Political sociology: the study of political groups, leadership, and social power.
Political participation: actions to support the government or politicians. Includes voting.
Civic participation: individual and collective action to address issues of public concern. Includes volunteering to collect signatures, donating to a candidate.
Political consumerism: choosing producers and products with the goal of changing ethical or objectionable institutional or market practices. Includes boycotting products.
Children of rich parents are more likely to be politically engaged.
Types of societies include hunting and gathering, horticultural and pastoral, agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial/information age.
Capitalism is an economic and political system based on private control of the production and distribution of goods and services within a free market system. Laissez-faire capitalism is a system of free enterprise without government intervention. Robber baron was a term coined in the 1870s to describe American industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt who were accused of gaining their wealth through exploitative practices.
Robber barons used political influence to make monopolies.
Socialism: an economic and political system based on cooperative management and distribution of goods and services normally within a democratic government. The most common form is social democracy, in which the means of production is not the government, but there are entitlements made to keep everyone at an adequate standard of living.
Communism is an economic and political system based on government ownership and regulation of all the production and distribution of goods and services.
China has a system that is not quite communist because of more open borders and higher standard of living.
East Germany and the USSR were totalitarian and communist countries. Russia has what is referred to as a managed democracy, because it is called a democracy while being authoritarian.
Myanmar was an authoritarian monarchy in the 1800s before being colonized. Most monarchies today are constitutional monarchies.
Functions of lobbyists:
Disseminate information to legislators to assist in legislation
Identify public opinions about issues important to clients
Influence political agenda by creating coalitions to support or oppose bills
Disenfranchisement: an effort to restrict or revoke the voting rights of an individual or group.
Offshoring: Corporations transferring jobs overseas. It results in sweatshops: factories that offer their workers low wages and long hours in dangerous working conditions.
Outsourcing: hiring a subcontractor or outside agency to complete work formally done by employees within the company.
Knowledge workers: employees who design, prepare, or share knowledge. They are more likely to be outsourced or offshored.
Service workers: employees who provide food, physical comfort, shelter, or mechanical support. They are rarely outsourced or sent to another country.
Downsizing: a reduction in the number of people who work for a corporation.