SOSYOLOJİYE GİRİŞ - Deneme Sınavı - 2

Dramaturgy theory simulates social life as a theatre.

Postmodernism, like feminism, is critical to other approaches. Postmodernism is not only effective in sociology but also in art, music, literature, culture and social sciences. Postmodernism has developed as an opposition to modernism, which emerged in the 18th century during the enlightenment period and consists of ideas, values, and hypotheses that rely on technology, knowledge, and progress. Postmodernism has led to intellectual transformation in sociology and in the western thought as a whole. Giddens
(2009: 98) argues that postmodernism has recently lost its importance, especially in the face of globalization theories, and that globalization
theories are more explanatory in understanding the direction of social change in today’s 21st century societies.

Political sociology is the “study of power and the intersection of society and politics”

Laicism is a term that emerged as a consequence of the French constitutional practice in the 19th century; and the terms point out the necessity of the state not relying on a particular religious sect
and class.

Reactionary Conservatism emerged in the 18th century was against  the French Revolution and Enlightenment.

Neoliberalism is an ideology that prioritizes market over anything. As in the classic liberalism, for neoliberalism the individual and market are key concepts that minimizing the intervention of state.

There are 4 main approaches in sociology covering politics. First one is functionalist approach, second is pluralist approach, third is elite theory, and fourth is Marxist-conflict theory

W. Pareto’s elite theory stemmed from Mosca’s rulers and ruled dichotomy. Pareto claims human actions are ranked and the top ranked are elites in the society

In functionalist approach, society is evaluated in terms of basic needs. The state has emerged as a necessity within the society. These needs are: Maintaining order; Relations with other states/governments and directing the system.

In totalitarian states, all institutions are totally controlled

Socialism emerged “as a critique of liberal market society and was defined by its attempt to offer an alternative to industrial capitalism”

Entrenched discipline of economies examine how to use limited natural sources to meet the infinite human needs rationally. The other options refer to fields such as social science in general, history, anthropology, and political science.

the economic events of theoretical economic models based on dependent and independent variables. The dependent variable tries to understand price of goods, production quantity, and wage level in the economics discipline. The facts that determine the variable that we are trying to explain are the independent variables. Independent variables are the reasons that define the dependent variable. The independent variables of the theoretical economy include relations that are located in the market structures (Erkan, 2003, p.12). For example:

Dependent Variable: What determines the price of a good?

Independent Variable: Supply and demand relations in the market.

What determines the production amount?

Supply and demand relations in the market.

What determines the wage level?

Supply and demand relations in the market.

Smith is the first critic of the mercantilist doctrine. One of the subjects he inquires is what a country’s prosperity depends on. According to the economics theory that he based on a criticism of Mercantilism, a nation’s prosperity depends on the nation’s production power, whereas Mercantilists think that a nation’s prosperity depends on the mines the nation has.

It is necessary to make a short description of Weber’s sociological method before approaching his conceptual perspective about industrial capitalism. According to him, it is necessary to look at individuals’ attitude and behaviors to understand social relations. In other words, looking at meanings of a person’s actions is needed. Weber only analyses the actions that are based on cultural motives and tries to understand societies by looking at these action types. He categorises social actions in four classes as purpose-motivated rational action, value-motivated rational action, traditional actions, and emotional actions.

Economical Inequality refers to the status of individuals and families differ depending on material resources like their assets, income, wage and salary in the society. Economic inequalities are measured by these owned material resources.

In the feudal system, marriages, which were not common between classes, were welcome at some levels. Besides marriage, a partial social movement occurred between strata. We may give an example for such a social mobility of a non-noble person: a knight or merchant could be named as a noble in some conditions. After the 12th century, distribution of nobility for more people caused the creation of the new bourgeois class through the end of the middle age. This new bourgeois class caused a change in the social structure of the Medieval Europe.

According to Marx, capitalist society is a system which is built on economical inequalities. Class positions of people are determined according to whether they own means of production. The working class forms the section of society that is devoid of the means of production and have to work in paid jobs for their livelihood needs. The capitalist class maintains its existence by exploiting the working class. It does not pay the real value (salary/fee) in consideration of workers’ labour to increase the profit rates. The working class is the main driving force that can change the inequal structure of the capitalist society with the class consciousness. The new society model in which working class reigns would be an equalitarian and classless society.

The example provided would be the working class seizing the means of production, thereby creating a classless society since ownership is not exclusive to the bourgeois.

Social exclusion is defined as people’s exclusion from economical, social, political, and cultural segments of the societies they live in. There are many dimensions of the social exclusion. Exclusion from financial sources, tools providing access to these opportunities, social and spatial exclusion from groups enabling to reach these possibilities, and exclusion from government’s public support may be given as examples for this type of situation. In this perspective, social exclusion differs from the approaches that define poverty only as the financial deprivation. The exclusion from other social segments, can not be explained by income, poverty only.

Among the personal reasons are personal traits, attitude and behaviours like an individual’s ability, responsibility, sense of discipline, and degree of frustration. In this approach, the reasons of poverty is sought in the individuals and it is presumed that he/she does not make an effort and does not attempt to get rid of poverty.