Published: 08-Jul-2021
Beginning within the post-enlightenment era, a replacement generation of politics brought together a uniquely democratic, egalitarian structure of state. This new governance emerged to make new political dimensions that had not been seen before within the monarchical structures that were omnipresent within the Western world. This Left-Right Axis began to shape politics from the very onset of democratic governance. Though these political dimensions might not have encompassed an equivalent ideological overlap in several contexts, left and right parties began to diverge over which outlook was most beneficial for society. On the left, equality, social justice, civil liberty evolve.
Sociology may, thus, be defined as the science of the origin and development, structure and functions, of social groups, their forms, laws, customs, institutions, modes of life, thought and action and their contribution to human culture and civilization. It seeks to get the overall principles underlying all social phenomena and social relationships and to determine the laws of change and growth in society.
Political Science and Sociology are so intimately connected that the “political is embedded in the social and if Political Science remains distinct from Sociology, it will be because the breadth of the sector involves the specialist, and not because there are any well-defined boundaries marking it far away from Sociology.”
They are mutually contributory. Political Science gives to Sociology facts about the organization and functions of the State, and obtains from it knowledge of the origin of political authority and laws which controlled society.
The State in its early stages was more of a social than a political institution, and Giddings is of the opinion that “to teach the theory of the State to men who haven't learned the primary principles of sociology, is like teaching astronomy or thermodynamics to men who haven't learned the Newtonian law of motion.”
A political scientist must be a sociologist and a sociologist ought to be a political scientist. For example, the institution of marriage by itself is a component within the social lifetime of man and if is that the concern of Sociology.
But if a code of marriage, just like the Hindu Marriage Act, is enacted to manage it during a particular way, it directly falls within the domain of politics as it comes within the scope of organized control and obedience.
The Hindu, the Sikh, the Muslim and therefore the Christian communities by themselves are the themes of Sociology, being parts of the Indian society, but once they quarrel among themselves and their quarrel flares up into communal riots, it not only represents the pathological side of Indian social life but also a drag of deep political concern. Likewise, if we study revolutions, we must take into account their social as well as their political causes as appearing in different environments.