Political sociology
Focusing on power or political realm
Micro-level Politics
• - voting studies and political attitudes
– Phil Converse: nature of belief systems in mass
publics and role of opinion leaders and local
influentials
– Bill Gamson: how media affects attitudes and how
groups (as opposed to mass media) frame issues
Organizational/Institutional Politics
• Pluralism: Dominant Theory of
Decisionmaking in U.S. Government
– Competing leaders
•
•
•
•
Compromise
Logrolling: helping out
Greatest good for greatest number
Protection of minority interests
– Multiple interests
• Multi-faceted: class, status, party
• Issue specific
• Cross-cutting
Weber's Theory of Interests
• Class: life chances: education and property
• Status: life style: Goths or Metrosexuals or Hip
Hop Players/Gangsters or stay-at-home moms
• Party: power
– ability to get what you want despite resistance
– might be class based, status based, both or
neither
– tends to be more status based when economy is
stable; class based during economic upheavals
Cross-cutting soldidarities
race:
black
bmw
bfw
wfw
gender: female
bme
bfe
wfe
wme
class:
employers
Organizational and Institutional
• Party Systems
Anthony Downs: Effects of Two Party System: convergence
liberal
party
conservative
party
Distribution of Constituent Political Attitudes
Integrated Political Theory of 1970
• Mass society: Macro Level/Institutional
– accessible elites: lack of intermediate buffers
between masses and elites
– available masses: lack of integration into local
associations and collectivities
• Available Masses swept into mass movements
that threaten accessible elites
Kornhauser's Mass Society
Availability of Non-Elites
Accessibility
of Elites
•
•
Available Non-elites: Lack of secondary, voluntary associations: mal-integration
Accessible Elites: Vulnerability to non-elite influence, direct or mediated
Low
High
Low
Communal
Society
Totalitarian
Society
High
Pluralist
Society
Mass
Society
Collective Behavior: Organizational
and Group Level Theory
• Neil Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior,
– mass movements begin with breakdown of social
control
– milling and gossip conducive to generalized beliefs
• need for immediate action
• sense of empowerment
• utopian goals
Frustration-Aggression: Social
Psychological Theory
• Ted Gurr: intolerable "want-get" gap
– literature on reference groups
– relative deprivation
• James Davies
– "J" curve of declining rewards/expectations
– intolerable gap (like Gurr)
Davies J Curve of Rising Expectation Leading to Frustration
High
intolerable
want-get gap
expected
Rewards
obtained
Low
Late
Early
Time
Political Theory in 1970
• Masses were not politically informed or
rational in political attitudes or actions
(Converse)
• Pluralism required that elites remain
accessible but masses must be integrated into
intermediate associations (Kornhauser)
• Parties tended toward moderation, but
masses were susceptible to extremist appeals
(Downs and Smelser)
Political Theory 1970 Predictions
• nonroutine political action increased when
times were hard and social integration and
social control broke down
• nonroutine action increased as routine action
declined
• nonroutine participants were socially isolated
and politically uninvolved/uninformed
• nonroutine action was ineffective/expressive
(emotional rather than rational)
Viewed From Functional Theory
• Routine action indicated value consensus and
integration
• Non-routine action was indicative of "anomie"
and malintegration
• Protests, demonstrations, marches, and riots
of 1950s and 1960s were dysfunctional
• society was out of balance/equilibrium,
moving toward anarchy and chaos
Viewed From Conflict Perspective
• Sociologists sympathetic with movements of
the Fifties and Sixties: Civil Rights, Students,
Anti-War
• Challenged Functional theory
• Argued that protesters were as rational as
people who studied them
• Celebrated the awakening of American
democracy
Evidence Challenging Functional
Theory
• Jeff Paige (Oct 1971, ASR) survey of 237 black
men in Newark, NJ
– riot participants had high efficacy and low trust of
government
– rioters were knowledgeable but distrustful
– Rioters were knowledgeable but less trustful
compared to civil rights activists
Percent Participation by Trust in
Government
0.7
Rioting
0.8
0.6
0.7
0.5
0.6
0.4
0.5
low info
high info
0.3
Rioting
Civil
Rights
Voting
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
0
high mid low
trust trust trust
high
trust
mid
trust
low
trust
Evidence (continued)
• Feagin and Hahn, Ghetto Revolts (1973)
– found rioters more likely to be long-term residents
– rioters well integrated into ghetto community
– targets were chosen rationally—absentee
landlords rather than local residents
Bill Gamson, Strategy of Social
Protest (1975)
• Historical Analysis of “Political Challengers,”
1800-1940
– Roughly half were at least modestly successful in
achieving their goals
– Challengers with modest (reform) goals were not
more successful
– Challengers who used nonviolence were not
necessarily more successful
– Organized challengers were more successful
Outcome of Resolved Challenges
Acceptance
Full
None
Total
Many
Full Response
38% (20)
Pre-emption
11% (6)
49%
(26)
None
Co-optation
9% (5)
Collapse
42% (22)
51%
(27)
Total
47% (25)
53% (28)
N=53
New
Advantages
Charles Tilly
• Shorter and Tilly, Strikes in France (1974)
– Strikes more common when times were good
• Low unemployment
• Economic growth
• Tilly, Mobilization to Revolution (1978)
– Political violence and routine political action (e.g.,
voting) often go hand in hand
Evidence Summary
• Research accumulated in 1970s to challenge
various pieces of the mass society, collective
behavior, and relative deprivation theories of
political influence
• Thus the integrated theory has been
thoroughly critiqued and challenged both
theoretically and empirically
Challenges to Pluralist Model of
Decision-making
• While Mass Society, etc. was being challenged,
a variety of studies challenged the pluralist
model of decision-making
• These studies are generally guided by conflict
theory and are might be called the “ruling
elite” model of decision-making
Ruling Elite Studies
• Floyd Hunter’s study of Atlanta, Community
Power Structure (1953) is the classic study of
elite networks and elite domination of public
policy
• Dorothy Nehil’s study of Boston indicates elite
domination through networks of business and
political elites
• Bachrach and Baratz (1962) classic on
“nondecisions” promoted by elites
Ruling Elite Studies (continued)
• Matthew Crenson, Unpolitics of Air Pollution
(1971) showed how pollution remained a
“non-issue” in the most polluted cities
• Our own Robert Perrucci and Marc Pillisuk
(ASR 1970) showed how inter-organizational
leaders, who served on multiple corporate
boards and linked these orgs
– Had a reputation for local power
– Had similar attitudes and interests in local politics
Pluralist Versus Ruling Elite and
Functional versus Conflict Models
• Methodological distinctions
– Pluralist focus on public policy decisions and
public meetings
– Ruling elite focus on inter-organizational networks
and reputation for power/influence
Debate (continued)
• Theoretical arguments
– Liberals argue that poor people or non-elites have
to fight their way into the polity
– Elites promote non-decisions/status quo
– Political challenges predicted by
• Interests
• Organization
• opportunity
– Political challenges produce social change
Tilly’s Mobilization Model
Organization
Interest
Mobilization
Repression/
Facilitation
Opportunity/
Threat
Power
Collective
Action
Source: Tilly (1978), p. 56
Tilly’s (1978) Interests
•
Marxist: use class as “predictors of the interests people will pursue in the long run”
(p. 61); these are objective class interests
•
Subjective/expressed interests: Tilly uses these to predict what people will do in
the short run
•
Marx roots interests in the relations and modes of production and the relations
between and within classes—the relations of life and work
•
Weber distinguishes class, status, and party interests, which may or may not predict
collective action.
Tilly’s (1978, p. 63) Organization
in Terms of Categories and Networks
high
Printers Union
Local
All Brazilians
Catness
low
Casual Crowd
low
Netness
Friendship Networks
high
Tilly (1978, p. 112) on Government Response to Challengers
Small
Facilitation
Scale of
Claim
Toleration
Repression
Large
Weak
Strong
Power of Group
Tilly’s Model of Collective Action Predicted by Power,
Mobilization, and Opportunity/Threat
∞
opportunity
Collective
Goods
Obtained
mobilization
break even
0
threat
-1
Low
Resources Expended
High
Power, Mobilization, and Opportunity/Threat: Tilly (1978)
• Power results from relations with others, including governments.
Facilitation or repression are the extreme reactions to collective action,
decreasing or increasing the cost/benefits of collective action. Graphically,
power is represented by the shape of the S curve that describes the return
on collective actions (collective goods obtained/resources expanded). The
steeper the curve the greater the power.
• Mobilization limits the potential return, however, since the resources
expended cannot exceed mobilization (mobilization is defined as resources
controlled by constituents * probability that these will be committed).
• Opportunity is "the extent to which other actors, including governments,
are vulnerable to new claims which would, if successful, enhance the
contender's realization of its interests." (p. 133)
• Threat is "the extent to which other groups are threatening to make claims
which would, if successful, reduce the challenger's realization of its
interests." (p.133)
Resource Mobilization Theory
• Resource Mobilization Theory: Gamson, Tilly,
McCarthy & Zald
– is now the dominant perspective on social
movements and social change
– it has been challenged by conservatives and
radicals and has been tweaked by friendly critics
• McAdam: political processs theory
• Tarrow: political opportunities
Challenges to Resource
Mobilization Theory
• State centered theory: Skocpol, Evans
– Bringing the State Back In
– need to focus on ability of governments
• to effect policy innovations
• to manage constituent discontent
• to accommodate other governments
New Social Movement theory
Focus on difference between labor movement
• rational
• materialist
• self-interested
And new social movements (e.g., anti-nuclear)
• community building versus policy
• status (versus class)
• more expressive
Social Movement Theory Today
• Some cynics suggest return to 1950s
• But new theories are different from 1970
• Tilly's model of interests, organization and
opportunity is an interactive contingency
model of political influence
• Skocpol and Goldstone and other statecentered folks offer similar model of state
capacity
State-Centered Model
• Skocpol, et al. view state in world system
– relations with other states affect capacity
• help from friends
• problems with enemies
– state has similar relations with constituents
• possibilities for support
• threat of opposition
other
states
state
constituents
Political Process Model
• Sid Tarrow and Doug McAdam developed this
model to accommodate both
– Constituents and
– The State
• Tarrow (1994): waves of political protest occur
in response to political opportunities
– “increased access, influential allies, divided elites,
and unstable alliances” (pp. 86-89)
Political Process (continued)
• Tarrow argues that
– Organized interests
• Seize opportunities
• To gain new advantages
– New interests emerge
• take advantage of already be-leaguered authorities
• Until elites are able to re-establish alliances, close
ranks, and close off political opportunities
Political Process (continued)
• Tarrow explains: at the end of a wave/cycle
– Challengers and elites attempt to
• Consolidate gains
• Minimize losses
– What remains is the “residual of reform” (p. 186)
Political Process (conclusion)
• Political process theory is, essentially
– A liberal, interactive, contingency model
– That focuses on the relations between
governments and their challengers
– This is a friendly amendment to Resource
Mobilization theory: the dominant perspective in
political sociology
– It is being challenged by conservatives and radicals
– Piven and Cloward are among the radicals
Poor People’s Movements
• Piven and Cloward argue that “institutional
conditions … create and limit the
opportunities for mass struggle”
• Furthermore, “not formal organizations but
mass defiance … won in the 1930s and 1960s”
• “organizations that were developed … tended
to blunt the militancy” (p. xv)
Poor People’s Movements (cont.)
• “formal organizations collapsed as the
movements subsided” (p. xvi)
• “John L. Lewis and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations did not create the strike
movement of the industrial workers;
• it was the industrial workers who created the
CIO” (p. 153)
Piven and Cloward vs. Resource
Mobilization theory
• Piven and Cloward argue against the idea that
organizations produce collective action or
political protest
• They argue that collective action or protest
produces the organizations
Political
protest
Political
organization
Questions
• Where do rights come from?
– government?
– political challengers?
• Do rights matter?
Questions (continued)
• Consider rights movements
– Bill of Rights
– Right to unemployment compensation
– Right to collective bargaining
– Civil rights
– Welfare rights
Where Did These Rights Come
From?
• All of these rights were promoted by political
challengers
– Anti-federalists
– Unemployed workers
– Workers
– Blacks
– Welfare recipients
Rights (continued)
• All of these rights were granted by the state
– Federalist concessions: Bill of Rights
– FDR/Wagner: Wagner Act
– JFK/LBJ
• So rights are both demanded and granted
Piven and Cloward (and Hogan)
• Political Opportunities, interests, and
organization are all rooted in institutional
structure
• Crises in republican capitalism
– Depression of 1930s
– Destruction of Southern cotton economy
– Rise of post-industrial or postmodern economy