Roskin Ch. 2

I find it interesting when learning about the British politics, that they don’t have a bureaucracy. They do have different status sets. I find it interesting that they have this and it usually causes role perceptions. Role perception is a sociological term that describes how an individual perceives their role which could differ considerably from their actual role that is prescribed to them. This is shown in the Prime Minister’s position.  They are elected as the prime minister from the House of Commons and they are given the powers of party chief, top parliamentarian, and head of government combined which applies towards the minister’s status, role perception and the quote from Lord Acton. Because the Prime Minister has such a high status in British politics, it is possible for them to perceive themselves more important than they really are, which in turns causes them to become corrupt by their power and in the words of Acton “Absolute power corrupts  absolutely”.

Below is a link relevant to this topic as the Prime Minister tried to have the U.K. aid the U.S in the situation with Libya however he was thwarted by the House of Commons, showing that the Commons believe that he is attempting to use his position to his advantage to go to war alongside with the U.S against Libyan rebels.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/british-prime-minister-david-cameron-loses-parliamentary-vote-on-syrian-military-strike/2013/08/29/4fabb080-10f7-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html

Roskin Ch.1 (1/20/2014)

     Upon reading the first chapter of this text, I couldn't help but to analyze the countries that were provided as examples in a sociological perspective. Everything that occurs within these countries/states seems to all be connected. Such as the revolutions that occurred in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen. I am right now thinking of two specific sociological theories which are the exchange theory and the conflict theory.

        

    The conflict theory is the belief that conflict will eventually happen and is natural and is an important cause of social change (Basirico, 52). With this being said these counties prove this theory because of the issues they faced, such as the mass being young. Younger people tend to be more open to change since they like to point out flaws in older systems such as the political systems that are within these countries. The exchange theory explains social behavior in terms of cost and reward. This theory can be seen I the populations youth and their employment rate. They are either underemployed or not employed at all which would cause tension since the majority of its citizens is under 30 and have a higher education than the people who have high paying jobs compared to them. This would create factor on why the countries in this chapter decided to create a revolution.

        

   In the Washington Post the Ukraine created riots because “Yanukovych refused to sign a long-planned trade agreement with the European Union. Instead, he sought a closer relationship and loans from Russia. That angered the Ukrainians who wanted a closer alignment with Europe and accused Yanukovych of falling under Russia’s sway.” The reason why they want to join the EU is because they want to make sure they can stay as a free country which is what the union can provide compared to Russia. The fear that the people of Ukraine have is that they will fall under the rule of Russia as it did in World War 2. This follows the same pattern that the countries did in terms of the exchange theory as described previously. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-ukraine-protesters-appear-to-be-preparing-for-battle/2014/01/20/904cdc72-81bd-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html?tid=up_next