Political Sociology

The Political Sociology (or political sociology ) is a social science discipline that both the sociology and the political science belongs. She mainly deals with the relationship between politics and society . It is particularly concerned with the analysis of 1. the social / socio-structural conditions of political order and political action, 2. the structure and function of political institutions and the course of political decision-making processes, and 3. the effect of political decisions and political structures on society. A number of writings from the sociological classics can already be assigned to political sociology.

Overview

Important subjects in political sociology include a .:

• political socialization
• political communication
• political attitudes
• political behavior ( political participation and voting behavior )
• political culture and values
• Parties
• Interest Groups
• Social movements

Important theories within political sociology are:

• Theory of cleavages (or split structures) by Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset
• Theories of rational voter behavior (e.g. Anthony Downs : An Economic Theory of Democracy , 1957)
• Marxist explanatory approach (e.g. connections and causes of the revolution of 1848 in " 18th Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte ")

For political sociology, however, the inner life of parties is also important (e.g. Robert Michels ' Iron Law of the Oligarchy and Moissei Jakowlewitsch Ostrogorski's Democracy and Political Parties), the emergence and change of parties and the political behavior of people.

Political sociology therefore partially overlaps with comparative political science and political theory .

In Germany, Max Gustav Lange's book has been pioneering since 1961 by telling political theorists such as Thorstein Veblen , David. B. Truman , George E. Gordon Catlin and James Burnham introduced.

Data sources for social science analyzes

Well-known secondary data pools for social science analyzes are:

• American National Election Studies
• Eurobarometer
• European Values ​​Study
• German Longitudinal Election Study
• International Social Survey Program
• World Values ​​Survey

literature

• Lothar Böhnisch: Political Sociology. A problem-oriented introduction , Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2006, ISBN 3-86649-000-3
• Viktoria Kaina and Andrea Römmele (eds.): Political Sociology: A Study Book , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2009.
• Seymour Martin Lipset : Political Sociology , in: Merton, Robert u. a. (Eds.), Sociology Today. Problems and Prospects , Basic Books, New York 1957, pp. 81-114.
• Leo Kißler: Political Sociology: Fundamentals of a Democratic Science, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8252-2925-2
• Hans Rattinger : Introduction to Political Sociology , Oldenbourg, Munich a. a. 2009.

See also

• State and administrative sociology
• Information effect (political sociology)
• Duverger's Law , Public Choice Theory , Rational Choice (election research)
• Polybios , Gaetano Mosca , Vilfredo Pareto , Otto Stammer , Max Gustav Lange

Web links

• Kai Arzheimer: Slides for the lecture Introduction to Political Sociology
• Political Sociology , Section of the German Society for Sociology

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pappi, Franz (2000) Political Sociology . In: Holtmann, Everhard (Hrsg.) Politik-Lexikon , Munich / Vienna: Oldenbourg Verlag, pp. 535–538.
2. ↑ See e.g. B. Robert Michels : On the sociology of the party system in modern democracy. Studies on the oligarchic tendencies of group life (1911); Ferdinand Tönnies : The English State and the German State (1917); Vilfredo Pareto : Trasformazione della democrazia (1921) u. a. m.