politics

Examples of politics in the following topics:

• Political Opportunity Theory

  • Describe how and why political opportunities are important to social movements according to political opportunity theory.

• Politics

  • The higher one's social class, the higher their levels of political participation and political influence.
  • Educational attainment, an indicator of social class, can predict political participation.
  • Social class impacts one's level of political participation and political influence.
  • Political influence refers to the extent to which one's political participation achieves its desired results.
  • This trend means that middle and upper class individuals have greater political participation and greater political influence than those in lower positions.

• What is Politics?

  • Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions.
  • The term is generally applied to behaviour within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.
  • It consists of social relations involving authority or power, the regulation of political units, and the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply social policy.

• Politics

  • Even groups we don't think of as political still practice politics.
  • For example, a school sports team has its own politics.
  • This is politics.
  • How public personalities, social movements, and trends outside of the formal institutions of political power affect formal politics
  • Political sociology was traditionally concerned with how social trends, dynamics, and structures of domination affect formal political processes.

• External Sources of Social Change

  • Political Process Theory, sometimes also known as the Political Opportunity Theory,is an approach to social movements heavily influenced by political sociology.
  • It argues that the success or failure of social movements is primarily affected by political opportunities.
  • Political Process Theory argues that there are three vital components for movement formation: insurgent consciousness, organizational strength, and political opportunities.
  • Finally, "political opportunity" refers to the receptivity or vulnerability of the existing political system to challenge.
  • One of the advantages of the political process theory is that it addresses the issue of timing or emergence of social movements.

• Political Parties and Elections

  • Political parties seek to influence government policy by nominating select candidates to hold seats in political offices.
  • Typically, a political party is a political organization seeking to influence government policy by nominating its own select candidates to hold seats in political office, via the process of electoral campaigning.
  • The type of electoral system is a major factor in determining the type of party political system.
  • In a nonpartisan system, no official political parties exist, sometimes due to legal restrictions on political parties.
  • Political parties, still called factions by some, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trades unions.

• The U.S. Political System

  • Although nothing in U.S. law requires it, in practice, the political system is dominated by political parties.
  • Therefore, much of U.S. politics boils down to party politics.
  • The United States is also a diverse society, and citizens' competing interests are reflected in politics.
  • Individual citizens are not the only players in U.S. politics.
  • The media also play an important role in politics by influencing public sentiment and acting as an information filter.

• Preindustrial Cities

  • Preindustrial cities had important political and economic functions and evolved to become well-defined political units.
  • London is an example of a city that was well established in the preindustrial era as a political and economic center.
  • During the European Middle Ages, a town was as much a political entity as a collection of houses.
  • However, particular political forms varied.
  • Examine the growth of preindustrial cities as political units, as well as how trade routes allowed certain cities to expand and grow

• Gender Inequality in Politics

  • Women have had to fight for equal treatment in politics in the United States by winning the right to vote and a seat at the political table.
  • Examples of powerful female political figures are in evidence throughout the world.
  • Women in politics took center stage in the 2008 election.
  • For this reason, political strategists see the "female vote" as one to be won.
  • Infer, from the historical struggle for womens' equal treatment in politics, why gender stereotypes and barriers to equal political participation still exist in the United States

• Ideology

  • Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics.
  • The economic base of production determines the political superstructure of a society.
  • Many political parties base their political action and program on an ideology.
  • A political ideology is a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order.
  • A political ideology largely concerns itself with how to allocate power and to what ends it should be used.