SP219: Autumn sitting Assessment 2021-22 What explains the emergence of the modern nation-state?: Political Sociology Essay, NUI

SP219 Political Sociology: Autumn sitting Assessment 2021-22

1. What explains the emergence of the modern nation-state? Your answer should critically reflect on the views of scholars such as Poggi, Mann, and/or Giddens.
2. Critically evaluate the New Social Movements (NSM) thesis. What was ‘new’ about the social movements that first emerged in the 1960s onwards and what explains their emergence?
3. What explains the outbreak of political violence? Your answer should include critical analysis of academic debates on greed and grievance.
4. What explains the steep increase in organised violence in the modern era? Your answer should discuss the ideas of at least one of the following writers: Giddens, Mann, Malešević
5. Critically evaluate the role played by either the prison system or the asylum in society, making reference to the ideas of at least one of the following thinkers: Foucault, Goffman, Rothman, Grob.
6. Is nationalism being eroded by globalisation. Your answer should discuss the ideas of at least one of the following theorists: Mann, Kohn, Gellner, Osterhammel.
7. What is the Weberian understanding of political legitimacy? Is Weber’s theorisation sufficient? Discuss with reference to at least one other sociological approach to the study of legitimacy.