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The below mentioned article provides a study note on political sociology.
Various social philosophers argued for the legitimacy and primacy of state authority, while others questioned the claim entirely, arguing that the interest of society and of citizens were superior to those of the state, that the state must serve rather than control its citizens, and that the state should be weakened rather than strengthened.
The conflict arose from the fact that the two concepts, viz., state and society, were all encompassing. Political scientists pointed to the fact that the state has sovereignty, i.e., legitimate supreme authority over all persons and institutions within its boundaries. The notion of society was equally all-embracing.
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It was claimed by those who argued for society that all that came within the province of a society was part of it. Much of what concerned the sociologist seemed too many early political scientists to be a part of political science, while the sociologists took the opposite position.
The controversy is, at present, almost hushed to silence. It is now broadly agreed that the two disciplines deal with behaviour of men and women within the social system, each having its distinct focus. Thus, a political scientist is primarily concerned with the dimension of power and the factors and influences that affect its distribution.
The state is the only authority which exercises ultimate power in a legitimate manner. This gives the state its unique character.
The sociologist, on the other hand, “is more concerned with social control, with the way in which the values and norms of a society pattern relationships among different units of the larger system’. That is, sociologist is more concerned with social ties, rather than with formal structures and legal definitions”.
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Since the two disciplines are concerned with human behaviour within the larger social system, it can be assumed that there are areas of overlap between social structures and political institutions, between values and culture of a group and the political institutions which they develop. On its part, political institutions also affect social values and culture.
Political sociology does not, therefore, study simply the social factors that condition the political order, but also the way political institutions affect non-political social structures. It is important to note that the domain of political sociology, as defined above, does not assign causal priority to society over polity or to polity over society.
In this context, reference may be made to the thinking of Montesquieu (1689-1755). He was the first philosopher to initiate discussion on the relationship between politics structure and institutions on the one hand and the various socio-cultural variables on the other. By analysing social and economic events, he sought to find out the linkages between the two types of events.
He classified political institutions into a few ideal types, such as, republic, aristocracy, monarchy and autocracy. In his view, these political institutions did not arise by accident. On the contrary, social factors were responsible for their emergence during different historical periods.
One cannot, therefore, understand the true nature of political institutions without taking into account the socio-economic variables which have a bearing on them. When Montesquieu speaks of monarchy or aristocracy, he has in view the entire social system of which political institutions form a part.
He did not arrive at his conclusion by following the deductive method. His conclusions were based on analysis of historical events, comparative studies of various social systems, both past and present, travelogues of different people, and his own experience gathered from travels, far and wide.
He sought to find out the essence of republican form of government by analysing the political institutions which were prevalent in the city states of Athens, Sparta and Rome.
On the basis of such comparative studies, he laid down the following pre-conditions for the success of a republican form of government, viz., limited population, economic equality among the citizens and the willingness of citizens to discharge their social obligations.
In his view, if population exceeds an optimum number, social cohesion would be considerably weakened. Likewise, excessive disparity in the distribution of wealth and income among the citizens would be equally prejudicial to social solidarity. Such economic inequality would pave the way for the emergence of aristocracy in place of a republican form of government.
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By making a comparative study of the contemporary monarchical systems of Europe, he came to the conclusion that moderate size of population and spontaneous respect and loyalty of the subjects towards their monarch contributed to the stability of monarchical form of government.
While analysing the social background of monarchy, he pointed out that expansion of agriculture, industry, trade and commerce gave rise to social stratification of a complex nature. According to Montesquieu, conflict of interest among various classes prevented any one class from gaining upper hand in society.
As a result, the citizens are able to enjoy maximum political freedom. But the total well-being of the people suffers inasmuch as each class pursues its sectarian interest to the complete neglect of the larger interest of society. People are encouraged to abide by their social obligations and commitments simply in expectation of enjoying royal favour and not in response to a genuine concern for the good of society.
He accepted Eastern autocracy as an ideal type instead of European autocracy. The attitude of the Eastern people towards the autocrat, at once fearful and reverential, as well as a large population favoured the emergence and stability of autocracy in eastern regions. The disunity among different classes and communities prevented united action against the autocratic ruler.
Today we do not exactly follow the line pursued by Montesquieu in classifying political systems into ideal types or in identifying the social environment favourable to particular types of political systems.
But his main thesis regarding linkages between social and political systems is equally relevant even today. He discussed exhaustively with reference to actual case studies how a change in social or economic system affects political system and vice versa.
He also made it abundantly clear that an understanding of the nature and implications of political system is not possible without a perception of the play of social and economic forces in society. Montesquieu can, therefore, be regarded as a pioneer in initiating studies on political sociology.
Another pioneer in the field of political sociology was Tocqueville. He pursued the line of inquiry initiated by Montesquieu in exploring the mutual relationship between social and political systems. But he confined his investigation into the United States alone and did not go in for comparative studies.
In his book The Democracy in America, he sought to identify the reasons which were responsible for the success of democratic institutions in that country. While doing so, he referred to some non-political factors which, in his view, had a bearing on the political life of the country, such as, tradition, environmental situation as well as the character, behaviour-pattern; and ethical ideals of the American people.
Analysing the bearing of these nonpolitical variables upon the political system, he emphatically states that institutional safeguards alone cannot contribute to the success of democracy. In the ultimate analysis, democracy will succeed to the extent that the people have been able to imbibe democratic values and to inform all social institutions with appropriate democratic spirit.
He goes further to emphasise that those institutional arrangements, which have contributed to the success of democracy in the United States may not facilitate the success of democratic institutions in other societies in which people lack appropriate qualities conducive to the working of democracy.
He also points out that institutions cannot simply be transferred from one society to the other in the hope that they will function satisfactorily. Norms of conduct and values conducive to the success of democracy or of any other form of government must grow from within.
In other words, there must take place transformation of society on appropriate lines before we can expect a particular form of government to succeed. Tocqueville expressed this basic premise of political sociology in the most unambiguous terms.
Two distinct but converging intellectual traditions are to be found in the theoretical and empirical writings on political sociology. On the one hand, political sociology is very broadly conceived with emphasis on the social basis of power in all institutional sectors of society. In this tradition, political sociology deals with patterns of social stratification and their consequences in organised politics.
This is a particular approach to the study of social organisation and societal change.
This pervasive view has been derived from the formulations of Marx that class conflict and social stratification originate from economic factors, i.e., from the relations of production generated by the forces of production.
Marx made the study of political sociology equivalent to the study of societal structure or macro-sociology. His view that the political system reflects the pattern of social stratification has been a dominant theme in the development of an empirical analysis of politics.
Marxian view has been criticised both by political scientists and by sociologists on two main grounds: that it reduces political events to a social by-product, and that it fails to consider the consequences of differing types of political institutions on societal change.
By contrast, political sociology is also conceived in narrower terms. According to this conception, political sociology focuses on the organisational analysis of political groups and political leadership.
In this perspective, the core of political sociology, for example, involves the study of both formal and informal party organisation with its linkages to the governmental bureaucracy, the legal system, interest groups and the electorate at large. This approach is an expression of an institutional or organisational point of view.
It is from the writings of Max Weber that political sociologists received their intellectual orientation for a more autonomous and more institutional view of politics. As a sociologist, Weber adopted a line of thinking which converged with that of Marx in that he held a comprehensive view of social structure as a basis for analysing politics.
However, he differed from Marx in that he viewed social stratification as encompassing both economic relations and social status—prestige and honour.
Furthermore, in his essay ‘Class, Status and Party’ Weber indicated that the emergence of modern society implied a historical process of separation of political institutions from economic and social structure. Political institution, therefore, emerge as worthy of direct sociological inquiry because they are an independent source of societal change.