Chapter 14:Politics and Economy in Global Perspective

1. Chapter 14:Politics and Economy in Global Perspective

2. Objectives (slide 1 of 3) 14.1 Political Systems, Power, and Authority • Distinguish political sociology from political science. • Describe the major types of authority. 14.2 Governments Around the Globe • Identify the four basic types of government and characteristics of each. • Discuss some of the ways in which political authority is transferred. 14.3 The US Political System • Compare and contrast the US political system with other democracies.

3. Objectives (slide 2 of 3) 14.4 Theoretical Perspectives on Power and Political Systems • Illustrate the functionalist and conflict perspectives on political power. 14.5 War and Peace • Explain the causes, types, and costs of wars, as well as the ways warfare is evolving. • Discuss the changing demographic composition of the US armed forces. • Discuss ways the United States has tried to deter attack as well as seek diplomatic resolutions. 14.6 Economy and Economic Systems in Transition • Identify and describe historically different economies and the nature of work within each.

4. Objectives (slide 3 of 3) 14.7 Global Economic Systems • Compare and contrast the key characteristics, common differences, and historical trends of capitalism and socialism. 14.8 Theoretical Perspectives on Economy and Work • Illustrate the functional, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives as they apply to the economy and work. 14.9 Postindustrial US Economy and Work • Describe the changes in economics and work demographics in the postindustrial era in the United States.

5. Political Systems, Power, and Authority (slide 1 of 2) • State:The political entity having a monopoly over the use of force in a specific geographic territory • Government:The formal organization that acts on behalf of the state to regulate interactions with other states and among citizens of the state • Power: The ability to realize one’s goals and interests, even in the face of resistance

6. Political Systems, Power, and Authority (slide 2 of 2) • Coercion:Occurs when one person or group forces its will on another, based on the threat of physical force or violence • Influence:The exercise of power through the process of persuasion • Authority:Power that has been institutionalized and is recognized as legitimate by the people over whom it is exercised

7. Types of Authority • Traditional authority: Power conferred by custom and accepted practice • Legal-rational authority: Power derived from written rules and regulations of political systems • Charismatic authority:Power made legitimate by a leader’s exceptional personal characteristics and emotional appeal to his or her followers

8. Monarchy • Monarchy:A government ruled by a family in which the right to rule is passed from one generation to the next by inheritance • City-states:Small centers of power restricted to cities in which a monarch ruled the city surrounding a castle • Nation-states:Political entities extending throughout a relatively large geographic region • Absolute monarchs:Claima monopoly on power in a country based on divine right • Constitutional monarchies:Members of royalty serve as symbolic rulers while elected officials actually govern those countries

9. Democracy • Democracy:A form of government in which the people governed have the opportunity to select those who govern and, in some cases, to participate directly in governance themselves • Direct democracy:A democracy in which all members come together to make decisions • Representative democracy: Ademocracy in which representatives of the people are elected to govern on their behalf • Parliamentary systems: Representative democracies in which candidates for the national legislature (parliament) represent political parties • Democratic republics: Examples of representative democracy; much like parliamentary systems except that they have popularly elected chief executives

10. Authoritarianism • Authoritarian governments:Concentrate power in the hands of a strong leader, who often rules for life and may exercise absolute power • Dictatorship:Rule by a single person • Oligarchies: Authoritariangovernments ruled by a select few • Military junta: A group of military leaders who have seized power from the prior government

11. Totalitarianism • Totalitarian government:An authoritarian government having complete control over all aspects of people’s lives—even aspects having little or nothing to do with politics

12. Revolutions, Coups d’Etat, and Transfers of Authority • Coup d’état: The abrupt replacement of one government with another illegally, often relying upon coercive force or the threat of violence • Political revolution: The replacement of one political system with another through violent means • Nonviolent resistance: Political actions relying on nonviolent acts to protest particular policies or regimes • Elections: Formal decision processes in which individuals are permitted to vote for their favorite option

13. The US Political System • The US two-party system, winner-take-all elections, wedge issues, and efforts to get voters to the polls are just some of the many key factors influencing the outcome of elections. • Political parties: Organizations whose major purpose is to gain legitimate control of the government

14. Elections • Winner-take-all elections: Those in which the party receiving the most votes in each district wins the whole district • Proportional representation: A system in which seats in a legislature are divided among parties in proportion to the number of popular votes received by each party

15. Voter Participation • Voting rates in the United States are lower now than they have been during many other periods in history. During the period between 1874 and 1892, an average of 79% of all eligible citizens voted in US presidential elections, although many groups denied voting rights at that time were impoverished (i.e. blacks and immigrants). The voting rate dropped dramatically after 1900, reaching a rate of 43% in 1920. Between 1945 and 2010, voting rates have ranged between 50% and 65%.

16. Candidate Preference • Gender gap: A tendency for women and men to have different political preferences on many issues

17. Opinion Polls, Wedge Issues, and Campaign Strategy • Wedge issues: Issues about which people have strong opinions and the position of their party receives greater public support than the other party

18. Lobbyists and Special-Interest Groups • Interest groups: Voluntary associations of citizens who attempt to influence public policy • Lobbyist: Someone who represents an interest group and meets with public officials to try to influence their decisions by providing information supporting the interest group’s goals • Political action committees (PACs): Interest groups that are formed to campaign for or against political candidates, legislation, and ballot initiatives

19. Global Comparisons with Other Democratic Systems • Government gridlock:An inability to resolve important issues when neither party has sufficient votes to determine government policy

20. Functionalist Perspectives: Pluralist (Government by the People) Model • Pluralist models: Argues that many groups within a community or country have access to government officials and compete with one another in an effort to influence policy decisions • Veto groups: Interest groups that have the capacity to prevent the exercise of power by others

21. Conflict Perspectives: Elite (Government by the Few) Model • Power rests with the “power elite” both inside and outside government. • No one can be truly powerful unless he or she has access to major institutions.

22. Causes of War • War: Organizedconflict between nations • Five circumstances that increase the likelihood of war: • A perceived threat • Moral objectives • Political objectives • Social problems • Absence of alternatives

23. Types of War • Asymmetric warfare: War between opponents with significantly different military power and, consequently, significantly different tactics • Terrorism: The systematic threat or use of violence to achieve a political end; one form of asymmetric warfare • Cyberwarfare: A form of information warfare using digital software and hardware to conduct sabotage and espionage • Drone warfare: The use of remotely controlled airplanes to conduct surveillance and to kill suspected militants with laser-guided rockets and other armaments • Military-industrial complex: The conjunction of interests of the combination of the federal government, the military, and the defense industry

24. Costs of War • Military-industrial complex: The conjunction of interests of the combination of the federal government, the military, and the defense industry

25. Gender, Race, and Class in the Military • The military is primarily made up of men. • Women are excluded from one third of all Army jobs and experience more harassment. • An all-volunteer force shifts the burden of warfare onto disadvantaged minorities and lower social classes.

26. Maintaining the Peace Deterrence and Defense Diplomacy and Resolution • Deterrence: Preventing war from occurring

27. Economy and Economic Systems in Transition Economy: Consists of the organizations and processes that produce and distribute goods and services. Hunting and Gathering Economies Agricultural Economies Economies in which agricultural production was efficient, leading to a food surplus, permitting a much more complex division of labor and making it possible to settle permanently in one place • Cultures in which people hunted game and relied on readily available vegetation and water for subsistence

28. Industrial Economies • Industrial Revolution:A dramatic change in the nature of production in which manufacturing became a central economic activity • Industrial societies have six important characteristics: • They rely on manufacturing and mass production. • New machines increase productivity. • New forms of energy replace human muscle power. • Work becomes centralized in factories. • Independent craftsmen are replaced by wage laborers. • Narrow specialization contributes one step in the production process.

29. Information Economies and Postindustrial Societies • Information revolution:A change that began during the last half of the 20th century in which service jobs become more common than jobs in manufacturing or agriculture • Information economy:An economy based on the product of skilled professionals, which is the information or knowledge they provide • Postindustrial societies:Dominated by information, services, and high technology more than the production of goods

30. Economic Sectors • Economic sectors:Large segments of the economy representing fundamentally different kinds of production • Primary sector:Agricultural production; the major resources are raw materials and the technology employed is labor intensive • Secondary sector:Manufacturing; its activity is the production of goods, the key resource is energy, and the technology employed is capital-intensive machine production • Tertiary sector: The service sector, including the entertainment industry, the food industry, the professions, etc.

31. Capitalism • Capitalism:An economy based on private ownership of wealth, competition, profit, and noninterference by the government • Market economy: An economy in which consumers are the key decision makers, the market drives the economy, and transactions are based on profit motive and competition

32. Types of Capitalism • Competitive capitalism: Thecapitalism of Marx’s day in which no single capitalist or small group of capitalists could dominate a market • Monopoly capitalism: Occurs when one or only a few capitalists control a sector of the economy • State capitalism: Capitalism in which capitalistic enterprises exist side by side with state-owned production enterprises and the state regulates and manages the economy • Corporate capitalism: Capitalism dominated by public corporations owned by many stockholders • Managerial capitalism: Occurs when managers, through both their day-to-day involvement in the corporation and their ownership of large blocks of stock as part of their compensation, dominate the corporation • Institutional capitalism: Capitalism in which large shares of corporations are owned by institutional investors such as pension, insurance, or trust funds

33. Socialism • Socialist economies: Economic systems in which the means of production are collectively owned and the economy is regulated by the government • Communism:As envisioned by Karl Marx, an extreme form of socialist economic and political system in which all members of the society are equal

34. Functionalist Perspective • Multinational corporations (or transnational corporations):Commercial organizations whose operations span international boundaries, typically both producing and selling goods and services in multiple countries

35. Conflict Perspective • Export jobs to low-wage countries: To move production from high-wage countries to low-wage countries, resulting in a net loss of jobs in high-wage countries and a net increase of jobs in low-wage countries • Outsource: To discontinue production and contract with another company to supply those goods or services

36. Trade Restraints and Deep Integration • Shallow integration: Occurs when most products are produced in a single country and then sold in that country and abroad • Deep integration: Most large corporations are multinationals that both produce and sell their products and services around the world

37. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective • Emphasizes the ways in which people find or create meaning from their work and the social significance of work, including: • Work and identity • Alienation and Job Satisfaction • Alienation from work:The breakdown of the natural connections people have with their work and with other people through their work • Renegotiating the work contract

38. Transition from Agricultural Work to Factory Work to Service Work • Occupational structure: In the United States, refers to the number and types of jobs available; experienced major shifts during the 20th century • Blue-collar jobs: Manual labor occupations often having relatively low status, such as machinist, assembly-line worker, truck driver, or auto mechanic

39. Labor Unions • Labor unions: Groups of workers who unite to engage in collective bargaining with owners • Strikes: Temporary work stoppages by a group of workers to seek changes in working conditions • Work to rule: The slowdown of work by meticulously following all regulations and doing only the minimum work legally required • Lockout: An action in which the company is locked up and workers are not permitted to work or draw pay until the conflict is resolved

40. Deindustrialization • Deindustrialization: The systematic withdrawal of private investment from manufacturing and the decline of industry through plant shutdowns, layoffs, and downsizing • Downsizing:Reducing the size of companies to cut costs by laying off workers or even selling parts of the company. • Telecommuting:Occurs when workers work from their homes and communicate with their workplace through communications technologies, such as Skype, interactive voice, video, and data conferencing

41. Dual Labor Market and Workforce Diversity • Dual labor market: A relatively advantaged primary form of employment and a relatively disadvantaged secondary form of employment • Primary labor market:Enjoys relatively good working conditions, reasonably high pay, opportunity for advancement, and—most important—job security • Secondary labor market: Employees routinely experience high turnover, low job security, few or no benefits, low wages, and little opportunity for advancement

42. Professions • Profession:A high-status occupation based on abstract knowledge enjoying considerable autonomy and authority and, in turn, serving the public good and regulating its members • Key features: • Abstract knowledge • Autonomy • Self-regulation • Authority • Altruism • Professionalization:A process of defining a type of work as a profession

43. The Rationalization of Work (slide 1 of 2) • Rationalization: A process in which traditional methods and standards of social organization based on tradition, belief, and even magic are replaced with new methods and standards of social organization based on objectively calculable scientific criteria • Scientific management (Taylorism): Applies scientific and engineering principles to human labor by breaking a complex task into simple components and using time-and-motion studies to specify every detail of the job to maximize efficiency • Mass production: A process of production in which products are standardized, parts are interchangeable, precision tools fit parts together precisely, and the production is mechanized to produce a continuous high volume • Assembly line: A mode of production in which a complex task is broken into individual tasks, with each worker performing only one or a few of the tasks repeatedly

44. The Rationalization of Work (slide 2 of 2) • Technology: Consists of the knowledge, tools, and machines used to produce artifacts or manipulate the environment • Deskilling:A reduction in expertise, training, and experience required to perform a job

45. Bureaucracy • Bureaucracy: The primary design principle of modern formal organizations; based on a hierarchical structure of authority, codified rules and regulations, and principles of fairness and efficiency

46. Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment, and Venture Capitalism • Entrepreneur: A person who takes an innovative idea and, through financing and business savvy, turns it into a viable business • Private equity:Investorscontribute funds in exchange for a share of ownership or equity in a company • Angel investors: Affluent individuals who provide initial capital for a business startup, usually in return for a share of ownership • Venture capital: Companies in business to loan money to high-risk, high-potential, early-stage growth startup companies • Crowdfunding: A process whereby entrepreneurs post their idea and proposal on a website asking people to contribute small amounts either to purchase a product in advance or to gain equity in the business

47. Unemployment and Underemployment • Unemployment rate: Inthe United States, the percentage of unemployed workers in the labor force actively seeking jobs • Underemployed:People working at part-time jobs or self-employed and working less than desired because they cannot get a full-time job • Seasonal unemployment: Unemployment due to seasonal variations, such as school teachers on summer vacation, or variations in weather, which often affect agriculture, construction, and tourism jobs • Cyclical unemployment: Unemployment resulting from lower production rates during recessions • Structural unemployment: Unemployment that results when the skill set of unemployed workers does not match the skills required for available jobs or when the unemployed are in a different location than available jobs

48. Underground and Informal Economies • Underground economy: All economic transactions involving income that is not reported to the government as required by law • Informal economy: Unpaid labor, such as doing housework, repairing one’s own car, or performing voluntary charity work

49. Corporations and the Economy • Corporation:A legal entity separate from its owners • Monopoly: Occurs when a single firm dominates an industry • Oligopoly: Occurs when a few firms dominate an industry