UPSC MAINS SOCIOLOGY SYLLABUS
Paper 1 – Chapter 7 – Politics and Society:
(a) Sociological theories of power
(b) Power elite, bureaucracy, pressure groups, and political parties.
(c) Nation, state, citizenship, democracy, civil society, ideology.
(d) Protest, agitation, social movements, collective action, revolution
INTRODUCTION
Anomie is a social condition in which there is a disintegration or disappearance of the norms and values that were previously common to the society. The concept, thought of as “normlessness,” was developed by the founding sociologist, Émile Durkheim. He discovered, through research, that anomie occurs during and follows periods of drastic and rapid changes to the social, economic, or political structures of society. It is, per Durkheim’s view, a transition phase wherein the values and norms common during one period are no longer valid, but new ones have not yet evolved to take their place.
EMILE DURKHEIM ON ANOMIE
Though the concept of anomie is most closely associated with Durkheim’s study of suicide, in fact, he first wrote about it in his 1893 book The Division of Labor in Society. In this book, Durkheim wrote about an anomic division of labor, a phrase he used to describe a disordered division of labor in which some groups no longer fit in, though they did in the past. Durkheim saw that this occurred as European societies industrialized and the nature of work changed along with the development of a more complex division of labor.
Durkheim further elaborated his concept of anomie in his 1897 book, Suicide: A Study in Sociology. He identified anomic suicide as a form of taking one’s life that is motivated by the experience of anomie. Durkheim found, through a study of suicide rates of Protestants and Catholics in nineteenth-century Europe, that the suicide rate was higher among Protestants. Understanding the different values of the two forms of Christianity, Durkheim theorized that this occurred because Protestant culture placed a higher value on individualism. This made Protestants less likely to develop close communal ties that might sustain them during times of emotional distress, which in turn made them more susceptible to suicide. Considering the whole of Durkheim’s writing on anomie, one can see that he saw it as a breakdown of the ties that bind people together to make a functional society, a state of social derangement. Periods of anomie are unstable, chaotic, and often rife with conflict because the social force of the norms and values that otherwise provide stability is weakened or missing.
POLITICAL ANOMIE
Political norms have led to the anomic nature of political practice. In the current scenario, politics by manipulation and coercion has become the norm which has acquired an overriding force over democratic and constitutional norms. The frequent use of such ways has been intensified particularly during the last few years. Capturing power or forming the government through manipulation and coercion has been distressingly evident in major states in India.
Coercion involves the political intention of forcing an agent to do something that they do not want to do or what they do not consider to be right. This is true of those who have the capacity to feel guilt and who resist to be converted into a mercenary who is hired to attack norm-based politics by attacking those who have been marked as supporters of the norms of decent politics. Manipulation, on the contrary, seeks to induce both the manipulator and the manipulated to use each other rather secretively without being noticed by others. Although manipulation adopts the secretive mode, it eventually fails to escape the critical attention of those who show some degree of concern for the democratic and constitutional road map that politics is expected to follow.
POLITICAL ALIENATION
In political science, political alienation refers to an individual citizen’s relatively enduring sense of estrangement from, or rejection of, the prevailing political system. In representative democracies, this often leads to voter apathy – the abstention from voting in that government’s elections. Political alienation is not to be confused with voter apathy, which describes a person’s indifference to voting and/or the voting process. Politically, alienated people feel compelled to vote but are restricted by their sense of insignificance to the system. They feel that they are underrepresented or not represented at all by those running for office; their best interest or concerns are not regarded. Political alienation falls into two broad categories: political incapability and political discontentment. In the first instance, alienation is forced upon the individual by their environment, whereas in the second case it is voluntarily chosen by them.
CONCLUSION
The idea of anomie means the lack of normal ethical or social standards. Durkheim’s theory was based upon the idea that the lack of rules and clarity resulted in psychological status of worthlessness, frustration, lack of purpose, and despair. In addition, since there is no idea of what is considered desirable, to strive for anything would be futile. Political norms have led to the anomic nature of political practice. In the current scenario, politics by manipulation and coercion has become the norm which has acquired an overriding force over democratic and constitutional norms.
