Chapter 10 - Understanding Institutions: Politics and the Economy

Question 1

State

Answer 1

Max Weber believed that because states come in so many different forms and pursue so many different tasks, it was impossible to define a state by what it does.

States must, therefore, according to Weber, be sociologically defined by the specific and unique means by which they attempt to achieve these ends.

Weber defined the state as “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”

This should not be interpreted to mean that the state is the only entity in a given geographical area that uses physical violence, but rather that it is the only entity that may do so legitimately.

Question 2

Legitimate power

Answer 2

Also called authority, is power exercised in a manner that is supported by the community.

Question 3

Illegitimate power

Answer 3

Or coercion, is power exercised without the support of the community.

Question 4

Hobbes’s State of Nature

Answer 4

Before the development of the state or any other form of civil society. Because laws come from society and our concept of private property is defined by law, neither exists in the state of nature. Might makes right, and property belongs to whoever can hold and keep it.

Because so much of the misery inherent to the state of nature Hobbes describes can be blamed on fear of violence, life would improve dramatically if it were eliminated.

This could be accomplished, Hobbes argued, if all people living within a given territory were willing to give up just a few of their rights—specifically, their right to engage in violence.

Question 5

Hobbes’s Social Contract

Answer 5

Agreement by the people to give up certain individual rights in exchange for protection and other benefits.

Question 6

Traditional Domination

Answer 6

Based on “the authority of the ‘eternal yesterday”

Means that the legitimacy of an individual’s claim to wield power is based on custom or tradition; the leader’s authority is accepted because that is the way that things have always been done in the past. Ex. Kings and queens

Question 7

Rational-legal domination

Answer 7

To legitimate their authority draw their power from occupying a legally defined position. Ex. Presidents or prime ministers.

Question 8

Charismatic domination

Answer 8

Leaders draw their legitimacy from the devotion of their followers and their belief that the leaders possess some sort of extraordinary personal qualities.

Under traditional domination, leaders need no outstanding personal characteristics, or even any basic competence, in order to assume power; the fact that tradition dictates that they are next in line is all that they require. Charismatic leaders, however, must actively do something to earn the devotion of their followers by inspiring them to join some sort of movement, group, or campaign.

Question 9

The routinization of charisma

Answer 9

Transfer power from a charismatic leader to a system based on either traditional domination or rational-legal domination.

Ex. Fidel Castro in Cuba.

Castro was a charismatic leader who was able to lead a revolution that overthrew the government of Cuba in 1959. However, upon taking power, Castro was able to establish a permanent basis for his power in a new system of rules and laws so that, when he was ready to step down after ruling Cuba in one capacity or another for almost 50 years, the system of rational-legal domination he had established was able to provide stability and continuity in his absence.

Question 10

Monarchy

Answer 10

States governed through traditional domination. Headed by some sort of individual sovereign such as a king, queen, sultan or empower.

Many associate their reign with the will of the gods.

Question 11

Divine right of kings

Answer 11

Argued that the king was given his power by God, and thus no mortal man could stand in judgment against him.

Medieval Europe

Question 12

Democracy

Answer 12

Modern rational-legal societies are generally governed through

Government by the people, but democratic societies vary in exactly how much control the people have over the workings of their government.

Question 13

Direct Democracy

Answer 13

Whereby citizens directly controlled the entire political process and were actively responsible for making all the decisions of the state, was able to work effectively because of the relatively small number of citizens

Question 14

Representative democracy

Answer 14

Citizens do not actively vote on every single issue the government must address but instead vote to elect a group of representatives who then make decisions on behalf of the voters who elected them.

These representatives must periodically stand for reelection in order to maintain their positions.

These regular elections are intended to ensure that they faithfully represent the interests of their constituents;

Question 15

Oligarchy

Answer 15

A type of government in which power is held by a small group of elites.

Any number of factors might serve to distinguish the ruling elites from other members of society.

Question 16

Plutocracy

Answer 16

Power is held by the economic elites

Question 17

The Iron Law of Oligarchy

Answer 17

Robert Michels, an early twentieth-century German sociologist, argued that over time, all representative democracies would slowly transform into oligarchies.

Question 18

Autocracy

Answer 18

Is a form of government in which absolute power is held by one person whose authority is not restricted in any way by either law or custom.

Most are dictatorships

Question 19

Dictatorship

Answer 19

Systems of government in which a leader is able to either overthrow or subvert the existing government and seize absolute power through charismatic domination.

Question 20

Totalitarianism

Answer 20

Often confused with autocracy.

An autocratic state is created when an individual consolidates absolute power in the political sphere and then uses repressive tactics to crush potential opposition and retain that power.

In contrast, totalitarian states attempt to exercise monopoly control over every aspect of social, political, and economic life. This means not just seizing control over political institutions, but cultural institutions—such as the arts, science, religion, and education—and the economy.

In the name of a movement toward some overarching ideology. The two classic examples of totalitarianism, Nazism and Stalinism.

Question 21

Structural Functionalism: The State

Answer 21

See society as a complex system in which each part serves a purpose in maintaining the stability of the status quo.

Every action that the leader takes or does not take will please some of the people and displease others.

Political sociologists seeking to understand how leaders attempt to balance the competing demands of their different constituencies often use a structural functionalist theory called pluralism.

Question 22

Pluralism

Answer 22

Sees the political system as a struggle between competing interest groups for power and control of the decision-making process in which no single group is in control all the time.

Sees the state as a neutral forum in which the preferences of different interest groups and individual citizens can be gathered and evaluated in order to provide the policies and services that will please the greatest number of citizens.

It might seem as if such a neutral forum would lead to ceaseless, destabilizing conflicts among competing interests, but pluralists do not believe that is true.

Instead, they argue that a system of checks and balances that prevents any one faction or individual from consolidating too much power over too long a period of time actually makes the state more stable.

Question 23

Conflict Theory: The State

Answer 23

See the state, not as a neutral forum for the objective evaluation of policy but as a battleground where a dominant elite is able to consistently advancetheir own interests over those of the masses.

Question 24

Elite Theory

Answer 24

The belief that power is not diffused throughout society but rather consolidated in the hands of a small group of people both inside and outside of government.

Question 25

C. Wright Mills and the Power Elite

Answer 25

C. Wright Mills refers to the small group of influential decision makers as the power elite

Individual members of the power elite are drawn from one of three different spheres of social life.

First are the corporate elite. These include both the chief executives and major shareholders of the largest and most important corporations.

Second are the political elite. These include not only certain elected officials, such as the president, the congressional leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and the chairs of certain powerful congressional committees, but also various appointed aides, advisers, and agency directors, many of whom have terms of service that span multiple presidential administrations.

The third and final social sphere from which members of the power elite are drawn is the military elite. Referred to by Mills as the “warlords,” the military elite consists of high-ranking current and former members of the armed forces.

Question 26

G. William Domhoff and Class Domination

Answer 26

Argues that the economic elite are able to dominate society because of their power over the workings of the economy—what Domhoff calls distributive power.

Corporate elites’ ability to make financial investments or hire more workers in a particular community gives them influence over political leaders in that area. This is because if those political leaders don’t agree to certain terms favored by those corporate elites, they can withdraw their financial investments and downsize their workforce in that community.

Domhoff agrees with Mills that a power elite exists but believes that instead of just influencing the direction of important political decisions, the power elite actively “work to preserve the governmental rules and regulations that make possible the inequality in the wealth and income distributions”

Domhoff views the political and military elites as subordinate to the interests of the economic elite.

Two different categories: the upper class and the corporate community.

Question 27

Corporate community

Answer 27

Network composed of the directors, partners, and managers of various profit-seeking enterprises.

Question 28

Policy planning network

Answer 28

The upper class and corporate community are joined by this network of nonprofit think tanks, foundations, and policy discussion groups, all funded by the corporate community and the upper class and tasked with developing and advocating social policy reforms that will advance their funders’ interests.

Question 29

Economy

Answer 29

System of producing and consuming goods and services

Essential to understanding the structure and functioning of the state.

Economies are not just defined by how goods are produced but also by how they are consumed.

Question 30

Industrialization

Answer 30

In the late eighteenth century, a series of technological advancements and social changes began the process

The systematic transformation of an economy from a focus on agricultural production to one focused on the manufacturing of finished goods.

Question 31

Conspiculous consumption

Answer 31

Practice of spending money for the purpose of demonstrating or enhancing social prestige.

Question 32

Fordism

Answer 32

Industrialization reached a peak in the early twentieth century in the factories of the Ford Motor Company. There, Henry Ford used an assembly line to facilitate the mass production of his automobiles.

Unskilled workers trained to perform one simple task over and over

Unlike earlier industrial factory owners who paid their workers barely enough to allow them to survive, Ford paid his workers a wage that allowed them not just to survive but also to afford a few luxuries.

Ford wanted to be sure that his workers could afford to buy one of the automobiles they were producing.

Question 33

Post-Fordism

Answer 33

Shift away from mass production of large quantities of identical products toward the production of smaller quantities of products, in wider variety, carefully targeted at specific groups of consumers.

The nature of factory work began to change as well. Smaller production runs of less standardized products meant that workers not only needed to have more specialized skills but also to have greater flexibility in the sort of work they could perform.

Workers with certain necessary skills or knowledge were hired when needed and then let go when they were no longer necessary.

Question 34

Deindustrialization

Answer 34

As the Fordist mass production model became more obsolete, companies that had invested heavily in manufacturing capacity began to redirect funds toward new products and product development to keep up with changing public tastes or, in some cases, to stockholders as dividends.

As the economy became increasingly international in nature through the processes of globalization, it became cheaper for many companies to move production to the Global South, where labor and production costs were lower.

Sociology in Action (p. 202). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.

Question 35

Capitalism

Answer 35

Is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned, and economic activity is driven by the pursuit of profit in a competitive market.

Capitalists believe that profit-motivated economic activity benefits not just themselves but all of society. The desire to realize a profit drives established corporations to develop new products and entrepreneurs to innovate entirely new types of goods and services that might not have otherwise been made available on the market.

Competition between capitalists also serves to keep prices low and quality high in an effort to maximize profits by attracting as many customers as possible.

Question 36

Laissez-faire capitalism

Answer 36

Marx’s time, in which business owners were free to maximize their profits any way they could, no longer exists. Today capitalist economies the world over are, to a greater or lesser extent, subject to various regulations of both their ownership and of the business practices they are permitted to use in pursuit of profit.

Question 37

Socalism

Answer 37

Economic system in which the means of production are collectively owned, and economic activity is driven by a desire to satisfy the needs of the people with no consideration of profit. Socialists believe that the profits realized by capitalists represent a form of theft from workers.

Socialists also disagree with the idea that the only thing that can motivate creation and innovation is the desire to make a profit. On the contrary, they argue that if people were not forced to labor solely for the purpose of creating profit for capitalists, they would have more time and energy to devote to acts of creation and innovation.

Socialism in practice looks very different than it does in theory.

Question 38

Democratic Socialism

Answer 38

The state controls public utilities such as energy, transportation, and communication while leaving the rest of the economy to be governed by heavily regulated capitalism.

Have strong taxpayer-supported welfare states that guarantee public access to basic necessities, such as food and housing, as well more complex needs like health care and education.

These welfare states reduce the economic inequalities inherent in capitalism by simultaneously providing an economic floor below which no member of the society can fall, while funding that floor through progressive taxation that is more heavily targeted on the upper economic class.

Question 39

Communism

Answer 39

The hybrid economic and political system that Marx believed would eventually evolve out of socialism.

System in which private ownership of property is eliminated to create social and economic equality.

Contrary to what many people believe, communism is not a totalitarian political system, because the social changes that define the advent of a communist society would not be dictated to the people by the state.

In fact, under communism, the state itself would no longer be necessary. Marx believed that by the time human society was able to achieve communism, humanity would be so morally advanced that there would be no need for a sovereign of any sort to protect the people from the danger present in the state of nature as described by Hobbes. All people would contribute to the society to the best of their ability, and in exchange, all their needs would be satisfied.

With a societal guarantee that every individual’s needs will be met, there would be no need to hoard excess resources.

Question 40

Command economy

Answer 40

State determined the type, quantity, and price of goods to be produced.

Question 41

Fascism

Answer 41

An authoritarian system of militaristic nationalism in which the means of production are privately owned but regulated by the state to reinforce social stratification and carry out the goals of the state. The one thing that fascism is not is a form of socialism.

Question 42

Characteristics of facism

Answer 42

Hybrid economic and political system that is, in many ways, the opposite of communism.

Existed in practice before in theory.

Historian Stanley Payne attempted to develop a definition of fascism by examining the traits that all societies deemed fascist have in common.

All fascist societies were aggressively antiliberal and anticommunist. Ideologically, they were also anticonservative, as they hoped to eventually replace traditional norms and values with something new; however, in most cases, fascists tended to ally with conservative movements to first defeat liberal and communist factions. Because of this, fascism is considered by most political sociologists to be a right-wing political ideology.

Leader revels in strength, masculinity, and vitality while being dismissive of women, the infirm, and people of color

Tend to be imperialistic and expansionistic in foreign policy

Militarism is a very important component

Indirect control of the means of production while reinforcing the existing economic class structure.

Highly authoritarian and often evolves out of a cult of personality