POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

CITIZENSHIP
Citizenship can be succinctly defined in terms of two component features. First, it constitutes membership in a polity, and as such it inevitably involves a tension between inclusion and exclusion, between those deemed eligible for citizenship and those who are denied the right to become members. In its earliest form in ancient Greece, the polity in question was the city-state. In the modern world, it was transformed during the era of democratic revolutions into the nation-state. Second, membership brings with it a reciprocal set of duties and rights, both of which vary by place and time, though some are universal. Thus paying taxes and obeying the law are among the duties expected of citizens in all nations, while the right to participate in the political process in various waysby voting, running for office, debating, petitioning, and so forthis an inherent feature of democratic citizenship. This leads to a final point: citizenship exists only in democratic regimes, for in nondemocratic ones people are subjects rather than citizens. In this regard, there are three crucial features that characterize the democratic political system: (1) the right to participate in the public sphere; (2) limitations on the power of government over the individual;and (3) a system based on the rule of law, not the arbitrary rule of rulers. The principal fault lines used to define the boundaries of inclusion versus exclusion have historically been based on three major social divisions: class, gender, and race. Marshall analyzes citizenship as consisting of three types of rights: civil, political, and social. Civil rights refer to such aspects of individual freedom as free speech, freedom of religious expression, and the right to engage in economic and civic life. Political rights involve those rights that ensure the ability to actively participate in the realm of politics. Finally, social rights and cultural rights involve the rights to various welfare provisions designed to guarantee to all a minimum standard of living necessary for the other two rights to be meaningful. Included are guarantees of educational opportunities, health care, decent and affordable housing, pensions, and so forth.

CIVIL SOCIETY Civil society (from the Latin civilis societas) is the realm of independent activity and voluntary association that is not organized by the state. The origin of the term is often traced to the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Adam Ferguson (17231816) and his Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767). Ferguson saw the new commercial civilization then displacing the older clan-based feudal order of the Scottish Highlands as enhancing individual liberty through the introduction of civil society, civil life, and economic society. In the same intellectual tradition, another Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and social theorist, Adam Smith (17231790), referred to the notion of civil society as the capacity of human communities for autonomous self-organization. THE STATE As Brian Nelson states in his 2006 study, the state is best defined in terms of its basic structural characteristics, which are territoriality, sovereignty, law, centralization, legitimation, and class stratification. And as both Elman Service (1975) and Ted Llewellen(1983) note, in contrast to earlier forms of political organization, which were based on lineage and heredity, the state is a form of political organization based on territorial jurisdiction. The state is also a sovereign entity, which means it claims a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory, as argued by Max Weber (1978). The states sovereignty depends on its ability to successfully enforce a monopoly of coercive force in relation to all inhabitants of its territory, against the claims of neighboring states, and against the claims of competing forms of political organization (e.g., tribes) within the same territory. Thus, for a state to exist, it must centralize the coercive powers of law, administration, and military force because sovereignty does not exist when governmentalauthority is retained by competing social units, such as clans or tribes, or where inhabitants political loyalties areretained by local units of government that function independently of the states central authority. Consequently, Charles Tilly observes (1975), state-building has been a lengthy and violent historical process involving the subordination of competing forms of political organization to the states sovereign authority and the defense of its territorial boundaries against rival states.

Power
WHAT IS POWER ? 1. Influence: persuasion, convincing someone of your views Types of influence: public opinion manipulation: propaganda (releasing info), political correctness (thought control), censorship (withholding info), chilling dissent (big brother), repression/coercion, genocide

2. Coercion: force, use or threat of use of force (some books refer to force and explain it as coercion) 3. Authority: socially legitimate/sanctioned from Weber we have 3 types i) traditional: custom, habit, past practice, e.g. kings & queens ii) charismatic: personality characteristic of a leader, e.g. M.L. King iii) legal rational/bureaucratic: power made legitimate by institutionalization of rules, regulations, policies, often codified into laws Marxs views 1. Class basis of politics is the major determinant of political phenomena, must ask which class controls and dominates the state 2. Reality is world of human effort WORK, people realize themselves through work and around this productive process history unfolds 3. Dynamics of society originate in its economic activity which is essentially the production of material life food, clothing, shelter - and culture arises out of this process of economic activity 4. Foundation or basis of society is the economy from which the legal, political, religious, cultural and educational institutions derive; i.e. societies in different stages of developments create different productive systems which are the economic institutions which in turn shape general nature of beliefs and practices in all areas of social life including political organization 5. A form of economic determinism 6. Obedience of all classes is found not on coercion but on virtual dependence of working class on capitalist class for subsistence and false consciousness 7. Power flows from economic relations, who rules, those who control the economic resources, societal power is a product of economic forces, Political power is not centered in the state but in the nature of the class relations, who owns and controls the means of production 8. Economic dominance is translated into power in all other societal realms, especially the state, thus dominant economic class is ruling political class

SOCIOLOGICAL MODELS/THEORIES OF POWER/ THEORETICAL APPROACHES 1. PLURALISM: power is distributed, based in diversity of interests competing for scarce resources, limits power of one sphere versus other, organizational and state centered. Main theorists: Arnold Rose, Seymour Martin Lipset, Robert Dahl

2. ELITISM: concentration of power in hands of small group of people with similar background, or small group of organizations; an oligarchy is the rule of the many by the few which is opposite of democracy. Proponents: Vilfred Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Michels, C. Wright Mills 3. MARXISM/CLASS ANALYSIS: describes institutional power in capitalist power; ruling class is the economic elite, emphasis is on primacy of corporate interests, all power emanates from business class. Proponents: Marx, Gramsci