Understanding Political Power: Sovereignty, Institutions, and Legitimacy
Understanding Political Power
Political power is a form of power whose purpose is characterized and does not depend on individual wishes and desires.
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the property of state power that makes it independent of other forms of power and superior to them all.
Society and Power Structures
Society is a stable group of people organized under a law or basic constitution and ruled by sovereign power structures.
Institutions and Governance
Institutions or structures are government or sovereign
Read MoreSociological Perspectives on Food, Culture, and Work
Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism focuses so strongly on the commodity itself that other aspects of the social context are ignored. Commodity fetishism obscures the true social relationships involved in making a product. Example: Chocolate. Many workers in the Western African cocoa industry are children, and a significant percentage of them are enslaved.
The Durkheimian tradition tends to focus on understanding how society comes together to function as a cohesive whole. Durkheim emphasized how
Read MoreMulticulturalism and the Spanish Constitution: An Analysis
Multiculturalism and the Spanish Constitution
The Constitutional Recognition of Multiculturalism.
Many parts of the constitution allude to the existence in Spain of a plural reality of languages and cultures through the use of the word “culture”:
- Preamble, fourth paragraph: “The Spanish nation … to protect all the peoples of Spain and Spanish …, their cultures and traditions, languages and institutions.”
- Section 143.1 “… bordering provinces with common historic, cultural, and economic characteristics
Second International: History, Objectives, and Impact
The Second International (1889-1916)
The Second International was founded in 1889, with its headquarters in Brussels. While the First International initially encompassed a wide range of trends, the Second International, after expelling the anarchists in 1893, adopted a clear Marxist socialist direction. It comprised a federation of socialist parties from different nations.
Key Objectives
The association emphasized the pursuit of legislation to improve workers’ living conditions, including unemployment
Read MoreMigration, Labor Markets, and Global Economic Shifts
Economic Theories of Migration and Labor
- Neoclassical Economics: Macro focuses on the demand and supply of labor, influencing wages. Micro focuses on individual migration to areas with opportunities, leading to higher income through human capital in the long run.
- New Household Economics: Migration decisions are made within the family context. Households collectively aim to maximize expected gains.
- World Systems Theory: Migration flows are non-random. Migrants move from the periphery to the core, driven
Minority Languages and Linguistic Normalization in Galicia
Minority Languages and the Case of Galician
Minority languages are those that have a small number of speakers in a given territory. A minority language refers to linguistic varieties of small extent, but very much present in their own territory.
The Normalization of Galician
As we know, the social confrontation between a hegemonic language and one or more minority languages has two possible outcomes: either the dominant language eliminates the minority language, or legal, political, social, and linguistic
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