Week 2 Readings

Intro and Marx

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Political sociology: interrelationships of political + social phenomenon
The necessity of a sociological approach in accounting for certain political phenomena
Importance of social factors
Marx: all political/social phenomena are caused by the economic substructure of society
Religion = helps maintain the structure of capitalist society
European sociology: societies = totalities, attempted to understand relationships as a whole
Still relevant today
American sociology: attempted to understand particular institutions
Gemeinschaft relations: individuals interact in a face-to-face manner
Gesellschaft relations: interactions take place in an impersonal fashion, involving only 1 aspect of one’s self
Rise of comparative sociology in the 2nd half of the 19th century = due to the French Revolution and Industrial Revolution
2 problems: integration of societies + protection of individual liberties
Overlap between political philosophers + sociologists

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Oppression: attitudes, behaviours, and pervasive and systematic social arrangements by which members of one group are exploited and subordinated while members of another group are granted privileges
Structure of power inequalities
Economics: central feature to the patterns of inequality
Political economy: the economy is not a neutral institution
- Capitalism
- Inequality = whether one is an owner of the means of production or an owner only of labour-power
- Socialism: social cooperation between workers to create wealth, means of production are controlled by the state
- Communism: means of production are collectively owned by the workers themselves
Most political economies are a hybrid of these types
Patriarchy
Sexism, discrimination
Rape culture: rape and violence against women are accepted as a common feature of society
Racism
White-skin privilege/superiority
Heteronormativity
Sexual orientation, monogamy

Marx: proletariat (working class) would emerge victorious from a revolutionary confrontation with the capitalists
Thought that change was imminent
Determinism: inevitability of historical change
Revolution
Alienation
Men continually create social institutions
Predicted a collapse of capitalism and the emergence of a communist society
Substructure = economy; it shapes all institutions
Superstructure = politics, state, religion, philosophy
Capitalism limits the freedom and exercise of power by the state
Ideology: ideas or ideals that sustain a regime
False consciousness
Antecedents of revolutions
Economic
- Overabundance of commodities
- Centralization of capital
- Proletarization (capitalists join the working class)
- Worsening financial conditions of the average worker → verelendung: increasing misery
Social
- Opposition between town and countryside
- Communication
- Politicization (trade unionism)
Class consciousness: the working class becomes aware of itself as a class
Political organization

Weber
Emphasis on great figures making history → charismatic personalities
Strength of the state: law and administration + great leadership figures
No social laws!
Politics: a continuous conflict over the control of scarce material and symbolic
Rationalization of life → Western society
- Rational bureaucracy: alienation, no freedom
Status groups: people who share a common occupational/professional position + values/lifestyle
- The basis for political action
Political associations + Parties
Authority = central to modern societies
Iron cage, we are prisoners
Rule of law
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Power: the probability, within a social relationship, of realizing one’s own even against resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests
Weber: class, status groups, parties
Stratification - power
Society’s goods can be allocated through:
- Custom: status, status group, ideological/normative power
- Exchange: wealth, classes, economic power
- Command: rulership, party, political power
The tendency for power forms to enhance one another, and together to enhance society’s power-at-large

Note

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