Sociología Política

Weber and Gramsci are two of the most prominent political and social theorists of their time; Weber with the “Legitimate Domination” and Gramsci with “Hegemony”. Weber called to domination as the most important element of social action and including that without exception, every sphere of social action is profoundly influenced by structures of dominance, and it has to be accepted as a “valid” norm, taking in account that the State “lays claim the monopoly of legitimate physical violence”. Also recognize three kinds of legitimate ways: charismatic legitimacy, traditional legitimacy and legal-rational legitimacy.

In addition, one of the main criteria behind Weber’s theories was that only the individual was capable of meaningful social action. Individuals have motives, that is, their behaviour is guided by subjective meaning. Social actors have their own ideas and explanations for their behaviours. So Weber believed it was impossible to create a scientific system, historical, sociological or otherwise because social science is in a sense incalculable; in social science a causal explanation involves both the interpretation of meaning and the presupposition of regularity.

On the other side, Gramsci agreed similar way with Weber about State, in this case as ““hegemony armored by coercion” as the supremacy of a social group, Gramsci suggested that every member of society was under the hegemony of some social group. Some differences between Gramsci and Weber is that Gramsci comes from the perspective of a collective will embodied in the party and Weber views collectivities as the results of particular acts of individuals.

On the other side, traditional society describes the general forms of social life in Europe and North America at the beginning of the modern period and into the mid-18th century, representative institutions as church, extended family and villages communities. Beginning in the early 17th century the institutions and structures of these traditional societies were challenged in the name of individual freedom and autonomy, this is what we call “early modernity”.

...