Political%20Deviance%20Forms

1
Political Deviance Forms

• Kinds of political deviance (see Ch. 6 208, ED)
• Money Kick-backs, bribes, illegal
  contributions, funneling contracts without
  bidding, utilizing tax dollars for personal
  benefit. Enacting (or blocking opposing)
  legislation to protect wealth distribution to at
  expense of taxpayers (e.g., pork)
• Power Election fraud, stacking the court,
• Gross mismanagement from accepting a job
  (political position) for which
• (a) you are not qualified or
• (b) you have no intentions of actually
  fulfilling its requirements.
• Irresponsible sexual liaisons and harassment
• Being partisan for the sake of being partisan
• Character assassination
• People involved in political deviance
  politicians (elected and appointed), police,
  regulatory agents, bureaucrats.

2
Political Deviance

• Why is there political deviance?
• Each one of the theories of deviance contributes
  a portion to our understanding.
• Anomie
• Social Control
• Differential Association
• Social Disorganization
• Symbolic crusades
• Control Theory
• Functionalism
• But is that all there is?

3
Political Deviance

• A suggested overall process where does it all
  start?

Internal control sense of entitlement
External control of rules, laws.
Protect power, Feed greed
No
Learn from others
No
Understand ones status in society
Neutralizations
Take action
4
Political Deviance

• Cultural Origins See Simon, ch 6.
• What you see is where Ive been
• Founding Fathers were the most wealthy and
  powerful, and designed the new government to
  protect their interests.
• Slaves were ¾ person not total, because of
  racism, but given personhood so that slave-owning
  states had access to more power. Indians were
  given personhood only if they paid taxes, which
  benefited eastern states over frontier.
• Women had no rights.
• Fundamental protection of property rights.
• Electoral college delegation process designed to
  prevent voice of people.

5
Political Deviance

• Look at the pattern
• Leaders are powerful people
• Powerful people tend to have wealth.
• So the purpose of the power tends to be to
  preserve and enhance wealth, rather than using
  the money for public good. See ED, Ch 6 pg 231
• Examine Simons myths (pg 247-248)
• The antidote
• Making political power as accessible as possible
  to people.
• Structural control to minimize risk for political
  deviance.
• Let them eat cake example.

6
Political Deviance

• The importance of structure
• Checks and balances for power and its
  institutions
• Regulatory bodies
• Authority with responsibility
• The importance of a free press
• Investigates improprieties (no one else does
  unless theres a charge of a crime, and there
  almost never is).
• But is increasingly run by profit-making goals
  more so than the desire to put out a quality
  newspaper with quality journalism.
• Dumbing down of American media.

7
Political Deviance 9/11 Symposium

• How did the mission of not assigning individual
  blame have an impact on the reports
  conclusions?

8
Political Deviance 9/11 Symposium

• Perrow
• By ignoring individual contributions from
  non-governmental actors, or low-level actors, the
  Report diminishes potential for local control and
  instead seeks massive centralized organizational
  control.
• Differences between Clinton and Bush
  Administrations
• A. Clinton, even though distracted by sex
  scandal, still acted to prevent terrorism.
• Despite wall between FBI and CIA, Clinton
  managed to get cooperation.
• But he let the organizational challenges
  unaddressed.
• B. Bush, did not address org issues either, and
  also did not stray from his preconceived notions
  despite far more credible info regarding imminent
  terrorism threats.

9
Political Deviance 9/11 Symposium

• Tierney
• The conclusions of the Report relied on a current
  theme of controlling the people rather than
  empowering the people.
• Therefore, wants a militaristic solution, meaning
  that the way to protect our freedom is to remove
  it.

10
Governmental Deviance

• Historical Sociology
• Understanding deviance, and especially
  governmental deviance, requires methods of
  historical sociology, where historical events,
  facts and conditions, value systems, etc. become
  data.
• The value of this form of research is to avoid
  being doomed to repeat history.
• Remember to read history from different sides of
  the conflicts.

11
Governmental Deviance

• Possible Forms of Government Deviance
• Government mistreatment of its own population
• Fails to perform because of corruption (security,
  public health, economy, human/civil rights)
• Scapegoats minority group and causes harm for
  power consolidation.
• Bankrupts countrys assets for personal benefit.
• Government oppression with respect to other
  populations
• Non-defensive wars for conquest
• Genocide and mass murder
• Probably colonialism and imperialism and
  certainly in its consequences
• Slavery and slave trade.
• Assassinations and other manipulations of other
  governments.
• Standing by or creating a context for others to
  commit acts of violence.

12
Governmental Deviance

• Key elements from our theory which are
  definitional criteria
• GDev is dysfunctional it benefits one group at
  expense of others.
• It utilizes symbolic crusades as a way to get
  societal buy-in
• Needs physical control practice to enforce
• Utilizes an ideology that scapegoats and feeds
  off fear, with the Big Lie.
• Uses labeling
• Organized deviance political leaders collude
  with those they know, based on their own
  experiences. (diff. assoc).
• Requires support of military-industry (or
  economic leaders)

13
Governmental Deviance

• Often overlaps with political deviance forms (see
  slide 100)
• Difficult to control
• Legal definitions lacking
• Citizens of world have limited court/police with
  which to pursue justice.
• UN and other similar bodies lack adequate
  legitimacy.
• Legitimacy when the people give a leader
  authority to rule.
• Coercive (sometimes part of Legal-Rational or
  others)
• Legal-Rational
• Traditional
• Charismatic
• Hegemony sphere of influence or control
• Ideological hegemony control of ideas and
  values, and therefore dominant parties seek
  control of information.

14
Governmental Deviance Pol Pot Cambodia

• From Wikipedia (http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_p
  ot)
• Cambodia was French Colony. After independence in
  1954, run by King Norodom Sihanouk, who played
  the parties against each other while using the
  police and army to suppress extreme political
  groups. Corrupt elections in 1955 led many
  leftists in Cambodia to abandon hope of taking
  power by legal means. The communist movement,
  while ideologically committed to armed struggle
  in these circumstances, did not launch a
  rebellion because of the weakness of the party.
• Pol Pot became leader when competition was
  arrested by Sihanouk. He then got support from
  Vietnamese communist party, and the movement took
  hold after another round of repression by
  Sihanouk in 1965. Vietnamese began utilizing
  Cambodian territory.
• By summer of 1968, Pol Pots power base was
  considerably larger and more influential. With
  more help from Vietnamese, mobilized Khmer Rouge
  into solid force of irregulars (read not
  trained).
• The theme used by Pol Pot was one of a
  combination of leftist politics,
  anti-intellectualism.

15
GDev- Pol Pot continued

• The city people were considered almost a disease
  that needed to be contained so that it not infect
  the areas run by the Khmer Rouge.
• He also ordered a series of general purges.
  Former government officials and anyone with an
  education was singled out in the purges.
• A set of new prisons was constructed in Khmer
  Rouge run areas.
• The Cham minority attempted an uprising around
  this time against attempts to destroy their
  culture. While the uprising was quickly crushed,
  Pol Pot ordered that harsh physical torture be
  used against most of those involved in the
  revolt.
• Pol Pot tested out harsh new policies against the
  Cham minority before extending them to the
  general population of the country.
• Internationally, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were
  able to gain the recognition of 63 countries as
  the true government of Cambodia. A move was made
  at the United Nations to give the seat for
  Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. The government
  prevailed by two votes.

16
GDev- Pol Pot continued

• Out of a population of approximately 8 million,
  Pol Pot's regime exterminated one quarter, or
  almost 2 million people.
• The Khmer Rouge targeted Buddhist monks,
  Western-educated intellectuals, educated people
  in general, people who had contact with Western
  countries, people who appeared to be intelligent
  (for example, individuals with glasses), the
  crippled and lame, and ethnic minorities like
  ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese.
• Some were thrown into the infamous S-21 camp for
  interrogation involving torture in cases where a
  confession was useful to the government. Many
  others were subject to summary execution.

17
US Involvement in Iraq is it Governmental
Deviance?

• First, lets look at the criteria and evidence
  indicators.
• Second, evaluate
• Saddam-Al Qaida link Hussein had coercive
  legitimacy with a hegemonic platform that was
  secular. The country was modern to a large
  degree and progressive in many ways. Al Qaida is
  populist, and religious-based. Their power bases
  are at odds with each other.
• No history of democratic process
• Nation-building doesnt just happen.
• Influence of colonialism endures (French and
  British)
• Ethnicity plays a central role in Middle East,
  and does so differently than it does in the West.
  
• Thus, even excluding the WMD arguments, the war
  effort was likely to cause exactly the outcome we
  see. And, as for the WMD claims, which are now
  shown to be false, and with Libbys conviction,
  we can see the anomie ends justify means
  neutralizations, where the end itself is
  problematic blind support for the
  Administration, regardless of conflicting facts.

18
Gov Deviance War in Iraq?

• Yes
• The Big Lie (5 mistruths about war
  justification)
• Labeling of opposition
• Political assassination of opposition.
• Caused massive death and destruction.
• Created instability with long-term dangerous
  consequences.
• Redirected finite resources to a no-win situation
  instead of taking care of domestic population
• Ignored credible warnings re 9/11 and then
  pursues non-9/11 country.
• Invokes symbolic crusades and demonizes enemies.
• Led to loss of civil liberties and abuses of
  power domestically.
• Tremendous profit going to limited companies, all
  associates of the Administrations power base.
• Created outside of legitimate processes by
  limited set of long-term associates.
• No
• Hussein was a ruthless dictator.
• Oil critical to national well-being.
• Hussein wanted to trade in another currency, not
  dollars.
• Hussein was a proven aggressor in the region.
• The Democrats almost all voted for it, too (which
  could mean they too are guilty of this deviance).

19
Governmental Deviance

• Relating this to your final paper
• Look at the morality essays essentially each one
  is a more involved version of what I expect in
  the final paper. Note their outline Discusses
  importance, highlights interesting aspects of
  book (summarizes), and then explains them
  sociologically (usually through framing and
  labeling). Then the essayist adds his/her own
  perspective about the implications of the book
  and the subject matter in question.