lesson 7-8

• Politics


  Activities through which people make, preserve, and amend the general rules under which they live
• Power


  Ability to do something in order to achieve a desired outcome
• Power


  Involves a relationship - there is one who exercises power and another who is subject to it
• Authority


  Legitimate power
• Legitimacy


  Rightfulness, confers on an order or command an authoritative or binding character, transforming power into authority
• Three types of authority

  • Traditional
  • Charismatic
  • Legal-rational
• Traditional authority


  • Always existed, some people have it because they inherited it or occupy a position that has been passed on to them
• Charismatic authority


  • Based on the presumed special and extraordinary characteristics or qualities possessed by a certain individual, can be manufactured through propaganda
• Legal-rational authority


  • Most typical type in modern societies, power and authority legitimized by a clearly defined set of written rules and laws
• Pure types


  Not empirical category, reflection on the nature of action, a logical type from thinking about the characteristics of action itself
• Ideal types


  All empirical instances to which the type is implied for purposes of interpretation deviate from the pure type
• Political organization


  The group within a culture that are responsible for public decision-making and leadership, maintaining social cohesion and order, protecting group rights, and ensuring safety from external threats
• Political dynasties


  Succession of rulers from the same line of descent, believed to have always existed in advanced democratic states
• Political clientelism or clientelistic politics


  Exchange of goods and services for political support
• Nation


  Distinct population of people bound together by common culture, history, and tradition, typically concentrated within a specific geographic region
• State


  Political unit that has sovereignty - the legitimate and ultimate authority - over an area of territory and the people within it
• Bureaucracy


  Rule by officials
• Political liberalization


  Emergence of liberal democratic regimes characterized by representative democracy with formal, competitive elections
• Political culture


  Pattern of orientation to political objects such as parties, government, and constitution, expressed in beliefs, symbols and values
• Social stratification


  Division of large social groups into smaller groups based on categories determined by economics
• Social exclusion


  Process by which individuals are cut off from full involvement in the wider circles of society
• Systems of stratification

  • Closed system
  • Open system
  • Caste system
  • Class system
• Closed system


  • Imposes rigid boundaries between social groups and limits interactions among members who belong to different levels in the society hierarchy
• Open system


  • Based on achievement, allowing more flexibility in social roles, increase social mobility, and better interaction among social groups and classes
• Caste system


  • Closed stratification system, people unable to change their social standing, promotes beliefs in fate, destiny and the will of a higher spiritual power rather than individual freedom
• Class system


  • Stratification based on ownership of resources and individual's occupation or profession, more open in terms of social mobility
• Exogamous marriages


  Marriages between people who come from different social classes
• Exogamy


  Marriage between individuals which is only permitted outside of a social group
• Endogamous marriages


  Marriages between people from the same social class, entered into freely by the individuals
• Meritocracy


  System of stratification determined by personal effort and merit, based on individual achievement and equal opportunity
• Theoretical perspectives on social stratification

  • Functionalism
  • Conflict theory
  • Symbolic interactionism
• Davis-Moore Thesis 


  Proposed that a social role that has a greater functional purpose will result in greater reward, and stratification represents the inherently unequal value of different types of work
• Melvin Tumin(1953)


  Proposed an alternative perspective, seeing social stratification as being defined by the lack of opportunities for the less-privileged sectors of society
• Conflict theory


  • Takes a critical view of social stratification, considers society as benefiting only a small segment (bourgeois/capitalists who own the factors of production) at the expense of the proletariat (workers)
• Symbolic interactionism


  Focuses on the subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviors, and the "definition of the situation" that people use to know what is expected of them and others
• Theory of conspicuous consumption


  Refers to buying certain products to make a social statement about status
• Social mobility


  Ability of individuals or groups to change their positions within a social stratification system
• Upward mobility


  Upward movement in social class
• Downward mobility


  Lowering of an individual's social class
• Intragenerational mobility


  Focuses on the experience of people who belong to the same generation