Political Decay and the European Revolutions, 1789–1848

1970 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 344-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Social Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Total System ◽  
Causative Role ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Revolutionary Situation ◽  
Dynamic Element

Until very recently social interpretations of revolution have enjoyed a position of virtual orthodoxy among both historians and social scientists. Sociologists and political scientists concerned with the problem of revolution have been mainly of the structural-functional school. They describe a revolutionary situation as one of “multiple dysfunction” in the relations between the political system and the society it serves. Revolution thus interpreted is a violent redress of imbalance among functionally interrelated and historically synchronous social and political parts of one total system. It is commonly assumed that it is the social process, including economic change, that is the dynamic element in any revolutionary event, and that political institutions play a causative role only in so far as they fail to provide mechanisms for resolving the state of disequilibrium. Historians of revolution, many of them strongly if not consciously influenced by Marxist traditions of interpretation, have taken much the same position. If they tend to think more in terms of trends than of equilibrium systems, nevertheless they agree with the social scientists that revolution is primarily the result of accumulating social and economic pressures, with politics playing only a secondary role in shaping the course of events.

scholarly journals Democratic institutes in the countries of the Arab East: features of development and transformation

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-34
Author(s):  
Islam Almughid
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
Former Ussr

The article examines the leading centers of democratic transformation in Arab countries and the formation of an institutional base for democratization processes. It is emphasized that the parameters of the political system of the Arab East are comparable to the some countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former USSR, which reveals a problem beyond the limits of purely regional research. The attention has been focused on the socio-cultural specificities of the Arab countries as a factor requiring special attention to consider the social environment of the political system, which affects the organization of power and the specifics of political participation. It is noted that such traditional democratic institutions as active political participation, political leadership, and public activity should be considered through the prism of the traditional guidance of political Islam. It is argued that attempts to realize their own model of modernization of the political system are faced with the failure of political institutions. It is substantiated that in the Arabian countries the level of representation and realization of social interests of citizens has proved to be insufficient. The importance of the national Arab model of political adaptation of society to the conditions of globalization is considered.

Socjalizacja i edukacja polityczna, jako ważne determinanty kultury politycznej

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (16) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Piwnicki
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literal Sense ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

It is recognized that politics is a part of social life, that is why it is also a part of culture. In this the political culture became in the second half of the twentieth century the subject of analyzes of the political scientists in the world and in Poland. In connection with this, political culture was perceived as a component of culture in the literal sense through the prism of all material and non-material creations of the social life. It has become an incentive to expand the definition of the political culture with such components as the political institutions and the system of socialization and political education. The aim of this was to strengthen the democratic political system by shifting from individual to general social elements.

Division de pouvoir et intégration social: de Montesquieu à la crise actuelle du parlementarisme

1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-269
Author(s):  
André Vachet
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Social Division ◽  
Western Democracy ◽  
Vital Forces

Division of power and social integrationExplanation of some of the recent challenges to western democracy may be found in a re-examination of Montesquieu's thought. Here we find the theory of the separation of power to be far more complex than is implied in the simple divisions of legislature, executive, and judiciary. For Montesquieu, the separation of power is more a social division than a political or juridical one. He contemplated returning the organs of political power to various social forces, e.g. monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie, and that then the self-assertion of forces would be restrained by the resistance of other social groups. The realization of its goals would require every important social group to integrate itself both to society and to the state and to seek its goals through realization of the general good.Since Montesquieu's time, political structures would seem to have been very little changed even though social structures have been greatly altered by the rise of economic powers. Political institutions have been losing touch with the vital forces of society and these have had to find other channels of expression. The personalization of power, the rise of the executive, violence, and increasing paternalism may be viewed as phenomena of compensation by which attempts are being made to bridge the gap between the structures of political power and those of a society which has been restructured.Revigoration of parliamentary democracy would seem to require that all vital social forces be reintegrated into the political system and be given meaningful channels of political expression. Failure to make such changes opens the way to identification of the political powers with technocracy and the increasing general use of violence in the resolution of social problems.

Legal Reform and Social Construction: Violence, Gender, and the Law

1994 ◽  
Vol 19 (04) ◽  
pp. 829-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Frohmann ◽  
Elizabeth Mertz
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
The Social

As scholars and activists have addressed the problem of violence against women in the past 25 years, their efforts have increasingly attuned us to the multiple dimensions of the issue. Early activists hoped to change the structure of power relations in our society, as well as the political ideology that tolerated violence against women, through legislation, education, direct action, and direct services. This activism resulted in a plethora of changes to the legal codes and protocols relating to rape and battering. Today, social scientists and legal scholars are evaluating the effects of these reforms, questioning anew the ability of law by itself to redress societal inequalities. As they uncover the limitations of legal reforms enacted in the past two decades, scholars are turning—or returning—to ask about the social and cultural contexts within which laws are formulated, enforced, and interpreted.

The Political Theory of German Fascism

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick L. Schuman
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Surface Phenomena ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social ◽  
Changing Patterns

In dealing with the evolution of political thought, most historians and social scientists, until recently at least, have tended to view political behavior and the changing patterns of power in society as rational implementations of dynamic ideas. They have accordingly concerned themselves more with the development of abstract philosophical systems than with the social-psychological contexts conditioning this development. To other observers, more Marxian than Hegelian in their outlook, all political ideas are but reflections of the economic interests and class ideologies of the various strata of society. This school therefore probes for the secrets of political and social change, not in the surface phenomena of ideas, but in the progress of technology and in the shifting economic relations of groups and classes within the social hierarchy. Still others, few in number as yet, have adopted Freud as their guide.

scholarly journals How to Analyze Islamist Politics: Is it possible to make a Political Study without Sociology of Islam?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Özgür Erden
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Social

This article embarks on making a political analysis of Islamist politics by criticizing the hegemonic approach in the field and considering a number of the institutions or structures, composing of either state and its ideological-repressive apparatuses, political parties and actors, intellectual leadership and ideology, and political relations, events, or facts in political sphere. The aforesaid approach declares that the social and economic factors, namely class position, capital accumulation, market, education, and culture, have been far better significative for a political study in examining any political movement, party, and fact or event. However, our study will more stress on political structures, events and struggles or conflicts produced and reproduced by the political institutions, the relationships and the processes in question. Taking into account all these, it will be argued that they have been more significant as compared to class position, capital accumulation, market in economic structure, or culture and education, in a political study.

“The Burdens of Urban History”: Comment

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 30-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Katznelson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Urban History ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The City

How, if at all, can studies of the city help us understand the distinctive qualities of the American regime? In “The Burdens of Urban History,” which refines and elaborates his earlier paper “The Problem of the Political in Recent American Urban History,” Terrence McDonald, a historian who has written on urban fiscal policy and conflict, argues that students of the city have focused their work too narrowly on bosses and machines, patronage and pluralism. In so doing, they have obscured other bases of politics and conflict, and, trapped by liberal categories of analysis, they have perpetuated a self-satisfied, even celebratory, portrait of American politics and society. This unfortunate directionality to urban research in some measure has been unwitting because historians and social scientists have been unreflective about the genealogies, and mutual borrowings, of their disciplines. Even recent critical scholarship in the new social history and in the social sciences under the banner of “bringing the state back in” suffers from these defects. As a result, these treatments of state and society relationships, and of the themes that appear under the rubric of American “exceptionalism,” are characterized by an epistemological mish-mash, a contraction of analytical vision, and an unintended acquiescence in the self-satisfied cheerleading of the academy that began in the postwar years.

Habermas and the New Populisms

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik P. Bang
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Identification ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ground System ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Relations Of Power

Habermas is widely criticized for adumbrating an essentialist, deliberative, and consensual approach to democracy that neglects the significance and importance of contingency, conflict, and emotions in the struggle for hegemony and collective identification. However, his conception of system and lifeworld raise the claim that no society could exist without providing for a minimal degree of political cooperation between professional actors in the political system and spontaneously acting laypeople in the social lifeworld. Contingency, conflict, and emotions are obviously at play in this political conception of how to ground system and lifeworld in mutual relations of power, knowledge, trust, and respect. The goal is not to reach a stable consensus or succumb to conflict and chaos but to avoid that system becomes uncoupled from lifeworld, thus undermining the reciprocal connection between political authorities and laypeople required to make and implement authoritative decisions which are ‘for', ‘of', ‘with', and ‘by' ‘the people'.

scholarly journals The Political Knowledge of University Students (A Comparative Study between Jordan and Libya)

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Alfeetouri Salih Mohammed Alsati ◽  
Al-Sayed Abd ulmutallab Ghanem
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The University

The current research aims at identifying and measuring the political knowledge of the students of the two universities of Al- Balqaa in Jordan and Omar Al- Mokhtar in Libya. The two communities are almost similar in terms of the social formation, Arab customs and traditions, the Bedouin values, the difference in the institutional age and the political stability.The study attempts to measure and compare the political knowledge in the communities of the two universities using the descriptive and comparative analytical method. The study uses a 400 random questionnaire of 30 paragraphs to measure eight indicators divided into internal and external political knowledge, and other aspects of knowledge: general political knowledge, knowledge of the political institutions and leaders, the political interest, the geographical and historical knowledge, and knowledge of the methods of exercising the political process. The study also attempts to identifying the most important sources and the role of the university in university students’ political knowledge.The results show that the level of the political knowledge is medium while its level in the sample of the Jordanian students is high. According to the samples, the internal political knowledge is more than the external knowledge with a lack of interest in the political matters. The samples do not consider the political matters as their priorities. The political knowledge as a whole needs to much effort to be exerted to confront the current circumstances. The variables of the place of resident, age and the educational level make big difference in the political knowledge. In contrast, the level of the parental education does not create big differences.

Inestabilidad política y presidencialismo en México

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Partido Revolucionario Institucional

This article analyzes the principal political acts of the Carlos Salinas administration--elections, the removal of state governors, and the reforms of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)--and their consequences on the political system. Such measures, far from being democratic improvements, have accentuated presidencialismo at the expense of political institutions.

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