Political sociology

This branch of sociology deals with society in relation to political organizations .It attempts to understand the socio-political trends of a society and tries to come to a judgment based on the standard trends that occur from time to time. These socio-political trends do helps in understanding the political process and the forces that help in bringing about changes in different political plans. This study also deals with the application of different sociological theories to major political issues and observes its effect on the society. The three major theories such as pluralism, elite and social class analysis are considered while dealing with subject. While politics is a contest among different political groups in the pluralistic theory, the elite theory or managerial approach or the state-centered approach looks at politics from a managerial level and tries to explain the different constraints from the organizational structure and considers them unique and ordained with power. On the other hand, the social class theory upholds the political power of the capitalist elites which emerged from the Marxists theory of the 1850s which is based on economic exploitation of the rich over the poor. This theory is sub divided into two, namely the power structure approach and the structuralist approach. The former lays emphasis on who would rule and the most popular proponent of this theory is G.William Domhoff .The later looks at how the capitalists economy works and encourages the state to take action .State is all important in this approach and the well known person associated with this approach was Nicos Poulantzas. Political sociology also deals with the role of personalities in the power politics. It brings to the limelight everything and everyone who are politicized in the society .We get to know values, lifestyle of the society, economic scenario based on the political milieu of the time.