Sociology 1020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Resource Mobilization, Ruling Class, Civil Society
3 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
The level of democracy in a society depends on the capacity of civil society to inluence the sate through ciizen support of social movements, poliical paries, and other groups. That capacity increases as power becomes more widely distributed in society. Although pluralists correctly note that democraic poliics is about negoiaion and compromise, they fail to appreciate how advantaged groups tend to have more poliical inluence than others do. Although elite theorists are right to note that power is concentrated in the hands of advantaged groups, they fail to appreciate how variaions in the distribuion of power inluence poliical behaviour and public policy. While power-balance theorists focus on the efect of changes in the distribuion of power in society, they fail to appreciate what state-centred theorists emphasize that state insituions and laws also afect poliical behaviour and public policy. The degree to which power is widely distributed inluences the success of paricular kinds of paries and policies.
