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Module 9: C. Wright Mills
Vocabulary words for C. Wright Mills module
16
Sociology
Undergraduate 4
08/14/2015

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Term
bureaucracy
Definition
A formal organization marked by a clear hierarchy of authority and written rules of procedure, staffed by full-time salaried officials, and striving for the efficient attainment of organizational goals.
Term
holistic
Definition
Characterized by an emphasis on the whole system and on the interdependent nature of the parts of that system.
Term
centralization
Definition
Power and authority concentrated into a few offices.
Term
militarism
Definition
A policy that emphasizes military preparedness, threats, and action in addressing problems of state. A glorification of military ideals and capabilities.
Term
jeremiad
Definition
Writing that is characterized by a long list of complaints, laments, or prophesies of doom.
Term
nation-state
Definition
A modern state in which a government has sovereign power within a defined territorial area and the mass of the population are citizens.
Term
semi-professions
Definition
An occupation the members of which are overwhelmingly employed by bureaucracy, although increasing numbers of professionals are employed in such organizations as well.
Term
legitimation
Definition
The ways in which an institution engenders acceptance, validity, or commitment from individuals and other institutions.
Term
sociological imagination
Definition
C. Wright Mills’s term for the application of imaginative thought to the asking and answering of sociological questions; the ability to see the effects of social patterns and history on human behaviour.
Term
power elite
Definition
According to C. Wright Mills, men in the highest positions of government, corporations, and the military, who hold enormous power in modern industrial societies.
Term
totalitarianism
Definition
A form of government in which an authoritarian government attempts to regulate every aspect of sociocultural life.
Term
manipulation
Definition
Skilful or devious management.
Term
rationalization
Definition
Weber's term for the process by which modes of precise calculation based on observation and reason increasingly dominate the social world.
Term
ideology
Definition
Shared ideas or beliefs that serve to justify and support the interests of particular groups or organizations.
Term
white-collar
Definition
Pertaining to non-manual occupations such as administrative or professional jobs.
Term
bureaucratization
Definition
The tendency of bureaucracies to refine their procedures to attain their goals ever more efficiently. More generally, the process of secondary organizations taking over functions performed by primary groups.
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