Chapter 17 Politics, Publics, and the State

1. Chapter 17Politics, Publics, and the State

2. Table 17.1 Enron Contributions to Federal Candidates and Parties

3. Table 17.2 Enron Campaign Contributions to Members of Congress

4. Political rule in traditional societies • Composed largely of private groups defined as: • Economic (consisting of lords and peasants) • Religious (priests and congregants) • Military (knights and foot soldiers) • Members acted according group-specific interests

5. Traditional society • A loosely organized territory in which power is concentrated in a kinship group or family. • Authorities earn their position not through formal mechanisms (e.g., voting) but by inheritance. • Power is exercised according to tradition rather than formal rules.

6. State • A clearly defined and impersonal political area. The sociological concept refers to the formal organization of social power—namely, political power—in society. While the term stateis often assumed to be interchangeable withgovernment or employed to indicate a particular geographical area, these usages are not always synonymous.

7. Power • The ability to mobilize the resources of society to attain a particular goal. • Power is concentrated in and monopolized by the state, but individuals can “have power” as well. In this sense, it is not a thing, an object, but rather an elusive idea that shapes social relationships.

8. State autonomy • The ability of the state to define goals that are independent of social groups, classes, and societies.

9. Theda Skocpol • Emphasizes state autonomy as alternative to Marxism because she disagrees with the functionalist insistence that power is necessarily a collective capability • Argues that the Marxian emphasis on economics over politics eliminates the autonomy of the political

10. Theda Skocpol • Argues that the great social revolutions in France, China, and Russia succeeded not only because economic conditions were poor but because the class rebellions triggered by these poor conditions faced weakened, personalistic, and inefficient bureaucracies.

11. Authority & Legitimation • Authority:The ability to carry out one’s will while maintaining the respect of others. • Legitimation: The way in which authority comes to be accepted and generally supported by those whom it affects.

12. Weber on legitimate authority • According to Weber, there are three types of legitimate authority, or “inner justifications,” for the exercise of power • Traditional • Rational-legal • Charismatic

13. Smith on charismatic authority • Smith finds that charisma is constructed by the leader’s ability to convince the audience they are threatened, and to vividly represent this evil in symbolic terms.

14. Smith’s Model of Power First dimension: • “involves a focus on behavior in the making of decisions on issues over which there is an observable conflict of interest” (1974: 15)

15. Smith’s Model of Power Second dimension: • Delves deeper into the less visible aspects of social power, into “the question of the control over the agenda of politics and of the ways in which potential issues are kept out of the political process” (1974: 21)

16. Smith’s Model of Power Third dimension: • Explores the hidden social powers that ensure a particular political agenda will be pursued, even while the forms of political legitimacy remain intact

17. Figure 17.6 Campaign Spending for Winning Candidates

18. Figure 17.7 Percentage of Expenditures on Media and Consulting in 2004 Primaries

19. Figure 17.8 Percentage of Expenditures on Media and Consulting in the 2004 General Election

20. C. Wright Mills • Power elite: A term that refers to the thesis that American society is dominated by its elites. The power elite is made up of elites from three spheres: the economy, politics, and the military.

21. Table 17.4 Top Five Campaign Expenditures in Primary Campaigns

22. Civil Society • The sphere of social life that is separate from the state, governed by legal norms, and supported by institutions.

23. Civil Repair • Civil Repair: The process by which the civil qualities of previously excluded groups (e.g. women and African-Americans) are recognized and civil membership is expanded to include the members of such groups.

24. Citizenship • T.H. Marshall (1964) defined citizenship as consisting of: • Civil rights • Political rights • Social citizenship

25. Table 17.6 Voter Turnout Since 1945

26. Figure 17.10 Social Expenditure as a Percentage of GDP

27. Discourse of Decline • The Discourse of Decline: The frequently articulated argument that civil society and public life are in decline, that people are withdrawing from civic participation, and that society is becoming alienated and individually oriented.

28. Figure 17.11 Women in the U.S. Congress

29. Study Questions • Contrast political rule in traditional and modern societies. Describe the dominant form of power, the position of the ruler, the object of allegiance, and the kind of administration used to control territory in each case. • Explain why state power can be considered both a capacity and a threat. How did Max Weber capture this contradiction in his definition of the state?

30. Study Questions (continued) • What is state autonomy? In what way does Skocpol’s theory of state autonomy challenge the Marxist explanation of revolution? How does Skocpol explain the success of the great revolutions in France, China, and Russia?

31. Study Questions (continued) • Briefly explain Weber’s three types of legitimate authority. Which did he think would wither away in modern society? • Which characteristics of postmodern society have contributed to the increasing importance of charisma in contemporary politics? According to Philip Smith, what are the symbolic components that underpin the charismatic authority?

32. Study Questions (continued) • Describe Lukes’s three-dimensional model of power. How does this model distinguish between political and social power? • Describe C. Wright Mills’s power elite thesis. How does it differ from the traditional Marxian view? What two factors bind the power elite together?

33. Study Questions (continued) • What is civil society, and how does one become a member of it? What is civil repair? • What are the three dimensions of T.H. Marshall’s definition of citizenship? • Why did Seymour Martin Lipset describe elections as “the democratic class struggle”? How has the shift to a postindustrial economy affected party ideology and voting?

34. Study Questions (continued) • What is the discourse of decline, and how has its main consequence been described? Is it a recent development? What evidence would suggest a deepening of the civil sphere in the American context?