Political Sociology, by W.

Lawrence Neuman

Political sociology is the study of power and the intersection of society and politics. Power

is a pervasive, fundamental dimension of social relations and institutions, while politics refers to

institutionalized processes by which social groups (i.e., classes, genders, races, and so forth)

acquire, extend, apply, maintain, and struggle over power. The field’s relevance extends beyond

explaining political behavior to generating broad understandings of power, and it is more a

perspective that cuts across many diverse topics than a fixed content area. It is a dynamic field

that has periodically re-invented itself. Orum (1996:142) remarked, "Political sociology in the

past fifteen years or so has come to look vastly different from a generation ago," and others

(Nash 2000) see a “new” political sociology emerging. Other areas of sociology borrow from

political sociology forging links across diverse subfields.

Political sociology is interdisciplinary -- where political science and sociology intersect. Like

other interdisciplinary fields (e.g., social psychology, historical sociology, political philosophy),

the boundary line shifts and is permeable which allows for interchange and creativity (see Hicks

1995). Political scientists and political sociologists may study the same phenomena (e.g., voting

processes, public policy development, and protest) but tend to concentrate on different issues,

ask different questions, and apply distinct analytic perspectives. Thus, political sociologists and

political scientists both study elections, but the political scientist asks, Who won and by how

much, who voted for which candidate, or how did a political party mobilize its supporters. By

contrast, a political sociologist asks, how does voting compare to other means of gaining power,

does an election outcome influence life chances for various social sectors, or can elections alter

the distribution of power among the major classes/groups/sectors of a society?

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 Political scientists focus the operation of political institutions (empirical political science) or

consider ideal forms of governing (normative political science). They might examine the

committee structure of legislative body, study how alternative voting rules affect election

outcomes, or consider what makes a law "just" or "fair" relative to a set of political principles.

Political scientists concentrate on the “front stage” of the “game of politics” in government at

local, national, or international levels and map out their operations (e.g., voting in elections,

passing new laws, and administering a policy). They focus on government’s internal structure

(e.g., unified or divided, centralized or decentralized, tall or flat hierarchy) and mechanics (e.g.,

who gets elected, which laws are passed, which agency budget grew).

By contrast, political sociologists see government as one of multiple sites of concentrated

power -- simultaneously a site of power and an apparatus over which groups contest for control.

They examine how social institutions/groups/forces interface with the political sphere of

governing and struggles for power. They see “the political” permeating society -- evident as

sexual politics, cultural politics, racial politics, religious politics, educational politics, or

environmental politics. Political sociologists borrow ideas, issues, and research techniques and

synthesize them with traditional sociological concerns by focusing on power relations wherever

they appear or extend beyond the boundaries of traditional sociology. While a few areas of

political sociology are applied (e.g., voting outcomes, policy contests), most effort is directed at

developing a critical understanding of fundamental power dynamics.

Historical Development of the Field

Political sociology emerged out of late 19th century German and Italian social and political

thought. It founders include Karl Marx (1818-1883), Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Gaetano

Mosca (1858-1941), Max Weber (1864-1920), Robert Michels (1876-1936), and Antonio

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Gramsci (1891-1937). Their concern was to explain how capitalist industrialization displaced

feudal institutions/relations and sparked clashes among peasants, merchants, workers and owners,

and how the nation state altered the consolidation of elite power and sparked demands for

democratic citizen participation.

After World War II, political sociology’s center shifted from Western Europe to the United

States and the “classic era” of contemporary political sociology began. With the defeat of

fascism, the onset of the Cold War, and the demise of colonialism, Americans saw themselves as

the undisputed world leader of industrial capitalism with democratic politics and economic

freedom. Strong domestic economic growth and social stability fostered a mood of optimism

and self-assurance. One central question became, Why do some societies become democratic

while others become totalitarian (e.g., the fascist regimes of Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain or

the communist regimes of Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and North Korea))? As Morris Janowitz

(1968:306) summarized, “political sociology has come to be linked to the analysis of the

economic social, and psychological preconditions for political democracy.” Political sociologists

applied modernization theory to outline the societal conditions that reinforced or threatened

democracy (Almond and Verba 1963; Apter 1965; Bendix 1964; Deutsch 1966, Huntington

1968; Moore 1966; Lipset 1963). To them, liberal democracy emerged from advancing

industrial capitalism, an expanding educated middle class, and a defeat of traditional ruling elites.

A democratic forms of governance required “modern” social-political institutions and values

favoring popular participation, rule of law, and tolerance for dissent.

A second concern was to analyze the social bases of voting. This grew from a belief that

formal democratic processes facilitated a peaceful resolution of conflicts among contenting

groups. Two paradigmatic 1960 works, Lipset's Political Man and Campbell et. al.’s The

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American Voter, emphasized societal consensus and an absence of irreparable social divisions or

polarizing ideologies. Both argued that Americans were only modestly interested in politics and

voted to advance the interests of their social group. Expanding social programs of the era were

seen as responsive governments addressing the changing demography and evolving social needs

of an industrial society (Cutright 1963, 1965; Wilensky 1975; Wilensky and Lebeaux 1958).

A third issue was to identify supporters of right-wing or left-wing political extremism.

Political sociologists also asked why others were tolerant and defended civil liberties (Bell 1964;

Stouffer 1955). The intolerant were a mass of uneducated, low income, marginal people who did

not embrace establishment norms, and as Kornhauser (1959:228) warned that, "the main danger

to political order and civil liberty is the domination of elites by masses." Lane (1960) found that

while few people were intensively involved in politics, most embraced basic democratic values.

By implication, well-educated middle-class, professional white-collar workers, business owners

and upper-level managers were seen as the bastion of a stable democratic society.

Political sociologists also examined Michels’ "Iron Law of Oligarchy” that large-scale

bureaucratic organizations spread in modern industrial society producing anti-democratic

tendencies. This contradicted the idea that modern industrial societies were becoming more

democratic. In Lipset, Trow, and Coleman (1956) examined blue-collar workers in a large

bureaucratic union bureaucratic setting and discovered that it operated on democratic principles,

contradicting both the Iron Law of Oligarchy and distrust of “marginal” blue-collar workers. Yet,

the union they studied was atypical. It had well-educated, high-skill workers who strongly held

professional norms and had an intense sense of community. Thus, the findings reinforced the

thesis that middle-class values sustained democratic politics.

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 In this period, political sociology shared structural functionalist assumptions about a value

consensus. In Bell (1960) argued that rising living standards, an expanding middle class, and

increased education levels would weaken ideological thinking and strengthen democratic values.

At the same time, few Americans were informed or involved in politics, and most people lacked

consistent, stable political views (Berelson, et. al. 1954, Campbell, et. al.1960, Converse 1964).

An apparent contradiction between widespread apathy and participatory democracy was

reconciled by arguing people were uninvolved because they were satisfied. This fit the idea that

slow, evolution was preferable to rapid, disruptive social change that could generate social

strains or disturb the equilibrium of a smooth-functioning social system (Smelser 1963).

A few mavericks in the classic era rejected mainstream views. Some (Domhoff 1967; Hunter

1953; Mills 1956; Williams 1964) studied America’s “power structure.” They questioned the

prevailing democratic image and saw elites with great power. Others (Edelman 1964; Gusfield

1963) emphasized symbols in politics and saw political actors using emotional appeals or

manipulating symbols to distract people and advance their own political goals. Still other

(Downs 1957; Olson 1965) applied economic models, now called rational choice theory, to

politics By the mid-1960s, political sociology had become a firmly established field with

sophisticated theory, critical questions, and an established body of knowledge (see Bendix 1968;

Bendix and Lipset 1957; Janowitz 1968; Lipset 1959a; also see Hall 1981).

Political sociology sharply changed direction in the 1970s because it had failed to anticipate

and could not explain a dramatic turn in political events. Theoretical breakthroughs transformed

the field just as graduate programs expanded, producing a flood of new scholars without a

committed to previous concerns. A major new focus of attention was protest movements. In the

classic era (1945-1970), protest was viewed as irrational outbursts by isolated malcontents. New

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research contradicted such a view and found that most protesters were socially integrated and

had deep commitments to democratic ideals but were wrestling power from entrenched elites

(Piven and Cloward 1971, 1977; Gamson 1968; Tilly 1978). Others showed how parts of the

American government engaged in anti-democratic spying against its own citizens who

questioned political elites (Wolfe 1973). More than allying with American values, democracy

advanced when a range of social groups competed (Skocpol 1979; Paige 1975; Tilly 1975; Wolf

1969). Others rejected the modernization thesis that all nations were inevitably progressing

toward industrialism and democracy. Instead, they saw First World governments and

corporations working with local dictators to suppress grass-roots democratic worker and peasant

movements (Baran and Sweezy 1966, Frank 1967, Petras 1969, Wallerstein 1976, Zeitlin 1967).

Others questioned classic-era assumptions that democratic governments reflected the

majority’s wishes and asked, Does America have a ruling class? At the same time, Europeans

debated the larger capitalism-state relationship and how capitalism shaped state forms and

actions (Miliband 1969; Poulantzas 1973). Others (e.g., Korpi 1978; Piven and Cloward 1971,

1977) saw social welfare programs as hard-won concessions granted by rulers to the demands by

politically mobilized workers and the poor. Others said that big businesses favored and

controlled regulation in the Progressive Era, (Kolko 1963; Weinstein 1968) and large

corporations dominated U.S. foreign policy (Shoup and Minter, 1977). Meanwhile, classic era

thinkers blamed 1960s-era social unrest on “excessive democracy” (Crozier et. al. 1975).

Dispersion and Fragmentation

By the 1980s, unrest had faded and politics shifted rightward in much of the Western world.

Simultaneously, funding for social science research declined, graduate programs shrank, and

student interest waned. New academic fields, such as environmental studies, urban studies, race

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and ethnic studies, cultural studies, or women’s studies, grew and borrowed from political

sociology. At the close of the 20th century, Orum (1996:132) observed, "there no longer is any

kind of coherent paradigm that guides the work of political sociology in America."

Current Theoretical Approaches and Content Areas

Political sociologists apply several theories to substantive issues. While each theory

claims to be comprehensive, they are usually designed for specific issues and rarely directly

compete. The theoretical approaches operate at different levels of analysis, and what one

approach treats as a major issue another may view as peripheral (Alford and Friedland 1985).

Theoretical Approaches

The approaches were developed and gained adherents in different eras. Pluralism was

dominant in the classic era but waned in the 1970s. It sees politics primarily as a contest among

competing interest groups and the emphasis is on the first (most overt, visible) dimension of

power (Lukes 1974). Pluralism shares an assumption of societal consensus with structural

functionalism and treats the state as a neutral apparatus that balances competing popular

demands that people express through elections and public opinion. Although strongest in

political science (see Dahl 1956), a few sociologists (see Burstein 1981, 1998; Burnstein and

Linton 2002) also embrace pluralist theory.

A managerial (Alford and Friedland 1985) or the state-centered approach (Amenta 1998;

Clemens 1993; Orloff 1993; Skocpol 1985; Skocpol and Amenta 1985, 1986) grew from

organizational and classic elite theory (e.g., Michels, Mosca and Pareto). In it nation states are

“conceived as organizations claiming control over territories and people” with “goals that are not

simply reflective of the demands of interests social groups, classes, or society” (Skocpol 1985:9).

State actions are explained by looking at constraints from organizational structure, semi-

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autonomous state managers, and interests arising from the state as a unique, power concentrating

organization, including the state’s role in an international system of nation states.

A third major approach, class analysis, gained dominance from the mid-1970s to the

early 1990s. Two versions were outlined in the structuralist-instrumentalist debate of the 1970s

(see Barrow 1993) that posed an Anglo-America power structure model (called instrumentalist

by detractors) approach (see Domhoff 1970, 1974, 1978, 1980 1990; Miliband 1969, 1977, 1982)

against French structuralist theory (represented by Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Michel

Foucault, and Claude Levi-Strauss). The power structure model posited a ruling class comprised

of capitalists and a powerful “inner circle” (Useem 1984) who are class-conscious political

actors. Common socialization, internal cohesion, class awareness, and collective action by

mobilized class actors created a class that directly in rules. By contrast, structuralist theory

(Block 1981, 1987; Jessop 1982, 1990; O’Connor 1973, 1984; Poulantazas 1973, 1974, 1978;

Wright 1978) saw little need for active, direct rule by capitalist class actors. This is because a

functional relationship (i.e., the state’s structural position in capitalism) requires the state to

satisfy system needs for capital accumulation and political legitimation. Thus, the structure of

capitalism, not class members actively using the state as an instrument, assures class dominance.

A key mechanism is structural dependency (see Swank 1992) in which the state’s reliance a

capitalist economy for revenue forces conformity to capitalist system requirements. Structuralists

explained stagflation (high inflation with slow growth) and welfare state growth of the 1970s

using the idea of a “fiscal crisis of the state” (Block 1981; O Connor 1973). The crisis arose

from a contradiction between the requirement to advance capital accumulation and to provide

political legitimation (by being responsive to the public and providing tax absorbing social

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programs). As taxes increased to satisfy legitimation demands, they slowed capital accumulation

and economic growth, creating major fiscal problems.

Another third class analysis model moved beyond the structural-instrumentalist impasse

to emphasize class struggles and relative autonomy. The idea of relative autonomy is that while

the state cannot oppose core capitalist economic principles, state actions were not strictly

predetermined. This gives state managers some maneuvering room. The mobilization and

struggles among classes, subgroups within classes, and non-class groupings shape state actions in

specific historical contexts. The degree of state autonomy expands or contracts based on

domestic and external factors. This model moved attention away from issues of class cohesion,

the class background of state managers, and economic functionalism and toward explaining

dynamic conflicts and class alliances under specific historical conditions.

Approaches from three areas of sociology also have influence in political sociology --

rational choice, constructionism and new institutionalism. Rational choice is popular among

political scientists and used by some political sociologists (e.g. Brustein 1996; Hechter and

Kanazawa. 1997, Kiser and Hechter 1991; Marwell and Oliver 1993). Social constructionism

adds a cultural dimension and is used at the micro and macro-levels (Eliasoph 1998; Gamson

1992; Steimetz, 1999). Lastly, “new” institutionalism (Campbell 2004; Clemens and Cook 1999;

Immergut 1998) takes emphasizes institutional arrangements while synthesizing rational choice,

organizational, and cultural themes.

Content Areas

We can the condense issues of contemporary political sociology into six areas: (1) State,

citizenship and civil society, (2) social cleavages and politics, (3) protest movements and

revolutions, (4) surveillance and control, (5) state-economy relations, and (6) the welfare state.

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1. State, citizenship, and civil society. The modern nation state emerged out of the demise of

feudalism and was coincident with the rise of industrial capitalism. Political sociologists examine

this process to better understand state structures and processes of state transformation. Post-

modernization theories of change emphasize the significance of warfare and state consolidation

of control over territory and people, especially in 17th to 19th century Europe (Brubecker 1997;

Ertman 1997; Mann 1988, 1993; Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens. 1992; Tilly 1990). It

addition to the importance of geo-political conflict, resource extraction, and power consolidation

these developments helped form a civil society with a public sphere (Calhoun 1992; Ferree et al

2002; Somers 1993). They are also tied the expanding nature of citizenship (Janoski 1990; Korpi

1989; Mann 1987; Orloff 1993; Roche 1992; Tilly 1996), including franchise expansion

(Ramirez, Soysal and Shanahan 1997). Citizenship studies are a distinct subfield focusing on

social inclusion and are tied to welfare state expansion (see below).

2. Social cleavages and politics. Classic era political sociologists examined how social cleavages

get expressed politically, and class was the most salient cleavage with the “democratic class

struggle thesis” (Alford 1963; Hout et al 1995; Korpi 1983; Lipset 1960). Political sociologists

retain an interest in social class but examine other social cleavages. Many (Brooks 2000; Brooks

and Manza 1997a, 1997b; Manza and Brooks 1997; 1998, 1999; Manza, Hout and Brooks 1995)

argue that class remains important, but has changed form and is not alone in affecting voting.

Thus, increased female labor force participation generated a new gender effect on voting,

religious cleavages have declined, professionals and managers differ in voting, and racial

differences are salient. Several political scientists (Dalton, Flanagan and Beck 1984; Inglehart

1997; Inglehart and Baker 2000) and some sociologists (Hecther 2004) argue that social class is

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no longer relevant and it has been replaced by cultural divisions (e.g., religion, non-materialist

values such as environment or health) and status differences (e.g., gender, race, ethnic group).

The debate over class versus cultural cleavage impacts on voting debate appears stagnant.

New inquiry has moved in several directions. One considers the many non-voters (Teixeria

1992; Piven and Cloward 2000); another reconceptualizes class and other social cleavages (Hall

1997; Lee and Turner 1996; Wright 1997); and a third examines the effect of class on non-

electoral forms of political mobilization (McNall, Levine and Fantasia 1991).

3. Movements and Revolutions. The study of collective behavior changed the in late 1960s as

the social movement research and political sociology merged. By the 1970s, collective protest

was understood to be a political phenomenon and the resource mobilization approach explained

movements in terms of their ability to acquire and utilize key resources (Gamson 1975; Jenkins

and Perrow 1977; McCarthy and Zald 1977; Piven and Cloward 1977; Tilly 1978; Zald and

Berger 1978; also see Jenkins 1982). An offshoot of resource mobilization theory, the Political

Process Model (McAdam 1982), placed movements firmly within political sociology by looking

beyond internal movement organization to include micromobilization processes, follower

identity transformation, and the broader political environment (Snow, Zurcher and Ekland-Olson

1980; Klandermans 1984; Klandermans and Oegema 1987 Morris 1981; McAdam 1989; Opp

and Gern 1993; Whittier 1997). Others conceptualized environmental conditions as Political

Opportunity Structures (Almeida 2003; Amenta and Zylan 1991; Gamson and Meyer 1996;

Jenkins, Jacobs and Agnone 2003; Kitschelt 1986; Meyer and Staggenborg.1996; Soule and

Olzak 2004) and this idea has been expanded into considering waves or cycles of protest over

time (Koopmans 1993; Tarrow 1994). A symbolic-cognitive dimension was added with

cognitive liberation (Morris 1992) and movement frames (Ferree 2003; Gamson and Modigliani

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1989; Snow, et al 1986; also see Benford and Snow 2000). Later research synthesized

movement frames, political opportunities and organizational forms (Clemens 1993; Diani 1996;

Snow and Bedford 1992). Some studies examined “New Social Movements,” i.e., movements

focused more on cultural issues or identity affirmation than traditional political protest (Buechler

1995; Lanara, Johnston, Gusfield 1994; Pichardo 1997). The significance of media attention

(Gamson and Wolfseld 1993; McCarthy, McPhail and Smith 1996; Myers and Caniglia 2004,

Mueller 1997; Oliver and Maney 2000; Oliver and Myers 1999), police responses to protests

(della Porta and Reiter 1998; Earl, Soule and McCarthy 2003; Wisler and Giugni 1999), and

“spillover” from one movement to another (Dixon and Roscigno. 2003; Isaac and Christiansen

2002) highlighted movements’ dynamic-interactive politics. Some examined protest’s impact on

electoral or policy outcomes (Andrews 1997, 2001; McAdam and Su 2002), while others

explored the mobilization of specific societal sectors, including corporations (Akard 1992).

Movement concepts were applied to the business community in which political mobilization to

exert political power took the form of Political Action Committees (Boies 1988; Burris 1987,

1991, 1992; Clawson and Neustadtl. 1989; Clawson and Clawson 1987; Clawson and Su 1990;

Clawson, Neustadt and Weller 1998; Clawson, Neustadtl and Bearden 1986; Mizruchi and

Koenig 1986). A few researchers studied major societal transformations or revolutions

(Goldstone 1991; Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri 1991; Lachmann 2003; Rasler 1996; Skocpol

1979).

4. Surveillance and Control. Arising out of Foucault’s (1986) concept governmentality,

Giddens’ work (1987) on surveillance, and Althusser’s concept (1978) of the Ideological State

Apparatus, political sociologists examine surveillance and social control to understand how state

authority penetrates into and regulates spheres of social life, including activities to count,

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monitor, and regulate its population (Alonso and Starr 1987, Anderson and Fienberg 1999;

Becker and Wetzell 2005; Scott 1998; Kertzer and Arel 2002; Skerry 2000; Torpey 2000).

Traditionally, criminal justice was treated as an apolitical, technical-administrative field, but

political sociologists see the legal system and the criminalization of behaviors as mechanisms of

domination and tactics deployed in power struggles. They examine targeting certain social

sectors for criminalization, historical and international patterns of imprisonment, felon

disenfranchisement, and political-ideological agendas that shape crime policy (Beckett 1994;

Behrens, Uggen and Manza 2003; Garland 2001; Jacobs and Helms 1996; Jacobs and Kleban

2003; Kent and Jacobs 2004; Savelsberg 1992, 1994; Savelsberg, Cleveland, and King. 2004;

Sutton 2000, 2004; Uggen and Manza 2002). The tension between politicized legal-criminal

issues and technical-scientific processes is itself an issue (see Styker 1989, 1990, 1994).

6. State-Economy Relations – The state’s relationship to the class of investors/capital owners and

market operations have been an ongoing concern. Studies examined how specific political-

institutional arrangements (e.g. laws and taxes, property ownership, investment and regulatory

policy) and business political activism shaped corporate capitalism’s expansion (see Campbell

1993, Campbell and Lindberg 1990; Dobbin 1992, 1994; Dobbin and Dowd 2000, Fligstein

1996; Prechel 1997; Prechel and Boies 1998; Roy 1997). This included noting how institutional

arrangements, including their idea systems, shape economic outcomes (Campbell 1998, 2002;

Campbell and Pedersen 2001). Other studies examined how de facto industrial policy and

business regulation in specific areas, including military-industrial expansion, altered economic

affairs and politics (Grant 1995, Grant and Wallace 1994; Hooks 1990, 1991, 1994; Prechel 1990,

2000). Related studies (Calavita, Pontell and Tillman 1997; Glasberg and Skidmore 1997)

looked at corporate welfare as an alternative to industrial policy in the U.S., and specifically at

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the U.S. savings and loan bailout. After the dissolution of communist regime’s command

economies, neo-liberal ideology and state-economy arrangements diffused in a post Cold War

environment, and political sociologists shifted to discussing “varieties of capitalism.” They

examined alternative structural state-economy arrangements that are integrated configurations

among the advanced capitalist nation states (Campbell 2004; Hall and Soskice 2001; Fligstein

and Sweet 2002; Kitschelt, et al 1999). Alternative arrangements and state policies developed

historically and reinforced specific patterns of corporate capitalism with implications for

economic expansion, interstate relations, and domestic labor relations and business practices.

6. Collective Goods Provision – Measured as total social spending, the percentage of the

population covered, or range of different programs, the welfare state expanded in all advanced

capitalist democracies. This became a major area of comparative research and the focus of

competing theoretical explanations. In the 1980s, researchers (Hicks and Swank 1983; Isaac

and Kelly 1981, Jenkins and Brents 1989, also see Fording 1997) explored Piven and Cloward’s

(1971, 1977) thesis that social unrest stimulated welfare spending. By the 1980s, a power

resource model became dominant. It says that conflicts among opposing social classes in

specific social-historical settings explain the timing, size, and form of welfare states. The largest,

most comprehensive, and pro-egalitarian welfare states appear in nations that have a strong and

politicized labor movement organized into social democratic or labor parties that regularly won

national elections (Huber and Stephens 2001; Korpi 1980, 1989).

After Esping-Andersen’s (1990) path-breaking work, the notion of multiple welfare state

regimes spread and has been elaborated upon (Castles and Mitchell 1992, 1993; Ferrara 1996;

Jones 1993) and extended to identify alternative pathways of welfare state expansion (Hicks

1999). Despite initial assumptions, poverty reduction has not been a major outcome of the

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welfare state (Korpi and Palme 1998, Moller et al 2003). During the 1990s, studies documented

how the specific structure and operation of a welfare state reinforced particular gender relations,

household patterns, and intra-family labor allocations (Gornick and Jacobs 1998; Korpi 2000;

Orloff 1993; 1996), and in the U.S., operated to reinforce racial inequalities (Lieberman 1998;

Manza. 2000; Quadagno 1990, 1992, 1994; Soule and Zylan 1997). The major welfare state

regimes (liberal-market, Christian democratic, social democratic) were found to have different

effects. Thus, over time attention moved from welfare state expansion, to alternative welfare

state forms, to ways welfare state operations affected a range of social and economic relations.

More recently, what had appeared to be an inevitable expansion of the welfare state since World

War II stalled in most countries during the 1990s. Debates over causes of stagnation has

focused on neo-liberal ideological dominance, domestic political outcomes or institutions, and

the economic effect of globalization (Iversen 2001; Iversen and Cusack 2000; King and Wood

1999; Korpi 2003; Pierson 2001; Stephens, Huber and Ray 1999; Swank 2002).

Future Directions

As political sociology advances into the 21st century, four lines of inquiry are posed for

further development: (1) legitimacy and identity, (2) governmentality, (3) politics beyond the

nation state, (4) a synthesis of New Institutionalism, Rational Choice, and Constructionism.

Political sociologists examined legitimacy since the 19th century, but issues of social

identity and culture are increasingly a concern. Racial-ethnic, sexuality, life-style, religious, and

other value-based cultural identity affirmations are potential sources of political division that can

be triggered under certain conditions. The ways such identities evolve, get expressed and

overlap takes place within political structures and involve power/dominance relations. Nation

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states and other political structures try to regulate and prevent conflicts among the identities to

uphold their legitimacy. This suggests reviving or adjusting Gramsci’s notion of hegemony.

Repressive social control and state surveillance continue to interest political sociologists,

with attention shifting to more subtle forms of domination and coercion, expressed Bourdieu’s

symbolic violence or Foucault’s governmentality. There is also a shift from the state apparatus

as the single site of concentrated power and domination to examine how power gets accumulated

and exercised throughout numerous social institutions and relationships. In addition to the

state’s policing, taxing, and other powers, interest is turning to how coercion and power become

embedded in the relations of a workplace, courtroom, classroom, shopping mall, hospital,

television programming, religious community, and so forth. This moves into symbolic-cultural-

idea realm, including how collective memories, communication messages, and institutional

arrangements impose social-ideational dominance and constrains free and autonomous public

sphere for open participation and discourse elaborated by Habermas.

Few political sociologists expect the nation state to disappear in the 21st century, but they

expect changes and greater salience for non-state politics. New global political structures are

arising from accelerating cross-national border flows of information, investments, culture, and

people in governments and non-government institutions (e.g., corporations, NGOs, social

movements). New local multicultural or hybrid forms are emerging both in cities and small-

scale units as well as in global institution larger than the nation state (see Boli and Thomas 1997).

Political sociology only emerged as a distinct field since 1950 with its theories built on

three core ideas: democratic participation and civic sphere for citizens, domination by elites in

state and non-state bureaucracies, and owner power in capitalist social-economic formations.

These mid-20th century concerns correspond to the pluralist, managerial, and class paradigms

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cogently outlined by Alford and Friedland (1985). As we begin the 21st century, political

sociology is focusing on institutions and trying to incorporate more sophisticated and cross-

discipline modeling as well as integrate emotive-cognitive-symbolic dimensions of social-

cultural life.

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