POWER,

POLITIC
S AND
THE STATE
 Sociologist - argue that
political
sociology is the
According to:
study
of POWER .
DOWSE and HUGHES :
* “ politics is “POWER
Any
involv
social es POWER political

relationship
Political relationship
Would extend from

PARENTS TEACHERS MANAGERS

ASSIGNING ENFORCING ORGANIZING

DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE A
CHORES TO TO WORKFORCE
CHILDREN STUDENTS
In TRADITIONAL STUDY :

POLITICS HAS CONCENTRATED ON :

•The STATE
•various institutions of
Government Such
as
PARLIAMENT JUDICIARY
TWO FORMS OF POWER
=
1. AUTHORITY -The legitimate therefore
power
-The right and just
2. COER CION
-Not as legitimate
-To do in force because of the
Some SOCIOLGISTS suggested several faces or
dimensions of
POWER

MAX WEBER - the most influential

sociological view s of
He defined power
as:
“ the chance of a man or a n
of men to
realize their own will in a
communal action
even against the resistance
 WEBER – SUGGESTED THE three
sources of AUTHORITY
-the subordinate believed
1. CHARISMATIC that leader have
exceptional qualities
-leaders able to sway and
AUHORITY control followers by direct
emotional appeal

A belief in rightness
Subordinates are controlled
2. TRADITONAL by
feeling of loyalty
AUTHORITY Based on the acceptance
of a set of impersonal
rules
3. RATIONAL- Those who posses
authority are able to
LEGAL issues commands
Obeyed because they
AUTHORITY accept the legal frame-
work of their authority
STEVEN LUKES(1974) - a radical
view
• He argues that power has
three
Decisi dimensions or faces
Shapin
Non-
on Decision g
Makin Making Desire
g
-Where Exercising * Manipulating the
different power do so wishes
individuals by preventing and desire of
or group those who take social group.
express a decision •May be persuaded
the making from to accept
Lukes‘s definition of
power
PO WER IS EX ER CI SED
OVER THOS E WH O ARE
HARMED BY ITS U SE,
WH ETER TH EY ARE
AWAR E THEY ARE
HAR MED OR NOT .
 The
STATE
Definition and development of the STATE
Weber defined - “ a human
community
that (successfully) claims the
monopoly of the legitimate use
physical force within a given
From some sociologists:
State are consisting
Welfare ofservices,
a wider set of in
include : Education ,
Health services ,
Government and civic
* POWER- A FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE

Most sociological theories of power fo

WEBER’s definition in two important
respects :
1. that those who hold power do so
at
the expense of others..
- some hold power but others do
not
2. the power-holders will tend to
use
power to further their own
 TALCOTT PARSONS – The
Variable – Sum Concept of
Power
His view of power was
developed from his general
theory of the nature of
society
Power and Collective Goals:
= that value consensus is
essential for
the survival
= from of social
shared values system
derive collective
goals
 * AUTHORITY AND
COLLECTIVE GOALS
Power takes the form of
authority; it is regarded as
legitimate, since it is seen to
further collective goals.
This means that some are
granted authority for the benefit
* POWER AND THE STATE – A PLURALIST PERSPECTIVE

Pluralism has important

similarities

* they accept that government and state

act in the interest of society and
according to the wishes of members
As the most advanced systems of government
yet devised ; and regard them as the most
effective way for a population to exercise power
and govern a country
They regard the exercise of power
through the state to be legitimate rather
than coercive
Pluralist do not deny the existence
of class, or divisions based on AGE
, GENDER , RELIGION or ETHNICITY

# a democratic political system

requires that
individuals have a larger number of

specific interests.

# democracy would become

unworkable if
*CLASSICAL PLURALISM-POLITICAL
PARTIES
AND INTEREST GROUPS

POLITICAL PARTIES :
Are organizations which
attempt to get representatives
elected to positions in
parliaments or their local
*equivalent.
Pluralist claims that competition
for office between political parties
provides the electorate with an
opportunity to select its leaders
Pluralists claim that political parties
are democratic societies.
for the following
reasons:
1. the public directly influences party
policy : must
reflect the wishes and interest of the
2. if existing parties do not sufficiently
represent
sections of society- new party will
3. parties are accountable to the
electorate
4. Parties cannot simply represent
sectionalist
* PLURALISM -- A CRITIQUE

There are number of serious

criticism of pluralism.

These criticism are

concerned both with the
methods pluralists use to
measure power and empirical
evidence which seems to
contradict their claim that
*R ea pp r ai sal of classi cal
DAVID MARSH (1983) - explained the
distributions of power and the operation of the
state as elite pluralist theories
These theories share important
similarities with classical pluralism :
1. they see Western societies as
basically
democratic
2. they regard government as a
process of
compromise
 On the other
hand :
1. they do not accept that all
members of society have exactly
the same amount of power.

2. T hey d o n ot c oncentrate
exclusiv ely

3. they see elite ; as the leader of

groups, as the main participants in
decision making
 Elite pluralism may not be
satisfactory in at least three ways:
1. showing that democracies do not
work perfectly
2. they fail to discuss the
possibility that elites monopolize
power and use in their own
interests.
3. they do not discuss the power of
some members of society to influence
the wishes of others
* THE POWER ELITE

MILLS ( 1950) explained elite rule in

institutional rather than psychological

Three key institutions

1. the 3. the
Major Federal
corporati governmen
on 2. the t
militar
*THE POWER AND THE STATE –MARXIST PERSPETIVE

Acording to
MARX:
Power is concentrated in the hands of
those who have economic control
within a society.
MARX and
ENGELS:
the source of power lies in the
economic
infrastructure:
1. All class- Production are owned and
divided controlled by the ruling class.
societies
2. Communi Power are equally
st distributed among the whole
society population
 T he f oll owi ng r easons gi ven for the
r el ativ e autonom y of the ca pi tali st sta te:

1. As a group, , the bourgeoisie is not

free from
internal division and conflict of
2. If the bourgeoisie ruled directly , its
power
might be weakened by internal
wrangling
3. The state must have freedom to
make
concession to the subject class
4. The relative autonomy of the state
enables it to
promote the myth that it represents
 Poulantzas did not disagree with Miliband
about the importance of legitimation
He used a broader definition of the
state than Miliband.
He divided it into
REPRESSIVE : IDEOLOGICAL
APPARATUS APPARATUS

ARMY , GOVERNMENT , POLICE, THE CHURCH, POLITICAL PARTIES,

TRIBUNALS & ADMINISTRATIONS UNIONS, SCHOOLS ,MASS MEDIA
& FAMILY

Exercises CONCERNED WITH THE

COERCIVE POWER MANIPULATION OF VALUES
AND BELIEFS RATHE THAN
THE USE OF POWER
WAR OF POSITION
= a kind of political trench
warfare in which revolutionary
elements in society attempted
to win over the hearts and
minds of the subject classes.
OPERATIONAL
AUTONOMY
= meaning it can be harmful
to capitalism
Capitalism merely exercises
ECOLOGICAL DOMINANCE
This means that the influence of capitalist
system over other parts of society is greater
than the influence of the non-capitalist parts
of society over capitalism.
Capitalist system does this in a
number ways:
1. Capitalist can threaten to remove their capital from
state which do
not follow policies which favor their interest .
2. Capitalism has extended its influence into more
and more areas of social life including politics,
education , health and science
3. Capitalism can try to impose a “profit-seeking logic”
on other systems even where there is no direct buying
and selling of goods.
 * TOM BO TT OMO RE – ELI TE AND

According to BOTTOMORE
:
= The earth’s become more concentrated than
ever before and as consequence, upper class
and elites have become increasingly dominant

= He attributes this increased concentration

of power to the following factors:
1. Multinational companies have grown
both in size and power.
2. New Right governments and thinking which
became dominant . . .
3. Communists regimes in Eastern Europe
and USSR collapsed, leaving yet more
markets for capitalist to exploit.
BOTTOMOREbelieves that small groups of
people, who dominate the crucial decisions in
the contemporary world, act like elite, but
should be seen more accurate a “upper class”

Capitalism already faces a

number of problems:
1. Economic crises and
instability
2. Serious environmental
problem
3.Opposition to the logic of global
capitalist
development
To NORDLINGER ; there are many ways
in which the state
can enhance
1. Using secretive system of decisionits
making
2. Using honours, appointments or government
contracts to persuade opponents to accept
proposals
3. Using the state’s resources to counter
resources used by the opponents.

4. Threatening to change a range of policies in

such a way as to harm the interest of opponents

5. Taking actions or using statements which

cause mistrust among different groups of
opponents
 Transnational practices take
place in three main spheres:

1. The 3. The
2. The
economi cultural-
political
c ideological
These correspond to the practices of :

1. The 3. The culture-

2. The
transnation ideology of
transnational
al consumerism
capitalist class
corporation
Based fr om
Power can take two
separate forms:
Distribution Collective
al Power power
MANN distinguished the two main ways in which
can be exercised between the different types of
power

The ability to The ability to

organize large organize tightly and
numbers of people command a high
over far-flung level of mobilization
terrorist in order to or commitment from
engage in minimally the participants.
stable cooperation
MAN N’s anal ysi s of di f fer ent
typ es of po wer :

AUTHORITATIVE POWER - exercised

when conscious deliberate commands
are issue. . .

DIFFUSEDPOWER - it involves
power
relationship , but ones which
operate
FRASER believes that modern assumption
about public sphere need to be
replaced by postmodern ones.
should
involve:
•The elimination of the inequalities
between
social groups
•The acceptance and encouragement of

different groups having their own

• The rejection of the idea that
supposedly
“ Private ” issues should be off limits
for
 “OLD and NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS “

COHEN and RAI questioned the usefulness

of any distinction between old and new
movement and they suggested two main
reasons why the distinction is not clearcut

1. There is no clear difference between

old movements
concerned with class issues and new
social movements concerned with
2. Humans rights movements have also
existed for many decades, and they defy
easy categorization into ‘new’ or ‘old’
social movements
 COHEN and RAI have seen some changes
in the nature of social movements:

1.Social movements have introduced

tactical and organizational innovations,
which have made
use of the media and technological

2. The new technology has enabled many

social
movements to become global rather
than confined to local or national arenas
 COHEN and RAI suggest reasons for
the development of global social
movements
1. Social movements have responded to
the
proliferation of the international
2. Cheap communications and travel have
made global
organization flexible for social movements
with limited
3. Political activities have adapted to the
increased power of
transnational corporation.
4. The environmental movements has been
forced to
organize globally . . . .
5. Some social movements have aims which
have an
 CROOK , PAKUL SKI A ND W ATE RS
(1 992)- a sso cia te h e d evelopme nt o f
so cial mo vements with a process
they d efin e a s postm oder niza tio n.

They believed ‘new

politics marks both a
substantive and
permanent change in
the political complexion
of advanced societies’.
 CROOK stated that New Politics has the
following characteristics:

* The class basis of support for political

parties declines.
* Politics become less concerned with sectional
interests and more concerned with moral issues
that affect everyone.
* The new politics move away from people
relying upon elites to represent them.

•The new politics is not focused on the

activities of the
state . . .
* The new politics ‘spills over and fuses with
the socio-cultural arena
The Institutional Dimensions of
Modernity
 The Theory of partisan alignment explained
voting in the following ways:

1. That class ; as measured by a person’s

occupation.
2. It claimed most voters had a strongly partisan
self-image
3. This sense of identity led to voters
consistently casting
their votes for he party with which they
JO HN G OLD THO RPE - Neo-Weberian class
scheme to distinguish five classes
3. Petty
1. 2. Routine
Bourgeoisi
Salariat Non-Manual
e
Workers
Managers,
Have low Farmers ,small
administrators,
wages business self-
Professionals
employed manual
and
Semi-
professionals

4. Foremen and 5. Manual

Technician Workers
Skilled
More
workers
autonomy
Within work
1997 – the Conservatives were in power
and by most measures the economy was
doing well and people’s living standard
were rising

2001 – election labour was able to

persuade sufficient voters that I could
manage the economy competently, to
enable to win the election
 Questions:
Is there any power in a modern society?
Based on your reflection, what is power, politics
and the state? Is there any state without power
and politics? Why?
Are there any power and political life in a pre-
industrial society?
Thank you
so much.