SOSYOLOJİYE GİRİŞ - Deneme Sınavı - 15

Whereas political science deals mainly with the machinery of government, the mechanisms of public administration, and the formal political realm of elections, public opinion, pressure groups, and political behaviour, sociological analysis of political phenomena is concerned rather more with the interrelationships between politics, social structures, ideologies, and culture.

Power is a social relation indeed. As Veysel Bozkurt (2006: 214) defines “power is a social relation where a person (or a group) controls others behaviors”.

In Max Weber’s definition power is “the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a command action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action”

Paternalism is mostly seen in authoritarian regimes or where democratic values and culture are not established in a given society.

Another example might be professors, who have rational-legal authority because of the nature of their positions in, and the rules of, the university. They can demand from students to fulfil the assignments of any course they’re lecturing.

For Michel Foucault, as he is one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, power is not limited to state, that is, governmental will. For Foucault, power cannot be limited to “one institution, such as the state, or held by any one group of individuals”. So, Foucault argued “power operates at all levels of social interaction, in all social institutions, by all people”

Elections, existence of free public opinion, check and balance of legislative, executive judicial bodies separately should be present principally in representative democracies.

As Heywood underlines (2003: 23) liberalism has a distinctive set of values and beliefs: The individual; freedom; reason; justice; toleration and diversity.

Pluralist perspective to politics in society is “closely linked to structural-functionalist theory” and it is “an analysis of politics that sees power as spread among many competing interest groups”

For Marx, power is concentrated in the hands of those who have the economic control within a society. “From this perspective, the source of power lies in the economic infrastructure

Sociology analyzes the past and the present human relations and the forms and structures that are created by these human relations.

Economic sociology is a science explaining the social principles of social life.

Mercantilist doctrine predicates the prosperity of a nation on mines, and deposits of silver and gold that the country has instead of the power of product

Karl Marx is one of the philosophers who influenced the development of concept of economic sociology.

Max Weber analyzed the economic structure of society by establishing relationships with cultural structures.

Social stratification defines people’s difference and hierarchical positioning based on some inequalities like income, prosperity, power, prestige, status, age, gender, race, ethnicity.

Slavery is a system in which some people are owned by other people, humans are sold and bought like properties for the exchange of money

Social classess are seen in industrial societies

Absolute poverty considers the basic physical needs and relative poverty considers the social needs.