Political Sociology

Grand definitions:

• Who gets what, when and how• How political outcomes affect and effected by

social circumstances• How class and inequality affect demand for

welfare states• How different kinds of welfare states have

different impacts in inequality and class

Informal definitions

•how people relate to, and think about politics•what policies they want•what makes them participate and at what level•what divides or unites them.•things affecting political preferences, attitudes, values and behavior in society•how that affect policy and other political outcomes

Comparative Government focuses on the political institutions

Political Sociology focuses on the social circumstances in which those

institutions work

Political Sociology and Political science

• both are disciplines of social sciences• both deal with human behavior

What are the differences between Political Sociology

and Political science?

Keith Faulks defines political sociology• Is concerned with relationship between politics

sociology• Distinctiveness lies in its acknowledgement that

political actors operate within a wider social context• Political actors inevitably shape and in turn are shaped

by social structures• Social structures ensure that political sociology is that

power• Political sociologists find answers to the following

questions:which individuals and groups in society possess the capacity to pursue their interests and how

is this power exercised and institutionalized

• Polity• Politics• Policy

Basics Concepts Of Political Sociology

Polity• refers to the entire political domain• A political field where the political actors vie

for power• try to maintain or increase their power• struggle to have their interests prevail.

Politics• refers to the activities that political actors

engage within the political domain• Crafting bills, trying to influence legislators,

campaigning for elections, all these activities constitute politics

• with any social activity there are norms in place as to what is or what is not acceptable

Policy• refers to public actions that public policies and

the actual products of governance• These actions are distinguished by domain of

activity• economic policy, environment policy, labor

policy or educational policy are all public policies

Powerthe capacity to achieve

one’s objectives even when those objectives are in conflict with the

interest of another actor.

Hard Power• The exercise of power through

force or the threat of force.• Military power , a parent

spanking a child• May result in compliance on

the short term• Since it generates resentment,

it might have negative effects on the long term

Soft Power• refers to the exercise of

power through persuasion• Diplomacy, for instance, is a

form of soft power• Soft power tends to generate

better and more long term effects

• recipients do not feel bullied or forced against their will

Forms of Power

• Ideological• Economic• Military• Political

Ideological power

• derives from the human need• Control of an ideology• combining ultimate meaning, values, norms,

aesthetic and ritual brings general social power

• Examples: religions and secular ideologies like liberalism, socialism and nationalism.

Economic power

• derives from the need to allocate resources of nature

• it combines intensive, everyday labor cooperation with extensive circuits of the distribution, exchange and consumption of goods

• All the complex societies unequally distributed controls over economic resources, thus classes have been ubiquitous

Military power

• social organization of physical force• derives from the (necessity) of organized

defense and utility of aggression• both intensive and extensive aspects • Those who monopolize it, as military elites

and castes wield a degree of general social power

Political power

• derives from the usefulness of territorial and centralized regulation

• Political power means state power• It is essentially authoritative commanded and

willed from a center• State organization is twofold: a) Domestically: it is ‘territorially centralized’b) externally in involves geopolitics.”

Political Action and Participation:

• Voter Turnout• Citizen participation• Social movements• Political violence,

civil wars and revolutions

Social Cleavages

• Race and ethnicity• Extreme-right• Nationalism• Religion• Gender• Class

Class issues

• Political elites• Welfare regimes• Post materialism and

social attitudes

Any Questions?