Download Week 13 Lectures

PART VI:
LOOKING FORWARD
FOUNDATIONS
OF POL. SOC.
DEMOCRACY
NATION STATE
AND ITS
CHALLENGERS
CAPITALISM
THE BIG
PICTURE:
GLOBAL
PROCESSES
Use it as Intellectual Self-Defense
• Note that “folk sociology” exists all around us. Daily,
we are bombarded by implicit theories of politics and
society from parents, friends, teachers, priests,
politicians, advertisers, etc.
Consider some examples:
• Many parents:
“Return on investment” from
Harvard education.
• Bernie Sanders:
“We should be like Sweden,
Denmark, Norway.“
• Botox cosmetics ad: “It’s all about freedom of
expression.”
• FT Op-Ed:
“TPP is nothing but good for us.”
First Thing’s Last: Returning to Old Questions
Every view of politics presupposes a certain view of
society (implicit or explicit). It may be helpful to think of
metaphors.
Is society like a well-oiled machine?
Is society a broken machine about to
explode?
Is society a network, like a spider’s web?
Is society like a functional organism?
Is society like a dysfunctional organism, out of
equilibrium?
Is society like a chaotic jungle?
Any analysis of the political sphere depends on the
assumptions and limitations that come with the
presupposed view of society.
Change vs. Continuity
One such assumption – perhaps the single most
important one – about society is about its
dynamism.
Are we primarily
interested in things
changing?
Or, are we primarily interested in things staying
the same?
 e.g. think of A. GIDDENS vs. D. HARVEY on globalization.
Conflict vs. Harmony
Another such assumption is about social order.
• Are we considering
society as a
harmonious, stable
equilibrium?
• Are we considering society as disorderly and
crisis-ridden?
 e.g. think of WORLD SYSTEMS vs. WORLD POLITY approach to our global society.
Marxian
Weberian
Durkheimian
Simmelian
Class.
Individuals.
Society as a whole. –
social systems.
Social form,
not content.
Capitalism
Nation-State
Democracy
(particularly: value
consensus)
Network
Dominant
“Sphere”
Emphasized
Economic
It varies!
(e.g.
class/status/party)
Cultural
Social
Selected
Readings in the
Tradition
Burawoy
Fox Piven & Cloward
Mills
Chase-Dunn & Hall
Harvey
Mann
Jasper & Goodwin
Evans
Esping-Anderson
Sassen
Anderson
Merton
Parsons
Hays
Lareau
Wimmer & Feinstein
Domhoff
Torfason & Ingram
Meyer et al.
Giddens
Change,
disruption.
Both – but
contextualized and
contingent.
Continuity,
preservation.
Change proceeds
within limits of
preexisting social
forms.
Conflict, tension,
inequality.
Both – domination is
inherent to any
harmonious political
order.
Harmony, stability,
equilibrium.
Wrong question!
Conflict is formally
“social” and
“cooperative.”
Unit of Analysis
Key Feature of
Modern Politics
Change or
Continuity?
Conflict or
Harmony?
THEORY   EMPRICIAL WORLD
Political Sociology is a delicate balancing act
between two extremes:
- On the one hand, grand, macrotheorizing (what
is sometimes called “metatheory”); it aims at
broad generalization across time and space, and
tends to talk about vast social systems abstractly.
- On the other hand, concrete, time-and-spacebound, particularities; instead of generalizing
temporally or spatially, here the focus is on
history and contingency.
Somewhere between triviality and broad
generalization; between banality and totalizing
nonsense.
The “empirical” and the “theoretical” in
constant dialogue.
Ted
The field’s great diversity of theoretical arguments is a sign of its health,
stimulating vigorous debate and self examination. Our own assessment is that
rational choice theory, on the one hand, and the cultural turn, on the other,
can together enrich political sociological theory, indeed enrich theories
beyond themselves. Some authors have already pointed to areas where
bridging may occur and where fruitful borrowing can develop. […] In some
fashion, all the handbook chapters, theoretical and substantive, grapple with
theoretical tensions and suggest pathways for a vibrant political sociology in
the new millennium. (Jaoski et al. 30-31).
Their push for a consolation factor between established political sociologists
illustrates how seemingly conflicting positions can result in more nuanced
explanations of complex phenomena that political sociologists aim to explain.
It brings to my mind the role of political sociology in explaining economic
actions. Where it seems that two differing positions exists—one that argues
for rational choice theory as a primary explanation for action, and one that
argues the role of culture is often overlooked—political sociologists can look
at these two extremes to see identify other potential explanations that can
encompass both, such as an institutionalist approach—one that sees both the
importance of individual agency as well as structural explanatory factors
resulting in certain economic actions.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Kirsi
This reading discussed “middle-range theories and
mechanisms,” saying that these things would help
sociologists begin “understanding political
processes, sensitive to historical and institutional
particularity” (28). Could you give an example of a
middle-range theory or mechanism, because I had a
hard time identifying one in the reading.
Also, I had a hard time identifying how political
sociology differed from political science. The excerpt
from the handbook wasn’t trying to address the
difference, but could we talk about it?
Mechanisms, Constraints, Contexts
Initial Condition
SOCIAL
Outcome
(e.g. class
background)
MECHANISM
(e.g. getting into
Harvard)
Many – if not most – of our readings explored social
mechanisms (instead of laws and descriptions).
Good example is Hirschman’s argument about the
rise of “interests” as a paradigm – he traces a mechanism
that moved human thought from a feudal mentality to
contemporary capitalist ideology.
Constraints: think Polanyi on embeddedness, or Burawoy
on limitations of pure capitalist work.
Context: think Tilly on state-formation, or Sassen on
globalization.
• See Hicks et al., p.20 for how the “era of grand
theorizing” ended. May it rest in peace.
Sociology vs. its Peers
Different from economics, political
science (sic), psychology,
in several ways:
1)
The social. (Most especially, “power”
is inherently a social phenomenon).
2)
Most diverse. Little common ground!
3)
Aware of its own “historicity.”
4)
Activist component.*
* This one is disputed.
Sociology Contextualized
• Political Sociology is not a celestial, transcendent
enterprise happening in some intellectual vacuum – it
has a history.
• Its limitations are not accidental and abstract, but
historical and political. Historical contingencies in
Ancient Greece, during the Middle Ages, during the
Enlightenment in France, Germany, England, Scotland,
the US, etc., up to the very present.
• Sociology itself is young, and has undergone a centurieslong campaign of persecution, the likes of which other
scientific enterprises did not.
THE STATE, according to the Founding Fathers
Marx
“The state, along with all
“political power,” “is merely the
instrument of one class for
oppressing another.” It is one of
the tools in the “superstructure”
that protects capitalist property
rights and maintains the
ownership of means of
production in the hands of the
ruling class. But it is a neutral
tool, in the sense that it is not
inherently a capitalist state – it
can be a “dictatorship of the
proletariat.” Thus the Communist
Manifesto calls for complete
centralization of the means of
production and transport into
the hands of the state, so that it
can represent the working class.
Another possibility is that the
state “withers away” altogether
with the installation of complete
communism. “Do away with
Capitalism,” Engels wrote, “and
the State will fall by it-self. Early
and late Marx differ considerably
in conceptions of the state, but
economic determinism is the
common thread: economic
conditions in society  the
state.
Weber
Durkheim
Simmel
“The state is a collection of legal,
administrative, extractive and – above
all – coercive institutions that not only
define the proper boundary between
state and civil society, but impact
relations within civil society itself:
In the Darwin-inspired
evolutionary metaphor, society is
an “organism” and the state is its
“brain” which, “like a human
brain, has grown in the course of
evolution.” It has primarily a
regulative function, keeping the
forces of social disorder at bay:
anomie, forced division of labor,
the failure to replace traditional
with modern norms, etc.
Accordingly, the state’s duty is
The state is roughly as Weber
defined it, but the extractive
function of this institution –
relating to taxes, property
regulation, and involvement in
the money economy – is given
more emphasis than the
coercive, violent dimension. As
the money economy expands,
the “modern state” increasingly
bureaucratizes, rationalizes and
centralizes, becoming “based
upon an extraordinary
collectivization, integration and
unification of all political forces.”
“Of course, force is certainly not the
normal or the only means of the
state--nobody says that--but force is a
means specific to the state. Today the
relation between the state and
violence is an especially intimate one.
In the past, the most varied
institutions--beginning with the sib-have known the use of physical force
as quite normal. Today, however, we
have to say that a state is a human
community that (successfully) claims
the monopoly of the legitimate use
of physical force within a given
territory. Note that 'territory' is one
of the characteristics of the state.
Specifically, at the present time, the
right to use physical force is ascribed
to other institutions or to individuals
only to the extent to which the state
permits it. The state is considered the
sole source of the 'right' to use
violence.”
One of the forces behind the rise of
the bureaucratized, modern state is
democratization, which puts greater
and more diverse demands on
government from increasingly varied
groups and interests in society.
Politics as Vocation.
“…to work out certain
representations which hold good
for the collectivity. These
representations are distinguished
from the other collective
representations by their higher
degree of consciousness and
reflection.”
As society becomes more
complex and differentiated, the
need for coordination and
regulation by a higher organ
becomes more intense. In the
economic realm, the state is one
of the non-contractual elements
that prevent the market from
developing self-destructive
dynamics.
What most conceptions of the
state neglect is that “there is
interaction; and in principle,
interaction always contains some
limitation of each party [the
rulers and the ruled] to the
process.” The relation between
the state and its subjects is thus
bi-directional, with the
“reciprocal character of the
contract between rulers and
ruled.” In modern society, the
reciprocity of the state-citizen
contract relates mostly to
monetary relations, which
originated in society.
Andrea
"Regardless of which of these stances seems most plausible, the belief
in the possibility of radical alternatives to existing institutions has
played an important role in contemporary political life. It is likely that
the political space for social democratic reforms was, at least in part,
expanded because more radical ruptures with capitalism were seen as
possible, and that possibility in turn depended crucially on many people
believing that radical ruptures were workable" (Wright, p. 8).
This idea reminds me of the conceptions of power from the beginning
of the course: the idea that people in power can hold power because
people believe it is legitimate. Indeed, this is a common theme I've
noticed throughout the course: the way things are perceived can play
just as large a role as the way things actually are. Belief in change
inspires action to change.
Clara
• On page 49, Mann says what destroyed "Hitler, fascism, and Japan alike" was
that they relied too heavily on their "military prowess, regardless of the
extent of their economic power." Does he mean here to suggest that military
power sources must be founded upon or at least supported by economic
power sources to achieve "imperial success"? Can one source of social power
thrive completely independent of the other sources? In other words, can
Mann's "overlapping" power networks also be understood as interacting
networks? Continuing with this idea of "interacting power networks" -- on
page 54, Mann says that "capitalist ideology has captured American law and
politics and reinforces the invasion of the political realm by economic power
relations". He seems here to categorize "capitalist ideology" as a form of
economic power, which makes sense given its derivation from an economic
mode of production--but is this more an example of interacting economic and
ideological power networks? Could capitalism succeed as a source of social
power without also co-opting ideological sources of social power? Did Mann's
theory ever suggest that these sources could be separated? If they can't, how
are we to definitively distinguish them (or is it never important to do so)? (I
know Mann acknowledges that the four sources of power can fuse in a central
party elite, but I suppose I'm questioning if one source really can dominate
another, if sources of power can thrive independently without feeding
into/supporting other sources (in a sense, is such fusion unavoidable to an
extent?).
Melvin
“What I was trying to say about the United States was meant to indicate that
race trumps class, and has consistently done so. Of course, it is coded.
Politicians can’t express and overt racism and haven’t been able to do so for
decades. Racism is coded in concerns about crime, housing, and “welfare
queens”. (Mann 63)
I wasn’t entirely sure what Mann was trying to say by “race trumps class”. Does
he mean that people are more threatened by members of other races rather
than members of lower classes? If so, while it is true that racism is coded in
subtle ways (such as the racially disproportionate incarceration rate), I
personally feel that this trend is slowly decreasing. First, there are more efforts
to address the problems of mass incarceration, and welfare, as well as housing,
is needed by members of every race. I personally have not encountered any
stereotypes about the poor necessarily being a certain race. My question is,
how relevant is this statement today? And does this mean that a majority of
the American populations are covertly racist?
Heterogeneity vs. Homogeneity
• Mann reiterates an important
point about welfare and the like
that we have encountered
before: it is no coincidence that
power in democratic societies
varies according to the level of
sameness within and across
societies.
• More broadly, we’ve encountered
throughout the course emphases
on how heterogeneity matters at
various levels:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Individual;
Political;
Cultural;
Ideological (i.e. political ideology);
Economic, global;
Economic, subnational.
Meta-Point: Be VERY skeptical of any law-like
generalizations – whether about nationstates, capitalism or democracy – that purport
to apply equally across heterogeneous social
spheres.
Kate
“Unless the Chinese change their spots and become more aggressive
militarily, I would expect American empire to decline. If China became more
militaristic then other Asian countries might well turn to the United States
for help, and then overall there would be a continuation of hegemony more
than empire.” –Mann, pg. 44
I thought this idea of maintaining power through conflict (the enemy of my
enemy is my friend) was interesting given the current political climate
surrounding terrorism in the world. My understanding of Mann’s argument
here is that one of the best ways the US remains a global leader is by always
having an enemy, in this instance China; that enemy allows the US to prove
its strength as an ally, especially militarily, giving it the upper hand in
spreading its hegemony through those alliances. There are often parallels to
this form of allying when instances of international terrorism occur. After
9/11, for example, coalitions of western countries joined together to fight
nations in the Middle East where the US believed there were large terrorist
organizations; the same may occur now given the Paris attacks. Regardless of
whether or not the enemy is even the “correct” enemy, as was largely the
case post-9/11, countries band together and the leader gains more power.
While there are some obvious distinctions in the way that countries ally
together against entire nation-states versus individual terrorist organizations,
often the fight against the latter has grown into a fight against the former
anyway.
“Nation-State at Home, Empires Abroad”
(Mann p.48)
• A common confusion in
understanding world politics,
according to Mann, is to
conflate the nature of internal
politics (domestic regime) with
the nature of external,
international politics (foreign
policy).
• In part, this confusion arises
from a neglect of the
distinction between
centralized and decentralized
power, which Mann
emphasizes.
Bottom Line: however power may or may not be changing in the XXI Century,
there is no reason to believe that the nature of domestic nation-state power
will become increasingly like international power relations.
Ian
“In a study reported in the journal Nature, in a selection of
science topics the error rates in Wikipedia and the
Encyclopedia Britannica were fairly similar” (Wright 3).
This fact struck me as odd. I always knew that Wikipedia was
a good source of information but I is hard to believe that the
differences between it and the Encyclopedia Britannica were
insignificant. This makes me wonder about how this
mechanism can be used with other similar online tools or
just in society in general. I still find it hard to believe that this
form of a “real utopia” is practical in today’s world. It might
work for a short time but then people’s egos get involved
and others will get jealous and this will lead to the downfall
of this “real utopia” because people will start to want some
sort of credit/pay for their work.
Wiki-Power &
the Politics of Production
• The Real Utopian
quality of wikitechnology lies in its:
– Horizontal reciprocity
– Its being free for public
consumption
– Its high quality
– Its international, multicultural scope.
What other applications of
Wiki technologies can you
think of to improve society?
Michael
"...when speaking of 'the dark side of democracy'...the arresting
nature of Mann's title was incautious given that liberal
democracy has a relatively clean record as far as ethnic cleansing
is concerned. But the title still seems to me brave and significant,
forcing us to face the fact that normal people can act in
repulsive ways - that ethnic cleansing can be popular and
not...something engineered by manipulative political
entrepreneurs." - Hall pp. 2
This passage is particularly resonant in the United States at the
current moment, with particular regard to those who are not
only seeking to purge the US of those they deem as threats
based on their ethnicity (i.e. Muslims), but also seek prevent
entry to the US on similar grounds (i.e. Syrian refugees, Muslim
or otherwise). Nativist, bigoted ideologies are prevalent among
major portions of US citizens on their own, regardless of
enthusiastic race-baiting that is espoused by political hopefuls
(i.e. Donald Trump). The point made by Hall is blatantly and
painfully obvious in the media on a day to day basis.
Porto Allegre:
Politics of Popular Priorities
• Participatory budgeting is
even more of a Real Utopian
success story because it
managed what no
representative city
government has:
– Sewer and water connections
increased from 75% of
households to 98% in less
than a decade;
– Number of schools
quadrupled.
– Health budget went from 13%
to 40%.
– Steady yearly increase in
number of people
participating.
Could you imagine a model like this
for Boston? What about the US as a
whole?
THE END, Hurray!
CONGRATULATIONS!
(But don’t neglect your final papers or Dr. Mandić will cry).