Political Sociology

Keith Faulks (2000) defines political sociology as follows:

"At its broadest level, political sociology is concerned with the relationship between politics and society. Its distinctiveness within the social sciences lies in its acknowledgement that political actors, including parties, pressure groups and social movements, operate within a wider social context. Political actors therefore inevitably shape, and in turn are shaped by, social structures such as gender, class and nationality. Such social structures ensure that political influence within society is unequal. It follows from this that a key concept in political sociology is that power, where power is defined as the capacity to achieve one's objectives even when those objectives are in conflict with the interests of another actor. Political sociologists therefore invariably return to the following question: which individuals and groups in society possess the capacity to pursue their interests, and how is this power exercised and institutionalized."

Political Sociology: A Critical Introduction (Paperback) by Keith Faulks
http://www.amazon.com/Political-Sociology-A-Critical-Introduction/dp/0814727093
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LSE (London School of Economics) - M.Sc. - Political Sociology



Political Sociology - Bibliography

Allardt, Erik; and Littunen, YrjoÖ (editors) 1964 Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems: Contributions to Comparative Political Sociology. Transactions of the Westermarck Society, Vol. 10. Helsinki: The Society.


Almond, Gabriel A.; and Verba, Sidney 1963 The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton Univ. Press.


Dahl, Robert A. (1961) 1963 Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.


Duverger, Maurice (1951) 1962 Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. 2d English ed., rev. New York: Wiley; London: Methuen. → First published in French.

Key, V. O. Jr. 1961 Public Opinion and American Democracy. New York: Knopf.

Kornhauser, William 1959 The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe, III.; Free Press.

Lasswell, Harold D. 1936 Politics: Who Gets What, When, How? New York: McGraw-Hill.


Lipset, Seymour M. 1960 Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

Marx, Karl (1852) 1964 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers. → First published in German. A paperback edition was published in 1964.

Marx, Karl; and Engels, Friedrich (1845–1846) 1939 The German Ideology. Parts 1 and 3. With an introduction by R. Pascal. New York: International Publishers. → The full text was first published in 1932 as Die deutsche Ideologic and republished by Dietz Verlag in 1953.

Michels, Robert (1911) 1959 Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Dover. → First published as Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modemen Demokratie. A paperback edition was published in 1962 by Collier.

Mills, C. Wright 1956 The Power Elite. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.


Mosca, Gaetano (1896) 1939 The Ruling Class (Elementi di scienza politica). New York: McGraw-Hill

Neumann, Franz (1942) 1963 Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933–1944. 2d ed. New York: Octagon Books.

Rokkan, Stein (editor) 1962 Approaches to the Study of Political Participation. Ada sociologica 6, no. 1/2.


Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942) 1950 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. 3d ed. New York: Harper; London: Allen & Unwin. → A paperback edition was published by Harper in 1962.


Weber, Max (1919) 1946 Politics as a Vocation. Pages 77–128 in Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Translated and edited by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Weber, Max (1921) 1946 Class, Status, Party. Pages 180–195 in Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Translated and edited by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Updated on 19 February 2017,  20 July 2013