Political Sociology || Notes For B.A Political Science Honours || Paper VIII - 6th Semesters

 

Political Sociology

Meaning, Nature and Scope.

Introduction:

The Pol. Sociology is relatively a new discipline. As an independent discipline political sociology can be said to have emerged somewhere around the time of the First World War.

As the term implies, political sociology is a compound science or an interdisciplinary science. Science can also be divided in terms of periods to which they belong.

Definition

According to S.M Lipset, “he defined – “Political sociology as the study of the interrelationship between society and polity, between social structures and social instructions.”

According to Robert. E. Dowes and John A.Hughes, he defines – “ as the study of political behavior within a sociology perspective of framework.”

According to William C. Mitchell, “Political Sociology would seem to be simply the sociological study of politics.”

Nature of Political Sociology

Political Sociology seeks to understand the process of intention between state govt. and society, decision making authorities and conflicting social and interest.

i.             Pol. Sociology is not political science because it is not a state centric discipline. It does not study the statecraft.

ii.            Pol. Sociology is not sociology because it is primarily concerned with power in the social context.

iii.          It is concerned not only with social but also the political aspect of power, authority and command in each society.

iv.           The heart and soul of pol. Sociology may be said to lie in the capture and exercise of pol. Power in the sociological text.

Broadly speaking political sociology is the study of power and domination in the social relationship.

   

Scope of Political Sociology

Various Pol. Sociologist defines its nature and scope in several ways:

The two groups of scholars have discussed the scope of Pol. Sociology in two ways.

i.             According to Greer and Orleans, “Political sociology is concerned with the structure of the state, the nature and the condition of the legitimacy; the nature of the monopoly of force and peoples relations with their respective states.

In other words, the scope of political sociology is held to concern with state, power, consensus and legitimacy, participation and representation and the relationship between economic and pol. Development.

ii.            According to Lipset and Bendix the scope of pol. Sociology is concern with voting behavior of communities and their nation; concentration of economic power and political – decision making ideologies of political movement and interest groups.

Pol. Sociology studies power, authority and legitimacy of state in relation to social relations. It involves the activities of bureaucracy, interest group, political participation of the people.

 

Importance of Political Sociology

The growing importance of pol. Sociology can be described as follows:-

i.             As a scientific discipline the value of pol. Sociology is bound to gradually increase like every other branch of study.

ii.            It has widened the area of the study of politics.

iii.          Pol. Sociology rightly places emphasis upon the study of the functions of groups in politics.

iv.           Pol. Sociology has increased its importance of the study of politics among nations and it has brought politics and International politics closer

v.            Pol. Sociology has played an important role in bringing closer all the sub-field of politics.