Politics and Social Insight (Routledge Revivals)

Download or read book Politics and Social Insight (Routledge Revivals) written by Francis Castles and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-07-15 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1971, this is a clear, straightforward introductory discussion of the importance of sociological knowledge, and particularly sociological theory, for the understanding of political life. The topics covered include sociology and the discipline of politics, the elementary forms of political life, and the relationship between theory, evidence and insight. Francis Castles also looks at functionalism and the analysis of conflict as sociological meta-theories, and at the idea of anomie and the theory of mass society. The book should be of prime interest to students of politics and to students of the social sciences in general.