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Click on each question to check your answer.
1. What is social change and why is it so difficult to achieve?
Answer: Social change refers to the transformation of culture and social institutions over time at a general level. Sometimes it is difficult to undertake because of formal laws and regulations that compel individuals to conform to the norms and rules of society. When these formal laws and regulations are not enough to encourage us to conform, informal social sanctions such as exclusion and shaming encourage us to follow the rules. Conformity based on formal and informal laws makes social change difficult to achieve.
2. What are the four components of the nation state?
Answer: The state is a set of institutions that provides an important arena for creating social change through elections, laws, and social policy. States include four primary components: elected or appointed political decision-makers, administrative units or bureaucracies, a judiciary or legal system, and security services.
3. What is the difference between the managerial perspective, the militaristic perspective, and the economic perspective?
Answer: Although all are used to explain the rise of the modern state, they each refer to a different aspect influencing that rise. The managerial perspective, for example, evolved as territories grew in geographic size and population and the state was needed to better manage and control these larger areas and groups of people. The managerial perspective focuses on the evolving practices related to recruitment, training, and employment of administrators. The militaristic perspective reflects the fact that early states evolved primarily through war. In this perspective, the states with better bureaucracies were better equipped financially to wage war because they had a more efficient tax system. Finally, the economic perspective argues that the state is needed to regulate contradictory economic interests in a capitalist society.
4. What is the welfare state and what are its three basic functions?
Answer: The welfare state plays a primary role in the promotion of its citizens’ economic and social well-being and it does so by fulfilling three main functions. First, the welfare state attempts to provide a minimum income for individuals. Second, the welfare state attempts to reduce the potential economic insecurity that come from major life events such as illness, old age, and unemployment. Finally, it attempts to provide the public with a range of social services.
5. What is the difference between a universal social program provided by the welfare state and a means-tested social program provided by the welfare state?
Answer: Both programs offer benefits through the welfare state to fulfill the functions of that state, although they differ in how they offer these programs. Universal social programs are available to all citizens, regardless of income or wealth. These programs tend to be popular because everyone benefits equally, but sometimes they are not the most efficient for dealing with certain social problems such as poverty, for example. Means-tested social programs through welfare states, on the other hand, try to remedy this inefficiency by ensuring the benefits flowing through this type of program rely on a determination of whether an individual or family needs government assistance.Compared to universal programs, means-tested programs are a more efficient way to address inequality because they provide more money to those who need it the most.