The Relationship of Politics, Power, and Authority

Politics is that the process by which groups of individuals make decisions.

Groups of people try and maximize their interests. Multiple lines of power shift as power may be a continuous bargaining process between competing groups.

Elite/Managerial Theory
The elite or managerial theory is typically called a state-centered approach. It also seeks to explain and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The speculation posits that a little minority—consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks—holds the foremost power. Through positions in corporations, corporate boards, and policy-planning networks, members of the “elite” are ready to exert significant power over the policy decisions of corporations and governments.

Class Analysis
It is split into two parts. One is the ‘power structure’ or ‘instrumentalist’ approach; the opposite is the ‘structuralist’ approach. The facility structure approach focuses on determining who rules, while the structuralist approach emphasizes the way a laissez-faire economy operates, allowing and inspiring the state to try and do some things but not others.

Contemporary Political Sociology
In part, this is often a product of the growing complexity of social relations, the impact of movement organizing, and the state’s relative weakening via globalization.