Work Book Day 1 (continued…!!

)
Political Sociology
Focus: Looks into social bases of politics/power (Sage Handbook of Comparative
Politics).
Assumption: Political structures and processes are shaped by social organisations and
cultural values.
Scope of the Subject: Study of underlying propensities in the society giving meaning and
order to the political science.
a) Social structure- caste, class, gender, elite, culture.
b) Processes like Political socialisation, political communication, political
modernisation, political development, electoral behaviour
c) Political parties, pressure groups, civil society
d) Social change and its dimensions from movement to revolution
Origin: After World War II, dissatisfaction with speculative theories with overemphasis
on normative/prescriptive approach
Quest for Empirical Research: More quest for empirical theory, wider will be the room
for understanding of socio-cultural underpinnings.
Historical Roots
1. Aristotle
2. Machiavelli
3. Alex de Tocqueville
4. Karl Marx
5. Max Weber:
• Article/lecture “Politics as Vocation”
• Meaning of political action in context of whole conduct of life
Distinctive Features of Political Sociology
Offers new vista of political analysis distinguished from,
• Institutionalism: marked by formalism
• Behaviouralism: engaged in highly abstract generalisation
Political Sociology focuses on
• Two way interaction between state and society
• Role of social forces
Contemporary Political Sociology focus on
• Governmentality
• Neo-institutionalism
• Politics beyond nation states
Relevance: Duverger
• It ends the isolated study of politics, locates it in broad
spectrum of social phenomena.
• Emphasise on essential unity of social sciences.
• Emphasise on empirical and experimental methods
rather than philosophical reasoning.
• Broadened the understanding of political phenomena,
• Opened new frontiers of research
• Highlighted that politics doesn’t take place only in
government institutions.
Criticism
• Makes politics dependent variable for example, Lipset in book “Political Man”
mentions social determinants of political behaviour.
• Similarly many scholars define Political Sociology as a branch of sociology
(Bendix, Coser)
• Sartori: We have to establish the autonomy of politics. We cannot ignore how
politics shape society.
• Theda Skocopol: Calls for bringing the state back in.
System Approach:
Modern Approach
Concept of System: Regular discernible, patterned interaction
Genesis:
• Originated in Biology
• Ludwig von Bertalanffy was first to formulate (biologist)
David Easton
• Political System/Input Output Approach
• Political system is set of interaction through which values
are authoritatively allocates.
• Political system is regularised persistent pattern of
relationship
• Like any other natural system, it is self-regulating
• Feedback mechanism has system maintenance capacity
Eugene Meehan (Criticism of Easton)
• Easton does less to create theory and more to create conceptual framework.
• He is concerned only with location and distribution of
power in the political system.
• He is too much concerned with questions like persistence,
adaption, regulation of stress, stability and equilibrium,
thus status quoist. He doesn’t about decline, disruptions,
breakdowns.
Young
• His approach is to abstract for empirical analysis yet he developed the most
comprehensive systems approach.
Structural Functional Approach
Gabriel Almond: The Politics of the Developed Areas, 1960
Derivative of System Approach
Influences: David Easton, Malinowski, Radcliffe Brown
Basic Assumption
• Society is a single interconnected system.
• Dominant tendency of the social system is towards stability which is maintained
by its own inbuilt mechanism.
• Changes in the system are natural, but they are neither sudden nor revolutionary
but gradual, adaptive as well as adjustive.
• Political system performs,
o Four input functions.
▪ Political socialisation and recruitment
▪ Interest articulation
▪ Interest aggregation
▪ Political communication
o Three input functions
▪ Rule making
▪ Rule application
▪ Rule adjudication
Easton vs Almond
• Easton: Interaction between political system and other system
• Almond: Political structures and functions
Criticism:
• Overemphasis on input functions
• Status quoist
Significance
• Ambitious attempt to construct a theoretical framework
• It widens scope of the study
 • Able to provide the degree of methodological sophistication to political science
Political Economy Approach
Focus: Economic policy of states
Assumption: Politics and economics are interlinked and there is a need to investigate
the unfolding of the relationship.
Feature: It is a specific wat of analysing social-political phenomena where political and
economics are not seen as separate domain.
Paul Adler: It is a complex field involving divergent
perspectives. It includes qualitative and quantitative technique.
Economists must not only know their economic model, but also
understand politics, interests, conflicts, passions and essence of
collectivity.
Political economy covers expanding areas of development
theory. Though not based on single theory, it embodies a
coherent set of ideas with respect to development. It includes the
analysis of formal and informal institutions.
Schools: Originated with formation of nation states.
I Phase: Debate between Mercantilists and Physiocrats
Adam Smith: Father of Political Economy defines it as science
of statesman.
Marx: Provided the critique of political economy, explained root causes of economic
inequality
After World War II, there were two major perspective
• Modernisation: Rostow Huntington
• Dependency: A. G. Frank, Wallerstein
• Overdeveloped State: Hamza Alawi, Pranab B
Focus in Political Economy after Globalisation
Neoliberal modernisation as a paramount paradigm
Critique: Marxist and Welfarist
Three major school of Political Economy
• Liberal
• Marxist
• Public Choice (Collective decision making)
Does the perspective of dependency theory offer robust critique of mainstream
development processes taking place in Africa and Latin America. (2012)