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Power Structure
In political sociology, but also operative within the rest of the animal, animal kingdom, a power structure is a hierarchy of competence or aggression (might) predicated on power (social and political), influence between an individual and other entities in a group. A power structure focuses on the way power (social and political), power and authority is related between people within groups such as a government, nation, institution, organization, or a society.G. William Domhoff, Thomas R. Dye, ''Power Elites and Organizations'' (1987), p. 9. Such structures are of interest to various fields, including sociology, government, economics, and business. A power structure may be formal and intentionally constructed to maximize values like social justice, fairness or efficiency, as in a hierarchical organization wherein every entity, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. Conversely, a power structure may be an informal set of roles, such as those found in a dominance hierar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Sociology
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how power is distributed and changes throughout and amongst societies, political sociology's focus ranges across individual families to the State as sites of social and political conflict and power contestation. Introduction Political sociology was conceived as an interdisciplinary sub-field of sociology and politics in the early 1930s throughout the social and political disruptions that took place through the rise of Communism, Fascism, and World War II. This new area drawing upon works by Alexis de Tocqueville, James Bryce, Robert Michels, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Karl Marx to understand an integral theme of political sociology; power. Power's definition for political sociologists varies across the approaches and conceptual fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Establishment
''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific institutions. One can refer to any relatively small class or group of people who can exercise control as ''The Establishment''. Conversely, in the jargon of sociology, anyone who does not belong to ''The Establishment'' may be labelled an outsider (as opposed to an " insider"). Anti-authoritarian anti-establishment ideologies question the legitimacy of establishments, seeing their influence on society as undemocratic. The term in its modern sense was popularized by the British journalist Henry Fairlie, who in September 1955 in the London magazine ''The Spectator'' defined the network of prominent, well-connected people as "the Establishment". He wrote: Following that, the term ''the Establishment'' was quickly picked up in newspapers and magaz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships ( social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups. Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes. Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an indivi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power (social And Political) Concepts
Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may also refer to: Mathematics, science and technology Computing * IBM POWER (software), an IBM operating system enhancement package * IBM POWER architecture, a RISC instruction set architecture * Power ISA, a RISC instruction set architecture derived from PowerPC * IBM Power microprocessors, made by IBM, which implement those RISC architectures * Power.org, a predecessor to the OpenPOWER Foundation * SGI POWER Challenge, a line of SGI supercomputers Mathematics * Exponentiation, "''x'' to the power of ''y''" * Power function * Power of a point * Statistical power Physics * Magnification, the factor by which an optical system enlarges an image * Optical power, the degree to which a lens converges or diverges light Social sciences a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Management
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities of setting the strategic management, strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees (or of volunteers) to accomplish its goal, objectives through the application of available Resource (economics), resources, such as financial, natural resources, natural, technological, and human resources. "Run the business" and "Change the business" are two concepts that are used in management to differentiate between the continued delivery of goods or services and adapting of goods or services to meet the changing needs of customers - see trend (other), trend. The term "management" may also refer to those people who manage an organization—managers. Some people study management at colleges or univer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hierarchy
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important concept in a wide variety of fields, such as architecture, philosophy, design, mathematics, computer science, organizational theory, systems theory, systematic biology, and the social sciences (especially political philosophy). A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly, and either vertically or diagonally. The only direct links in a hierarchy, insofar as they are hierarchical, are to one's immediate superior or to one of one's subordinates, although a system that is largely hierarchical can also incorporate alternative hierarchies. Hierarchical links can extend "vertically" upwards or downwards via multiple links in the same direction, following a path. All parts of the hierarchy that are not linked vertically to o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutocracy
A plutocracy () or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy. Usage The term ''plutocracy'' is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition. Throughout history, political thinkers and philosophers have condemned plutocrats for ignoring their social responsibilities, using their power to serve their own purposes and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict and corrupting societies with greed and hedonism. Examples Historic examples of plutocracies include the Roman Empire, some city-states in Ancient Greece, the civilization of Carthage, the Italian merchant city states of Venice, Florence, Genoa, the Dutch Republic and the pre-World War II Empire of Japan (the '' zaibatsu''). According to Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Online Participation
Online participation is used to describe the interaction between users and online communities on the web. Online communities often involve members to provide content to the website and/or contribute in some way. Examples of such include wikis, blogs, online multiplayer games, and other types of social platforms. Online participation is currently a heavily researched field. It provides insight into fields such as web design, online marketing, crowdsourcing, and many areas of psychology. Some subcategories that fall under online participation are: commitment to online communities, coordination & interaction, and member recruitment. Knowledge sharing infrastructures Some key examples of online knowledge sharing infrastructures include the following: *Wikipedia: An online, publicly editable encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of editors *Slashdot: A popular technology-related forum, with articles and comments from readers. Slashdot subculture has become well known in Internet circl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elite Theory
In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the State that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power—and that this power is independent of democratic elections. Through positions in corporations or on corporate boards, and influence over policy-planning networks through the financial support of foundations or positions with think tanks or policy-discussion groups, members of the "elite" exert significant power over corporate and government decisions. The basic characteristics of this theory are that power is concentrated, the elites are unified, the non-elites are diverse and powerless, elites' interests are unified due to common backgrounds and positions and the defining characteristic of power is institutional position. Elite theory opposes pluralism (more than one system of power), a trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biopower
Biopower (or ''biopouvoir'' in French) is a term coined by French scholar, philosopher, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations". Foucault first used the term in his lecture courses at the Collège de France, and the term first appeared in print in ''The Will to Knowledge'', Foucault's first volume of '' The History of Sexuality''. In Foucault's work, it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation, among many other regulatory mechanisms often linked less directly with literal physical health. It is closely related to a term he uses much less frequently, but which subsequent thinkers have taken up independently, biopolitics, which aligns more closely with the examination of the strategies and mechanis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states. The political scientist Juan Linz, in an influential 1964 work, ''An Authoritarian Regime: Spain'', defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities: # Limited political pluralism, is realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups. # Political legitimacy is based upon appeals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dominator Culture
Dominator culture refers to a model of society where fear and force maintain rigid understandings of power and superiority within a hierarchical structure. Futurist and writer Riane Eisler first popularized this term in her book ''The Chalice and the Blade'' (HarperCollins San Francisco, 1987). In it, Eisler positions the dominator model in contrast to the partnership model, a more egalitarian structure of society founded on mutual respect among its inhabitants. In dominator culture, men rule over women, whereas partnership culture values men and women equally. Other theorists, including Terence McKenna and bell hooks, have expanded on the implications and impact of dominator culture. They, among others, argue that adherence to the dominator model over the partnership model denies the possibility of a more equal society, systematically allowing for the persecution of those who are "dominated"—including racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, and women. Concept and terminology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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