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Most political theories of the state can roughly be classified into two categories: "liberal" or "conservative" theories treat capitalism as a given, and then concentrate on the function of states in capitalist society. These theories tend to see the state as a neutral entity, separated from society and the economy.
In philosophy, political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the state that seeks to describe and explain power relations in society.In its contemporary form in the 21st century, elite theory posits that (1) power in larger societies, especially nation-states, is concentrated at the top in relatively small elites; (2) power "flows predominantly in a top-down direction from ...
Manifest functions are the consequences that people see, observe or even expect. It is explicitly stated and understood by the participants in the relevant action. The manifest function of a rain dance, according to Merton in his 1957 Social Theory and Social Structure, is to produce rain, and this outcome is intended and desired by people participating in the ritual.
Expectation states theory is a social psychological theory first proposed by Joseph Berger and his colleagues that explains how expected competence forms the basis for status hierarchies in small groups. The theory's best known branch, status characteristics theory, deals with the role that certain pieces of social information (e.g., race ...
Complicating this is the fact that Marx's own ideas about the state changed as he grew older, differing in his early pre-communist phase, in the young Marx phase which predates the unsuccessful 1848 uprisings in Europe, and in his later work. Marx initially followed an evolutionary theory of the state.
Émile Durkheim. In sociology, classical theories are defined by a tendency towards biological analogy and notions of social evolutionism: Functionalist thought, from Comte onwards, has looked particularly towards biology as the science providing the closest and most compatible model for social science.
Social learning theory: States that people adopt new behaviors through observational learning in their environments. [56] Strain theory: States that a social structure within a society may cause people to commit crimes. Specifically, the extent and type of deviance people engage in depend on whether a society provides the means to achieve ...
A main rival to pluralist theory in the United States was the theory of the "power elite" by sociologist C. Wright Mills. According to Mills, the eponymous "power elite" are those that occupy the dominant positions, in the dominant institutions (military, economic and political) of a dominant country, and their decisions (or lack of decisions ...