The mainstream is the prevalent current thought that is widespread. It includes all popular culture and media culture, typically disseminated by mass media. This word is sometimes used in a pejorative sense by subcultures who view ostensibly mainstream culture as not only exclusive but artistically and aesthetically inferior. It is to be distinguished from subcultures and countercultures, and at the opposite extreme are cult followings and fringe theories. In the United States, mainline churches are sometimes referred to synonymously as "mainstream."
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs are the white, upper-class, American Protestant elite, typically of British descent. WASP elites have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. After 1945, many Americans criticized the WASP hegemony and disparaged them as part of "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1940s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics and philanthropy.
Conflict theories are perspectives in sociology and social psychology that emphasize a materialist interpretation of history, dialectical method of analysis, a critical stance toward existing social arrangements, and political program of revolution or, at least, reform. Conflict theories draw attention to power differentials, such as class conflict, and generally contrast historically dominant ideologies. It is therefore a macro-level analysis of society.
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how power is distributed and changes throughout and amongst societies, political sociology's focus ranges across individual families to the State as sites of social and political conflict and power contestation.
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is generally distinguished by immense wealth which is passed on from generation to generation. Prior to the 20th century, the emphasis was on aristocracy, which emphasized generations of inherited noble status, not just recent wealth.
Charles Wright Mills was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills was published widely in popular and intellectual journals. He is remembered for several books, such as The Power Elite, which introduced that term and describes the relationships and class alliances among the US political, military, and economic elites; White Collar: The American Middle Classes, on the American middle class; and The Sociological Imagination, which presents a model of analysis for the interdependence of subjective experiences within a person's biography, the general social structure, and historical development.
George William "Bill" Domhoff is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and research professor of psychology and sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a founding faculty member of UCSC's Cowell College. He is best known as the author of several best-selling sociology books, including Who Rules America? and its seven subsequent editions.
The New World Order (NWO) is a conspiracy theory which hypothesizes a secretly emerging totalitarian world government.
In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by extension determine and establish the dominant ideology of society by way of cultural hegemony. In the 21st century, the worldwide political economy established by globalization has created a transnational capitalist class that is not native to any one country.
The Establishment is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific institutions. One can refer to any relatively small class or group of people who can exercise control as The Establishment. Conversely, in the jargon of sociology, anyone who does not belong to The Establishment may be labelled an outsider. Anti-authoritarian anti-establishment ideologies question the legitimacy of establishments, seeing their influence on society as undemocratic.
The Power Elite is a 1956 book by sociologist C. Wright Mills, in which Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities.
In political and sociological theory, the elite are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, the "elite" are "those people or organizations that are considered the best or most powerful compared to others of a similar type."
Interlocking directorate refers to the practice of members of a corporate board of directors serving on the boards of multiple corporations. A person that sits on multiple boards is known as a multiple director. Two firms have a direct interlock if a director or executive of one firm is also a director of the other, and an indirect interlock if a director of each sits on the board of a third firm. This practice, although widespread and lawful, raises questions about the quality and independence of board decisions.
In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the State that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power—and that this power is independent of democratic elections.
Fred L. Block is an American sociologist, and Research Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Block is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading economic and political sociologists. His interests are wide ranging. He has been noted as an influential follower of Karl Polanyi.
Charles Derber is an American Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Derber's work focuses on the crises of capitalism, globalization, corporate power, American militarism, the culture of hegemony, the climate crisis, and the new peace and global justice movements. Derber is persuaded that the overwhelming economic and cultural power of global corporations, increasingly melded with the political and military hegemonic power of the American government and the crises of global capitalism and global climate change, are together an integrated crisis that is now the pre-eminent social issue of the 21st century, and that a new vision and political movement is needed. Derber’s research is oriented toward 1) the systemic analysis of the intertwined crises we face and 2) analysis of the transformative potential of social movements arising to create a more democratic and egalitarian order.
Fat cat is a political term originally describing a rich political donor, also called an angel or big-money man.
John Peter Scott is an English sociologist working on issues of economic and political sociology, social stratification, the history of sociology, and social network analysis. He is currently working independently, and has previously worked at the Universities of Strathclyde, Leicester, Essex, and Plymouth. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has been a member of the British Sociological Association since 1970. In 2015 he became Chair of Section S4 of the British Academy. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Essex University.
The Invisible Class Empire is a term introduced by Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong in their book titled, The New Class Society: Goodbye American Dream? The term refers to members of the superclass that are involved in shaping both political and corporate policies. This class of people may be thought of as an empire because members maintain an influence on society through access to a surplus of financial, cultural, human and social capital. These various forms of capital translate into the political force needed to preserve classwide vested interests. Unlike conspiracy theories of power and control, the superclass' political influence is evidenced in the reality of economic and political inequalities that maintain class hierarchies. The term, therefore, refers to "the hidden structures and processes through which superclass leaders, along with their credentialed-class allies, penetrate and dominate the American political system." The empire is "invisible" because many of the individuals involved receive very little or no public attention.
The Distinguished Scholarship Award is given by the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) to sociologists based in the Pacific region of North America, in recognition of major scholarly contributions. To be eligible for the award, a sociologist's contribution must be embodied in a recently published book or through a series of articles with a common theme.
