The “Populist” Films of Frank Capra

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn Alan Phelps
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
General Will ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
Group Competition ◽  
Original Question ◽  
Great Passion ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
American Society

What is the nature and distribution of power in American society? This question, as much as any other single issue, has been the source of wideranging debates among American social scientists throughout the last twenty-five years. The question is tantalizingly simple. In fact, the titles of two notable contributions to the debate, Who Rules America? and Who Governs?, put the issue even more succinctly while losing little of the flavor of the original question. The controversy is more than just a basis for scholarly esoterica politely parried back and forth in the professional literature for a limited audience. Indeed, the debate has been carried on with great passion and commitment because how one answers this question will largely determine one's perceptions about American politics.For example, if one were to reply by saying that power is basically noncumulative and that it is widely distributed among many groups and individuals, then certain other conclusions would follow: the Constitution is essentially a democratic document which institutionalizes this broad distribution of power; elections are the means by which power is transferred among competing groups; public policy represents an accurate reflection of the general will through this inter-group competition; and the American political system is essentially democratic because opportunities for participation, and thus power, are open to all.

Middle class ideologies: Norms and historical changes.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Huynh ◽  
Igor Grossmann
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Intergroup Dynamics ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Behavioral Tendencies ◽  
American Society ◽  
Definition Of

Ever since social scientists became interested in understanding intergroup dynamics, the topic of the “middle class” and its distinction from other groups in society became the central feature of a theoretical and empirical research enterprise. In this overview essay we discuss the beliefs, values and behavioral tendencies attributed to American middle class beliefs, and discuss their implications for understanding class-related norms and values. We end with a reflection over the historical trends that impact societal norms and the definition of middle class in the American society.

Three Generations of Italians in New York City: Their Religious Acculturation

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Nicholas John Russo
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
York City ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Society

Renewed awareness in ethnic groups as well identified, persisting and active participants in the political and social life of American society imposes a new task on the social scientists to define better and more cogently measure the implications of pluralism and integration. This article by Russo—presenting the findings of his doctoral dissertation: The Religious Acculturation of the Italians in New York City—evidences the fast disappearance of the cultural identity of an immigrant group in relation to their rural religious tradition and behavior. At the same time, it notes the survival of social identity. In the light of this evidence, we can ask ourselves if ethnic religious institutions might have led the immigrants to religious forms more in keeping with their new environment and how the acculturation described should be evaluated. Above all, we are forced to search for those variables which maintain the ethnic groups’ identity even in the third generation. In this way, the process of the inclusion into American society of different ethnic and religious groups may reveal some clues for the more complex test of inclusion of different racial groups.

A Centennial History of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers: 1880-1980

1980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Political System ◽  
City Government ◽  
American People ◽  
Engineering Problems ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
Technical Question

In 1980 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers celebrates the centenary of its founding. The occasion has provided an opportunity for the Society to look back and survey its accomplishments, its distinguished members, and its constant dialogue — among its members and with the American people — concerning the role of engineering in a technological society. The dynamic tensions within the ASME make a fascinating background to this centennial history. The central role of the Society’s headquarters in New York is examined the light of various movements for regional and professional sections within (and occasionally outside) the Society. The technical question of standards is shown to be a constant and creative problem for members — reflecting their attitudes towards their role in a political system often reluctant to enforce nation-wide standars in business and industry. From the Progressive Era, and its attempts to reform city government and check the power of private utilities, to the 1970s and its renewed concern with ecology and business ethnics, the Society has provided a microcosm of informed debate about technical engineering problems which — as this book makes clear — concerns us all.

scholarly journals Collections of Japanese Art in Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2(6)) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Alla Ozhoha-Maslovska
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Political System ◽  
Art Museum ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Literature Information ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
Art Collections ◽  
Japanese Art ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 19Th Century

The stages of the formation of Japanese art collections on the territory of Ukraine from the beginning of the 19th century to the present are highlighted on the basis of archival materials, periodicals and professional literature. Information about Japanese collections of the pre-war and post-war periods are systematized, while their composition and sources of formation are determined. The influence of the socio-political system on the development of the process of collecting Japanese art in Ukraine is also analysed. The sources of the formation of collections of Japanese art in the collections of The Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kyiv, Odessa Museum of Western and Oriental Arts, the Chinese Palace of “Zolochiv Castle” Museum-Reserve, as well as Kharkiv Art Museum are explored. Finally, modern tendencies in the collection of Japanese art in Ukraine are determined.

Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System

1965 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Sklar
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Regional Power ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Real ◽  
The North ◽  
Real Distribution ◽  
Power Group ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Masses

There are three basic contradictions in the Nigerian political system. They may be stated briefly at the outset. First, the machinery of government is basically regionalised, but the party machinery—the organisation of the masses—retains a strong trans-regional and anti-regional tendency. Secondly, the main opposition party has relied upon the support of a class-conscious regional power group in its drive against the system of regional power. Depending upon a regional section of the political class to effect a shift in the class content of power, it was really asking that section to commit suicide. This contradiction produced a crisis in the Western Region which might easily be repeated elsewhere. Thirdly, the constitutional allocation of power is inconsistent with the real distribution of power in society. The constitution gives dominant power to the numerical majority—i.e., under existing conditions, to the north—but the real distribution of power is determined by technological development, in which respect the south is superior.

Inventing the Expert Technological Literacy as Social Currency

1990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Marvin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Classical Education ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Electrical Engineers ◽  
National Organizations ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
American Society

Electrical professionals were the ambitious catalysts of an industrial shift from steam to electricity taking place in the United States and Western Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. According to Thomas P. Hughes, Alfred Chandler, and others, that shift was made possible by key inventions in power, transportation, and communication, and by managerial innovations based on them that helped rescale traditional systems of production and distribution. The retooling of American industry fostered a new class of managers of machines and techniques; prominent among them were electrical professionals. The transformation in which these professionals participated was no class revolution, as David Noble has pointed out. Their job was to engineer, promote, improve, maintain, and repair the emerging technical infrastructure in the image of an existing distribution of power. Their ranks included scientists, whose attention was directed to increasingly esoteric phenomena requiring ever more specialized intellectual tools and formal training, electrical engineers, and other “electricians” forging their own new identity from an older one of practical tinkerer and craft worker. Servingmaid to both groups were cadres of operatives from machine tenders to telegraph operators, striving to attach themselves as firmly as possible to this new and highly visible priesthood. Electrical experts before 1900 were acutely conscious of their lack of status in American society relative to other professional groups. The American Institute for Electrical Engineers (AIEE), founded early in 1884, was the last of the major engineering societies to be organized in the nineteenth century. Professional societies had already been organized by civil engineers in 1852, mining engineers in 1871, and mechanical engineers in 1880. The prestige of other groups in the engineering fraternity, especially civil and mechanical engineers, came less from membership in professional societies, however, than from other circumstances. Their practitioners hailed from the upper and middle strata of society, were often products of classical education, and had developed distinctive professional cultures of their own well before the formation of their national organizations. This gave them an established and even aristocratic niche in society.

The Distribution of Power in American Society

1957 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talcott Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
American Society

ISAAK RUBIN: HISTORIAN OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT DURING THE STALINIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN SOVIET RUSSIA

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Boldyrev ◽  
Martin Kragh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Uncertainty ◽  
Soviet Russia

Research within the history of economic thought has focused only little on the development of economics under dictatorship. This paper attempts to show how a country with a relatively large and internationally established community of social scientists in the 1920s, the Soviet Union, was subjected to repression. We tell this story through the case of Isaak Il’ich Rubin, a prominent Russian economist and historian of economic thought, who in the late 1920s was denounced by rival scholars and repressed by the political system. By focusing not only on his life and work, but also on that of his opponents and institutional clashes, we show how the decline of a social science tradition in Russia and the USSR as well as the Stalinization of Soviet social sciences emerged as a process over time. We analyze the complex interplay of ideas, scholars, and their institutional context, and conclude that subsequent repression was arbitrary, suggesting that no clear survival or career strategy existed in the Stalinist system, due to a situation of fundamental uncertainty.

A Game-Theoretical Approach to the Results of Parliamentary Elections in Belgium between the Wars

1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-254
Author(s):  
Erik Buyst ◽  
Luc Lauwers ◽  
Patrick Uvtterhoeven
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Game Theoretical Approach ◽  
Distribution Of Power

This paper deals with the distribution of power among Belgian political parties during the interwar period. In the 1930s Belgium, like most European countries, was confronted with the electoral success of extreme right- and left-wing parties that wanted to change the existing political system into an authoritarian one. Usually, historians draw attention to the rapidly growing share of seats in Parliament held by extreme parties as a sign of their increasing influence on Belgian politics. Among game theorists, however, it is widely accepted that the proportion of seats is a poor proxy for power relations (Schotter, 1979). It is indeed possible that a political party acquiring a higher proportion of seats in Parliament loses its capacity to influence the outcome of a vote, and vice versa.

Edge-Punched Cards: A Method for Storing and Retrieving Social Science References

1963 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard M. Lansky ◽  
Freda Gould Rebelsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
Card System

This paper has presented a system which will enable social scientists to classify and store references to professional literature and to accurately, quickly, completely, and economically retrieve the information when it is needed. The procedure for setting up an edge-punched card system is described. The limitations and advantages of this system, compared with other possible systems, are explored.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document