted. Post-structuralism, now called post modernism, rejected both movement's assumptions of an objective reality, and fuzed them into a new subjectivist worldview, which continued to feature dialectics. Here is an example: https://nonsite.org/max-horkheimer-and-the-sociology-of-class-relations/
Refutation-based science may throw cold water on dialectics
Hegel, Marx, and the Structuralists all were operating under a Humean view of science, where one seeks out confirmations of a theory. Confirmations tend to lead to confirmation bias. Karl Popper transformed science to instead focus on falsifications.
Note the Structuralist movement was seriously harmed when its presumption of universal laws of the universe being revealed by its methods was found to be circular logic. This was a "refuting test case" and led to widescale abandonment of structuralism.
Also note Horkheimer's Marxist prediction in the linked essay of a continual and inevitable drop in worker welfare, which did not happen during the 20th century. Instead, workers for most of the 20th century experienced a significant and sustained increase in relative welfare. That, plus the failure of Marxist economics everywhere they were applied, led to a drastic drop in the appeal of and adoption of Marxism.
The post modernists reject the concept of objective testability, which makes their theory and predictions immune to testing, and in Popperian science terms --
"not even wrong" (a far worse status than a falsified theory).
Doing sociology scientifically, rather than with a dialectic-based dogma, does not tend to reveal dialectics as a significant feature of sociology. Here is a reference for how to do sociology with an empirical rather than dogma focus: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html
Dialectics has found its way into psychology, and this plausibly could be why so may early sociologists latched onto its postulates. If we are geared to think dialectically, then we are likely to see dialectics when we want to confirm it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9235839/
Takeaway
Dialectics was found to be very useful for three major movements in sociology, and at least one in psychology. The counter "scientific" view may be too negative. This background, and links, should just be a jumping off point for you to dig into this area yourself.
