The critical study of the major sociological approaches to politics and their application to the following topics: the social bases of political identities, forms of state and organization of interests, the sources and distribution of political power, political transformations.

This raises the question - what is/are politics?,

• The process of determining ‘who gets, what, when, and how’. (Harold Laswell)

Also, what sociological approaches are there?

So, more broadly, political sociology is the study of ‘the social circumstances of politics, that is how politics both is shaped by and shapes other events in societies.’ (Orum)

• Economic relations are paramount – politics is about the struggle between classes defined by the ownership of the means of production.

• State can take various forms:

Problem: Why has there been no revolution or even much sign of working class consciousness?

• False-consciousness.

• Capitalism hasn’t reached it’s logical conclusion.

• Rejected economic determinism – the state is autonomous.

• Trend towards increasing rationalization and bureaucratization.

– Democracy is a means for holding the state bureaucracy to account.

• Power relations exist throughout society but politics, which is the struggle for power, is mainly at the state level.

Defining proposition: (Political) power is inevitably concentrated in an elite.

• There is always a ruling class and this does not depend on economic power.

• Masses need leaders to organize them (Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy).

• Liberal democracy and the idea of popular representation is a sham (Pareto, C. Wright Mills) or at best a means of changing government (Schumpeter)

• Collective action problem is more easily resolved by a few vested interests than by the masses (Olson).

Similar conception of the state to Marxists but without economic determinism.

Pluralists argue that elite theorists are wrong: not oligarchy but polyarchy e.g. Dahl’s study of community power in New Haven.

• Focus on individuals with an assumption of rationality - behaviour is consistent and goal directed.

• Theories can either be:

• Emphasis on the role of institutions and decision making rules on political behaviour.

• Common features of political life (such as high voter turnout, social movements and policy stability) are actually surprising.

Defining proposition: The culture in a society is an important determinant of social and political outcomes.

Examples:

There has been a recent and major change in the structure of society and the nature of politics.

• Society is much more fragmented (e.g. decline in class cohesion, multiculturalism, changing gender roles)

• State is weaker and less relevant (e.g. globalization)

However, postmodernism (especially Foucault) goes further than this, claiming that . . .

• social identities and even scientific knowledge do not represent any objective reality but are socially constructed

e.g. sexuality, gender, ethnicity

• social distinctions are the result of power relations

e.g. mental health, deviance

• "power is everywhere" (Foucault)

The major question throughout is where does power reside. But the concept of power is complicated.

Lukes’ Three Dimensional View:

Foucault - Power is not held by anyone but diffuse and everywhere in society.

These definitions raise important issues of testability.

Social Scientists believe in testing hypotheses. This implies (according to King, Keohane and Verba, 1994) we need to . . .

• construct falsifiable hypotheses (Popper)

e.g. Foucault - "power is everywhere" is not testable

• build internally consistent theories with observable consequences

• have concepts that are transparent and measurable

e.g. Social capital and interpersonal trust

• select dependent variables that are independent

e.g. Putnam - does culture cause democratic stability or vice versa?

• not select observations based on the dependent variable

e.g. Scokpol - need to look at cases of no revolution

• need a dependent variable that represents the variation we wish to explain

e.g. turnout between countries or at individual level

Note that this does not imply: