Slideshow 1- Quizlet

Political Sociology

• Focuses on the distribution of power within societies, social and political conflicts, and how social processes interact with political power.
• Examines the impact of these intersections on citizens' daily lives.

Sociology's Focus

• Examines how individuals construct reality, assign meaning, and interact based on those meanings.
• Explores the fundamental nature of societies.

Politics' Focus

• Centers on governance, public affairs, conflicts of interest, power, and resource allocation.

Political Science

• Studies the workings of the state and its institutions, and their effects on citizens.

Political Sociology's Interest

• Explores how citizens' actions influence the state and political processes.

Key Dimensions of Political Sociology

• Power's Social Roots: How power stems from social institutions like class and religion.
• Power's Consequences: The effects of power distribution on governance and society.

Civil Society

• Everything outside the state, including areas where the state's influence overlaps.

Public Sphere

• Includes educational, healthcare, and media institutions.

Market Sphere

• Composed of corporations.

Private Sphere

• Encompasses family life and relationships with friends.

Plato's Views

• Believed reality is a reflection of a perfect ideal.
• Compared the human soul to the state, dividing both into three parts.

Plato's Analogy

• Soul: reason, appetites, spirit.
• State: rulers (sages), producers (craftsmen/farmers), and guards (military).
• Viewed the divisions as analogous.

Aristotle's View

• Emphasized the importance of social life (zoon politicon), viewing humans as inherently political creatures.
• Distinguished between zoe (basic needs) and bios (social/political life). Argued bios is essential.

Zen and Eu Zen

• Zen: life
• Eu Zen: the good life

Pluralist Theory

• Asserts that power is dispersed among various groups, not concentrated in a single entity.
• Suggests that individuals are given choices among diverse groups and actors. Applicable to democratic systems.

Elite Managerial Theory

• Proposes that a few elites hold significant decision-making power.
• The "iron law of oligarchy" describes how power tends to concentrate in the hands of a few.
• Power is exercised through both force and deceit.

Social Conflict/Class Theory (Marx)

• Argues that conflict arises from class struggles and unequal resource access.
• Maintains that economic conditions drive social change.
• Political institutions support and perpetuate existing capitalist structures, a concept called hegemony.

Economic Base

• Forces: Raw materials, land, labor, and property ownership.
• Relations: Relationships between economic actors, like employer/employee.

Economic Superstructure

• Non-economic aspects of society: culture, politics, law, ideology, religion, education, media.
• Influenced by the economic base but also reinforces it.

Antonio Gramsci's Views

• Emphasized the importance of the superstructure in influencing social change.
• Proposed that change happens gradually through cultural shifts, not sudden revolutions.
• Coined the concept of hegemony to explain how ruling classes maintain power (through culture).

Hegemony

• The dominant cultural ideology and values that maintain the status quo.

Dissemination of Hegemony

• Examples include schools, media, laws, and religion.

Class (Marx, Weber, Bourdieu)

• Marx: Economic class.
• Weber: Status, influence, and education.
• Bourdieu: Social, cultural, and symbolic capital; habitus.

Bourdieu's Concept

• Class is shaped by social, cultural, and symbolic capital.
• Individuals' upbringing and experiences (habitus) reinforce class positions.

Habitus

• Societal influences shape worldview, creating a tendency towards certain opportunities and behavior patterns.
• Represents both agency and structure.

Death of Class

• Increasingly, personal preferences and factors like education, culture, and lifestyle are replacing class as primary identifiers.

Culture and Politics

• Political processes are shaped by cultural norms, values, beliefs, and meanings.

Rational Choice Theory

• Decisions are based on risk assessment and reward maximization.

Institutional Theory

• Examines and analyses the role of institutions (political and social).
• Institutions include government, law, family, and education.

Postmodern Theory

• Challenges the idea of a single universal truth.
• Sees power dispersed and multifaceted, not concentrated in a singular entity.

Foucault's "Docile Bodies"

• Individuals become compliant, productive, and self-regulating.
• Social institutions use discipline, surveillance, and examination to create docile bodies.