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This is part of a three-volume set, the total price for which is #265.00.
This major new contribution to the study of consumption examines how dominant groups express and display their sense of superiority through material and aesthetic attributes, demonstrating that differences from one society to another, and across historical periods, challenge current understandings of elite distinction.
In view of the drastically growing divide between rich and poor, people in many industrialized countries are asking about the responsibility of elites for society. Are the activities of elites determined primarily by their responsibility for the common good of the population or by their interest in enlarging their own power and wealth? This book pursues two aims in attempting to come up with an answer to this question. Its first aim is to present a well-founded overview of the most important sociological elite theories, ranging from the classics in the field, Mosca, Michels, and Pareto, to Dahrendorf, Keller, and Bourdieu. Its second is to use the examples of the world’s five largest industrialized nations (France, Germany, the UK, Japan, and the US) to empirically demonstrate how the elites of a given country, above all the political and economic elites, are recruited and how they cooperate with one another.
This is part of a three-volume set, the total price for which is #265.00.
At a time when significant social status, economic resources, and political opportunities seem to become ever more unequally distributed and only available to a few, this book represents the first systematic effort in recent years to develop a sociological model of elites and non-elites. In outlining a new typology of economic, political, and cultural elites, as well as drawing attention to the important role of non-elites, this accessibly written book provides novel insights into the structure of historical and contemporary societies. Milner identifies the sources and structures of economic, political, and cultural power, and investigates patterns of cooperation and conflict between and within elite groups. Analyzing politicians and propagandists, landowners and capitalists, national heroes and celebrities, ordinary folks and outcasts, the book applies its model to three distinctly different societies – ancient India, Classical Athens, and the contemporary United States – highlighting important structural commonalities across these otherwise very dissimilar societies. A significant contribution to scholarship, Elites will also be useful for an array of courses in sociology, political science, and history.
This book critiques and extends the analysis of power in the classic, Who Rules America?, on the fiftieth anniversary of its original publication in 1967—and through its subsequent editions. The chapters, written especially for this book by twelve sociologists and political scientists, provide fresh insights and new findings on many contemporary topics, among them the concerted attempt to privatize public schools; foreign policy and the growing role of the military-industrial component of the power elite; the successes and failures of union challenges to the power elite; the ongoing and increasingly global battles of a major sector of agribusiness; and the surprising details of how those who hold to the egalitarian values of social democracy were able to tip the scales in a bitter conflict within the power elite itself on a crucial banking reform in the aftermath of the Great Recession. These social scientists thereby point the way forward in the study of power, not just in the United States, but globally. A brief introductory chapter situates Who Rules America? within the context of the most visible theories of power over the past fifty years—pluralism, Marxism, Millsian elite theory, and historical institutionalism. Then, a chapter by G. William Domhoff, the author of Who Rules America?, takes us behind the scenes on how the original version was researched and written, tracing the evolution of the book in terms of new concepts and research discoveries by Domhoff himself, as well as many other power structure researchers, through the 2014 seventh edition. Readers will find differences of opinion and analysis from chapter to chapter. The authors were encouraged to express their views independently and frankly. They do so in an admirable and useful fashion that will stimulate everyone’s thinking on these difficult and complex issues, setting the agenda for future studies of power.
Public sociology—an approach to sociology that aims to communicate with and actively engage wider audiences—has been one of the most widely discussed topics in the discipline in recent years. The Handbook of Public Sociology presents a comprehensive look at every facet of public sociology in theory and practice. It pays particular attention to how public sociology can complement more traditional types of sociological practice to advance both the analytical power of the discipline and its ability to benefit society. The volume features contributions from a stellar list of authors, including several past presidents of the American Sociological Association such as Michael Burawoy, a leading proponent of public sociology. The first two sections of the Handbook of Public Sociology look at public sociology in relation to the other three types of practice—professional, policy, and critical—with an emphasis on integrating the four types into a holistic model of theory and practice. Subsequent sections focus on issues like teaching public sociology at various levels, case studies in the application of public sociology, and the role of public sociology in special fields in the discipline. The concluding chapter by Michael Burawoy, a past president of the American Sociological Association and a leading proponent of public sociology, addresses current debates surrounding public sociology and presents a constructive vision for the future that embraces and improves upon all four types of sociology. The Handbook of Public Sociology with its examination not only of public sociology but also of how it can enhance and complement other types of practice, transcends differences in the field and will appeal to a wide range of academics, students, and practitioners.
This book looks systematically at the extent to which Jews, women, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and gay men and lesbians have entered the higher circles of power that constituted what sociologist C. Wright Mills called 'the power elite.' It examines why and how the power elite has diversified, the pathways taken by those who have entered the power elite, and the effect this diversification has had on the way power works in the United States.
The New Custodians of the State uses contemporary France to reassess sociological theories of political and policymaking elites. Based on detailed case studies drawn from social policy and national defense sectors, it concludes that a new type of sectorally-based elite has risen to prominence in France since the 1980s. Genieys suggests that programmatic elites found in specific policy sectors, made up of individuals linked both by common career paths and the resulting skills and expertise, should be seen as new guardians of state power.Like their technocratic predecessors, programmatic elites maintain a high degree of independence with respect to electoral politics and to civil society; like them, they share an ideological commitment to protect and expand the role of the state in French society. Unlike them, however, these new guardians of the state are structured around specific policy programs and limited in scope to a given sector. Competition among programmatic elites at the highest levels of the state emerges as the chief driving force behind innovation for social change.The New Custodians of the State introduces programmatic elites both as real-world actors and as an analytic category and highlights the limits of elite power by analyzing the defeat of efforts by the French Ministry of Defense. This book presents a thought-provoking critical case study that suggests that models presenting either a single unified state elite or those that herald or decry the demise of the state require modification. The work will be of interest to students and scholars of France, and its society and government as well as anyone interested in the policymaking process in other countries with respect to domestic policy or national defense.