The author traces 19th-century origins of sociology in post-Revolutionary Europe, and contrasts European and American approaches to sociological data. Using the concepts of mass behavior and mass society as case studies, he suggests the continuing influence of social and political philosophies in sociology to the present day. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book provides an interpretation of one of the key aspects of Max Weber’s work: the relationship between his political and sociological writings. Weber’s sociological studies have often been treated as if they were completely separate from his political attitudes and interests, and in general his political writings have remained less well-known than his sociological work. The book contains three main sections. The first of these analyses the principal concerns underlying Weber’s political assessment of the prospective development of post-Bismarckian Germany. The second examines some of the way in which these views channelled his interests in sociology and influences his studies of capitalism, authority and religion. Finally, the third main section ‘reverses’ this perspective, showing how his conceptions of sociology and social philosophy in turn influenced the evolution of his assessment of German politics.

A social epidemiologist looks at health inequalities in terms of the upstream factors that produced them. A political sociologist sees these same inequalities as products of institutions that unequally allocate power and social goods. Neither is wrong -- but can the two talk to one another? In a stirring new synthesis, Political Sociology and the People's Health advances the debate over social inequalities in health by offering a new set of provocative hypotheses around how health is distributed in and across populations. It joins political sociology's macroscopic insights into social policy, labor markets, and the racialized and gendered state with social epidemiology's conceptualizations and measurements of populations, etiologic periods, and distributions. The result is a major leap forward in how we understand the relationships between institutions and inequalities -- and essential reading for those in public health, sociology, and beyond.

With an entire discipline devoted to political science, what is distinctive about political sociology? This concise book explains what a sociological perspective brings to our understanding of the emergence, reproduction, and transformation of different forms of political order. Crucially, political sociology expands the field of view to the politics that happen in other social settings – in the family, at work, in civic associations – as well as the ways in which social attributes such as class, religion, age, race, and gender shape patterns of political participation and the distribution of political power. Political sociology grapples with these issues across an enormous range of historical and geographic settings, from intimate to geo-political scales. It requires an analytic toolkit that includes concepts of power, identities and inequalities, social closure, civil society, and modes of political action. Using these central concepts, this updated edition of What is Political Sociology? discusses the major forms of political order, processes of regime formation and revolution, the social bases for political participation, policy formation as well as feedbacks, social movements and social change, and the possibilities for new forms of digital and transnational politics. In sum, the book offers an insightful introduction to this core perspective on social life.

Political Sociology in a Global Era provides a critical analysis of the origins, nature, development, and transformation of the state and society historically and today, examining the class nature and social basis of politics and the state in different societal settings. The book emphasizes the centrality of class relations in explaining political power and the role of the state in class-divided societies by providing powerful theoretical and empirical analyses of themes in political sociology in an era of globalization. It examines in detail the major political issues and events of our time, and makes them relevant to the study of power and politics today. Some of the features of this text include: Introduces a global political sociology emphasizing the dynamics of power relations Provides a critical analysis of the role of politics and the state within the world-historical process Describes classical and contemporary theories of politics and the state Explains the origins and development of the state, discussing the nature of the state, its class basis, and contradictions in different types of societies Considers the dynamics of the capitalist state and traces its development in Europe and the United States from the 18th century to the present Details the role of the advanced capitalist state in the global political economy at the current, advanced stage of late capitalism Discusses the social movements that have been actively struggling against the capitalist state from earlier times to the present, including the Arab Spring, focusing on recent developments in both advanced capitalist and less-developed capitalist societies where mobilization of the masses has led to struggles against the capitalist state on a global scale Offers an original analysis of global capitalism and places it in the context of the current crisis of the global capitalist system

With an entire discipline devoted to political science, what is distinctive about political sociology? This concise book explains what a sociological perspective brings to our understanding of the emergence, reproduction, and transformation of different forms of political order. Crucially, political sociology expands the field of view to the politics that happen in other social settings in the family, at work, in civic associations as well as the ways in which social attributes such as class, religion, age, race, and gender shape patterns of political participation and the distribution of political power. Political sociology grapples with these issues across an enormous range of historical and geographic settings, from the intimate relations that constitute family politics to the geo-political scales of war and trade. It requires an analytic toolkit that includes concepts of power, social closure, civil society, and modes of political action. Using these central concepts, What is Political Sociology? discusses the major forms of political order (states, empires, and nation-states), processes of regime formation and revolution, the social bases for political participation, policy formation as well as feedbacks, and the possibilities for new forms of transnational politics. In sum, the book offers an insightful introduction to this core perspective on social life.

A comparative analysis of the political attitudes, values, aspirations, and identities of citizens in advanced industrial societies, this book focusses on the different ways in which social policies and national politics affect personal opinions on justice, political responsibility, and the overall trustworthiness of politicians.