Analysis of the Age of Perplexity: Rethinking the World We Knew (part 1)

Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

Hannah Arendt

We are undergoing an era of social and political change. The world is in a state of perplexity, uncertainty, and insecurity. This analysis argues that this postindustrial, technological revolution, that we are in the midst of, will produce, in the medium-term, more well-being, growth and employment, but only after a transition that is proving difficult for many. Appropriate economic policies could help to speed this transition and minimize its costs. The promotion of a digital transformation of the financial system should be considered among these policies.

Change and Perplexity

We are witnessing profound changes in political, economic and social models. Long-held beliefs and assumptions are being questioned.

The influence of the United States is weakening not only because other areas, especially Asia, are growing quickly, but, also, the United States is appearing to adopt a more unilateral view and use its economic and military power only in defense of the interests of the United States. 

At the same time, free trade agreements are losing impetus in different regions. Also, the E. U. now faces "Brexit," and this (along with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's embrace of nationalism) has inspired a wave of nationalist sentiment that threatens to tear the E. U. apart.

At the root of these geopolitical shifts we can observe changes in nations: We see the growth of populist political parties around the world, as well as a downward trend in people's participation and trust in politics, institutions, elections, and the liberal democratic system in general. In return, we see the development of state authoritarianism and what is sometimes called direct democracy. Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which people decide on policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracies.

Political rhetoric and its narratives are also changing with increasing polarization and a growing tendency towards "framing" of the news and outright disinformation, often in the form of "fake news."

The result of all this is a less transparent political debate focused on solving problems in the short-term, one much more oriented toward confrontation, rather than the search for common ground. 

In this setting, citizens feel attacked, insecure, and pessimistic: They tend to support drastic solutions to their problems, and defend themselves by taking on extreme identities (nationalistic, religious, or other kinds) that exclude any that are perceived as different, and therefore dangerous.

In social terms, this results in a loss of cohesion, especially between different ethnic and religious groups, and growing integration problems, with increased restrictions for different groups, but particularly, in immigrants' access to housing, citizenship, public services, the social safety net, etc.

We are living in an age in which social, economic, and political models are no longer fixed. And this causes insecurity, fear of others, and fear of the future. This feeling may resemble what the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (1998, On Globalization) called Unsicherheit, a complex combination of uncertainty, insecurity, and vulnerability that he blamed on the economic, social, and cultural consequences of globalization. Similarly, many economists, like Mary Kaldor (2004, Global Civil Society and Nationalism and Globalism), think that "new nationalisms" are an answer to globalization.

Many researchers attribute these new nationalisms to other factors, such as the effects (perceived or feared) of globalization. These effects are frequently identified with economic crises and the austerity policies that have been imposed in many countries.

Among those in favor of globalization, the predominant view is that, ultimately, the increase in international trade and growing interdependence will promote greater global growth and consolidate democratic political systems worldwide, supporting stability and welfare at a global level. These effects only provoke more controversies, such as the loss of jobs moving from developed countries to emerging nations with lower labor costs, as well as increased racial, ethnic, and cultural conflicts associated with migration flows. 

Technological change speeds up and multiplies the effects of globalization, and improvements in telecommunications, connectivity, the Internet, etc. encourage economic, political, and cultural globalization. Globalized markets are the natural habitat of the technological revolution we now find ourselves in.

But, beyond all this, these technological advances also harbor their own complications: They improve communication and the access to knowledge, productivity and efficiency, but they are also tools for political destabilization, organized crime, and terrorism, because they facilitate the planning and financing of these acts. And they also create new targets for these activities: Cyber-attacks are directed precisely towards the enormous data volumes and the infrastructures that store, protect and transmit them, which are essential for smooth running of the global economy and society, which is where we turn our attention in the next post "Globalization and Technology: Fears and Facts."

*SOURCE: GONZALEZ, F. (2018) THE AGE OF PERPLEXITY: RETHINKING THE WORLD WE KNEW, 2018, OpenMind (www.bbvaopenmind.com), PP. 8-11)*

end

Zen Meditation Music, Reiki Music, Chakra, Relaxing Music, Music for Str...

Sociological Imagination: How to Gain Wisdom about the Society in which We All Participate and for Whose Future We Are All Responsible (part 49 - The Conclusion)

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student, and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre, art, music, politics and philosophy.

Paul Nurse

Throughout most of human history, limitations on food production, together with lack of medical knowledge, have placed limits on the size of populations. Diseases like the bubonic plague have actually reduced populations. In England the plague, known as the Black Death, was responsible for a drastic drop in the population in 1348 and for the lack of population growth in the seventeenth. In 1625 alone, 35,417 residents of London died of the plague. Smallpox and dysentery have had similar, though less dramatic, effects (Davis, 1992, Natural Disasters: The Black Plague: Wrigley, 1969, Population and History).

Until relatively recently physicians were powerless either to check the progress of disease or to prolong life. In fact, they often did more harm than good---that is, their remedies were more harmful then the illnesses they were intended to cure. As Lewis Thomas (1979, The Medusa and the Snail) has stated:

Bleeding, purging, cupping, the administration of infusions of every known plant, solutions of every known metal, every conceivable diet including total fasting, most of these based on the weirdest imaginings about the cause of the disease, concocted out of nothing but thin air---this was the heritage of medicine up until a little over a century ago. (p. 133)

Thomas's point is that before the nineteenth century, when scientists finally began to understand the nature of disease, physicians based their treatments on folklore and superstition. In fact, with few exceptions, the practice of healing, like many other aspects of science, was closely linked to religion. In ancient Greece people who suffered from chronic illnesses and physical impairments would journey to the temple of Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine, in search of a cure. In medieval times pilgrims flocked to the cathedral at Lourdes in France as many still do today in the belief that they would thereby be cured of blindness, paralysis, or leprosy. Not until Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and other researchers developed the germ theory of disease did medicine become fully differentiated from religion. Their discoveries, together with progress in internal medicine, pathology, the use of anesthesia, and surgical techniques, led to the twentieth century concept of medicine as a scientific discipline (Cockerham, 2001, Medical Sociology, 8th ed.).

During the nineteenth century specific research resulted in the discovery of the causes of many diseases, but at first this progress led physicians to do less for their patients rather than more: They began to allow the body's natural healing processes to work and ceased to engage in damaging procedures like bloodletting. At the same time, they made major strides toward improving public health practices. They learned about hygiene, sterilization, and other basic principles of public health, especially the need to separate drinking water from wastewater. These innovations, which occurred before the development of more sophisticated drugs and medical technologies, contributed to a demographic revolution that is still underway in some parts of the world. Suddenly rates of infant mortality decreased dramatically, birth began to outnumber death, and life expectancy increased. This change resulted not from the highly sophisticated techniques of modern medicine but largely from the application of simple sanitation techniques and sterilization procedures (Rosner, 1995). In fact, these simple technologies have had such a marked effect on infant survival that the rate of infant mortality in a society is often used as a quick measure of its social and economic development.

In sum, as medical science progressed toward greater understanding of the nature of disease and its prevention, new public health and maternal care practices contributed to rapid population growth. In the second half of the nineteenth century, such discoveries as antiseptics and anesthesia made possible other life-prolonging medical treatments. In analyzing the effects of these technologies, sociologists ask how people in different social classes gained access to them and how they can be more equitably distributed among the members of a society. The ways in which medical technologies have been institutionalized in hospitals and the medical profession are a central focus of sociological research on these questions.

The Hospital: From Poorhouse to Healing Institution

In the twentieth century the nature of medicine changed dramatically as scientific investigations expanded our knowledge of the causes and cures of disease. That knowledge led to the development of a vast array of technologies for the prevention and cure of many known illnesses, as well as the long-term care of terminally ill patients. Because the more complex of these technologies are applied in a hospital setting, it is worthwhile to consider the development of the hospital as the major social institution for the delivery of healthcare.

Historically, hospitals evolved through several stages, beginning as religious centers and eventually developing into centers of medical technology (Cockerham, 2001). The first hospitals were associated with the rise of Christianity; they were community centers for the care of the sick and the poor, providing not only limited medical care but also food, shelter, and prayer. During the Renaissance, hospitals were removed from the jurisdiction of the church and became public facilities. Because they offered food and shelter to the poor regardless of their health, they soon became crowded with invalids, the aged, orphans, and the mentally ill. The third phase in the development of hospitals began in the seventeenth century, when physicians gained influence over the care of patients in hospitals. Gradually the nonmedical tasks of hospitals disappeared, and the hospital took on its present role as an institution for medical care and research.

The modern hospital began to emerge at the end of the nineteenth century as a result of the development of the science of medicine. Especially important were advances in bacteriology and increased knowledge of human physiology, along with the use of ether as an anesthetic. Because the new medical technologies were more complex and often more expensive than earlier forms of treatment, they were centralized in hospitals so that many physicians could use them. Physicians also began to refer patients of all social classes to hospitals, and those patients paid for the services provided to them there. In the United States the number of hospitals grew rapidly in the twentieth century from a few hundred at the turn of the century to more than 6,500 in the 1990s.

Today hospitals play an important role in the control of medical practice and access to medical care. For example, doctors who want to practice in a particular hospital must be accepted by the hospital's medical board. Patients who want high-quality care in private hospitals must be able to pay the fees charged by those hospitals or have the necessary insurance coverage. And hospitals have a monopoly on advanced medical technologies, a fact that has had a major impact on the American healthcare system.

Medical sociology

Paul Starr's 1982 study (The Social Transformation of American Medicine) of the evolution of healthcare institutions had a major impact on the healthcare reform movement of the 1990s. It is an excellent example of medical sociology. This relatively new field of study has emerged in response to the development of medicine as a major institution of modern societies. Many sociologists are employed by healthcare institutions, and some medical schools have established faculty positions for sociologists. these trends are further evidence of the increasing role of sociology in assessing the effects of technological change on other aspects of society.

In recent years medical sociologists have faced a new and serious challenge: helping society cope with the ethical issues that arise as it becomes increasingly possible to prolong human life by artificial means. Procedures such as heart transplants are extremely expensive and cannot possibly be made available to all patients who need them. Are they to be limited to those who can pay for them? If not, how should the patients who will benefit from such procedures be chosen? Medical sociologists are often asked to conduct research that will affect decisions of this nature---a form of technology assessment (a form of policy research that examines short- and long-term consequences of the application of technology).

*MAIN SOURCE: KORNBLUM, W., (2003), SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., PP. 659-662*

end

Sociological Imagination: How to Gain Wisdom about the Society in which We All Participate and for Whose Future We Are All Responsible (part 48)

My students often ask me, 'What is sociology?' And I tell them, 'It's the study of the way in which human beings are shaped by things that they don't see.'

Sam Richards

A significant aspect of modern science is its contribution to the rapid pace of technological change. The technologies produced by scientific research are applied to all aspects of human life and hence are a major force in shaping and changing other institutions in addition to scientific institutions themselves. An example is the impact of technological change on the institutions of mass communication. The advent of radio and then television dramatically changed the ways in which social and cultural values are transmitted to various groups in society. Now it is possible for people and regions of the world that lack up-to-date telephone systems to "leapfrog" over technical problems by purchasing cellular phones, which do not require a vast telecommunications infrastructure. We will note other examples of the impact of technology in the following sections, but first it is necessary to enlarge our understanding of what is meant by the term technology.

Dimensions of Technology

Technology encompasses more than tools and skills, ways of organizing work are also part of technology. Technology has three dimensions, which may be summarized as follows:

1. Technological tools, instruments, machines, gadgets, which are used in accomplishing a variety of tasks. These material objects are best referred to as apparatus, the physical devices of technical performance.
2. The body of technical skills, procedures, routines---all activities or behaviors that employ a purposive, step-by-step, rational method of doing things
3. The organizational networks associated with activities and apparatus (Winner, 1977, Autonomous Technology, pp. 11-12)

The last of these dimensions may be clarified buy an example. Organizational networks are sets of statuses and roles. All technologies establish or modify such networks. Thus the automobile owner is part of a network that includes dealers, mechanics, parts suppliers, insurers, licensing agents, and junkyard owners. Our great-great-grandparents were probably part of a network of horse dealers, harness makers, buggy suppliers, and blacksmiths, a network that has been largely eliminated by the advent of motorized vehicles.

Technological change can occur in any or all of the dimensions just listed. The most far-reaching changes involve all three, especially the third. For example, the Industrial Revolution completely changed the organization of economic institutions and also had significant effects on other institutions, such as the family. Likewise, the internal combustion engine, which made possible the development of the automobile, has completely transformed the ecology of North America (Flink, 1988, The Automobile Age). Since 1969 the total number of vehicles in the United States has grown 6 times faster than the total population (Wald, M. I. (Sep. 21, 1997) Number of Cars is Growing Faster Than Human Population. New York Times, p. 35). On the other hand, some technological changes are limited to modifications in the apparatus or technical skills needed for a particular task (the surgical stapler is an example) and do not affect large numbers of people or have major social impacts.

Not only do technological changes affect various groups and institutions within a society, and sometimes transform a society, but technology itself is affected by the social conditions prevailing at any given time. The acceptance of a particular technological innovation may depend on prior changes in other aspects of a society. Thus television might not have had as great an impact if it had been invented in the nineteenth century, when working people had far less leisure time than they do today. Other Innovations have failed to gain acceptance because they appeared too soon. An example is the Sony Corporation's unsuccessful attempt to introduce tape recorders in Japan in 1950. Japanese consumers did not perceive a need or use for them, and they went unsold (Kornblum, W., 2003, Sociology in a Changing World, 6th ed., p.653).

Technological Dualism

It should be noted that the effects of new technologies are not always positive. The phrase technological dualism is sometimes used to refer to the fact that technological changes often have both positive and negative effects. The introduction of diesel locomotives, for example, greatly increased the efficiency of railroad operations, but it also led to the decline and eventual abandonment of railroad towns whose economies were based on the servicing of steam locomotives (Cottrell, 1951, Death by Dieselization. American Sociological Review, 16, 358-365). Another example is the automation of industrial production. Automation has greatly improved the manufacturing processes in many industries. It has increased the safety of certain production tasks and led to improved product quality in many cases. But it has also replaced thousands of manual workers with machines, and significant numbers of those workers find themselves unemployed and lacking the skills required by the high-tech occupations of post industrial society.

Technology and Social Change

Among catalysts of social change, technological innovation ranks extremely high, along with major social forces such as population growth, war, epidemics, and rising expectations for better lives. Technological change can also rapidly effect large-scale social change, often well within an individual life span. One need only think of the impact of television. This powerful communications medium, introduced in the United States on a mass basis in the 1950s has significantly altered the way people receive information about their society and the world, how they behave as consumers, how they engage in politics, and how they use their leisure time. 

William Fielding Ogburn's theory of cultural lag is the classic sociological treatment of how societies adjust to technological change and the problems that can result. The Lags described by Ogburn can be at least partially reduced by the process of technology assessment, or efforts to anticipate the consequences of particular technologies for individuals and for society as a whole. For instance, a massive plan to reduce air pollution in any the Los Angeles basin requires careful assessment. According to the National Environmental Policy Act and related state laws, any major action by a public agency that affects the environment must be assessed for its impact on the environment and on the citizens involved. Laws that require technology assessment---especially those that require corporations to abide by the findings of such assessments---tend to increase the power of citizens in communities affected by technological change. They are there for a source of both conflict and of movements for social reform. In the Los Angeles case, a few small, and adequately funded environmental organizations have succeeded in forcing the California Environmental Policy Administration to fund the plan to reduce air pollution (Brown & Kiel, 2000; Kahn, 2000).

*MAIN SOURCE: KORNBLUM, W., (2003), SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., PP. 652-656*

end

Sociological Imagination: How to Gain Wisdom about the Society in which We All Participate and for Whose Future We Are All Responsible (part 47)

I studied psychology and sociology. I think my assumption was that I would go to graduate school, and I don't know what I was going to do after that.

K. Flay

From the interactionist perspective, political institutions, like all others, are "socially constructed" in the course of human interaction. They do not simply come into being as structures of norms, statuses, and roles and then continue to function without change. Instead, they are continually being shaped and reshaped through interaction. This view closely parallels the popular notion that democratic political institutions must be continually challenged if they are to live up to their ideals. Otherwise they will become oligarchies that rule for the benefit of small cliques rather than for the mass of citizens (Oberschall, 1996, Social Movements).

The question of how social interaction affects a society's political institutions was a central concern of the leading philosophers of ancient Greece. In his Politics, for example, Aristotle held that "humans were made for life in society just as bees were made for life in the hive" (Bernard, 1973, The Sociology of Community, p. 30). Because humans are "political animals," Aristotle believed, their constant discussions of political issues and their ability to form coalitions allow them to arrive at a consensus regarding what a good society is and how it should be governed. Unfortunately, he concluded, existing political systems were flawed. The divisions and gaps in interaction created by wealth prevented consensus and created conflict. Moreover, people in occupations like farming did not have enough time to examine all the sides of an issue and work toward agreement with their fellow citizens. In a good society, therefore, all the citizens must be free to devote their full attention to political affairs. In practice, Greek democracy required an economy based on the labor of slaves.

Nearly two thousand years later the Italian political advisor Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) again took up the relationship between human interaction and political institutions. Machiavelli believed that political institutions had to be based on the recognition that all human beings are capable of evil as well as good. In his Discourses he made this observation:

All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate . . . that whosoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start by assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find an occasion for it. (1950/1513, Discourses and The Prince, vol. 1, p. 3)

 

Some people, he admitted, are merciful, faithful, humane, and sincere, but even though there are virtuous people in every society, political leaders must anticipate the worst possible behavior. In his most famous work The Prince, Machiavelli suggested that the wise ruler or prince would be a master of astuteness---the ability to read the intentions of allies and opponents in the tiniest of gestures and reactions---and would also have mastered the skills of diplomacy. He used the following comparison to make this point:

A prince must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from the traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this (1950/1513, vol. 1, p. 66)

In the five centuries since they were originally formulated, these ideas have had a powerful influence on political thinkers. The authors of the U.S. Constitution, for example, attempted to avoid situations in which "foxes" or "lions" could take advantage of the weaknesses of others. They anticipated the more self-serving aspects of political interaction rather than simply assuming that a new society would bring about cooperation among the citizens: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary" (The Federalist, number 51). This is why they planned a government in which each of the major branches would be able to check any abuse of power by the other branches.

Political Interaction in the "Democratic Experiment" In the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, visited the world's first experiment in national democracy. Although the United States was by no means a true democracy since it condoned slavery, indentured servants, and war against Native Americans, European social thinkers took a keen interest in the model of citizen rule through democratic institutions that was being established in the new nation. Tocqueville was stunned by the "tumult" of American political interactions, which must be seen in order to be understood." In America, he wrote, political activity was in evidence everywhere:

A confused clamour is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the immediate satisfaction of their social wants. Everything is in motion around you; here, the people of one quarter of a town are meant to decide upon the building of a church; there, the election of a representative is going on; a little further, the delegates of a district are traveling in a hurry to the town in order to consult upon some local Improvement; or, in another place, the labourers of a village quit their plows to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public school. (1980/1835, On Democracy, Revolution, and Societyp. 78) 

Toqueville was concerned that democratic societies might encourage the rise of demagogues who could manipulate the masses, but his observations persuaded him that the immense number of competing groups in the American political system would prevent this from happening. And while he worried about the possibility of political conflict tearing the young nation apart, he became convinced that Americans' love of liberty and belief in the legitimacy of their political institutions would carry them through any crisis that might arise.

The Media and Political Communication In a world in which the techniques of communication are increasingly sophisticated, it becomes ever more important to analyze political communications and to read between the lines of political rhetoric. Political jargon often makes masks deeds that leaders would rather not admit to. George Orwell, a master of political commentary, made this point in his essay "Politics and the English Language":

Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. . . . Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they could carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are in prison for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. (1950, p. 136)

The point of his essay is that to be politically objective, to seek the true meanings of political acts and the consequences of political beliefs, we must "start at the verbal end":

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. . . . If you simplify your English when you make a stupid remark it's stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn out and useless phrase . . . into the dustbin where it belongs. (p. 140)

*MAIN SOURCE: KORNBLUM, W., (2003), SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., PP. 628-633*

end 

Sociological Imagination: How to Gain Wisdom about the Society in which We All Participate and for Whose Future We Are All Responsible (part 46)

I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

Andre Dubus III

In contrast to oligarchies and totalitarian regimes, democratic societies offer all its citizens the right to participate in public decision making. This description leaves open the question: How can a society accommodate competition or conflict among its members and social groups and yet maintain social cohesion and legitimacy of state authority (Lipset, 1998, One Nation After All. Wilson Quarterly, 22, 100-102)? One answer is that a society can resolve conflicts through democratic processes. But this leads us to ask what conditions allow democratic institutions to form, and once formed, what ensures that they actually function to reduce the inequalities that engender conflict. The broadest test of democratic institutions is not whether they are embodied in formal organizations like legislatures and courts but whether they are able to address the problems of inequality and injustice in the society.

There are at least three schools of sociological thought regarding these questions. The first, derived from the functionalist perspective, asserts that democratic political institutions can develop and operate only when certain structural prerequisites, such as a large middle-class, exist in a society. The second school of thought, often referred to as the power elite model, is based on the conflict perspective. It is highly critical of the functionalist view, supporting its criticism with evidence of the ways in which so-called democratic political institutions actually operate to favor the affluent. A third position, known as the pluralist model, asserts that the existence of ruling elites does not mean that a society is undemocratic, as long as there are divisions within the elite and new groups are able to seek power and bargain for policies that favor their interests.

Structural Prerequisites of Democracy and the Rule of Law 

Seymour Martin Lipset (1981, Political Man; 1994, The Social Prerequisites of Democracy Revisited. American Sociological Review, 59, 1-22) argues that democratic political institutions are relatively rare because if they are to exist and function well, the society must have attained a high level of economic and cultural development. To prove his theory, Lipset surveyed data on elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, and party systems in 48 nation-states and subsequently in many other countries (Lipset, 1994). He found that the presence of these institutions was correlated with a nation's level of economic development, its degree of urbanization, the literacy of its citizens, and the degree to which its culture values equality and tolerates descent.

In this cross-cultural research and in his research on democracy in the United States, Lipset attempted to show that the growth of a large middle class is essential to democracy. The middle class population tends to be highly literate and, hence, able to make decisions about complex political and social issues. Moreover, middle-class citizens believe that they have a stake in their society and its political institutions. Accordingly, they often support policies that would reduce the class and status cleavages---the distinctions between the haves and the have-nots---that produce social conflict.

Sociologist who studied voting behavior tend to support Lipset's thesis that the stability of democratic institutions rests on structural features that diminish conflict in a society. But their research has revealed something less than complete stability. Maurice Janowitz (1978, The Last Half Century: Societal Change and Politics in America) made this observation, which is even more true today:

Since 1952, there has been an increase in the magnitude of shifts in voting patterns from one national election to the next. increasingly important segments of the electorate are prepared to change their preference for president and also to engage in ticket-splitting [voting for candidates of different parties]. (p. 102)

The shifts in voting behavior may represent new alignments of voters that could lead to major changes in the nation's public policies. The important point, however, is that these realignments, while they influence which parties and political leaders gain or lose power, do not affect the process of democratic competition itself.

The Power Elite Model

However important elections are to the functioning of democratic institutions, there are strong arguments against the idea that they significantly affect the way a society is governed. Some social scientists find, for example, that political decisions are controlled by an elite of rich and powerful individuals (Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 1998, Diversity in the Power Elite). This "power elite" tolerates the formal organizations and procedures of democracy (elections, legislatures, courts, etc.) because it is essentially owns them and can make sure that they act in its interest no matter what the outcome of elections may be. C. Wright Mills, the chief proponent of this point of view, has described the power elite as follows:

The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women. They are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. . . .They are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state. . . . They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure. . . . The power elite are not solitary rulers. Immediately below the elite are the professional politicians of the middle levels of power, in the Congress and in the pressure groups, as well as among the new and old upper classes of town and city and regions. Mingling with them in curious ways are those professional celebrities who live by being continually displayed. (1956, p. 4)

When it was first published, Mills's The Power Elite created a stir among sociologists. Mills challenged the assumption that societies that have democratic political institutions are in fact democratic. He asserted instead that party politics and elections are little more than rituals. Power is exercised by a ruling elite of immensely powerful military, business, and political leaders that can put its members into positions of authority whenever it wishes to do so. Mills's claim was significant for another reason as well: Although Mills appreciated Marx's views on the role of class conflict in social change, he did not believe that the working class could win power without joining forces with the middle class. He therefore attempted to demonstrate the existence of a ruling elite to an educated public, which would then, he hoped, be able to see through the rituals of political life and make changes through legitimate means.

Other sociologists have questioned the power elite thesis on methodological grounds. For example, Talcott Parsons (1960, Structure and Process in Modern Societies) noted that the power elite was supposed to act behind the scenes rather than publicly. Therefore its actions could not be observed, and the power elite thesis could not be either proved or disproved. The power elite thesis therefore was not scientifically sound, according to Parsons.

Numerous adherents of the power elite thesis have attempted to show that a ruling elite does indeed exist and that its activities can be observed. One of the best known of these researchers is Floyd Hunter (1953, Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers), whose classic studies of Atlanta's community power structure attempted to show that no more than 40 powerful men were considered to have the ability to make decisions on important issues facing the city and its people. Most of these men were conservative, cost-conscious business leaders. The Hunter study stimulated many attempts to find similar power structures in other cities and in the nation as a whole (Domhoff, 1983, Who Rules America Now? Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 1998). But although the term power structure has found its way into the language of politics, these studies have been strongly criticized for basing their conclusions on what people say about who has power rather than on observations of what people with power actually do (Oppenheimer, [1999, September], We Made It, So What? Monthly Review).

The Pluralist Model

The power elite thesis has not gone unchallenged. In another famous study of politics---this one in New Haven, Connecticut---Robert Dahl (1961, Who Governs?) found that different individuals played roles in different types of decisions. No single group was responsible for all the decisions that might affect the city's future. No power elite ruled the city, Dahl argued. Instead, several elites interacted in various ways on decisions that affected them. In situations in which the interests of numerous groups were involved, a plurality of decision-makers engaged in a process of coalition-building and bargaining.

The pluralist model calls attention to the activities of interest groups at all levels of society (Reidy, 2001, Pluralism, Liberal Democracy, and Compulsory Education. Journal of Social Philosophy, 32, 585-609). Interest groups are not political parties; they are specialized organizations that attempt to influence elected and appointed officials on specific issues. These attempts range from lobbying---the process whereby interest groups seek to persuade legislators to vote in their favor on particular bills---to making contributions to parties and candidates who will support their goals. Trade unions seeking legislation that would limit Imports, organizations for the handicapped seeking regulations that would give them access to public buildings, and ethnic groups seeking to influence U.S. policy toward their country of origin are among the many kinds of interest groups that are active in the United States today (Oberschall, 1996, Social Movements). 

In recent decades, as the number of organized interest groups has grown, so has the complexity of the bargaining that takes place between them and the officials they want to influence. Social scientists who study politics from the pluralist perspective frequently wonder whether the activities of these groups threaten the ability of elected officials to govern effectively. Thus a study of a federal economic development project in Oakland, California, found that the personnel in the agency responsible for such projects had to learn to deal with supporting and opposing interest group leaders and elected officials throughout the life of the project. It took six years of constant negotiation on many unanticipated issues---affirmative action and employment, environmental concerns, design specifications---before a firm could win a contract to build an airplane hangar (Pressman & Wildavsky, 1984, Implementation, 3rd ed.). 

*MAIN SOURCE: KORNBLUM, W., (2003), SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., PP. 626-628*

end