Tag: conflict

  • Sociological Perspectives on the War in Ukraine…

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having profound negative implications for not only Ukrainians but also the populations of every European country, and Russia itself. This post explores some of the sociological concepts we might use to better understand the war and its consequences…. Students need to be able to apply contemporary events to their answers…

  • The Role of Developed Countries in War and Conflict

    A summary of Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and David Harvey’s views on mainly American militarism

  • Ongoing Wars and Conflicts in the World Today

    The worst ongoing wars in 2021 are in Afghanistan, Yemen and Mexico….

  • Is Religion a Source of Consensus or Conflict?

    Functionalism is the only perspective which has traditionally argued that religion is a source of value consensus, all other perspectives disagree with this in one way or another, but not all believe that religion is necessarily a cause of overt conflict in the world. Functionalism Functionalists generally argue that religion promotes value consensus in a…

  • The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P Huntington

    The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P Huntington

    Samuel P. Huntington sees ‘civilizations’ as the most significant grouping in global society, rather than ‘nation states’, or ‘global religions’, although there are often close relationships between religions and Huntington’s concept of ‘civilizations’. Globalization has resulted in the world becoming a smaller place, which means that there are increasing interactions between ‘civilizations’, which intensifies ‘civilization…

  • America’s New Space Force

    Despite being a third world country, as  judged many and varied social indicators of development, America is set to spend $8 billion on a new ‘space force‘ over the next 5 years. China and Russia are currently competitors for military advantage in space, and it seems this has got America worried. In 2007 China successfully…

  • Disengagement as Evidence of Secularization

    Within the secularization debate, disengagement is the process of religious institutions becoming less involved in political and social life. It is the general withdrawing of religious institutions from wider society. If we take a long term view and compare the role of the church in British society today with its role in medieval times, religious…

  • The Partition of India

    The August 1947 partition of India divided the newly independent country into two new states: A Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The later was itself divided into western and eastern sections, more than 1000 miles apart: present day Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the view of most historians, the partition of India was the central…

  • Comparing Military Blogs and Civil War Letters

    This post outlines an interesting comparative research study of secondary documents (‘private’ letters and a more public blog) which could be used to get students thinking about the usefulness of such sources in social research. I’ve taken the summary below straight from Bryman (2016) Social Research Methods: It is tempting to think that the century and a half…

  • The US bombing of Afghanistan – A $16 million distraction from the harms of neoliberal policies at home?

    America’s two latest attacks on Syria and Afghanisatan have been headline news in the last fortnight – in case you missed either of them… In Syria – the US launched 59 Tomahawk missiles to damage and air base in response to the claimed use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces against civilians. In Afghanistan they…