59. Social Stratification

Social stratification is structuring the inequality among various groups of people which means their being ranged in correspondence to limited resources which they control: money, property, prestige, and power. In political science stratification is considered as a distinction among politically prevailing groups and masses.

60. The main conceptions of the Political elite

The word “elite” in translation from French means “the best, selected, elected”: the etymological meaning of this term has two aspects: 1. An elite possessives by clearly expressed features, the concentration in itself, of certain qualities. 2. The estimation of those qualities as supreme in social measurement. The political elite is a minority of society, sufficiently independent, highest, relatively privileged group (or totality of groups), in more or less measure possessing prominent psychological, social and political qualities and directly participating in making and executing decisions connected to using governmental power on influencing it. In other words, a political elite is a group of people, political parties or any other kind of civil society organization who manage and organize government and all the manifestation of political power. Social class and elites are related. Academics have shown that one of the main aspects in the conformation of elites is given by social class models. The most significant perspective in sociological research has been provided from Marxism and Functionalism. Max Weber’s sociology developed a strong theoretical concept for understanding the relation between social stratum and political action in modern societies. Also, inspired by Marx’s ideas, Weber created a theory of social stratification debating that power could take different forms in the social interaction. He highlighted the idea that in addition to class, there were other sources of power in modern societies like the status, which was determined by consumption.

The conceptions of the Machiavellian school: recognition of the elitism of any society, its division into the privileged ruling creative minority and the passive non-creative majority; it comes from the nature of human society, special physiological qualities of the elite.

Value-based theories: 1. the elite is the most valuable element of society; the prevailing position of the elite responds to the interests of the whole society.

Theories of Eliterian democracy - they come from the understanding of democracy as a competition between potential rulers, governers and managers for the confidence and support of the electory.

Conceptions of pluralism of elite: 1. Denial of the elite as a unified privileged group. 2. There exists a competition of elite which reflects economic and social competition in society.

Left-liberal conceptions: criticism of eliterian society from democratic positions, there is a deep difference between elite and mass, the representatives of mass do not have many chances dor occupying high positions in the social hierarchy.

Partocratic theory: the global messaic character of the political leadership; origin from socially low strata, poor classes, first of all the proletariat; ideologasion as the most important immediate determining sign of the elite, strict hierarchy of the political elite.

61. The paternalistic point of view on politics and person- it precedes from an inequality of the political status of people, interpretation of the state as one large patriarchal family in which all power belongs to a governor father. In this conception the ordinary man has a role of the simple executor of the monarch`s will supported by the divine origin.

№ 62 Meanings and attributes of the state

The term «state» is usually used in two senses. In the broad sense, the state is understood as country, society, people located on a certain on territory and represented by a body of supreme power. In narrow terms, the state represents organisation with a supreme power on the determined territory.

Attributes of the state. Among them are:

Separating public authority from society, its difference from organization of the whole population; the appearance of the strata of professionals-administrators who are called bureaucrats;

Sovereignty, that is supreme authority on the determined territory;

Territory outlining borders of the state; laws and authorities of the state are applicable to people living on a certain territory

Monopoly for legal application of force, physical compulsion;

Exclusive right to the promulgation of laws and norms compulsory for the whole population;

Right to collection of taxes from the population