Chapter 13 : Government, Political Power & Social Movements

Government and Power

  The term government refers to a political apparatus in which officials enact policies and make decisions. Politics refers to the use of power to affect government actions.

  Power is the capacity to achieve one's aims even against the resistance of others, and often involves the use of force. A government is said to have authority when its use of power is legitimate. Such legitimacy derives from the consent of those being governed. The most common form of legitimate government is democratic, but other legitimate forms are also possible.

The Concept of the State

  A state is characterized by a political apparatus (government institutions), including civil service officials, ruling over a geographically defined territory, and whose authority is backed by a legal system and that has the capacity to use force to implement policies.

  All modern states have certain additional features: sovereignty , the idea that government has authority over a given area; citizenship , the idea that people have common rights and duties and are aware of their part in the state; and nationalism , the sense of being part of a broader, unifying political community.

  Most nation-states became centralized through the activities of monarchs who concentrated social power. Citizens initially had few rights of political participation, or none at all; such rights were achieved only through a long process of struggle that continues to this day. Civil rights refer to the freedoms and privileges guaranteed to individuals by law. Political rights ensure that citizens may participate in politics (by voting, for example). Social rights guarantee every individual some minimum standard of living. Social rights are the basis for the welfare state , which supports citizens who are unable to support themselves.

Democracy

  The term democracy literally means rule by the people, but this phrase can be interpreted in various ways. For instance, "the people" has often really meant "adult male property owners," while "rule" might refer to government policies, administrative decisions, or both.

  Several different forms of democracy exist, including: participatory democracy , also called direct democracy , which occurs when everyone is immediately involved in all decision making, although this can be cumbersome for larger groups; liberal democracy , which is a system in which citizens have a choice to vote between at least two political parties for representatives who will be entrusted with decision making; and constitutional monarchy , which includes a royal family whose powers are severely restricted by a constitution, which puts authority in the hands of democratically elected representatives.

Democracy in the United States

  A political party is an organization oriented toward achieving legitimate control of government through an electoral process. There is usually some connection between voting patterns and class differences. In many Western countries there has recently been a decline in allegiance to traditional parties and a growing disenchantment with the party system in general.

  Women achieved the right to vote much later than men in all countries and continue to be poorly represented among political elites. They have been influential on social and civil rights issues, and most Western countries have passed equal rights legislation over recent years.

Who Rules?

  According to Weber and Schumpeter, the level of democratic participation that can be achieved in a modern, large-scale society is limited. The rule of power elites is inevitable, but multiparty systems provide the possibility of choosing who exercises power. The pluralist theorists add the claim that the competition of interest groups limits the degree to which ruling elites are able to concentrate power in few hands.

  The number of countries with democratic governments has rapidly increased in recent years, due in large part to the effects of globalization and mass communication and to the spread of competitive capitalism. But democracy is not without its problems; people everywhere have begun to lose faith in the capacity of politicians and governments to solve problems and to manage economies, and many no longer vote.

  Revolution is the overthrow of an existing political order by means of a mass movement, using violence. Social movements , by contrast, involve a collective attempt to further common interests through collaborative action outside the sphere of established institutions. The term new social movements is applied to a set of social movements that have arisen in Western countries since the 1960s in response to the changing risks facing human societies. Unlike earlier social movements, new social movements are single-issue campaigns oriented to nonmaterial ends and draw support from across class lines. Information technology has become a powerful organizing tool for many new social movements.

Theories of Revolution and Social Movements

  Theories of social movements and revolutions overlap. Marx argued that class struggles deriving from the contradictions , or unresolvable tensions within society, lead to revolutionary changes. James Davies argues that social movements occur from relative deprivation , a discrepancy between the lives people actually lead and what people believe to be possible. Charles Tilly analyzes revolutionary change from a broader context of collective action , which refers to action taken to contest or overthrow an existing social order. Collective action culminating in social movements progresses from organization, mobilization, the perception of common interests, and finally the opportunity to act. For Tilly, social movements occur in circumstances of multiple sovereignty , a situation in which the government lacks full control.

  Neil Smelser's theory treats social movements as responses to situations, which undergo a series of stages. Alain Touraine argues that social movements rest on historicity , which is the idea that people know that social activism can shape history and affect society. Social movements occur in fields of action , which refers to the connection between a movement and the forces acting against it.

  Social movements provide not only a subject of study for sociologists; they also challenge the established frameworks of thought of sociology (e.g., the impact of the women's movement on the study of gender).

Nationalism

  Nationalism refers to a set of symbols and beliefs that provide the sense of being part of a single political community. It emerged alongside the development of the modern state. Although the founders of sociology believed that nationalism would disappear in industrial societies, at the start of the twenty-first century it seems to be flourishing. Nations without states refer to cases in which a national group lacks political sovereignty over the area it claims as its own.

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