The New Political Sociology

Providing a fresh approach to thinking about the big questions around political economy, culture, and power, this book offers a synthetic view of political economic and cultural explanations of how institutions, organizations, and groups operate, cohere, and influence each other, as well as how power works within and across these networks.

The New Political Sociology rethinks the ways societies are built and function in two parts. After delineating a theory of the bargaining process, the first part undertakes a reconstruction of the state, the inordinate influence of business, the weakened position of labor, the variable role of social movements, and the active role of the media. The second part delineates how exploitation and humiliation lead to social movements that reverse values and create new social forces, and the author uses empire in global theory to delineate how globalization affects politics within the now multi-nation-state. Both parts involve structures of power through class (business and labor) and status (race, gender, and religion), and each section discusses how new alternatives emerge for each bargaining group.

Connecting sociology and sociological theory to issues of social and democratic movements, this book shows how political economy and culture need each other as the opposite sides of the same coin. The New Political Sociology redirects theoretical approaches of researchers in political sociology and provides teachers with a classroom resource on theories and practices in political sociology, cultural sociology, social movements, and the media.