A Level Soc Notes Chikunguru Vol 2-1-1

B.
CHIKUNGURU
1bchikunguru@gmail.com
CONTENTS PAGE
TOPIC
11. RACE AND ETHNICITY ________________________________________________3
12. UNEMPLOYMENT____________________________________________________14
13. POVERTY ___________________________________________________________20
14. ENTERPRISE AND WORK_____________________________________________26
15. LEISURE_____________________________________________________________45
16. POPULATION AND HEALTH___________________________________________52
17. GLOBALISATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE________________________________73
18. URBANISATION_______________________________________________________85
19. GOVERNANCE AND CITIZENSHIP______________________________________93
20. DEVIANCE, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL_____________________________105
21. MASS MEDIA________________________________________________________129
First edition published 2020

© B. Chikunguru
TOPIC 11: RACE AND ETHNICITY
 A race is a socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted
traits that members of a society consider important. People may classify one another
racially based on physical characteristics such as skin color, facial features, hair texture,
and body shape (Macionis 2012).
 Although we think of race in terms of biological elements, race is a socially constructed
concept. It is true that human beings differ in any number of ways involving physical
traits, but a “race” comes into being only when the members of a society decide that some
physical trait (such as skin color or eye shape) actually matters.
 According to Giddens (2009) Ethnicity refers to the cultural practices and outlooks of a
given community of people which sets them apart from others.
 Members of ethnic groups see themselves as culturally distinct from other groups and are
seen by them, in return, as different.
 Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage (Macionis 2012). People define themselves—or
others—as members of an ethnic category based on common ancestry, language, or
religion that gives them a distinctive social identity.
Difference between race and ethnicity
Race Ethnicity
 It is biological i.e. determined by physical  It is cultural i.e. determined by language, religion,
characteristics like skin color, hair texture etc. ancestry etc.
 In most cases, race is unitary — i.e., a person belongs  There are hundreds if not thousands of ethnicities
to one race .Races are fewer and have no across the globe e.g. Zimbabwean, Jewish etc. One
subcategories. E.g. brown, white, or black skin (all can claim ethnic membership in multiple groups. For
from various parts of the world) example, Barack Obama is racially black in spite of
his mother being Caucasian.
 A person does not choose her race; it is assigned  Although Schaefer (2012) noted that, race and
(ascribed) by society based upon her physical ethnicity are both considered ascribed statues,
features. Ethnicity is more of self-identified. An individual can
learn a language, social norms and customs, and
assimilate into a culture to belong to an ethnic group
but cannot learn being black e.g. one ne can learn
English language. Through socialization, young
people assimilate the lifestyles, norms and beliefs of
ethnic communities.
 One cannot hid his/her race. Usually when a carrying  Ethnicity can be hidden or displayed depending on
a research covert research becomes challenging. circumstances e.g. when one is doing a research in a
different ethnic group can choose to “Go Native” to
identify with the group or not.
 There are fewer race-based conflicts in the 21st  Often brutal conflicts between ethnic groups have
century than in the past. Racial prejudice however existed throughout history and across the world e.g.
remains a continuing problem throughout the world BOKOHARAM terrorizing Christians in Nigeria, the
e.g. racism against black soccer players like Romelu Hutu and Tutsi people in Rwanda. . But most ethnic
Lukaku of Inter Milan FC in Cagliari, Italy (as of groups in fact get along peacefully within one another
January 2020). in most nations most of the time.
Social Construction of Race

 People’s opinions define race. Society assigns people to racial categories, such as Black,
White, and so on, not because of science, logic, or fact, but because of opinion and social
experience. How groups are defined racially is a social process. This is what is meant
when one says that race is “socially constructed.”
 Race is shaped by history. It is not the biological characteristics per se that define racial
groups but how groups have been treated and labeled historically and socially
(Higginbotham and Andersen 2012). The experiences of Jewish people provide a good
example of what it means to say that race is a socially constructed category. Jews are more
accurately called an ethnic group because of common religious and cultural heritage, but
in Nazi Germany, Hitler defined Jews as a “race.” An ethnic group thus became racialized.
Jews were presumed to be biologically inferior to the group Hitler labeled the Aryans—
white-skinned, blonde, tall, blue-eyed people. On the basis of this definition— which was
supported through Nazi law, taught in Nazi schools, and enforced by the Nazi military—
Jewish people were brutally mistreated. They were segregated, persecuted, and
systematically murdered in what has come to be called the Holocaust during the Second
World War.
 Race is for manipulation of privileges. Because race is a social construction, the process
of defining races typically benefits those who have more power and privilege than others.
As sociologist Edward Telles notes, light skinned Brazilians continue to be privileged and
continue to hold a disproportionate share of the wealth and power. Brazilians of darker
skin color have significantly lower earnings, occupational status, and lower access to
education (Telles et al. 2011; Villareal 2010; Telles 2004, 1994)
 Little correspondence between races as defined biologically/genetically and the actual
naming of the races .Although the meaning of race begins with alleged biological/genetic
differences between groups (such as differences in physical characteristics like skin color,
lip form, and hair texture), on closer examination, the assumption that racial differences
are purely biological breaks down. In fact, biologists have pointed out that there is little
correspondence between races as defined biologically/genetically and the actual naming
of the races (Taylor 2012; Morning 2011; Ledger 2009; Lewontin 1996).
 The social categories used to divide groups into races are not fixed. They vary from
society to society and at different times in the history of a given society (Morning 2011,
2008; Washington 2011). According to Andersen (2017), in Brazil, a light skinned Black
person could well be considered White, especially if the person is of high socioeconomic
status. This demonstrates that one’s race in Brazil is in part actually defned by one’s social
class. Thus, in parts of Brazil, it is often said that “money lightens” (odinheiro
embranquence).
Ethnic groups
Minority Groups
 Sociologist Louis Wirth (1945) defined a minority group as people who are singled out
for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.
 Surprisingly, a minority group is not necessarily a numerical minority. When South Africa
practiced apartheid, a smaller group of Afrikaners, primarily Dutch, discriminated against
a much larger number of blacks.
 Accordingly, the term minority connotes discrimination, and in its sociological use, the
term subordinate group can be used interchangeably with the term minority
 In sociology, members of a minority group are disadvantaged when compared with the
dominant group - a group possessing more wealth, power and prestige
Characteristics of minority groups
 According to Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris (1958), a minority group is distinguished
by five characteristics:
 Unequal treatment and less power over their lives. Members of a minority group
experience unequal treatment compared to members of a dominant group.
 Distinguishing physical or cultural traits like skin color or language. Members of a
minority group share physical or cultural characteristics that distinguish them from the
dominant group.
 Involuntary membership in the group. Membership in a minority (or dominant) group is
not voluntary; people are born into the group. Thus, race and ethnicity are considered
ascribed statuses (Schaefer 2012).
 High rate of in-group marriage. Members of a minority group generally marry others
from
the same group. A member of a dominant group is often unwilling to marry into a
supposedly inferior minority group. People within the minority sometimes actively
promote endogamy (marriage within the group) in order to keep alive their cultural
distinctiveness.
 Awareness of subordination- Members of minority groups often tend to see themselves
as a people apart from the majority. They are sometimes physically and socially isolated
from the larger community. They tend to be concentrated in certain neighborhoods, cities
or regions of a country. Sometimes minority group members rise up in defiance and
become agents of social change. This was the case with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. (1929-1968). He took a Functionalist approach (as opposed to the more common
Conflict approach) and preached non-violent resistance to evil (racism).
 Other characteristics include:
 Strong sense of group solidarity. William Graham Sumner, writing in 1906, noted that
people make distinctions between members of their own group (the in-group) and
everyone else (the out-group). When a group is the object of long-term prejudice and
discrimination, the feeling of “us versus them” can and often does become extremely
intense. There is a “consciousness of kind” or “we” feeling.
Majority groups
 A majority group is the group that is politically, economically, and culturally dominant.
 Accordingly, sociologists refer to those who do the discriminating not as the majority, but,
rather, as the dominant group, for regardless of their numbers, this is the group that has
the greater power and privilege.
Characteristics of majority groups

 Forced or reinforced segregation (keeping dominant and minority group communities
separate)
 Legislative controls include anti-miscegenation laws (no interracial marriages)
 legal oppression (slavery, denial of right to vote, no public education) of minority group
 Outright annihilation (apartheid in South Africa).
 Marginalization of the minority. Marginalization often results in material deprivation and
exclusion.
NB refer to minority groups for other similar points
Stereotypes
 Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people e.g. Zimbabwean
girls in Bulawayo believe that Shona boys are more caring than Ndebele boys.
 Stereotypes can be based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation. They can be
positive, negative, or neutral.
 Among gender stereotypes, those based on a person’s gender, the stereotypes about
women are more likely to be negative than those about men. The “typical” woman has
been traditionally stereotyped as subservient, overly emotional and talkative, inept at math
and science, and so on. These stereotypes are conveyed and supported by the cultural
media—music, TV, magazines, art, and literature. Men, too, are painted in crude strokes,
although usually not as negatively as women. Men in the media are stereotyped as macho,
insensitive, and pigheaded and are portrayed in situation comedies as inept and bumbling.
 Social class stereotypes are based on assumptions about social class status.
 According to the Thomas theorem, situations that are defined as real become real in their
consequences. Stereotypes can become real to people who believe them and sometimes
even to those who are victimized by them.
Functions
 They help people to make predictions about other people’s behavior
 They help people to meaningfully assess differences between individuals and groups.
 They can influence culture. Stereotypes become embedded in cultural understandings and
are difficult to erode, even when they are gross distortions of reality. The belief that single
mothers are dependent on welfare and refuse to work is an example of a persistent
stereotype that lacks basis in fact
Prejudice
 Prejudice is a negative belief or feeling about a particular group of individuals. It is
attitudinal .e.g. the BaTonga people from Binga in Zimbabwe have been labelled more to
believe in magic and witchcraft.
 The beliefs involve both prejudgment and misjudgment (Jones et al. 2013; Allport 1954).
Prejudices are often grounded in stereotypes
 There is also positive prejudice, which exaggerates the virtues of a group, as when people
think that some group (usually their own) is more capable than others.
 Prejudice is not based on experience; instead, it is a prejudgment, originating outside
actual experience. A prejudiced person's preconceived views are often based on hearsay
rather than on direct evidence, and are resistant to change even in the face of new
information.
 Sometimes prejudice results from ethnocentrism. Ethnocentric people judge other cultures
by the standards of their group, which leads quite easily to prejudice against cultures they
view as inferior.
Functions
 Gives people scapegoats to blame in times of trouble .e.g. a citizen can blame his
unemployment on foreign nationals
 Prejudice can boost self-esteem e.g. a poor Shona can feel better by insisting on his
superiority to a Ndebele.
 They lead to impartial judgments. Someone who is prejudiced against a particular group
will not deal with its members impartially.
Discrimination
 Discrimination is an act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or a group.
Different from prejudice, which is an attitude, discrimination is behavior.
 Like prejudice, discrimination can be either positive (providing special advantages) or
negative (creating obstacles) and ranges from subtle to extreme.
 Although prejudice is often the basis of discrimination, the two may exist separately.
People may have prejudiced attitudes that they do not act on.
 People may discriminate on:
 Age-Ageism or age discrimination is discrimination and stereotyping based on the
grounds of someone's age. It is a set of beliefs, norms, and values which used to justify
discrimination or subordination based on a person's age. Ageism is most often directed
towards old people, or adolescents and children
 Caste (refer to notes on social stratification)
 Disability-Disability discrimination, which treats non-disabled individuals as the standard
of 'normal living', results in public and private places and services, educational settings,
and social services that are built to serve 'standard' people, thereby excluding those with
various disabilities.
 sex and gender (refer to notes on gender)
 Culture or subculture-Discrimination can be directed towards persons based on their
cultures or subcultures.
Racism
 Racism is the belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior. Racism is
a stronger type of prejudice used to justify the belief that one racial category is somehow
superior or inferior to others.
 There are different forms of racism.
 Institutional racism-the negative treatment and oppression of one racial or ethnic group
by society’s existing institutions based on the presumed inferiority of the oppressed
group. In
Durkheim’s sense, it is external to individuals—thus institutional. According to this view,
institutions such as the police, the health service and the education system all promote
policies that favor certain groups, while discriminating against others. Racial profiling is
an example of institutional racism in the criminal justice system. African American and
Hispanic people are arrested—and serve longer sentences—considerably more often than
are Whites and Asians. In fact, an African American or Hispanic wrongdoer is more
likely to be arrested than a White person who commits the exact same crime, even when
the White person shares the same age, socioeconomic environment, and prior arrest
record as the Black or Hispanic.
 Individual racism-individual or internalised racism lies within individuals. They are
private manifestations of racism e.g. xenophobia, prejudice
 Internalised racism-when the poison of racism enters into the psyches of blacks until
they think they are inferior to whites,
 Interpersonal racism-occurs between individuals. e.g. public expressions of racial
prejudice, hate and bias between individuals
 Aversive racism-Consistently avoiding interaction with someone of another race or
ethnicity is an example of aversive racism. Racism can also be subtle, covert, and
nonobvious; this is known as aversive racism (Jones et al. 2013).
 Implicit bias (Jennifer Eberhardt 2010)- It is a largely non conscious form of
racism, where individuals make unconscious associations, say between race and crime.
Eberhardt’s research finds, for example, that in a court trial; Black defendants are more
likely to receive the death penalty than are otherwise similar White defendants. Eberhardt
attributes such findings to implicit bias, a subtle form of racism that individuals
internalize and carry with them always. This bias also carries over to police officers, who
mistakenly identify Black faces as “criminal faces” relative to White faces.
Theories of Racial Discrimination and Prejudice
(a) Ethnocentrism (refer to notes on culture for positives and negatives)
 Ethnocentrism is a suspicion of outsiders combined with a tendency to evaluate the culture
of others in terms of one's own culture. William Sumner (1906), who developed this
concept of ethnocentrism, said, “One’s own group is the center of everything, and all
others are scaled and rated with reference to it.”
 Virtually all cultures have been ethnocentric to some degree, and it is easy to see how
ethnocentrism combines with stereotypical thought.
 Outsiders are thought of as aliens, barbarians or morally and mentally inferior. This was
how most civilizations viewed the members of smaller cultures, for example, and the
attitude has
fuelled innumerable ethnic clashes in history.
 Ethnocentrism and group closure, or ethnic group closure, frequently go together.
 'Closure' refers to the process whereby groups maintain boundaries separating themselves
from others.
 These boundaries are formed by means of exclusion devices, which sharpen the divisions
between one ethnic group and another (Barth 1969).
 Such devices include limiting or prohibiting intermarriage between the groups, restrictions
on social contact or economic relationships like trading, and the physical separation of
groups (as in the case of ethnic ghettos)
(b) Scapegoat Theory
 Scapegoat theory, developed initially from Dollard’s (1939) Frustration-Aggression
theory, suggests that the dominant group will displace its unfocused aggression onto a
subordinate group.
 History has shown us many examples of the scapegoating of a subordinate group. An
example from the last century is the way Adolf Hitler was able to blame the Jewish
population for Germany’s social and economic problems. In the United States, recent
immigrants have frequently been the scapegoat for the nation’s—or an individual’s—woes
thus Donald Trump’s controversial suggestion of building a multi-billion cost wall along
the American-Mexican border to reduce criminal activities caused by foreigners in
America. “Build a wall and crime will fall” Donal J Trump said on his tweeter handle
@realDonaldTrump on 23 January 2019. However studies have shown that in America,
criminal activities are a less case of foreigners but of native Americans themselves.
Xenophobic conflicts in South Africa have also been propagated by scapegoating
foreigners for unemployment among South Africans.
(c) Functionalism
 Functionalist theorists, while agreeing that racial hostility is hardly to be admired, point
out that it serves positive functions for those who practice discrimination. A functionalist
might look at “functions” and “dysfunctions” caused by racial inequality.
 Anthropologist Manning Nash (1962) has identified three functions of racially prejudiced
beliefs for the dominant group:
 Racist views provide a moral justification for maintaining an unequal society that
routinely deprives a minority group of its rights and privileges. Southern Whites
justified slavery by believing that Africans were physically and spiritually subhuman
and devoid of souls
 Racist beliefs discourage the subordinate minority from attempting to question its lowly
status, which would be to question the very foundations of society.
 Racial myths suggest that any major societal change (such as an end to discrimination)
would only bring greater poverty to the minority and lower the majority’s standard of
living. As a result, racial prejudice grows when a society’s value system (one
underlying a colonial empire or slavery, for example) is threatened.
 Example of functions of prejudice and discrimination adapted from Henslin (2012):
In a telling scene from a television documentary, journalist Bill Moyers interviewed Fritz
Hippler, a Nazi intellectual who at age 29 was put in charge of the entire German film
industry. Hippler said that when Hitler came to power the Germans were no more anti-
Semitic than the French, and probably less so. He was told to increase anti-Semitism in
Germany. Obediently, Hippler produced movies that contained vivid scenes comparing
Jews to rats—with their breeding threatening to infest the population. Why was Hippler
told to create hatred? Prejudice and discrimination were functional for the Nazis. Germany
was on its knees at this time. It had been defeated in World War I and was being
devastated by fines levied by the victors. The Jews provided a scapegoat, a common
enemy against which the Nazis could unite Germany. In addition, the Jews owned
businesses, bank accounts, fine art, and other property that the Nazis could confiscate.
Jews also held key positions (as university professors, reporters, judges, and so on), which
the Nazis could fill with their own flunkies.
 Although racial prejudice and discrimination may serve the powerful, such unequal
treatment can also be dysfunctional for a society, and even for the dominant group.
Sociologist Arnold Rose (1951) has outlined four dysfunctions that are associated with
racism:
 A society that practices discrimination fails to use the resources of all individuals.
Discrimination limits the search for talent and leadership to the dominant group.
 Discrimination aggravates social problems such as poverty, delinquency, and crime,
and places the financial burden of alleviating those problems on the dominant group.
 Society must invest a good deal of time and money to defend its barriers to the full
participation of all members.
 Racial prejudice and discrimination often undercut goodwill and friendly diplomatic
relations between nations.
 Example of dysfunctions of prejudice and discrimination adapted from Henslin
(2012): Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr are identical twins. Born in 1932 to a Roman Catholic
mother and a Jewish father, they were separated as babies after their parents divorced.
Jack was brought up as a Jew in Trinidad, while Oskar was reared as a Catholic in
Czechoslovakia. When Oskar was a toddler, Hitler annexed this area of Czechoslovakia,
and Oskar learned to love Hitler and to hate Jews. He joined the Hitler Youth (a sort of
Boy Scout organization, except that this one was designed to instill the “virtues” of
patriotism, loyalty, obedience—and hatred). Under the Nazi regime, Oskar learned to hate
Jews, unaware that he himself was a Jew.
(d) Conflict Theory-Marxism
 Early conflict approaches to racism were heavily influenced by Marxist ideas, which saw
the
economic system as the determining factor for all other aspects of society.
 Some Marxist theorists held that racism was a product of the capitalist system, arguing
that the ruling class used slavery, colonization and racism as tools for exploiting labor
(Cox 1959).
 From a Marxist point of view, racism keeps minorities in low-paying jobs, thereby
supplying the capitalist ruling class with a pool of cheap labor.
 Moreover, by forcing racial minorities to accept low wages, capitalists can restrict the
wages of all members of the proletariat. Workers from the dominant group who demand
higher wages can always be replaced by minorities who have no choice but to accept low-
paying jobs.
 Later, neo-Marxist scholars saw these early formulations as too rigid and simplistic and
suggested that racism was not the product of economic forces alone. They argue that
racism is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon involving the interplay of ethnic
minority and working-class identities and beliefs.
(e) Conflict Theory-Feminism
 Feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990) developed intersection theory, which
suggests we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other
attributes.
 When we examine race and how it can bring us both advantages and disadvantages, it is
important to acknowledge that the way we experience race is shaped, for example, by
our gender and class.
 Multiple layers of disadvantage intersect to create the way we experience race. For
example, if we want to understand prejudice, we must understand that the prejudice
focused on a white woman because of her gender is very different from the layered
prejudice focused on a poor Asian woman, who is affected by stereotypes related to being
poor, being a woman, and her ethnic status.
 The effects of gender and race are intertwined, and both are intertwined with class.
(f) Symbolic Interactionism

 Symbolic interactionists examine how labels affect perception and create prejudice.
 Famed Interactionist Herbert Blumer (1958) suggested that racial prejudice is formed
through interactions between members of the dominant group: Without these interactions,
individuals in the dominant group would not hold racist views. These interactions
contribute to an abstract picture of the subordinate group that allows the dominant group
to support its view of the subordinate group, and thus maintains the status quo.
 How Labels Create Prejudice: Symbolic interactionists stress that the labels we learn
affect the way we perceive people. Labels cause selective perception; that is, they lead
us to see certain things while they blind us to others. If we apply a label to a group, we
tend to
perceive its members as all alike. The term nigger is not neutral or any of the other
scornful words people use to belittle ethnic groups. Such words overpower us with
emotions, blocking out rational thought about the people to whom they refer (Allport
1954).
 Labels and the Self-Fulfilling Stereotype: Some stereotypes not only justify prejudice
and discrimination but also produce the behavior depicted in the stereotype.
 Example: According to stereotypes, the members of Group X are lazy, so they don’t
deserve good jobs. (“They are lazy and undependable and wouldn’t do the job well.”)
Denied the better jobs, most members of Group X are limited to doing “dirty work,” the
jobs few people
want but that are thought appropriate for “that kind” of people. Since much “dirty work”
is sporadic, members of Group X are often seen “on the streets.” The sight of their
idleness reinforces the original stereotype of laziness. The discrimination that created the
“laziness” in the first place passes unnoticed.
FURTHER READING: The Man in the Zoo (Henslin 2012)
 The Bronx Zoo in New York City used to keep a 22-yearold pygmy in the Monkey House.
The man—and the orangutan he lived with—became the most popular exhibit at the zoo.
Thousands of visitors would arrive daily and head straight for the Monkey House.
 Eyewitnesses to what they thought was a lower form of human in the long chain of
evolution, the visitors were fascinated by the pygmy, especially by his sharpened teeth.
 To make the exhibit even more alluring, the zoo director had animal bones scattered in
front of the man
 The World’s Fair was going to be held in St. Louis in 1904, and the Department of
Anthropology wanted to show villages from different cultures. They asked Samuel
Verner, an explorer, if he could bring some pygmies to St. Louis to serve as live exhibits.
 Verner agreed, and on his next trip to Africa, in the Belgian Congo he came across Ota
Benga (or Otabenga), a pygmy who had been enslaved by another tribe. Benga, then about
age 20, said he was willing to go to St. Louis.After Verner bought Benga’s freedom for
some cloth and salt, Benga recruited another half dozen pygmies to go with them.
 After the World’s Fair, Verner took the pygmies back to Africa. When Benga found out
that a hostile tribe had wiped out his village and killed his family, he asked Verner if he
could return with him to the United States. Verner agreed.
 When they returned to New York,Verner ran into financial trouble and wrote some bad
checks. No longer able to care for Benga,Verner left him with friends at the American
Museum of Natural History. After a few weeks, they grew tired of Benga’s antics and
turned him over to the Bronx Zoo. The zoo officials put Benga on display in the Monkey
House.
 When the Colored Baptist Ministers’ Conference protested that exhibiting Benga was
degrading, zoo officials replied that they were “taking excellent care of the little fellow.”
 They added that “he has one of the best rooms at the primate house.” (I wonder what
animal
had the best room.)
 When they continued to protest, zoo officials decided to let Benga out of his cage. They
put a white shirt on him and let him walk around the zoo. At night, Benga slept in the
monkey house.
 Benga’s life became even more miserable. Zoo visitors would follow him, howling,
jeering, laughing, and poking at him
 After he know showed resistance to the situation, they decided that Benga had
to leave.
 After living in several orphanages for African American children, Benga ended up
working as a laborer in a tobacco factory in Lynchburg, Virginia.
 Always treated as a freak, Benga was desperately lonely. In 1916, at about the age of 32,
in despair that he had no home or family to return to in Africa, Benga ended his misery by
shooting himself in the heart.
 How does the concept of ethnocentrism apply to this event?
 How can the concepts of prejudice and discrimination apply to what happened to
Benga.
TOPIC 12: UNEMPLOYMENT
The concept of unemployment
 Unemployment describes the condition of people who are without jobs. International
Labor Organization (ILO) defines the unemployed as numbers of the economically active
population who are without work but available for and seeking work ,including people
who have lost their jobs and those who have voluntarily left work (World Bank 1998:63).
 Adebayo (1999) stated that unemployment exists when members of the labor force wish to
work but cannot get jobs.
Types of unemployment
 Frictional unemployment-This is unemployment that comes as a result of industrial
friction, in which jobs may exist yet the workers may be unable to fill them either because
they do not possess the necessary skills or because they are not aware of the existence of
such jobs. In some cases frictional unemployment can be explained by how the
employable may remain unemployed on account of the shortage of raw materials or
mechanical defects in the working of plants.
 Residual Unemployment-This is caused by personal factors such as old age physical or
mental disability poor work attitude and inadequate training.
 Technological Unemployment-It is caused by changes in the techniques of production.
For example increased mechanization can be an attribute of this form of unemployment
resulting in workers being replaced by machines.
 Cyclical unemployment-It is an unemployment which results if the overall demand for
goods and services in an economy can’t support full employment. It takes place during
periods of economic contraction or during the time of slow economic growth.
 Structural unemployment-This is a form of unemployment which is caused by the
mismatch in the skills that workers in the economy can offer and the skills needed of
workers by employers. Structural unemployment examples:
 Industry shift
 Technology obsolescence
 Seasonal unemployment
Causes of unemployment
NB. Use theories in your discussion of the raised points
 Economic causes
 Sluggish investment and growth
 Weak export performance
 Poor macroeconomic policy environment
 Change from manufacturing to tertiary service industries. Manufacturing industries
employ more people compared to service industries.
 Automation and mechanization (Marxism)
 Global recession
 Social causes
 Rapid expansion of the tertiary education system in Zimbabwe versus stagnant
industrial growth.
 Corruption/nepotism (Bourdieu and other Marxists)
 Rapid Population growth rate/age structure (Malthus)
 Incompatibility of the education curriculum to the demands of the job market
(Weber’s market situation).
 Political causes
 Political instability
The impact of economic sanctions in Zimbabwe.
 Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more
countries against a targeted self-governing state, group or individual. The US and EU
sanctions on Zimbabwe are illegal and unjustified because they violate Article 41 of the
United Nations Charter, which states that sanctions can only be decided by the UN
Security Council (https://www.herald.co.zw/impact-of-sanctions-on-zim-region-part-2/).
 According to (ibid) , the following sectors were affected by sanctions:
Impact on the Energy sector
 There has been limited access to credit lines and financial support from international
financial institutions like the World Bank, which stopped their support for energy
infrastructure development programmes.
 This has impacted negatively on the rate of implementation of capital projects, resulting in
curtailed and unreliable power infrastructure, insecure power supply and uncompetitive
industries, with power outages directly affecting other sectors such as agriculture and
manufacturing.
 Oil traders used to extend credit facility to oil importers, a facility which has since stopped
with insistence on upfront payment. This has negatively impacted on the country’s ability
to secure adequate fuel supplies. The fuel shortages has downstream effects on the cost of
production, and public transportation.
Impact on health, water, and sanitation infrastructure
 Water and sanitation infrastructure virtually collapsed resulting in the outbreak of cholera
and typhoid. The collapsed infrastructure is largely a result of constrained capacity to
provide adequate clean and safe water to communities. Water treatment plants have not
been upgraded to match increased demand.
 Some health facilities that were under construction like provincial and district hospitals
and were being financed through the World Bank loan facility could not be completed
soon after the imposition of sanctions as donors withdrew their funds. Government failed
to raise enough funds to complete the projects leaving some facilities incomplete.
Impact on the Transport sector

 Air transport lost almost 50 percent of traffic movements at its airports and airspace since
the imposition of sanctions. In 1997, a total of 2,280,153 passengers were registered in
Zimbabwe, but the number of passengers dropped by almost 63 percent to as low as
834,269 in 2003. A number of foreign (European) Airlines like Lufthansa, British
Airways, Air France, KLM and Qantas exited the Zimbabwe market. In the same year,
recorded aircraft movements stood at 36 215, representing a 58 percent fall from the 1997
figure of 87 618. These figures mean retarded growth and loss of revenue, which had
direct impact on tourism industry, employment rates, exports and foreign currency
generated.
 By its nature, the aviation industry is capital intensive, with most airlines thriving through
leasing of equipment and purchasing the same through loans and other credit facilities.
Due to sanctions, local airlines were unable to access loans, purchase equipment and get
any financial support from the traditional funders.
 Furthermore, the movement of funds via the International Air Transport Association
(IATA) has been difficult resulting in airlines failing to access their funds from ticket
sales, thereby making it difficult for airlines to do business in Zimbabwe. For example,
the national airline was suspended from the IATA billing and ticketing system. By
implication, the airline cannot sell interline tickets or international tickets via travel
agents or other airlines.
 A transport sector support programme funded by DANIDA to the tune of US$48 million
was discontinued because of sanctions. In addition, a labour-based roads and
rehabilitation works programme with the aim of rehabilitating 116 kilometres of roads,
which was funded by the Swedish government to the tune of US$15,1 million, was
discontinued due to sanctions.
 The national railway’s capitalisation and operations were hampered by sanctions because
all of its rolling stock was supplied by an American company, General Electric. Currently
the national railways purchases parts through third parties outside Zimbabwe, which
makes their cost of doing business very high.
Impact on Women, children and other vulnerable groups
 The livelihoods of women and youths have become precarious as they cannot access
financial assistance and lines of credit from local banks. The group can no longer access
development and entrepreneurship funding from regional and international financial
institutions due to sanctions.
 While the number of people who could have died due to poverty is difficult to ascertain,
the above figures reveal that the effects of sanctions directly contributed to poverty in the
country which now perpetuates the cycle of poverty, resulting in poverty-related deaths.
 The Swedish government funded Education Sector Support Programme to the tune of
US$95 million by supplying textbooks and other educational material, as well as
constructing schools and promoting gender equality in schools. However, the funding was
withdrawn after the imposition of sanctions.
 The decrease in donor funding and support resulted in the marginalized vulnerable groups
sinking deeper into poverty.
 As the government struggled to meet its financial obligations women, children and people
living with disability and the unemployed faced increased challenges.
Impact on the Tourism sector (refer to notes on Tourism challenges in Zimbabwe)
Impact on the Health Sector (refer to notes on health sector challenges in Zimbabwe)
 However, a “Look East” policy was adopted in order for the country to move forward
economically. Some Zimbabwe-China mega deals have been signed resulting in the
development of the country’s infrastructure e.g. the construction of a new parliament
building at Mt Hampden by the Chinese.
Economic sanctions and unemployment
 A significant number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international
cooperating partners have moved their operations out of Zimbabwe after the imposition of
sanctions. DANIDA and the Canadian International Development Agency pulled out of
Zimbabwe in 2001 and 2003, respectively, terminating all projects in progress and
retrenching their employees.
 The average number of people employed in the formal sector was bigger before the
imposition of sanctions. On average 1, 17 million people were employed in the formal
sector per given year during the pre-sanctions period. This declined to 1, 03 million per
year during the period of sanctions. The decline in employment levels was attributed to
massive retrenchments mainly due to the downsizing of operations and closure of
companies particularly in the manufacturing sector. Labour force surveys indicated that
over 400 000 were at one point retrenched in the period 2005 to 2013.
 Consequently, the average number of people employed in the informal sector increased
significantly. The informal sector employed an average of 0,49 million people per year
before sanctions and this average rose to 1,65 million during the period after imposition of
sanctions. This suggests the increased dependence on the informal sector by households,
but which affected government’s revenue base through loss of taxes.
 The imposition of sanctions saw an increase in outward migration of skilled and non-
skilled labour force to neighbouring countries. This human capital flight heavily affected
the economy of Zimbabwe which was already under stress.
Euro-centric analysis on economic sanctions

 This school of thought reiterates that there are no economic sanctions in Zimbabwe and if
there are any, they have nothing to do with the economic meltdown in the country (Hove
2012).
 This school of thought further asserts that President Mugabe’s intolerance, human rights
abuses, DRC adventure and operation clean up (Murambatsvina) have contributed to the
economic challenges the country is going through and not sanctions (Chogugudza 2009).
 There this view argues that sanctions in Zimbabwe are only restrictive measures targeted
on
President Mugabe and his party officials.
Afro-centric analysis on economic sanctions
 Contesting the Euro-centric ideas are the Afro-centric analysts whose views are
championed by the ruling party ZANU PF.
 Their argument is that sanctions were imposed on the government and people of
Zimbabwe for reclaiming their land from the British. They believe sanctions were
imposed on ZANU PF to induce suffering on Zimbabweans so that people would vote
against their government thereby bringing regime change in the country.
 ZANU PF politicians argue that Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lobbied for
these sanctions in a move to use them as a vehicle for regime change, an allegation
strongly denied by the MDC party. In 2001, Learnmore Jongwe a legislator in MDC
denied that there was any connection between his party and the economic sanctions
imposed on the country. (Parliamentary Debates 2001).
From a realist perspective
 The ruling government created the environment for the imposition of sanctions by the
west by compulsorily acquiring the land, while the MDC allowed itself to be used by
the west in its regime change agenda. (Hove 2012).
 Sanctioned regimes often attempt to magnify the sanctions' negative effect on the
economy to prevent the population from revolting. Political leaders use Poverty as a
tool in to control the population and blame is placed on those who enact the sanctions.
It’s used as a tool to make the marginalized vote for the party in place.
Distribution of unemployment
 Not all groups of employees are likely to face risks of unemployment. The following
groups are more likely to face unemployment.
 The old-they are usually the ones most likely to be laid off by employers, who prefer
younger workers with experience.
 The young-they are likely to be unemployed, because there are few new vacancies
because they do not have the experience for the vacancies that do arise.
 However, it appears that young people are likely to have shorter periods of
unemployment than older workers who, once made unemployed, are likely to remain so.
 Ethnic minorities-they face discrimination by employers. Most of them have challenges
in accessing education which make them perform less well in education.
 Manual workers and the less skilled- unskilled jobs are being lost to automation. Shift in
jobs generally is away from manufacturing towards white-collar industry employment.
 More recent figures indicate that out of the country's 14 million people, only 480,000 were
formally employed in 2012, down from 3.6 million in 2003 (The United Nations Office of
the Coordination Humanitarian Affairs [UNOCHA], 2015). Formal sector unemployment
stood at 94 per cent of which 67.7 per cent constituted the youth (www.mydec.gov.zw).
 The Bretton woods Institutions imposed Economic Structural Adjustment Program led to
the sacking of thousands of people from their work station because the government had
been instructed to cut on government spending. This added on to the unemployment of a
lot of people through retrenchments.
 It was during the decade of long political and economic crisis that plagued Zimbabwe
since 2000 that youth unemployment peaked. The unstable economic environment during
this period led to the proliferation of the informal sector and parallel (black) market which
absorbed most young people as agents and dealers. With the signing of the Global
Political
Agreement (in 2009), the economy stabilized and these activities came to a sudden halt,
worsening the situation of the youth.
Implications of unemployment
NB. Use theories in your discussion of the raised points
Negative effects of unemployment
 Increase in poverty
 Decreased standards of living
 Outward migration of the most able bodied population of the country.
 Increased crime and deviance. Prostitution, theft, robberies, drug abuse and dealing will
result
 Increase in HIV and AIDS
 Loss of bargaining power to those employed. Employers constantly threaten to replace
them with the unemployed
 Trade unions lose power
 Can trigger political instability
 Widening gap between employed and unemployed in terms of leisure activities,
consumption
Positive effects of unemployment
 Creates unity as people help each (mechanical solidarity)
 Dirty work will be undertaken (Davis and Moore).
 Reduced white collar crimes.
Measures to address unemployment in Zimbabwe
(a) Indigenization policy(refer to notes on enterprise policies)
 Empowerment policies, women’s bank to cater for the marginalized women and youth bank for the
unemployed youths.
(b) Land redistribution policies [(land reform, Command Agriculture, Presidential input
scheme) refer to poverty notes for more ]
(c) Making the curriculum compatible with the demands of the work place.
 Revision of the curriculum (education and training) to make it compatible with the needs of the
industry – the world of work.
 Carrying out a skills requirements audit in the economy so that education and training respond to
the needs of industry. (new education curriculum)For example the STEM Initiative.
(d) SMEs support structures (refer to enterprise policies)
(e) Entrepreneurial skills training.
 Establishment and strengthening of entrepreneurship education in schools and tertiary institutions
to foster the development of an entrepreneurial culture among the youth to facilitate self-
employment.
Inculcate entrepreneurial culture amongst the youth in order to facilitate self- employment
(f) Wide dissemination of skills requirements of the economy. This can be done through
career guidance and counselling sessions so that students make informed decisions.
TOPIC 13: POVERTY
 Poverty is the condition of lacking vital resources – is often qualified as ‘relative’ and
‘absolute’.
 By absolute poverty it means lacking the truly basic necessities for subsistence: food,
water, clothing and shelter. People who lack these fundamental requirements for human
existence are said to live in poverty.
 The concept of absolute poverty is seen as universally applicable. It is held that standards
for
human subsistence are more or less the same for all people of an equivalent age and
physique, regardless of where they live. (Giddens 2009).
 One common technique used in attempts to measure absolute poverty is to determine a
poverty line, based on the price of the basic goods needed for human survival in a
particular society. Individuals or households whose income falls below the poverty line are
said to live in poverty.
 Yet using a single criterion of poverty can be problematic, because such definitions fail to
take into account variations in human needs within and between societies. It is much more
expensive, for example, to live in some areas of a country than others; the cost of basic
necessities will differ from region to region
 Not everyone accepts that it is possible to identify such a universal standard of absolute
poverty however. It is more appropriate, they argue, to use the concept of relative poverty.
 By relative poverty it means lacking in those things which most people in a society
would regard as the minimum requirements for a normal life. Relative poverty relates
poverty to the overall standard of living that prevails in a particular society.
 Advocates of the concept of relative poverty hold that poverty is culturally defined and
should not be measured according to some universal standard of deprivation.
 It is wrong to assume that human needs are everywhere identical- in fact, they differ both
within and across societies.
 Things that are seen as essential in one society might be regarded as luxuries in another.
For example, in most industrialized countries, running water, flush toilets and the regular
consumption of fruit and vegetables are regarded as basic necessities for a healthy life;
people who live without them could be said to live in poverty. Yet in many developing
societies, such items are not standard among the bulk of the population and it would not
make sense to measure poverty according to their presence or absence.
 The concept of relative poverty presents its own complexities, however. One of the main
ones is the fact that, as societies develop, so understandings of relative poverty must also
change.
 As societies become more affluent, standards for relative poverty are gradually adjusted
upwards. At one time, for example, refrigerators, central heating and telephones were
considered to be luxury goods. Yet in most industrialized societies today, they are seen
as necessities for leading a full and active life.
Difference between Relative and Absolute Poverty
1. Subsistence needs
 The primary differences between absolute and relative poverty are that absolute poverty
focuses more on the subsistence needs while relative poverty has nothing to do with these
needs.
 According to the definition of more Absolute poverty, any person who is not in a position
to meet the most basic commodities to sustain life like food, shelter, and clothing is
considered to experiencing extreme poverty.
 On the other hand, relative poverty does not classify basic needs in its definition but
relates poverty to the overall standard of living that prevails in a particular society.
 It is important to highlight that one can be meeting his or her subsistence needs but still
be considered as poor under relative poverty measurement.
2. Income Levels
 Income level is highly considered in absolute poverty, but it is not clearly considered
under the relative poverty measurement. People who have a considerable amount of income
can meet their basic commodities, which include food, shelter, and clothing and can even go
further to fund their entertainment.
 However, one may be accomplishing these factors but still be considered poor under the relative
poverty model. This is because other individuals within his or her settings are accomplishing
greater life achievements while at the same time getting large amounts of income as compared to
his or her outcome
3. Variation from country to country
 Relative poverty varies between developed and developing countries while absolute
poverty does not vary.
 Extreme poverty measurement has been universalized and maintained at a constant by the
World Bank. Any individual who lives under $1.90 is considered to be experiencing
absolute poverty under the World Bank measurement paradigm.
 It is important to highlight that a significant number of populations in Africa live under the
highlighted amount.
4. Changes in standards of measurement
 As a society prospers, the yard stick for relative poverty changes whilst in absolute
poverty meeting basic needs is the universal, ‘constant’ standard.
5. Quality of Life
 People living in absolute poverty have poor quality lives while those living in relative
poverty have quality lives.
 People living under extreme poverty levels cannot access basic commodities in their lives
like food and shelter, which makes them highly vulnerable to diseases.
6. Poverty Alleviation Programs
 The United Nations has included poverty absolute poverty eradication as one of its
sustainable development goals while there is no body concerned with the eradication of
relative poverty in the world.
 However, it is imperative to highlight that various governments have been developing
measures to ensure that at least all the populations in those countries can attain the middle-
income status e.g. in Zimbabwe where the second republic government goal is to make
Zimbabwe a middle income country by 2030.
Causes of Poverty
 Public debate about poverty hinges on disagreements about its underlying causes. Two
points of view prevail: Some blame the poor for their own condition, and some look to
social structural causes to explain poverty, the view that is more sociological, one that
understands poverty as rooted in the structure of society, not in the morals and behaviors
of individuals..
(a) Blaming the Victim (poor)

i. The Culture of Poverty- this argument attributes the major causes of poverty to the
absence of work values and the irresponsibility of the poor (Lewis 1969, 1966).
 People who live abject poverty develop their own set of values ( a subculture) which
allows them to cope with their poverty. However the result of this subculture is to keep
them in poverty. For instance, poor people believe that it is best to accept life as it is and
to have some fun now, not worrying about the future. In this case their values trap them.
 However, Charles Valentine has pointed out that this explanation does not give the
reasons why the poor are in poverty in the first place
ii. The cycle of deprivation -This idea of Sir Keith Joseph argues that poor families with
backgrounds of social problems tend to intermarry and reproduce the cycle of deprivation
all over again. They bring up their children in an inadequate manner failing to give them
the opportunities most children have. These people are unable or unwilling to find work
and therefore have a low income.
(b) the structure of society
 From a sociological point of view, the underlying causes of poverty lie in the economic
and social transformations taking place in Zimbabwe.
 This approach is supported by Marxists among others who argue that the very nature of
our society leads to poverty for certain groups (apply infrastructure-superstructure
relationship).
i. Existence of stratification system/inequality (refer to notes on social stratification i.e
forms of stratification, life chances etc.)
ii. Policies of the state- according to Marxists, the state put policies which protect the
wealth and property of the capitalists which creates a difficult environment for the voices
of the poor to be heard or their interests to be considered fairly.
iii. Capitalist system- According to Marxists the wealth of the rich depends upon taking the
maximum from the workers. To maximize their profits, they pay workers low wages
which constantly creates poverty among the workers making them ready for further
exploitation.
iv. Market situation- Weber argued that a person’s class position is dependent upon his or
her market situation. It depends upon the ability of individuals and groups to influence
the labor market in their own favor so as to maximize the rewards they receive. For
instance, unskilled laborers find their chances contracting in the labor market due to
mechanization and automation. As a result unemployment creates poverty.
v. Globalization-the dependency theory has made Africa a dumping ground for waste and a
market where the terms of trade work to the advantage of the developed world. Africa is
poised to specialize in marketing raw material while the developed world market finished
products. In relation to this dependency theory, one African leader once said “we
(Africans) sell our goods (raw materials) at the price determined by the buyer
(Europeans) and buy the finished goods at the price determined by the seller
(Europeans)”. This leaves most Africans in poverty as they benefit less out of the unfair
trade.
 World systems theory argues that core countries prevents peripheral countries from
developing by making them rely on them. Wealth is taken from semi-periphery or
periphery zones to economies in the core countries.
Impact of Poverty on society
Negative impact
 Downward social mobility (refer to notes on social stratification)

 Creation of the cycle of poverty. Families who fall in this cycle tend to stay in it “for
enough time that the family includes no surviving ancestors who possess and can transmit
the intellectual, social, and cultural capital necessary to stay out of or change their
impoverished condition” (Melio, 2015). The vicious cycle of poverty means that lifelong
barriers and troubles are passed on from one generation to the next. Unemployment and
low incomes create an environment where children are unable to attend school. Children
must often work to provide an income for their family. As for children who are able to go
to school, many fail to see how hard work can improve their lives as they see their parents
struggle at everyday tasks.
 Increased deviance and crime. According to Poverties.org, the amount of criminal
offenses rises when there’s less access to education. Poverty fuels terrorism by creating a
state of misery and frustration that pushes people to join terrorist organizations.
 Increased health hazard. This results in the poor not being able to afford falling sick ⎯but
with little to no access to sanitation, drinking water and safe food ,diseases inevitably find
their way to them. This is the reason why, on average, poor people have the shortest life
expectancy. In the face of COVID 19 pandemic, people in absolute poverty could not
afford to buy hand sanitizers, face masks or even accessing information on the disease via
television and social media
 Feminization of poverty (refer to feminist ideas of patriarchy)
 Refers to the large proportion of the poor who are women and children (Andersen
2017). Throughout history, women have been systematically offered less resources
than men to procure their advancement; consequently, they often lack the economic
stability (e.g. a job that pays a living wage) or an education required to provide for
themselves and their families. As pointed out by Poverties.org, “Nearly all possible
effects of poverty have an impact on children’s lives”. This translates into child abuse
and neglect, mobility, homelessness and exposition to drugs and alcohol. Children
born into poor families are also likely to stay poor throughout their lives.
Positive impact (functionalist ideas)
 Poverty is what allows society’s dirty work to be done. Without it, some dirty jobs
businesses could not function such as washing dishes, hauling garbage, or cleaning.
Higher paid employers would not complete these tasks and that is why they are left for the
poor people of society. Affluent business people and professionals are able to achieve
their career goals with the help of poor people working as maids and servants. (Refer to
Davis and Moore’s Explanation [The Davis-Moore Thesis])
 Poverty also creates jobs for some individuals. Jobs such as social work and other
professionals who serve the poor are created. Without poor people several people would
be out of jobs and more people would be in poverty.
Vulnerable groups to poverty
 Children-In a variety of ways children who live in poverty tend to:
 Have worse health than those who do not.
 They are more likely injured (and killed) in a road accident (because they are more
likely to be pedestrians and less likely to have access to a safe play area or garden),
 Suffer abuse and self-harm or to attempt suicide.
 Be less likely to do well at school and are far more likely to become poor adults (Lister
2004)
 Women-they are more likely to be poor than men, although their poverty has often
been masked behind studies that focused on 'male-headed households' (Ruspini 2000).
Zimbabwe is no exception to the global increase in poverty levels where women are
poorer than men. 68% of female headed households in Zimbabwe live under the Total
Consumption Poverty Line according to a 2010 UNDP Report. The causes of women's
poverty are complex.
 One important element concerns the gendered division of labour both inside and
outside the home. The burden of domestic labour and the responsibility of caring for
children and relatives still fall disproportionately on women.
 This has an important effect on their ambitions and ability to work outside the home.
 It means that they are far more likely than men to be in part-time, rather than fulltime,
paid employment and they earn less as a result.
 Women still have less access to land and inputs, although they do most of the
agricultural work
 Ethnic minorities-they are more likely to have poorly paid jobs, struggle at school, live
in deprived areas and in poor quality housing and to suffer health problems (Salway et at.
2007). There is also a high degree of labour market segregation.
 Older people-Many people who may have been reasonably well paid during their working
lives experience a sharp reduction in income (and status) when they retire, especially if
they did not, or could not afford to, invest in a private pension while working.
 The low paid
 The unemployed
 The sick and disabled-most disabled people are poor because they are unable to work, or
to find a suitable employment. If they do find work, it is very often low paid
Measures to curb Poverty in Zimbabwe
 Land reform- this gives many people access to land as a means of production thus
reducing food shortages and housing construction challenges. However, lack of inputs and
multiple land ownership and corruption have hampered such a measure.
 Social safety nets and reforming social welfare- Ohemba (1995) suggested that the
National Social Security Authority (NSSA)’s pension and other benefits schemes should
be extended to those in the informal sector in order to provide them with social security.
Recently in the year 2020 the government has also opened People’s shops which offer
cheaper basic products and revamping the ZUPCO facility for cheaper transport around
the country. However, these measures have been facing slow implementations due to
financial challenges.
 Administrative decentralization and community participation -administrative
responsibilities of some social services must be transferred to local authorities as
decentralization takes form, so as to bring services more in line with the ‘felt needs’ of the
communities. It also creates the added advantage of mobilizing more resources as well as
fostering direct decision making at the local level ( de Graaf, 1986). Conflict of interest
between administrators and the grassroots may arise, making it very unlikely that the
plight of the poor will be improved. Therefore to avoid this, a ‘participatory approach’
(grassroots approach)/ community participation is needed e.g. the CAMPFIRE program in
rural areas and the recent Devolution mantra of the second republic.
 Developing civic society partnerships-Partnerships or collaboration with other civic
society members will guarantee broader base of all social forces that can be mobilized to
tackle poverty. Partnerships with rural district councils, NGOs and government ensure
more equity, collaboration, mutuality and general sharing of responsibilities in the process
of poverty alleviation.
 Increased investment in agriculture- provision of inputs and collection of the harvests of
the small scale farmers who are the majority in the rural areas. For instance the recent
Command Farming program. In addition, provision of irrigation, storage and access to
markets are vital for rural producers (Todaro, 1982).
 Investment in human capital- this includes free basic education e.g. BEAM, vocational
training, public health and water supply.Investment in human capital, including important
basic health care and primary education for children should continue to be viewed as the
most effective means of stimulation long-term economic growth and improving general
welfare (Madzokere 1995)
TOPIC 14: ENTERPRISE AND WORK
Concept of enterprise
 The term enterprise has two common meanings.
 Firstly, an enterprise is simply another name for a business. You will often come across
the use of the word when reading about start-ups and other businesses…”. Simon
Cowell's enterprise" or "Michelle set up her successful enterprise after leaving
teaching".
 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the word enterprise describes the actions of
someone who shows some initiative by taking a risk by setting up, investing in and
running a business.
 Look again at two key words above – initiative and risk. A person who takes the initiative
is someone who "makes things happen ". He or she tends to be decisive. A business
opportunity is identified and the person does something about it.
 By innovation Schumpeter (1947, 151) referred to '... the doing of new things or the doing
of things that are already done in a new way'. Showing initiative is about taking decisions
and being bold – not everyone is like that! Risk-taking is slightly different.
 In business there is no such thing as a "sure fire bet". All business investments carry an
element of risk – which is the chance or probability that things will go wrong. At the
worst, the risk of an enterprise might mean the person making the investment loses all his/
her money or becomes personally liable for the debts of the business. The trick is to take
calculated risks, and to ensure that the likely returns from taking a risk are enough to make
the gamble worthwhile. Someone who shows enterprise is an entrepreneur.
 Mac Lelland (1961) carried out studies that demonstrated that entrepreneurship is not
genetically determined. He found that the development of entrepreneurial characteristics
were related to parental treatment. High achievers were those who had been expected and
encouraged by their parents to be capable of self-reliant and independent action at an early
age. Since then, entrepreneurial studies have focused on social experiences and situational
conditions to explain the origins and success of entrepreneurs.
 Sociologists emphasize 'social experience' (Mead, 1934) to account for both the
development of an entrepreneurial personality and the success of the entrepreneurial
function.
 One of the earliest attempts to locate the origins of entrepreneurship in social factors was
Weber's theoretical work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He attributed
the development of capitalism in Sixteenth Century Western Europe to religious values
associated with ascetic Protestantism. Its emphasis on vigorous activity in a secular
vocation to prove one's 'calling' resulted in high rates of saving and continued hard work,
both of which are favorable to economic progress (Weber, 1947).
 Weber's work prompted other scholars to believe that entrepreneurs are social or cultural
'dissidents' (Cheater, 1987,103; Kennedy, 1988, 160), those whose values differ from those
of the mainstream society. Cheater argues that every kind of change — social, political,
economic — results from the manipulative tactics of 'cultural dissidents'. These are the
people who have the courage to breach and redefine their society's norms and values in
pursuit of their own interests.
 The sociology of entrepreneurship has therefore concentrated on locating which groups
(social, cultural, ethnic, institutional, economic or religious) produce more entrepreneurial
events than others, and why?
 According to Shapero and Sokol (1982), it is differences in social experience that explain
why such groups as the Jews and the Lebanese in the United States, the Ibos in Nigeria
and the Gujerati Indians in Africa, are associated with entrepreneurship rather than other
groups.
 Hagen (1957)'s social marginality thesis attempts to explain why certain social groups
produce more entrepreneurs than others. He argued that entrepreneurship was associated
with low status groups. Entrepreneurs are members of subordinate groups, seeking to
redress their social grievances through economic creativity and venturing.
Socialization and enterprise

 Socialization has an influence on the development of an entrepreneurial personality. The
main socializing agents in the development of entrepreneurial characteristics are the
family, the school and the organization previously worked for.
 Family- by encouraging behavior that is associated with self-reliance, risk taking,
innovation and individualism, parents or other relatives help their children develop an
entrepreneurial personality. The influence of the family in the development of an
entrepreneurial personality is stronger where there is a family tradition of business. A
business family, particularly the father and mother, besides encouraging behavior
associated with entrepreneurship, also provides role models. Although not always the
case, a family tradition of business can also influence the type of business one ventures
into.
 The school- according to Maphosa (1998) points out that the ability to read and write
(particularly in English) enhances an individual's prospects to venture into business. It
exposes an individual to a wide range of business information such as sources of
finance. It also enhances one's ability to prepare business proposals which are typically
presented in English. While numerical literacy may not be an important factor in the
decision to
start a business, it is definitely an important factor in its success.
 Previous work institution- Any working experience has two positive impacts on
entrepreneurial success.
 It provides an aspiring business-person with an opportunity to learn and master skills
and experience that become valuable in future.
 It also gives an aspiring business-person an opportunity to earn and save money to
use as start-up capital. However some business people started their businesses from
their own savings (Maphosa 1998).
Government Enterprise Policies
 Policy is a broad statement of goals and what the government aspires to achieve. It
provides
general guidelines as to how the goals can be realized (Osman 2009).
 Mugano (2012) noted that Zimbabwe experienced growth of Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) after the collapse of the formal economy. It is against this background
that a Ministry was put in place to support SMEs.
 According to Business Council of Zimbabwe, SMEs have in the past been experiencing
different challenges to their growth and survival that include limited access and high cost
of finance, lack of proper and adequate infrastructure, use of old technology, information
asymmetry, lack of marketing skills and market knowledge and also inadequate
management and entrepreneurial skills.
(a) Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset)
 It is a macro economic blueprint is aimed at achieving sustainable development and
socio equity through indigenization, empowerment and employment creation.
 It contains four strategic clusters: Food Security and Nutrition; Social Services and
Poverty Eradication; Infrastructure and Utilities; and Value Addition.
 ZIMASSET identifies mining, agriculture, transport, tourism, information
communication technology, enhanced support for small and medium scale enterprises
as well as infrastructural sectors primarily focusing on power generation as key
drivers for the projected growth targets. These drivers promote enterprise through
opening opportunities.
 Achievement of goals in these clusters may generally achieved be through enablers
like value addition policies, Special Economic Zones (SEZ), establishing indigenous
mining syndicates, consortia, SMEs and Co-operatives.
 However, achievements of this policy were hampered by lack of commitment and
minimal implementation. The ZIMASSET came when the economy was just coming
from a deep economic recession, some sectors were yet to recover, there was high
levels of unemployment, companies were still closing, the level of politics was still
debatable and formal sectors were less rewarded.
 According to Zindiye et al (2008), Zimbabwe is well known for coming up with
brilliant and well thought policies but the problem has been on implementation.
(b) Affirmative Action Policy
 Affirmative action can also be known as “positive discrimination”. It is usually the
result of legislative or policy intervention created to increase the inclusion of
historically excluded groups in the workplace. A basic tenet of affirmative action is
giving preferential treatment to previously disadvantaged groups in society, such as
women. In education, the policy is obviously premised on the reality that women have
for long been
marginalized.
 Affirmative action is viewed by conflict theorists and feminists as a legislative attempt
at reducing the inequality that is embedded in the social structure by increasing
opportunities for groups that have in the past been deprived (Schaefer, 2010).
Gaidzanwa (1989) observed that in the SADC region boys often get preference for
education over girls because of patrilineality. Dorsey (1989) also laments this
imbalance which continued in Zimbabwe even after political independence in 1980.
 According to Gordon (1995), at independence in 1980 the Government of Zimbabwe
embarked on a programme of educational reconstruction and expansion, the aim being
to make access to education a reality for all Zimbabweans.
 Machinga (2000) also asserts that the Zimbabwean Government is committed to
achieving the national goal of education for all by ensuring that there is equality of
access
and participation in education. The government is also committed to the promotion of
equality with regards to the education of women, girls and other disadvantaged groups
who traditionally have suffered limited access to education.
 Examples of affirmative action policy include:
 Lowering university entry points for females
 Some gender policies:
 Quota System
 Labor Act (Chapter 28.01)
 Education Act (1997)
 A study by Mareva (2014) at Great Zimbabwe University shows that the third most
recurring reason cited by twenty- one (84%) of the female students for supporting
affirmative action was that the policy is a way of empowering women, who have been
marginalized for a long time, to be self-reliant.
 However, a study (ibid) also points out that some women believe Affirmative action
will perpetuate the myth that females are the weaker, inferior, less intelligent sex.
Others say the Policy will result in females looking down upon themselves as under-
achievers.
 In relation to this, Claassen in Dekker and Lemmer (1993) argues that the
qualifications and achievements of targeted individuals and groups are considered
suspect by both the non-preferred groups and the beneficiaries of affirmative action.
Also, the success of the preferred individual is attributed to affirmative action, not to
the person’s ability and hard work.
 Other factors which may inhibit affirmative action policy in enterprise include:
 Patriarchal nature of society
 Some religions still undermine participation of women
 Lack of financial credit lines. Most women lack collateral security.
Affirmative action at workplace
Advantages
 The workplace accurately reflects the ethnic and racial make-up of the area in which it is
located, or area from which employees are drawn.
 The firm would have sought the best and brightest talent through searching in unlikely
places resulting in the discovery of talent that otherwise would have been ignored.
Disadvantages
 It is reverse discrimination
 new minority employee will be viewed with suspicion
 Promotion will be now based on legislative or policy equipment and not by performance
 It may overlook some talent in a bid to fulfill ethnic, racial and gender quotas
(c) Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act [Chapter 14:33]
 It states that at least fifty-one per centum of the shares of every public company and any
other business shall be owned by indigenous Zimbabweans. It defines indigenization as a
deliberate involvement of indigenous Zimbabweans in the economic activities of the
country, to which hitherto they had no access, so as to ensure the equitable ownership of
the nation’s resources. It also defines empowerment as the creation of an environment
which enhances the performance of the economic activities of indigenous Zimbabweans
into which they would have been introduced or involved through indigenization.
 Its aims are:
 To provide for support measures for the further indigenization of the economy;
 to provide for support measures for the economic empowerment of indigenous
Zimbabweans;
 to provide for the establishment of the National Indigenization and Economic
Empowerment Board and its functions and management;
 to provide for the establishment of the National Indigenization and Economic
Empowerment Fund;
 to provide for the National Indigenization and Empowerment Charter;
 And to provide for matters connected with or incidental to the foregoing.
 These aims create a conducive environment foe entrepreneurship.
 The act further promotes enterprise by also stating that that businesses shall, to the extent
possible, utilize locally available resources and promote value addition. Businesses shall
utilize indigenous knowledge systems, and promote local research and development as
well as promote technology transfer.
(d) Small and Medium Enterprise Development Corporation (SMEDCO)-

 SEDCO was established in 1984 by the Act of Parliament (Chapter 24:12) as a parastatal
under the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise and Cooperative Development
(MSMECD) to assist SMEs in the form of financial support, management counseling,
training and provision of information and advice on business issues (Manyani 2014; GoZ
2015).
 Financial assistance was and is in the form of loans, which require collateral. The interest
rates for the loans are too high for SMEs (Maunganidze 2013) leading to SMEs failing to
pay back the loans. The need for collateral meant and means that not every businessperson
could access the loans (Chikomba et al. 2013). Some of the business people did not have
the required collateral. This suppressed the growth of the SME, as the financial challenge
could not be adequately addressed.
 SMEDCO has played a critical role in the construction and provision of factory space for
SMEs. Examples include Nyika Growth Point, Gweru, Chitungwiza and Gazaland in
Harare and Bindura (Mhuka 2011). SMEDCO has also provided entrepreneurs with access
to machinery in Chitungwiza for metal fabrication, woodwork and machinery provided by
the Indo-Zimbabwe Project (SMEDCO 2015).
(e) Zimbabwe Development Bank (ZDB): Infrastructure Development Bank of

Zimbabwe
(IDBZ)
 The bank started its operations in 1984 for the purpose of providing debt finance to SMEs
(Nyangara 2013). As much as ZDB was keen to assist SMEs, it was heavily crippled by a
lack of adequate financial support from the state.
 Before accessing the debt finance, SMEs were expected to provide details of the
collateral, which the majority did not have. Some of the SMEs could not repay the loans
that were advanced to them by the bank.
 The bank was transformed into the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe
(IDBZ) in 2005 through the Act of Parliament, the IDBZ Act (Chapter 24:14) after the
amendment of the ZDB Act (IDBZ 2013). The amendment of the ZDB Act led to the
broadening of the mandate of the IDBZ to include the provision of financial support to
businesses in the transport and construction industries (Government of Zimbabwe 2015).
 From 2000 to 2008 Zimbabwe experienced an economic crisis (ZEPARU 2013), which
crippled the operations of the banking sector. During the period in question, the
macroeconomic environment characterized by hyperinflation, high interest rates on loans,
liquidity crisis and a critical shortage of foreign currency rendered the financial sector
ineffective and the IDB was no exception.
(f) Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development
(MSMECD)
 The MSMECD was established in 2002 for the purpose creating and maintaining a
conducive environment that promotes the development of SMEs so as to facilitate
economic growth and provision of employment (Chivasa 2014; Mushanyuri 2014).
 Most of the achievements were on paper and there was no evidence on the ground
(ZPPCSMEs 2007). The MSMECD was virtually non-existent on the ground and only a
few SMEs confirmed to have benefited from the operations of the Ministry (ZPPSMEs
2007).
 SMEs in the rural area could not have access to the services of the MSMECD as the
Ministry has offices in towns and cities. Therefore, only a few entrepreneurs benefited
from the services of the MSMECD in the urban areas.
Ways to empower SMEs
 The government of Zimbabwe should aim to prioritize SMEs the same way it regards
other sectors of the economy like agriculture, mining, and security. This would see SMEs
contributing significantly to the country’s Gross National Product (GNP).
 Finance schemes should be favorable to the development of SMEs and loan facilities be
extended to them on relaxed terms. An institution that acts as a guarantor to the SMEs
could also be established so that the SMEs are able to borrow from banks and access
credit from suppliers.
 Training should be availed to SMEs on how to professionally and ethically run their
businesses. This could be augmented by technological support on the part of government
to ensure that they contribute maximally to the wellbeing of the economy.
 SMEs should be encouraged to form clusters and pool their resources and risk together in
order to stand better chances of accessing the much needed credit from financial
institutions.
Generating Enterprise projects
 Project size is a big factor in determining what tasks you undertake as a business analyst
and how long you take to complete them.
 Factors to consider are the number of features you need to deliver, the number of people
you will interact with, and the number of people that will use the solution.
 How to handle small projects

 These typically are much smaller in scope and may even be considered maintenance
projects, or tickets (enhancement requests entered into a tracking system). Typically, they
have a minimal amount of risk and exhibit the following characteristics:
 They require small amounts of effort, low cost, and touch only one or two systems.
This limited reach makes the scope small.
 They involve a minimal number of people —sometimes just a developer and the
business analyst and do not have many interfaces with other systems.
 They are generally maintenance projects, designed to enhance an existing system,
rather than implementations of new systems to support a business process.
 When you plan for a small project, you do not need to produce the same number of
deliverables (or level of effort) as you do for a large project, but that does not mean you do
not have to make sure you are addressing the right business problem with your plan.
 Small projects can be motivating because you can see results in a fairly short time, but you
cannot skip critical steps in the planning process. When planning for small projects,
consider these aspects:
 You may participate in both formal and informal processes, communication, and
deliverables. Some really small projects are often discussed in a hallway or drawn out
on someone’s whiteboard.
 Even (or perhaps, especially) on a small project, you still need to understand the scope.
Without an understanding of the boundaries of the project, you can get distracted, off
track, and lost in various streams of the work effort quickly.
 You must establish a clear purpose and objective. Doing so ensures that you are
spending the organization’s (probably very limited) resources in the right place.
 How to tackle large projects

 Large projects are sometimes referred to as monster projects. They typically have high
business risk because more is at stake. If the projects fail, the business can lose a
significant amount of money and/or lose out on an opportunity. Large projects exhibit the
following characteristics:
 They require large amounts of effort, have a high cost and large scope, and last a long
time.
 They involve lots of people.
 They can contain features with many dependencies — that is, one feature may be
linked to others, meaning a change to it results in a change in many.
 They are mission-critical.
 They are complex.
 Planning for monster projects is usually formal and may involve significant resources.
New development efforts also have a high technical risk because the enabling technology
may be unfamiliar to the business and internal IT resources or have complex system
interfaces.
 These development efforts need the following from you:
 Formality in process, communication, and deliverables
 Full discussion of the project with stakeholders, regardless of type
 Adequate time to formally plan the project with the project manager, an established
methodology to guide planning tasks and deliverables, and collaboration with a lead
IT/ developer in the planning of the effort
 A clear purpose and objectives to define the scope and clear communication of scope
boundaries to all stakeholders
 A feasibility study (a study undertaken to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of the
project, the environmental opportunities and threats the project poses, the resources
required to create the project, and the project’s success criteria) and prototype
 Thorough investigation of the business problem or opportunity and completion of all
requirements categories (business, functional, transition, and so on)
 Thorough stakeholder analysis and communication plans
How to Write Business Proposals

 A business proposal is perhaps one of the most critical documents you need to learn how
to write. It is what spells the difference between success and failure, whether you’re a
freelancer or you have a company of your own.
 In today’s cut-throat business world, entrepreneurs find themselves spending hours upon
hours submitting business proposals to potential clients, and not get any results. On the
other hand, there are those that are like snipers, able to get the contract after just
submitting one business proposal. So how do they do it?
1. The Basics of a Business Proposal

 Before you even go and start writing that business proposal, you must first understand
what it is and learn the basics.
 A business proposal is a written document that offers a particular product or service to a
potential buyer or client. There are generally two kinds of business proposals: solicited
business proposals (which are submitted in response to an advertisement published by the
buyer or client) and unsolicited proposals (submitted or given out to potential buyers or
clients even though they are not requesting for one).
2. Business Proposal vs. Business Plan
 Quite often, the terms “business proposal” and “business plan” are used interchangeably,
giving you the impression that they are one and the same. But they are not.
 A business proposal is created to offer a product or service to a buyer or client. On the
other hand, a business plan is a “formal statement of a set of business goals” and how
these would be achieved. The latter is only part of what is included in a business proposal.
3. The 3 ‘P’s of a Winning Business Proposal

The secret behind writing a winning business proposal and one that will just be set aside is the
presence of the 3 ‘P’s: Problem Statement, Proposed Solution, and Pricing Information.
Problem Statement
 A successful business proposal must be one that is able to describe to the client what their
needs are in a plain and simple manner. This is extremely vital because how can you
expect the client to believe that you can help them solve their problems if you don’t even
know what are these problems? Here’s an example of a well-written problem statement of
a business
With the presence of social media in today’s advancing world, Puffin
proposal: Media Inc. hesitated to make the leap from traditional marketing to
social media marketing. Their marketing tactics seem to be losing
effectiveness and the company feels as if they are missing out on a large
segment of their market. In addition, their competition has begun
acquiring the majority of the business in the market and has brought
Puffin Media’s growing revenues to a halt.
Proposed Solution
 The main objective of submitting a business proposal is to offer a solution to a problem
faced by a prospective client. This part should be as detailed as possible, and able to
address each and every need you have discovered. Here’s an example:
The solution that is recommended for Puffin Media Inc. is to deploy their
company on all of the major social media channels; however, there is a major
difference in creating social media platforms versus creating a brand you can
promote on those platforms. A marketing campaign must be created utilizing
these media channels and creating immediate engagement with your audience.
In order for this to be successful, you know how to make sales. Initially, acquire
some fans, followers, subscribers, and connections and invite them to join you
in particular discussion or attend a specific event. The purpose of this is not
only to promote Puffin Media Inc., but also to solicit feedback from the target
audience.
Pricing Information
 For many clients, the pricing information is what will make them decide whether they
would offer you the contract or not. How to write this part greatly depends on the solution
or solutions you included in the previous segment. If the solution proposed will only entail
a short period of time, a Fee Summary will suffice. For longer projects, segment these
payments to specific milestones in a Fee Schedule list.
4. Things to Remember When Writing a Business Proposal

 Now that you know the essentials of a winning business proposal, the next part is to be
able to find out what to put under the 3 Ps so that you can develop a business proposal that
gets their attention and awards you that contract.
5. Do Your Research
 Not all clients and buyers will give you the explicit details of their wants and needs,
especially if you’re submitting an unsolicited business proposal. Extend your research to
include the competitors of your potential client, and their customers as well. This will
ensure that your business proposal will be as comprehensive and as detailed as possible.
6. Put Yourself in their Shoes
 Another thing to remember when writing a business proposal is to always put yourself in
the shoes of your potential clients. Doing this will help you provide information on things
that they would most likely ask, such as “Why should we pay you this much amount for
the solutions you’re offering” and “How can these changes benefit me?”2
7. Why You?
 If you determined that a company or client has certain needs, chances are others would
have done the same. That means that there will be others that have submitted their
respective proposals to the company or client. That being said, it is important to make sure
to highlight your talents, experience and other qualifications to convince the client why
they should choose you or your company.
8. Writing that Business Proposal
 When you got all of these, then you’re finally able to start writing your business proposal.
One of the best ways on how to write a persuasive business proposal is to use a business
proposal software162.
 Business proposal software programs helps you write your business proposal without
having to worry about how they should be put together and the content that you need to
include. These programs contain two kinds of proposal templates that you can use and re-
use, depending on which one you need to write.
 In addition to the stored templates, you can create your own proposal templates through
these programs based on previous proposals you’ve created, making it even more
convenient for you and your business.
Occupational structure
 The occupational structure refers to the type of jobs performed by the working population.
There are two forms of labor:
1. Manual labor (or blue-collar) , work that involves physical labor of some kind such as a
miner, bricklayer or mechanic performs;
2. Non- manual (or white collar) labour, work that involves little physical labour but relies
more on mental effort or force of personality. For example, shop assistant, clerk or
teacher.
 Occupational structure also refers to the aggregate distribution of occupations in society,
classified according to skill level, economic function, or social status. The occupational
structure is shaped by various factors:
 The structure of the economy (the relative weight of different industries);
 technology and bureaucracy (the distribution of technological skills and administrative
responsibility);
 The labour-market (which determines the pay and conditions attached to occupations);
 Status and prestige (influenced by occupational closure, life-style, and social values).
 There are three types of industry which offers jobs in Zimbabwe:
 Primary, such as mining or agriculture, which involve exploiting our natural resources;
 Secondary or manufacturing, such as industry, where objects are created to be sold;
 Tertiary or service, involving providing a service of some kind, such as banking or
transport.
 The occupational structure of Zimbabwe is mainly made of tertiary industry which makes
up to 60% of the total GDP as of 2017.Zimbabwe has the second biggest informal
economy as a share of its economy which has a score of 60.6%.[Agriculture and mining
largely contribute to exports.
Primary industry in Zimbabwe
Agriculture
 Agriculture in Zimbabwe can be divided into two parts: commercial farming of crops such
as cotton, tobacco, coffee, peanuts and various fruits, and subsistence farming with staple
crops such as maize or wheat.
 Commercial farming was almost exclusively in the hands of the white minority until the
controversial land redistribution program began in 2000. Land was seized from white
farmers and redistributed to black settlers. However, the following challenges were
experienced after the redistribution:
 The new owners did not have land titles
 They did not have the collateral necessary to access bank loans
 The small-scale farmers also did not have experience with commercial-scale
agriculture.
 Much of Zimbabwe's land went fallow and agricultural production decreased steeply.
The University of Zimbabwe estimated in 2008 that between 2000 and 2007
agricultural production decreased by 51%. Production of tobacco, Zimbabwe's main
export crop, decreased by 79% from 2000 to 2008.
 The country was put on sanctions by British allies United States of America, European
Union etc.
 Regardless of these challenges, the following transpired which improved agriculture;
 There was the contract system of agriculture. International tobacco companies, such
as British American Tobacco and China Tobacco, supplied farmers with agricultural
inputs, equipment, and loans, and supervised them in growing tobacco.
 Chinese demand for Zimbabwean tobacco increased. Instead of large white-owned
farms selling mostly to European and American companies, Zimbabwe's tobacco
sector now consists of small black-owned farms exporting over half of the crop to
China.
 Zimbabwe also tried to boost agriculture through:
 Issuing 99-year leases for larger land reform farms.
 Opening opportunities for the return of highly skilled former white farmers.
 Partnerships and joint ventures with Chinese
 “Command agriculture” Programme.
Conflict management at the work place
 Organizational conflict, or workplace conflict, is a state of discord caused by the actual or
perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together.
 Managing a conflict attends to personal issues so as to allow for a constructive
relationship, even though the objective issues may not be resolvable (http://Ezine
Articles.com).
 Darling and Fogliasso (1999) conclude that it is impossible to eliminate conflict totally.
Managers who try to eliminate conflict will not last, while those who manage it well
typically experience both institutional benefit and personal satisfaction.
 De Church, et al (2001) express that active conflict management allows groups to openly
talk about issues and disagreements, allowing them to share information and confront a
conflict
together.
 Conflict takes many forms in organizations.
 There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals
and groups affected.
 There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done,
and how long and hard people should work.
 There are jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between
unions and management.
 There are subtler forms of conflict involving rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes, role
definitions, and struggles for power and favor.
 There is also conflict within individuals – between competing needs and demands – to
which individuals respond in different ways.
 Other causes or sources of conflicts at workplace include:
 Different work objectives.
 Different work status.
 Different perceptions.
 Sharing the scarce resources at work.
 Workers interdependence.
 Organizational ambiguities.
 Joint decision making.
 Sociologists have identified two other forms of conflict:
 Work to rule, where workers stick rigidly to the letter of the rules of employment, which
effectively slows down production process.
 Industrial sabotage, where workers deliberately sabotage the machinery on which they
are working in order to make their grievances known or stop work for a rest
 These forms usually occur where the workforce is not strong enough to strike.
Types of strike
 There are two types of strike:
 Official. These are strikes officially recognized by the appropriate trade union
 Unofficial. These are strikes that are not formally recognized by the executives of the
appropriate trade unions.
Causes of strikes
 Low wages
 Hours of work
 Solidarity in support of another group of workers
Problems of Conflicts
 It can destroy an organization through industrial action.
 If not properly managed, it reduces productivity in an organization.
 It can tarnish the image of the firm.
 It can affect organizational growth.
 Conflicts can sour relations between staff.
 Can be time wasting if unproductive.
 Conflicts can suppress some ideas by minors.
Benefits of Conflicts
 Can lead to better solutions.
 It increases awareness that a problem exist.
 Promote organizational change.
 It enhances communication.
 It strengthens the relationship between employees and management.
 It encourages creativity and innovation.
Measures to manage conflict

 Tosi, Rizzo, and Caroll suggested that improving organizational practices could help
resolve conflicts, including establishing superordinate goals, reducing vagueness,
minimizing authority- and domain-related disputes, improving policies, procedures and
rules, re-apportioning existing resources or adding new, altering communications,
movement of personnel, and changing reward systems.
 Steps in Managing Conflict:
 Identify the conflict elements, emotions, behaviour and contradictions.
 Transformation: - changing the orientation of the conflict and making the different
parties aware of the elements.
 Solution:- changing the elements allows transformation of the conflict direction, which
leads to the solution apparent
(a) Representative organizations: Trade unions
 Trade unions are groups of workers who band together in order to negotiate over pay and
conditions with employers e.g. Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA), Zimbabwe
Nurses Association (ZINA) etc. The functions of trade unions include:
 Seeking to improve wage rates
 Seeking to improve working conditions, such as speed of the job and safety
 Seeking to improve hours of work, such as shortening the working week, gaining longer
holidays
 Seeking to unite individual members so that they will have more bargaining power.
Collective bargaining is a method of negotiation in which employees negotiate as a group
with their employers via a trade union.
 Influencing legislation relevant to its members
 To act as a channel between workers and employers
Problems which Trade Unions can cause
 Might stimulate grievances which disturbs progress.
 Can lead to industrial actions (strikes).
 Change balance of power between worker and managers
 However, some sociologists suggest that trade unions in reality perform rather different
functions. Clarke and Clements argue that trade unions prevent any radical restructuring of
the relationship between employers and employees by only ever focusing on wages and
conditions, never on questions of ownership and control.
(b) Counseling - when personal conflict leads to frustration and loss of efficiency, counseling
may prove to be a helpful antidote. Although few organizations can afford the luxury of
having professional counselors on the staff, given some training, managers may be able to
perform this function. Nondirective counseling, or "listening with understanding", is little
more than being a good listener — something every manager should be.
(c) Party-Directed Mediation (PDM). It is a mediation approach particularly suited for
disputes between colleagues or peers, especially those based on deep-seated interpersonal
conflict or multicultural or multiethnic ones. The mediator listens to each party separately
in a pre-caucus or pre-mediation before ever bringing them into a joint session.
(d) The Negotiated Performance Appraisal (NPA). It is a tool for improving
communication between supervisors and subordinates and is particularly useful as an
alternate mediation model because it preserves the hierarchical power of supervisors while
encouraging dialogue and dealing with differences in opinion.
(e) Conflict avoidance - non-attention or creating a total or partial separation of the
combatants allowing limited interaction.
(f) Dominance or power intervention - the imposition of a solution by management at a
higher level than the level of the conflict.
Technology
 Technology is the use of scientific knowledge to create tools. Industrial Technology is
the use of engineering and manufacturing technology to make production faster, simpler
and more efficient.
 The following among others are common types of technology:
 Microchip technology- these are integrated circuits that also include the micro processing
technology. For instance the entire CPU of a computer operate from this single integrated
circuit (chip). Therefore this microchip technology has made automation a possibility as
people now use pocket calculators, word processors and cash dispensers (Automated
Teller Machine) in service industries. Information and communication technology has
been greatly supported by this microchip technology.
 Information technology- A broad class of technology based on machines that process data
and perform calculations at high speed known as computers. This technology also include
Sensors which are devices that record data from their environment such as microphones,
cameras. Cloud technology has made it easier to view and edit files from anywhere since
they can be stored on a remote server accessible from any approved device.
 Communication technology- the technology that makes use of networks. Networks are
links that allow devices to share data e.g the internet. Some networks provide access to
voice calls and text messages e.g. Wireless network provided by Econet Zimbabwe,
Netone etc.
 Construction technology- this makes construction purpose easier e.g. earth moving
machines, cranes etc.
 Transport Technologies- these are essential for easy movement such high speed trains and
aircraft, elevators at workplace
 Medical technology- Devices, medicines, procedures and systems designed to prevent,
cure or mitigate health problems e.g. PCR testing machines to detect COVID 19,
Ventilators to assist breathing for patients suffering from respiratory infections etc.
Doctors are also able to access patient records, check for drug interactions and can do
ultrasound examinations from devices that fit into the pockets of their lab coats.
 Robotics- A class of machines with semi-autonomous capabilities meaning that robots
can handle certain tasks in real world conditions without being directed.
 Artificial intelligence- the branch of computer science dealing with the reproduction or
mimicking of human level intelligence, self-awareness, knowledge, conscience, thought in
computer programs. This technology promotes automation.
Mechanization and automation in production

 Mechanization of Production refers to the replacement of manual implements of labor in
sectors of material production or in labor processes with machines and mechanisms using
various types of power and traction for their operation.
 Its main goals are to raise labor productivity and free humans from heavy, labor-intensive,
and fatiguing operations.
 Mechanization of production promotes rational and economical use of raw and processed
materials and power, reduction of prime cost, and improvement of product quality.
 In addition to improvement and replacement of equipment and production processes,
mechanization of production is closely linked to a rise in the level of workers’ skills and
production organization and to the use of methods of scientific organization of labor.
 Automation of Production a process in the development of mechanized production in
which the control and monitoring functions previously performed by humans are
transferred to instruments and automatic devices.
 Its goal is to improve the efficiency of labor and the quality of manufactured products and
to create conditions for the optimum utilization of all production resources.
 A simple example is the way that bread is passed from the oven to the slicing machine and
finally passed on to a packing machine.
Advantages of mechanization and automation in production
 Boring repetitive tasks can be eliminated e.g. counting money using hands can now be
done by ATMs
 There is a demand for more highly educated workers to understand and control the
machinery e.g. the high demand for people with computer literacy at workplaces recently
in Zimbabwe.
 More goods are produced in fewer hours of work. Working week could be shortened and
increase opportunities for leisure.
 According to Blauner, automation brings the possibility of eliminating the divisions
between production line workers and management. All could be done in a team to solve
work problems. Machines could take responsibility of some areas of production.
 Work would become healthier and safer as the dangerous jobs will be eliminated e.g.
lifting loads at work is now done by forklifts. Excavators now dig deep into the earth
which manual labor used to do
Disadvantages of mechanization and automation in production

 There will be deskilling. Henry Braverman referred this process as a situation whereby
workers lose their skills to machines. Employers use deskilling to cut the workforce and
decrease wages. Microchips through word processors have made the work of typist as a
profession less popular as one can learn to use word processing in hours.
 Loss of pride and craftsmanship at workplaces
 Wages will decrease
 Unemployment will increase
 Interaction will decrease as people increasingly stay home to work and to engage in
leisure pursuits. This could alter the basis of our society which is dependent upon social
mixing in shops, offices and factories.
Technology use in enterprise: the impact of technology in production
 Without the role of technology in business, many businesses simply could not survive.
Just imagine a multinational organization or a small business enterprise trying to operate
without the use of a telephone or computer — or even the Internet.
 For business expansion- Technology in business allows organizations to improve both the
performance and overall effectiveness of products, systems and services, which, in turn,
enables businesses to expand quickly and efficiently. For instance, Information and
communication technology enable a business to scout for new areas to establish a
business. Businesses use advertising technologies to target customers with increasing
precision. . Internet allows current and potential customers to view your products and
services conveniently online. An Internet present gives businesses the ability to reach
potential customers worldwide. Certain products or services may not be in large demand
where you live or establish your business, but people in other parts of the country or the
world may be searching for exactly what you have to offer.
 For increased efficiency- microchips help a business in accessing word processing which
are necessary for communication via emails. One can type a document swiftly and send it
to its destination in time than posting via postal mail or physical delivery. With accounting
software, many businesses are able to handle accounting functions without the need for a
CPA (certified public accountant). The technological advances in accounting software
have turned tracking sales, invoicing, employee records and payroll into simple tasks with
no specialized training required. Some programs include notifications that alert the
business owner when quarterly taxes and bills associated with operating costs need to be
paid.. Elevators also increase the movement of workers from one shop floor to the other.
Forklifts, front end loaders assist the loading process in shops and mines respectively.
Deliveries are made possible through various transport technologies.
 For enhanced business management- CCTV (closed circuit television) cameras assist
businesses in detecting criminal activities easier, monitor worker performance etc. Major
advancements in electronic security systems and biometric alarm systems are helping keep
businesses safe from hackers and thieves. This saves a lot in terms of losses. Maintenance
of employee records is also enabled through creation of files in computers. Technology in
the workplace also improves the efficiency of recruiting, screening and hiring potential
candidates.
 For labor saving- Employers worldwide continue to seek reduction of the cost of
production and at the same time increase their profits. Advanced technology offers a
solution to this pursuit through labor-displacing technology. Automated Teller Machines
take the place of bank tellers and automated airline kiosks take the place of ticket agents.
As a result of these, many jobs are lost as technology reduces or replaces the need for
human resource. Though negative, the entrepreneur make profits (manifest and latent
functions of technology). The use of modern technology reduces the cost of production
especially when technology takes the place of human resource; this increases the profits.
When using labor- displacing technology, you do not have to pay a monthly salary and
benefits to employees. This means that your cost of production goes down while your
profit margins goes higher.
 For customer management- Customer service is an important part of any business, and
computers are essential in that function. If you have a large client base, you likely have a
customer relationship management (CRM) system that houses all of their information.
Customers enjoy the personalized approach, which makes them want to continue to work
with you. You can also pull reports from your CRM to learn more about your overall
customer base.
 For Accounting Practices- Although there are still a few holdouts, most businesses use
technology to handle their accounts payable processes. Gone are the days of conducting
bookkeeping using a paper-based ledger. Instead, businesses can log invoices and manage
payment approvals using a cloud-based software solution. Paper can be scanned into a
document management system where it can easily be accessed when needed. Payroll is
also handled electronically, with many employees logging in and updating their own
timesheets before submitting them for payment. Instead of a paper-based check you must
take to the bank, you’re more likely to be paid through an automated clearing house,
which means your paycheck is directly deposited into your bank account. All of this not
only makes things easier for the employer and employee, but it also saves businesses
money.
 However technology use at workplaces have its own limitations:
 Loss of jobs- many jobs are lost as technology reduces or replaces the need for human
resource.
 Increase of crime- abuse of computer technology to commit crimes such as Internet
hackings and theft of money through illegal access of credit card numbers. Invasion of
the privacy of employees also happens in the workplace through computer-based
technology. The theft of personal information and data from computer hard drives for
illegal gain or manipulation is another crime that has risen due to the use of technology
in the workplace.
TOPIC 15: LEISURE
 Leisure is conventionally defined as time left over after paid work. However this is little
awkward in the case of those such as children, unpaid domestic workers and the elderly
who do not have clearly delineated employment.
 Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time
 Other classic definitions include Thorsten Veblen's (1899) of "non-productive
consumption of time."
Features of leisure
 It is unpaid because one won’t be working
 It involves a sense of freedom
 There is large degree of choice on the individual
 All obligations are self-imposed and freely chosen
 Relationships are based on interest. There is no following other person’s order
 There is a considerable degree of enjoyment
Resort and recreational areas in Zimbabwe

 Recreational areas include land that is designed, constructed, designated or used for
recreational activities. These areas include national parks, city parks, and other outdoor
recreational areas like golf courses.
 Recreational activities are activities that are mostly done for pleasure. These include
bicycling, horse riding, golfing, and swimming.
 Recreation is an activity of leisure.
 resort area is an area where many people go for recreation
1. Recreational parks to visit in Zimbabwe (https://matobohillslodge.co.zw/travel-

advice/best-5-recreational-parks-to-visit-in-zimbabwe-2019/)
(a) Zambezi National Park-it is situated near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. This park has lots of
fish (75 species of fish: including the tiger fish) , birds(400 species of birds) and game (four
members of the Big 5: African elephant, lion, Cape buffalo and leopard).
 Recreational activities include canoeing, Camping, Picnicking,Walking Safaris ,Bird
watching ,Game drives
(b) Lake Manyame (formerly Darwendale) Recreational Park-it is located 76 kilometres
west of the capital city of Harare. The park has small mammals, mainly herbivores
including Sable, kudu, waterbuck, bush pig,etc. There are a variety of tree species within
the park suchs as musasa, munhondo, mukarati etc.
 Recreational activities include Fishing, angling ,Boating, water skiing, yatching ,Camping
(c) Vumba Botanical Gardens- it is located 32 kilometres from Mutare. The gardens are
popular for botany lovers, retreat destination and an up-market wedding venue. Strategically
positioned flower beds: have the following: roses, proteas, fuchsias, cycads, tea bushes, and
aloes, camellia, and palm trees among the indigenous orchids.
 Recreational activities include Camping, Picnicking ,Golfing (nearby hotels) ,Bird
watching, Walking
2. Leisure Activities in Harare https//www.triphobo.com/places/harare-zimbabwe/things-
to-do/leisure
 Lion and cheetah park- The lions, cheetahs, zebras, giraffes, blackbucks and many other
animals here offer one a lifetime experience. The Galapagos Tortoise named Tommy is the
oldest member of this park with a weight of half a ton.
 Harare gardens- The city’s largest park and a preferred spot for an outdoor wedding among
many Zimbabwean couples, the Harare Gardens provides a nice respite from the busy
schedule of the city. As peaceful as it might look, the Harare Gardens have their own share
of notoriety. One should avoid the gardens after nightfall and keep a close watch on
belongings.
 Domboshava- Located at the north east of Harare, this beautiful spot is a natural history
site. Interpretive Centre, San rock art, geological formations, wooded vegetation.
3. Natural attractions.( https://www.myguidezimbabwe.com/usefulinfo/zimbabwe-
attractions---top-ten-attractions-in-zimbabwe)
 Chinhoyi caves- located in Chinhoyi, a place of geological interest these dolomite and
limestone caves are an intriguing place whose main attraction is a deep blue natural pool;
they say the Sleeping pool as it is called. The caves have a mystical appeal about them as
local elders believe they are sacred. Spirit mediums visit the place for ancestral
worshipping or to hold cultural ceremonies. The caves are a national monument
 Victoria Falls. Although the natural attraction is quite catching, recreational activities are
also popular like Bungee jumping off the Victoria Falls Bridge.
 Matopos. They are located in the Matobo National Park in Bulawayo and they have a
historical and cultural significance to Zimbabwe. Historical ,because they were a Ndebele
stronghold in the 1800 ‘s and were the site of the second Ndebele war. The great
colonialist Cecil John Rhodes is buried in the area as well. The hills have archaeological
relevance as they prove the existence of San communities in the region as there are several
rock paintings which are over 2000 years old.
Leisure activities in Zimbabwe
Tourism
 Tourism, the act and process of spending time away from home in pursuit of recreation,
relaxation, and pleasure, while making use of the commercial provision of services.
 In both developed and developing countries, tourism has emerged as a major driver of
economic and social development through generating foreign earnings, creating incomes,
stimulating domestic consumption and creating employment for both low skilled and
semi-skilled workers with a bias towards women and youths in both urban and rural areas.
Factors affecting tourism in Zimbabwe (https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/what-is-

slowing-tourism-in-zimbabwe/ 02 JUL, 2017)
 These factors were cited in the Visitor Exit Survey survey results released by ZimStat and
the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry early in 2017 .
1. High Prices of Zimbabwean destinations- The multi-currency system adopted in 2009,
especially the use of the United States dollar is a huge contributory factor as visitors
whose currencies were weaker that the US$ (eg those from South Africa, Botswana or
Mozambique) found that their holidays to Zimbabwe were expensive because of currency
differentials.
2. “Harassment” by Police- The police were allegedly charging visitors driving foreign
registered vehicles in the country for not adhering to local rules which was against the
Vienna Convention on Road Traffic of 1968 to which Zimbabwe is a signatory to. The
attitude and practices of some police is therefore contributing to the unpopularity of
Zimbabwe as a tourist destination.
3. Poor Infrastructure and other facilities- The dilapidated road networks littered with
potholes makes travelling very difficult especially for tourists that prefer self-drives. The
rail system is almost non-existent with no reliable scheduled departures and very poor
conditions and services on the trains.
 Lack of connectivity between tourist destinations because of a lack of budget planes, good
road and rail networks has also led to the country losing out on marketing of the less
known tourist destinations outside of Victoria Falls, Great Zimbabwe and the Eastern
Highlands.
4. “Harassment” at port of entry- The way tourists are searched and made to queue for
long hours at such ports of entry like Beitbridge has created negative energy towards
visiting Zimbabwe for holiday makers.
5. Negative attitudes on domestic tourism
(https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/07/corruption-roadblocks-major-threats-tourism/)
 Coordinator for Ubuntu/Way/Nzira yeHunhu Culture Trust, Luta Shaba, said the failure to
appreciate local product such as traditional foodstuff, herbs and dances was detrimental to
the development of the tourism sector. “A lot of us are happy taking Chinese herbs and
fail to appreciate those indigenous. As part of cultural tourism we should promote the
local herbal treatment. You can have tourists attending lobola ceremonies, bira and
nhimbe,” she said.
6. Sanctions (https://www.herald.co.zw/impact-of-sanctions-on-zim-region-part-2/) -Bad
publicity has dealt Zimbabwe’s tourism sector a very negative blow. Zimbabwe has been
falsely perceived as an unsafe and risky country to visit with the like of the UK, US,
Germany and Australia issuing negative Travel Advisories to their citizens. This
drastically reduced the number of tourist arrivals from the West with resort towns such as
Kariba being rendered ghost towns.
Measures taken to boost tourism in Zimbabwe

 New marketing mantra “Zimbabwe is open for business”.
 Increased air seat capacity (adding more to air Zimbabwe)
 Extension of Victoria Falls Airport and upgrade of Robert Gabriel Mugabe International
Airport
 Ease of doing business framework ( reduction of roadblocks)
Factors affecting leisure activities
1. Social class
 Professional people tend to read more books and newspapers, to attend cinemas and
theatres more often. Reasons for differences include:
 There are exclusive clubs associated with Upper and middle class like golf clubs
 Income differences
 Educational differences
2. Age
 Youth culture-a lot of uncommitted cash, spending on luxury items, clothes, search for
excitement
 Young marrieds-spending on the house and young children
 45-65- most affluent age, children leaving home, spending on luxury items
 Over 65- decline in income, little cash for leisure activities, TV watching particularly
important
3. Gender
 In general, women are far less active in leisure than men. Cultural differences in our
society prevent women from engaging in a number of activities (such as football), so
leisure reflects the traditional roles of men and women in our society
4. Occupation
 Stanley parker (the future of work and leisure) has suggested that the most important
factor affecting leisure is occupation. He suggested three possible relationships
 Extension-this is when a person’s leisure activities are a direct extension of his/her
job e.g. teachers who may enjoy reading about their subject in their spare time.
Leisure and occupation overlap. It usually occurs with people who have
responsible, rewarding work
 Opposition-this is the opposite of the extension pattern. People who have work that
is tough and exhausting seek to refresh themselves through their leisure activities
e.g miners, fisherman engage in pub drinking
 Neutrality- this refers to the increasing number of workers, notably in clerical
occupations, who are not interested in their work , nor are they exhausted by it,
instead they are bored
 However, if leisure is strongly influenced by occupation, then changes in occupational
structure will be reflected in leisure changes
 On an optimistic view, Parker and Best suggest that machines will take over boring,
repetitive work that causes alienation. The remaining work will be interesting and could
be fulfilling, indeed more leisure than work. Parker actually sees a fusion of work and
leisure. We will move towards a leisure society in which leisure becomes central element
in our lives
 On a pessimistic view, Wilensky argued that machines may take over worker’s jobs, but
instead of escaping from boring work, the workers are made reduntant. Unemployment
does not lead to enjoyable leisure but poverty and frustration.
Theories of Leisure
(a) Functionalist perspective
 From a functionalist perspective, leisure has a number of roles or functions to perform for
the wider social system, including helping to bridge the gap between the individual and
the wider social system.
 National sporting events in particular have a role to play in bringing about greater social
integration. The reader might reflect on the purpose of opening and closing ceremonies,
uniforms, medal and award ceremonies, and shaking hands with opponents at the end of a
game.
 Leisure institutions have a role to play both for individual people and for maintaining the
social system as a whole.
 As a functionalist, Parsons believed that the social system had to overcome
four basic problems:
• adaptation – dealt with by the economy
• goal attainment – dealt with by the political system
• pattern maintenance/tension management – dealt with by the family
• integration – dealt with by a range of leisure and cultural organizations.
 Kenneth Roberts (1999) argues that the functions of leisure are to:
• consolidate the social system
• act as a safety valve for the wider social system by easing stresses and strains
• imprint values such as leadership, teamwork and fair play
• provide people with an opportunity to develop their skills
• help to compensate for the unrewarding and unsatisfying aspects of life.
 For Roberts (1999), if publicly funded leisure and sports provision were not available,
then many economically disadvantaged people, including children, would have very
limited recreational opportunities.
 Edward Gross (1961) emphasized that leisure has important tension management
functions
to perform, allowing individuals to restore their sense of self after the stressful
experience of work.
 The social system’s adaptation functions are also serviced by leisure, in that leisure
provides people with opportunities for joining voluntary associations in their non-work
time that help to maintain ‘instrumental values’.
 Leisure has in the past provided examples of national symbols and has been used to
identify skills and abilities that people have. Gross argues that this gives leisure an
important role to play in the area of goal attainment.
 Leisure also provides opportunities for individuals to involve themselves in group
activities that help to maintain group solidarity – an important integration function for any
social system.
 Stanley Parker (1976) outlined three distinct patterns of leisure that have developed as a
reaction to the experiences people have at work. These three patterns are based upon the
assumption that the activities people engage in during their work time may directly affect
their non-work time or leisure time (refer to Parker’s arguments on effects of occupation
of By way of criticism, leisure activities)
 By way of criticism, assuming that all miners and oilrig workers have leisure patterns that
stand in opposition to their work, Parker falls into the functionalist trap, of undervaluing
the role of the human agent in making personal leisure choices. In addition, Parker does
not take into account that our individual choices may be rooted in individual pleasure and
desire and not determined by the type of paid work we do.
(b) Marxist perspective: The neo-Marxian Approach to Leisure
 John Clarke and Chas Critcher (1985) argue that capitalism shapes the nature of work
and
leisure. Before the Industrial Revolution, there was no clear dividing line between these
two areas of life.
 The Industrial Revolution and the development of capitalism had two main effects:
 Firstly, capitalism removed opportunities for leisure, leading to a clear demarcation
between work and leisure.
 Secondly, the state and capitalist enterprise became the key influences of leisure.
Central to this was the role of the state in licensing certain leisure activities: pubs,
casinos, betting shops; films and DVDs are also cleared for release.
 Clarke and Critcher (1985) were also highly critical of the functionalist approach to
leisure – they argue that for the functionalist, leisure is the site of desirable experiences:
freedom, choice, the fulfilment of needs, self-actualisationand self-expression. Leisure
is assumed to reflect the life of individuals who have satisfied their basic biological
needs for food, clothing and shelter.
 However, the functionalist approach ignores the fact that leisure remains the
compensation that has to be earned through paid work in capitalist enterprises.
 Clarke and Critcher (1985) are critical of the link between work and leisure in Stanley
Parker’s work – they argue that his model:
• is suggestive and not based upon any systematic data collection
• assumes that any social pattern/activity can be explained by identifying the function it
performs for the wider social system
• assumes that leisure is a function of the work experience
• gives little attention to human agency
• is not comprehensive, and ignores the leisure of women with children.
 Free time is open to abuse. There are a number of concerns about the danger of leisure,
mainly in relation to excess and misuse. Hence, the state has to license and regulate.
 Clarke and Critcher (1985) argue that under the guise of maintaining public order, the
state attempts to impose a form of socially acceptable leisure activity.
 One of the central institutions for the imposition of acceptable leisure is education. For
Clarke and Critcher, traditional ‘arts’ education such as Fine Art or English Literature
assists young people’s understanding and appreciation of the country’s rich cultural
heritage and helps to develop young people’s civilising faculties.
(c) Feminist perspective
 Many feminists see patriarchy as a significant barrier to female participation in a range of
leisure activities. Men draw upon the structures of patriarchy in order to empower
themselves and make their social actions more likely to be effective.
 Many leisure activities are assumed to be inappropriate for women. Similarly, patriarchy
prescribes many activities as suitable for men; leisure activities often provide a site in
which men have to continually demonstrate their masculinity.
(d) Interactionism
 Herbert Blumer (1962) argues that what is distinctive about human relationships is our
ability to construct and share our social worlds. This approach stands in sharp contrast to
Marxism and functionalism – in these perspectives, claims Blumer, human behaviour is
seen to be a product of stimulus– response variables such as social class. In both these
approaches, the actions of the individuals who make up human society are simply the
product of wider social forces, and the individual’s personal motives and intentions in
relation to leisure choices or any activity are ignored by the analysis.
 In this approach, leisure is the representation of self by the use of a symbolic and
pleasurable encounter with the environment.
 Kelly (1983) argues that the basis of social solidarity is found in social interaction around
the leisure experience.
 Kelly would agree with Roberts that leisure is pluralistic in nature and is never fully
determined by factors external to the individual. Low income and poverty may restrict the
range of leisure activities that are possible, but not all poor people engage in the same set
of leisure activities.
 Kelly (1981) makes it clear that he rejects the deterministic mode of explanation contained
within the Marxian and functionalist perspectives. The leisure experience is not isolated
from issues of power or resource allocation, access, exclusion and reward – structural
forces related to economic structures can restrict our leisure choices but we still have to
take the personal motivation of the individual into account.
TOPIC 16: POPULATION AND HEALTH
Demography
 Demography refers to the study of the size, composition, growth, and distribution of
human populations.
 Demography (from Greek, meaning “description of people”) is a cousin of sociology that
analyzes the size and composition of a population and studies how and why people move
from place to place. Demographers not only collect statistics but also raise important
questions about the effects of population growth and suggest how it might be controlled.
Demographic measurements
 Demographic measures are the actual changes in size, composition and distribution due to
changes in demographic components like birth, death and migration, as a result of their
respective processes like rate of fertility, mortality and migration.
a) Crude birthrate (or birthrate)
 This is the number of live births each year for every 1000 people in the population. It is
the measure usually employed by sociologists when they discuss changes in the size of
population.
 The higher the birth rate the more children are being born in particular year. A country’s
birth rate is described as “crude” because it is based on the entire population, not just
women in their childbearing years, it does not take into account age or sex differences.
 Sociologists use the term fertility rate referring to the number of children born for every
1000 women of child bearing age each year. This is more accurate as it relates births to the
proportion of the population who could have children.
 During her childbearing years, from the onset of menstruation (typically in the early teens)
to menopause (usually in the late forties), a woman is capable of bearing more than twenty
children (Macionis 2012).
 To compute the fertility rate of a country, demographers analyze the government’s records
of births. From these, they figure the country’s crude birth rate.
Factors affecting the number of births (birth and fertility rate)

 Use of contraceptives
 The financial costs of having children
 Emancipation of women
 Social class-minorities tend to have more children
 Religious beliefs- Catholics discourage contraception use as well as indigenous apostolic
white garment churches in Zimbabwe.
 Cultural beliefs that favor large families as a sign of virility.
b) Mortality (death) rate

 Mortality is the incidence of death in a country’s population. To measure mortality,
demographers use the crude death rate.
 Crude death rate is the number of deaths for every 1000 people in the population.
 When analyzed together, fertility and mortality rates help researchers understand the
overall growth occurring in a population.
 The death rate can be an important measure of the overall standard of living for a
population. In general, the higher the standard of living enjoyed by a country, or a group
within the country, the lower the death rate.
 The death rate of a population also reflects the quality of medicine and health care. Poor
medical care, which goes along with a low standard of living, will correlate with a high
death rate. The death rate can be an important indicator of a population’s overall standard
of living. In general, the higher the standard of living, the lower the death rate.
 In nations with a poor standard of living, infant mortality is typically high.
 Infant mortality rate, the number of deaths among infants under one year of age for each
1,000 live births in a given year.
 Infant mortality is a good indicator of the overall quality of life, as well as the survival
chances for members of that racial or class group.
Factors affecting the number of deaths

 Improvements in public hygiene
 Advances in medicine
 Higher standard of living
 Social class
c) Migration
 It refers to the movement of people from one area to another. It joins the birthrate and
death rate as factors in determining the size of a population.
 Movement into a territory, or immigration, is measured as an in-migration rate, calculated
as the number of people entering an area for every 1,000 people in the population.
Movement out of a territory, or emigration, is measured in terms of an out-migration rate,
the number leaving for every 1,000 people. Both types of migration usually occur at the
same time; the difference between them is the net migration rate.
Population theories
a) Demographic transition theory
 It proposes that countries pass through a consistent sequence of population patterns linked
to the degree of development in the society, ending with relatively low birthrates and
death rates (Davis 1945). Overall, according to this theory, the population level will
eventually stabilize.
 Societies develop along a predictable continuum as they evolve from unindustrialized to
postindustrial.
Level of Technology Preindustrial Early Mature Postindustrial
Industrial Industrial
Population Growth Very Slow Rapid Slowing Very Slow
 Stage 1- Preindustrial, agrarian societies have high birth rates because of the economic
value of children and the absence of birth control. Death rates are also high because of low
living standards and limited medical technology. Deaths from outbreaks of disease cancel
out births, so population rises and falls only slightly over time. In Zimbabwean
preindustrial society, people lived in caves, poorly built houses which increased chances
of illness and death. Diseases like influenza often claimed lives. Infant mortality was also
high. High birth rates were necessary for labor in fields and as a sign of virility.
 Stage 2- the onset of industrialization, brings a demographic transition as death rates fall
due to greater food supplies and scientific medicine. But birth rates remain high, resulting
in rapid population growth. It was during Europe’s Stage 2 that Malthus formulated his
ideas, which accounts for his pessimistic view of the future (Malthusian Theory). The
norms of the day continued to encourage large families, thereby causing high birthrates,
while advances in medicine and public sanitation whittled away at the infant mortality rate
and the overall death
rate. Life expectancy increased, and the population grew in size. The world’s poorest
countries today are in this high growth stage. In Zimbabwe, birth rate remain high maybe
due to some cultural beliefs of preferring boy over girl children.
 Stage 3- a mature industrial economy, the birth rate drops, curbing population growth once
again. Fertility falls because most children survive to adulthood and because high living
standards make raising children expensive. In short, affluence transforms children from
economic assets into economic liabilities. Smaller families, made possible by effective
birth control, are also favored by women working outside the home. As birth rates follow
death
rates downward, population growth slows further. In Zimbabwe, with further
industrialization, women become more emancipated which reduces fertility rate.
 Stage 4- corresponds to a postindustrial economy in which the demographic transition is
complete. The birth rate keeps falling, partly because dual-income couples gradually
become the norm and partly because the cost of raising children continues to increase.
This trend, linked to steady death rates, means that population grows only very slowly or
even decreases. This is the case today in Japan, Europe, and the United States.
 Demographic transition theory is linked to modernization theory. Modernization theorists
are optimistic that poor countries will solve their population problems as they
industrialize. But critics, notably dependency theorists, strongly disagree. Unless there is a
redistribution of global resources, they maintain, our planet will become increasingly
divided into industrialized “haves,” enjoying low population growth, and non-
industrialized “have-nots,” struggling in vain to feed more and more people.
b) Malthusian Theory
 Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), an English economist and clergyman, thought that
populations grow faster than society can sustain.
 He argued that although population grows geometrically/ exponentially (from 2 to 4 to 8
to 16 and so forth), the food supply increases only arithmetically (from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 and
so on). This meant, he claimed, that if births go unchecked, the population of a country, or
even of the world, will outstrip its food supply.
 Exponential increase, in contrast to arithmetic increase, causes a population to grow ever
faster. Malthus predicted widespread catastrophe and famine.
 Malthus reasoned that the only checks on population growth were famine, disease, and
war. In Malthus’s time, disease could reach apocalyptic scales.
 He termed these checks “positive checks” because they increase mortality rates, thus
keeping the population in check. They are countered by “preventive checks,” which also
control the population but by reducing fertility rates; preventive checks include birth
control and celibacy.
 Malthusian theory actually predicted rather well the population of many early and agrarian
societies. He failed, however, to foresee three revolutionary developments that derailed his
predictions of growth and catastrophe. Technological advances have permitted the
production of more food, resulting in subsistence levels higher than Malthus would have
predicted. Medical science has fought off diseases that Malthus expected to periodically
wipe out entire nations. The development of contraceptives has kept the birthrate in many
countries at a level lower than Malthus would have thought possible.
 Regardless of this criticism, viral epidemics and pandemics warn us that disease can still
wipe out huge populations e.g., SARS, COVID 19 (Corona Virus Infectious Disease of
2019).
c) Marxist perspective
 Marx rejected the Malthusian theory and argued that there can be no natural or universal
law on population.
 Marx did not believe that hardships people were suffering are due to growth in numbers
faster than his production but was due to evils of capitalism which would disappear with
the emergence of communism.
 Marx held that poverty and unemployment were not due to increased population, but due
to the capitalist system which failed to provide jobs through installing labor saving
machines.
 According to Marx, in no country of the world does population increases on account of
fertility but it increases only on account of capitalist policies.
Migration
 Migration refers to the movement of people into and out of a specified territory.
 To understand migration, we need to look at both push and pull factors. The push factors
are what people want to escape: poverty or persecution for their religious and political
ideas. The pull factors are the magnets that draw people to a new land, such as
opportunities for education, better jobs, freedom to worship or to discuss political ideas,
and a more promising future for their children (Henslin 2012).
 Migration is sometimes voluntary, as when people leave a small town and move to a
larger city. In such cases, “push-pull” factors are typically at work; a lack of jobs “pushes”
people to move, and more opportunity elsewhere “pulls” them to a larger city. Migration
can
also be involuntary.
Types and causes of migration
a) Internal migration- occurs when people move from one region to another within the
same country.
i. Rural-urban migration
Push factors in rural areas
 Drought and famine
 Poor health facilities
 Low education standards
 Lack of employment varieties
Pull factors in urban areas
 Employment opportunities (Marx’s ideas)
 Better education standards
 Improved health care
 Entertainment
ii. Urban-rural migration
Push factors in urban areas
 Job losses
 Retirement
 Political unrests
 Epidemic diseases e.g. COVID 19
 Lack of sufficient affection from others (Blasé attitude, Gesellschaft)
Pull factors in rural areas

 Closeness to relatives (mechanical solidarity, Gemeinschaft)
 Parental care during illness
 Friendly environmental conditions
 Agriculture
iii. Urban-urban migration
 Job transfers
 Entrepreneurship opportunities
 Educational betterment
 Health standards
 Marriage
iv. Rural to rural
 Marriage
 Land distribution
 Recreational facilities development e.g. dam, game park construction
b) International migration- occurs when people move from one country to another.
Demographers use the term net migration rate to refer to the difference between the
number of immigrants (people moving into a country) and emigrants (people moving out
of a
country) per 1,000 people. Unlike fertility and mortality, migration does not affect the
global population, for people are simply shifting their residence from one country or
region to another
Push factors (reasons for emigration)

 Political unrests e.g. in Rwanda (Hutu and Tutsi war)
 High unemployment rates e.g. Zimbabweans goinfg to South Africa
 Religious persecution e.g. Jews in Germany
 Natural disasters e.g. cyclone Idai
 Educational betterment e.g. scholarships
Pull factors Reasons for immigration)
 Religious freedom
 Job availability
 Political stability
 lucrative trading conditions (World systems theory/dependency theory)
 Better social amenities like schools, universities, hospitals
c) Voluntary migration
 Marriage
 Retirement
 Education
 Change in life style
d) Involuntary(forced migration)
 War and asylum seeking
 Persecution
 Natural disasters and famine
 Slavery
 Overpopulation
Effects of migration on society
Positive effects on the place of origin
 Remittances which improve the social and economic welfare
 Hybridization of cultures
 Improved human resources with better interpersonal skills
Negative effects on the place of origin
 Separation from family (Parsons’ view)
 Change in family composition (creation of child headed or single parent families)
 Abandonment of old people
 Increased spread of diseases e.g. HIV/AIDS, COVID 19
 “Brain drain”-loss of highly skilled man power
Positive effects on the destination places
 Increased supply of labor
 Increased productivity due to job competitions
 Hybridization of cultures
Negative effects on the destination places
 Strained public services (Malthusian theory)
 Increased criminality (refer to Trump’s great war and the scapegoat theory)
 Job competition brings down wages for the locals
 Integration challenges-failure of integration leads to massive and expensive expulsion of
immigrants
 Increased xenophobic attacks ( ethnocentrism theory)
Environmental Pollution
 The natural environment is Earth’s surface and atmosphere, including living organisms,
air, water, soil, and other resources necessary to sustain life (Macionis 2012).
 Like every other species, humans depend on the natural environment to survive. Yet with
our capacity for culture, humans stand apart from other species; we alone take deliberate
action to remake the world according to our own interests and desires, for better and for
worse.
 The subfield of environmental sociology studies the way humans interact with their
environments. This field is closely related to human ecology, which focuses on the
relationship between people and their built and natural environment. This is an area that is
garnering more attention as extreme weather patterns and policy battles over climate
change dominate the news.
 Environmental problems, from pollution to acid rain to global warming, do not arise from
the natural world operating on its own. Such problems result from the specific actions of
human beings, which means they are social problems.
The problems of environmental pollution
 Pollution describes what happens when contaminants are introduced into an environment
(water, air, land) at levels that are damaging.
a) Air pollution
 Air pollution, caused by toxic emissions into the atmosphere, is thought to claim more
than 2.7 million lives per year (Giddens 2009). It is possible to make a distinction between
two types of air pollution: 'outdoor pollution', produced mainly by industrial pollutants
and automobile emissions, and ‘indoor pollution', is caused by burning fuels in the home
for heating and cooking. For instance in Zimbabwe, braziers kill people over the sleep
during winter periods through emitting carbon monoxide.
 Air pollution affects human health through:
 Increased respiratory diseases like lung cancer
 Increased bronchitis
 Among the asthmatics, air pollution has been shown to aggravate the frequency and
severity of attacks( Mishra 2003)
 Acid rain is difficult to counteract because it is transnational in its origins and
consequences. Other countries suffering from acid rain have similarly found that it is not
within their control to tackle the problem, since its origins lie across national border
b) Water pollution
 Water pollution can be understood broadly to refer to the contamination of the water
supply by elements such as toxic chemicals and minerals, pesticides or untreated sewage.
It poses the greatest threat to people in the developing world.
 The high levels of bacteria that result from untreated sewage lead to a variety of water-
borne diseases, such as diarrhoea, dysentery and hepatitis.
 Agricultural chemicals increases the growth of water weed (algae) through eutrophication.
This reduces oxygen in the water which kills fish. Human source of food and water will be
affected. (Latent dysfunctions of agriculture). For instance the water weed problem in lake
Chivero (Harare’s water source)
c) Land pollution
 According to the 1998 UN Human Development Report, a third of the world's population
lives more or less directly from the land- on the food they can grow or gather, and the
game they can catch
 Land pollution by chemicals usually leads to water and air pollution. Most land pollution
affects animals that live off the land such as cows, goats and other herbivores.
d) Noise pollution
 Exposure to transport noise disturbs sleep which compromises human health
 Noise reduces concentration (reduces social learning).
The impact of climate change on the society
 Climate change (global warming) is the systematic increase in worldwide surface
temperatures and the resulting ecological change (Andersen 2017).
 The process of global warming is closely related to the idea of the greenhouse effect - the
build-up of heat-trapping greenhouse gases within the earth's atmosphere.
 These greenhouse gas emissions, which also include methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone,
trap heat in the lower atmosphere. Even one additional degree of warmth in the globe’s
average surface temperature can increase the likelihood of wildfires, shrinkage of rivers
and lakes, expansion of deserts, and torrential downpours, including typhoons and
hurricanes (Giddens 2011; Lynas 2008).
 Scientists have recently estimated that global warming kills about 160,000 people every
year, with children in developing countries being most at risk. (Giddens 2009).
 It has also been estimated that the numbers dying from the 'side-effects' of climate change,
such as malaria and malnutrition, could almost double by 2020 (New Scientist, 1 October
2003).
 The consequences of climate change are likely to be devastating, with some of the
potentially harmful effects worldwide including:
 Rising sea levels. Global warming may cause the polar ice caps to melt and the oceans to
warm and expand. As glaciers and other forms of land ice melt, sea levels will rise. Cities
that are near the coasts or in low-lying areas will be flooded and become uninhabitable. If
sea levels were to rise by one metre, Bangladesh would lose 17 per cent of its total land
area, Egypt would lose 12 per cent and the Netherlands would lose 6 per cent (UNDP
1998). Zimbabwe as a country suffer from this because it relies on coastal countries like
Mozambique, South Africa, and Namibia etc. for ship transportation.
 Desertification. Global warming may contribute to large tracts of fertile land becoming
desert. Sub·Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia will be further affected by
desertification and intense soil erosion.
 The spread of disease, Global warming may extend the geographical range and the
seasonality for organisms, such as mosquitoes, which spread diseases like malaria and
yellow fever. If temperatures were to rise by 3- 5 degrees Celsius, the number of malaria
cases could
increase by 50- 80 million per year (Giddens 2009).
 Poor harvests, Agricultural yields may fail in many of the poorest areas of the world if
global warming progresses. Populations in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America
would be likely to be most affected. Destitution increases deviance, crime and many other
pathologies (apply Durkheim’s ideas).
 Geopolitical instability, A report published for the US Department of Defense warned
that, at their most abrupt, the effects of climate change could lead to disputes or even wars
between nations as they attempt to protect their increasingly limited agricultural, fresh
water and
energy resources. The report cautions that mass migration could occur as people attempt
to move to those regions which possesses the resources to adapt to climate change
(Schwartz and Randall 2003).
 As solutions to challenges of climate change on the society, The United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change was created in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, where
agreement was
reached to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly by 2010 in order to stabilize the
situation at levels that do not pose a threat to the global climate. Under the terms of the
protocol, industrialized nations committed themselves to a range of targets to reduce
emissions to below 1990 levels - the base year - by 2010.
 However, in 2001, the US President, George W. Bush, refused to ratify the Kyoto
Protocol, arguing that it would damage the US economy. After some debate, most other
nations agreed to go ahead without the United States, in spite of it being the world's largest
producer of greenhouse gases. It is clear that tackling global warming will be very difficult
if the country with the highest national emissions levels - the USA - continues to opt out
of international attempts to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
FURTHER READING: APPLICATION OF PARSONS’ VIEWS TO
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
 Parsons argued that if a social system is to continue, then there are four basic functions it
must perform (functional needs/prerequisites i.e AGIL).
 Adaptation- society must be capable of adapting to its environment and gather
enough resources to do so. It must adapt the environment to its needs. The economy is
the subsystem that performs the function for society of adapting to the environment
through labor, production, and allocation. Through such work, the economy adapts the
environment to society’s needs, and it helps society adapt to these external realities. In
this case, natural environmental changes reduces the chances of societies to adapt as
resources will be strained or depleted and production will be lowered (reason America
failed to ratify Kyoto protocol).Economies of nations will channel more resources to
fight climate change.
 Goal attainment- society must set out and put in place goals to be attained and the
mechanisms for their achievement. The polity (or political system) performs the
function of goal attainment by pursuing societal objectives and mobilizing actors and
resources to that end. According to Todaro and Smith (2003), in September 2000, the
189 member countries of the United Nations at that time adopted eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), committing themselves to making substantial progress
toward the eradication of poverty and achieving other human development goals by
2015. For instance, one of the 'Millennium Development Goals' set by the United
Nations in 2000 is to 'reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe
drinking water' by 2015. Natural environmental changes make this goal attainment a
fallacy.
 Integration- the societal system must be integrated and the various sub-systems must
be coordinated effectively. It also must manage the relationship among the other three
functional imperatives (A, G, L). The integration function is performed by the societal
community (for example, the law), which coordinates the various components of
society (Parsons and Platt, 1973). Religion also ensure social integration. In the face of
natural environmental changes, society may fail to integrate well it’s institutions as
others like economy may fail to adapt making law enforcement difficult (a situation of
anomie in Durkheim’s view). As society fails to achieve its goals, other institutions
suffer e.g. failure to provide safe drinking water affects the family, schools, health etc.
this makes society struggle in coordinating its subsystems(institutions)
 Latency/pattern maintenance- the social system must have ways of preserving and
transmitting its values and culture to new generations (value institutionalization and
value orientation). A system must furnish, maintain, and renew both the motivation of
individuals and the cultural patterns that create and sustain that motivation. The
fiduciary system (for example, in the schools, the family) handles the latency function
by transmitting culture (norms and values) to actors and allowing it to be internalized
by them. In this case, natural environmental changes affect the heritage of societies.
For instance, some water bodies have dried up or contaminated due to climate change,
future generations have nothing to learn about their importance since they are no
longer present. Some animals now exist in oral narratives like folktales, folksongs and
not in reality due to environmental changes. This affects cultural learning and
transmission.
Health and well-being
 In the preamble to its 1946 constitution, the World Health Organization defined health as
a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of
disease and infirmity” (Leavell and Clark 1965:14).
 Health is not just a matter of personal choice, nor it is only a biological issue; patterns of
well-being and illness are rooted in the organization of society.
 Medical sociology is the systematic study of how humans manage issues of health and
illness, disease and disorders, and health care for both the sick and the healthy. Medical
sociologists study the physical, mental, and social components of health and illness. Major
topics for medical sociologists include the doctor/patient relationship, the structure and
socioeconomics of health care, and how culture impacts attitudes toward disease and
wellness.
 Medicine is the social institution that focuses on fighting disease and improving health.
 In recent decades, the scientific model of medicine has been combined with the more
traditional model of holistic medicine, an approach to health care that emphasizes the
prevention of illness and takes into account a person’s entire physical and social
environment.
 Macionis(2012) notes that society shapes people’s health in four major ways:
1. Cultural patterns define health. Standards of health vary from place to place. What
people see as healthful also reflects what they think is morally good. Members of our
society (especially men) think a competitive way of life is “healthy” because it fits our
cultural mores, but stress contributes to heart disease and many other illnesses. People
who object to homosexuality on moral grounds call this sexual orientation “sick,” even
though it is natural from a biological point of view. Thus ideas about health act as a
form of social control, encouraging conformity to cultural norms.
2. Cultural standards of health change over time. In the early twentieth century, some
doctors warned women not to go to college because higher education would strain the
female brain. Others claimed that masturbation was a threat to health. We know now
that both of these ideas are false. Fifty years ago, on the other hand, few doctors
understood the dangers of cigarette smoking or too much sun exposure, practices that
we now recognize as serious health risks. Even patterns of basic hygiene change over
time. Today, most people bathe every day; this is three times as often as fifty years ago
(Gillespie, 2000).
3. A society’s technology affects people’s health.. As industrialization raises living
standards, people become healthier. But industrial technology also creates new threats
to health, high-income ways of life threaten human health by creating pollution.
4. Social inequality affects people’s health. All societies distribute resources unequally.
In general, the rich have far better physical and mental health than the poor.
Models of health
(a) Biomedical model of health
 This model is based on the assumption that, health and illness are, surely, simply
biological descriptions of the state of our bodies. When we are ill, we are ill.
 This understanding of health and illness developed along with the growth of modern
societies. This concept of health may be easier to understand as it makes health an
attribute you can measure simply by determining if a disease is present or not.
 There are three main assumptions on which the biomedical model of health is predicated
 Disease is viewed as a breakdown within the human body that diverts it from its
'normal' state of being. The germ theory of disease, developed in the late 1800s, holds
that there is a specific identifiable agent behind every disease. In order to restore the
body to health, the cause of the disease must be isolated and treated.
 The mind and body can be treated separately. The patient represents a sick body – a
pathology - rather than a whole individual. The emphasis is on curing the disease,
rather than on the individual's well-being. The biomedical model holds that the sick
body can be manipulated, investigated and treated in isolation, without considering
other factors. Medical specialists adopt a 'medical gaze', a detached approach in
viewing and treating
the sick patient. The treatment is to be carried out in a neutral, value free manner, with
information collected and compiled, in clinical terms, in a patient's official file.
 Trained medical specialists are considered the only experts in the treatment of
disease. The medical profession as a body adheres to a recognized code of ethics and is
made up of accredited individuals who have successfully completed long-term training.
There is no room for self-taught healers or 'non-scientific' medical practices. The
hospital represents the appropriate environment in which to treat serious illnesses; these
treatments often rely on some combination of technology, medication or surgery.
Criticisms of the biomedical model
 Disease is socially constructed, not something that can be revealed through 'scientific
truth'. The social model of health examines all the factors which contribute to health
such as social, cultural, political and the environment for example poor housing .It is
well documented that both stress and low self-esteem can have a negative impact on
health. “Low levels of autonomy and low self-esteem are likely to relate to worse
health.”
 The patient's opinions and experience of illness is crucial to the treatment. The patient
is an active, 'whole' being whose overall well-being not just physical health - is
important. . Critics argue, that effective treatment can only take place when the patient
is treated as a thinking, capable being with their own valid understandings and
interpretation.
 Medical experts are not the only source of knowledge about health and illness.
Alternative forms of knowledge are equally valid. Healing does not need to take place
in a hospital. Treatments utilizing technology, medication and surgery are not
necessarily superior. The assertion that modern medicine is somehow a more valid
form of knowledge is being undermined by the growing popularity of alternative
forms of medicine, such as homeopathy and acupuncture.
(b) Social (cultural) model of health
 The social model of health examines all the factors which contribute to health such as
social, cultural, political and the environment.
 Many medical sociologists contend that illnesses have both a biological and an
experiential component, and that these components exist independently of each other. Our
culture, not our biology, dictates which illnesses are stigmatized and which are not, which
are considered disabilities and which are not, and which are deemed contestable (meaning
some medical professionals may find the existence of this ailment questionable) as
opposed to definitive (illnesses that are unquestionably recognized in the medical
profession) (Conrad and Barker 2010).
 For instance, sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) described how social stigmas hinder
individuals from fully integrating into society. The stigmatization of illness often has the
greatest effect on the patient and the kind of care he or she receives. Many contend that
our society and even our health care institutions discriminate against certain diseases—
like mental disorders, AIDS, venereal diseases, and skin disorders (Sartorius 2007).
Facilities for these diseases may be sub-par; they may be segregated from other health care
areas or relegated to a poorer environment. The stigma may keep people from seeking
help for their illness, making it worse than it needs to be.
(c) Bio psychosocial model: Developed by psychiatrist George Engel in 1977, and
recognizes that many factors affect health. It pays “explicit attention to humanness”
(Engel, 1997). It views health as a scientific construct and a social phenomenon. The
model looks at the biological factors which affect health, such as age, illness, gender etc.
The psychological factors: individual beliefs & perceptions. The social: the community,
the presence or absence of relationships “We suffer when our interpersonal bonds are
sundered and we feel solace when they are reestablished” (Engel, 1997).
Zimbabwe’s health system
 The health system in Zimbabwe is divided into four levels of care, namely tertiary;
provincial; district; and primary.
 Primary care facilities offer basic outpatient services that include health promotion,
preventive, curative and rehabilitative services and community based health care. In urban
areas, the local authority owned clinics charge a service charge except for children under
five years and patients receiving treatment for infectious diseases like Tuberculosis,
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The service charge in urban clinics serve
to improve income generation under reduced central government spending on social
services. Health care services in rural clinics are free of charge to the patient. Complicated
cases requiring surgical care are referred to the next level, the district or mission hospital
level.
 There are about 50 District and 49 Mission hospitals in Zimbabwe. These facilities are
staffed by Government Medical Officers (GMOs), nurses, laboratory scientists,
environmental health officers, pharmacists, health information assistants, nutritionists and
health promotion officers. Additional services offered at this level include surgical
procedures (caesarean section, safe blood transfusion), comprehensive emergency
obstetric and new-born care, and comprehensive management of illness including
emergency care.
 The third level of care is the provincial hospital where services not offered at the district
are available. Central or tertiary level of care is the fourth level of care where more
complicated specialized services are provided. Payment for services starts from district
level upwards for all patients outside the category exempted from paying. Older persons
are exempted from paying for health services provided at all levels except at urban clinics
where a service charge is levied on all patients except under five year children.
Challenges to healthcare delivery in Zimbabwe

 Sanctions. These had a catalytic effect on the deterioration of health services in
Zimbabwe. As an example, after the imposition of sanctions in 2001 the DANIDA
withdrew aid funding towards various vertical health programmes to the tune of US$29,7
million. This was followed by the Swedish Government’s withdrawal of US$6,4 million
worth of grant towards supporting HIV and AIDS, water and sanitation, alleviating
disability and health education. Access to the Global Fund grant was also turned down.
Sanctions created a humanitarian crisis of gigantic proportions, with a rise in infant
mortality rate rising from 70/1 000 to 132/1 000 by 2005
(https://www.herald.co.zw/impact-of-sanctions-on-zim-region-part-2/ ).
 Deteriorating economic environment. This resulted in the failure by Government to
recapitalize hospital equipment, with available equipment breaking down more frequently
due to lack of technical support from manufacturers. Since Government could not raise
adequate foreign currency, the costs of procuring equipment and drugs/medicines also
became expensive as it had to be done through middlemen due to sanctions.
 Shortage of enough qualified medical staff. In 2010, there were 1.6 physicians and 7.2
nurses for every 10,000 people (Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Human
Resources for Health information sheet, 2010). Lack of staff for medical education
training, and high drop-out rates in public sector health care posts have resulted in vacancy
rates of over 50% for doctors, midwives, laboratory, and environmental health staff
(National Health Strategy for Zimbabwe 2009-2013).
 Shortages of drugs. VOA (Voice of America) News18 May 2016 reported that people
pay a $5 fee for cards at clinics but there are no drugs. The clinic just writes a prescription
and you are supposed to purchase the drugs from a pharmacy.
 Erratic strikes of doctors and nurses. In the past few years doctors and nurses have
repeatedly gone on strike over wages. Many have joined the steady exodus of
professionals from the country, seeking employment in neighboring South Africa and
further afield in Europe and the United States: 10 000 Zimbabwean nurses are employed
in Britain alone and 80% of medical graduates are working abroad (BMJ 2009; 338:b930).
 Deteriorating Infrastructure. Big city hospitals are still standing, but everything from
the plumbing to the paint needs replacing, doctors say. Blankets, sheets, and even beds
have been stolen from wards. “The central public hospitals are the most devastated.
I think they need a complete overhaul,” says Dr Gwatidzo (BMJ 2009; 338:b930). Most of
the equipment has outlived its lifespan, he says. “It needs replacement with state of the art,
reliable equipment with spares and technical back-up.”
Theories of health
(a) Functionalist Theory

 Functionalists begin with an obvious point: If society is to function well, its people need
to be healthy enough to perform their normal roles. This means that societies must set up
ways to control sickness. One way they do this is to develop a system of medical care.
Another way is to make rules that help keep too many people from “being sick.”
 Talcott Parsons (1951) viewed medicine as society’s strategy to keep its members healthy.
According to this model, illness is dysfunctional because it undermines people’s abilities
to perform their roles.
 The Sick Role-patterns of behavior defined as appropriate for people who are ill
(Macionis 2012). Society responds to sickness not only by providing medical care but
also by affording people a sick role
 Talcott Parsons, the functionalist who first analyzed the sick role, pointed out that it has
four elements:
 You are not held responsible for being sick
 You are exempt from normal responsibilities. However, this exemption is temporary
and relative to the severity of the illness. The exemption also requires legitimation by
a physician; that is, a physician must certify that the illness is genuine.
 you don’t like the role
 you will get competent help so you can return to your routines
 The Physician’s Role

 According to Parsons’ theory, physicians function as gatekeepers for the sick role. They
verify a patient’s condition either as “illness” or as “recovered.”
 The ill person becomes dependent on the physician, because the latter can control valued
rewards (not only treatment of illness, but also excused absences from work and school).
 Parsons suggests that the physician–patient relationship is somewhat like that between
parent and child. Like a parent, the physician helps the patient to enter society as a full and
functioning adult (Weitz 2009).
 Functions of the health care system
 Prevention and treatment of disease.
 Delivery of health care to the entire population without regard to race, ethnicity, social
class, gender, age, or any other characteristic.
 The health care system is entangled with government through such things as federal
regulation of new drugs and procedures.
 As a social institution, health care is also one of the nation’s largest employers and thus is
integrally tied to systems of work and the economy.
Criticism of functionalist theory
 The concept of the sick role is not without criticism.
 First, patients’ judgments regarding their own state of health may be related to their
gender, age, social class, and ethnic group. For example, younger people may fail to
detect warning signs of a dangerous illness, while elderly people may focus too much
on
the slightest physical malady.
 Second, the sick role may be more applicable to people who are experiencing short-
term illnesses than to those with recurring, long-term illnesses.
 Finally, even simple factors, such as whether a person is employed, seem to affect
one’s willingness to assume the sick role—as does the impact of socialization into a
particular occupation or activity. For example, beginning in childhood, athletes learn
to define
certain ailments as “sports injuries” and therefore do not regard themselves as “sick.”
 Critics argue that the functionalist position typifies patients as compliant, passive and
grateful, while doctors are represented as universally beneficent, competent and altruistic
(Turner 1995). It should be noted that doctors and patients have different and often
conflicting, interests:
 doctors, to perform their duties of the professional in the medical workplace, seeking
to earn a living and progress in their career;
 patients, to alleviate the physical pain that is disrupting their live
(b) Conflict Theory
 Social-conflict analysis points out the connection between health and social inequality
and, taking a cue from Karl Marx, ties medicine to the operation of capitalism.
 Sociologist Eliot Freidson (1970:5) has likened the position of medicine today to that of
state religions yesterday—it has an officially approved monopoly of the right to define
health and illness and to treat illness. Conflict theorists use the term medicalization of
society to refer to the growing role of medicine as a major institution of social control
(Conrad 2009a; McKinlay and McKinlay 1977; Zola 1972, 1983).
 The Medicalization of Society
 Social control involves techniques and strategies for regulating behavior in order to
enforce
the distinctive norms and values of a culture. Typically, we think of informal social
control as occurring within families and peer groups, and formal social control as being
carried out by authorized agents such as police officers, judges, school administrators,
and employers.
 Viewed from a conflict perspective, however, medicine is not simply a “healing
profession”; it is a regulating mechanism, a social control mechanism.
 Medicine has greatly expanded its domain of expertise in recent decades. The
social significance of this expanding medicalization is that once a problem is
viewed using a
medical model—once medical experts become influential in proposing and
assessing relevant public policies— it becomes more difficult for common people
to join the discussion and exert influence on decision making. It also becomes
more difficult to view these issues as being shaped by social, cultural, or
psychological factors, rather than simply by physical or medical factors (Caplan
1989; Conrad 2009a).
 Inequities in Health Care: Global Stratification on Health Care
 Viewed from a conflict perspective, glaring inequities exist in health care delivery. For
example, poor areas tend to be underserved because medical services concentrate where
people are wealthy.
 First nations to industrialize obtained the economic and military power that brought them
riches and allowed them to dominate other nations. Henslin (2012) gave an example,
open heart surgery has become routine in the Most Industrialized Nations. The Least
Industrialized Nations, in contrast, cannot afford the technology that open heart surgery
requires. So it is with AIDS. In the United States and other rich nations, costly medicines
have extended the lives of those who suffer from AIDS. Most people with AIDS in the
Least Industrialized Nations can’t afford these medicines. For them, AIDS is a death
sentence.
 Life expectancy and infant mortality rates also tell the story. Most people in the
industrialized world can expect to live to about age 75, but most people in Afghanistan,
Nigeria, and South Africa don’t even make it to 50.
 According to Macionis (2012) the United States has about 27 physicians per 10,000
people, while African nations have less than 1 per 10,000. This situation is only worsened
by the
brain drain—the immigration to the United States and other industrialized nations of
skilled workers, professionals, and technicians who are desperately needed in their home
countries. Conflict theorists view their emigration out of the Third World 371 as yet
another way in which the world’s core industrialized nations enhance their quality of life
at the expense of developing countries.
 Henslin (2012) points out that global stratification even helps to determine what diseases
we get. Suppose that you had been born in a Least Industrialized Nation located in the
tropics. During your much shorter life, you would face four major causes of illness and
death: malaria (from mosquitoes), internal parasites (from contaminated water), diarrhea
(from food and soil contaminated with human feces), and malnutrition. You would not
face heart disease and cancer, for they are “luxury” diseases; that is, they are part of the
industrialized world, where people live long enough to get them.
 Henslin (2012) also points out that there is also the matter of social stratification within
the Least Industrialized Nations. Many diseases that ravage the poor people in these
countries could be brought under control if more money were spent on public health.
Cheap drugs can prevent malaria, while safer water supplies and higher food production
would go a long way
toward eliminating the other major killers. The meager funds that these countries have at
their disposal are not spent this way, however. Instead, having garnered the lion’s share
of the country’s resources, the elite lavish it on themselves. For their own medical
treatment, they even send a few students to top medical schools in the West. This gives
them access to advanced technology—from X rays to life support systems. The poor of
these nations, in contrast, go without even basic medical services and continue to die at
an early age.
 The Profit Motive
 Some conflict analysts go further, arguing that the real problem is not access to medical
care but the nature of capitalist medicine itself.
 The profit motive turns physicians, hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry into
money-hungry corporations. The drive for higher profits encourages physicians to
recommend unnecessary tests and surgery and to rely too much on expensive drugs and
treatments rather than focusing on helping people improve their living conditions and
lifestyles.
 Therefore, the decision to perform surgery, social-conflict theorists argue, reflects not just
the medical needs of patients but also the financial interests of surgeons and hospitals
(Cowley, 1995; Nuland, 1999). Medical care should be motivated by a concern for
people, not profits.
 Medicine as Politics
 According to conflict theory, scientific medicine explains illness exclusively in terms of
bacteria and viruses, ignoring the damaging effects of poverty. In effect, scientific
medicine hides the bias in our medical system by transforming this social issue into simple
biology.
(c) Symbolic Interaction Theory
 Symbolic interaction theory holds that illness is partly (although obviously not totally)
socially constructed (Armstrong 2003).
 The Social Construction of Health :
 Illness
 We define health and illness according to our culture. The definitions of illness and
wellness are culturally relative—the social context of a condition partly determines
whether or not it is sickness. In one South American tribe, skin condition of having spots
is so common that the few individuals who aren’t spotted are seen as the unhealthy ones.
They are even excluded from marriage because they are “sick” (Ackernecht 1947; Zola
1983).
 Consider mental “illness” and mental “health.” People aren’t automatically “crazy”
because they do certain things. Rather, they are defined as “crazy” or “normal” according
to cultural guidelines. If an American talks aloud to spirits that no one else can see or hear,
he or she is likely to be defined as insane—and, for everyone’s good, locked up in a
mental hospital. In some tribal societies, in contrast, someone who talks to invisible spirits
might be honored for being in close contact with the spiritual world.
 Treatment
 Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach explain how physicians tailor their physical
surroundings (their office) and their behavior (the “presentation of self”) so that others
see them as competent and in charge.
 The sociologist Joan Emerson (1970) further illustrates this process of reality
construction in her analysis of the gynecological examination carried out by a male
doctor. This situation is vulnerable to serious misinterpretation, since a man’s touching
of a woman’s genitals is conventionally viewed as a sexual act and possibly an assault.
To ensure that people define the situation as impersonal and professional, the medical
staff wear uniforms and furnish the examination room with nothing but medical
equipment. The doctor’s manner and overall performance are designed to make the
patient feel that to him, examining the genital area is no different from treating any
other part of the body. A female nurse is usually present during the examination, not
only to assist the physician
but also to avoid any impression that a man and a woman are “alone together.”
 Labelling
 Labeling theorists also suggest that the designation “healthy” or “ill” generally
involves social definition by others.
 Moreover, like labels that suggest nonconformity or criminality, labels that are
associated with illness commonly reshape how others treat us and how we see
ourselves. Our society attaches serious consequences to labels that suggest less-than
perfect physical or mental health (H. Becker 1963; C. Clark 1983; H. Schwartz 1994).
 Schaefer (2012) gave a historical example which illustrates perhaps the ultimate
extreme in labeling social behavior as a sickness. As enslavement of Africans in the
United States came under increasing attack in the 19th century, medical authorities
provided new rationalizations for the oppressive practice. Noted physicians published
articles stating that the skin color of Africans deviated from “healthy” white skin
coloring because Africans suffered from congenital leprosy. Moreover, the continuing
efforts of enslaved Africans to escape from their White masters were classified as an
example of the “disease” of drapetomania (or “crazy runaways”). The prestigious New
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal suggested that the remedy for this “disease”
was to treat slaves kindly, as one might treat children.
 Stigma
 Erving Goffman (1963) argued that stigma is a relationship of devaluation in which
one
individual is disqualified from full social acceptance.
 Sarah Nettleton (2006) notes that because AIDS was first found amongst gay men in
the USA, it was originally called GRID – Gay Related Immune Deficiency - and it
was
suggested that a 'fast lane' gay lifestyle actually caused the disease, which was often
referred to in the media as a 'gay plague'. Nettleton points out that research findings
discredited such beliefs and that it is not being part of a particular social group that is
especially risky, but specific practices, such as injecting with non-sterilized needles
or
having unprotected penetrative sex.
 The role of patients
 From an interactionist point of view, patients are not passive; often, they actively seek
the services of a health care practitioner.
 Many people are accustomed to self-diagnosis and self-treatment. On the other hand,
patients’ active involvement in their health care can sometimes have very positive
consequences. Some patients read books about preventive health care techniques,
attempt to maintain a healthful and nutritious diet, carefully monitor any side effects of
medication, and adjust the dosage based on perceived side effects.
(d) Feminist Theory
 The history of medicine itself shows that racial and sexual discrimination has kept
women and other minorities out of medicine, but discrimination has been supported by
“scientific” opinions about, say, the inferiority of certain categories of people (Leavitt,
1984). Consider the diagnosis of “hysteria,” a term that has its origins in the Greek
word hyster, meaning “uterus.” In choosing this word to describe a wild, emotional
state, the medical profession suggested that being a woman is somehow the same as
being irrational.
 According to some observers, the multiple roles which women tend to perform -
domestic work, childcare, professional responsibilities - may increase the stress on
women and contribute to higher rates of illnesses. Lesley Doyal (1995) suggested that
patterns of women's health and sickness may best be explained in relation to the main
'areas of activities which constitute their lives. According to Doyal, 'it is the
cumulative effects of these various labors that are the major determinants of women's
states of health'. Therefore, any analysis of women's health should consider the
interaction between social, psychological and biological influences.
 Women are more willing than men to claim the sick role when they don’t feel well.
Researchers have found that men are not as vigilant about their own health and tend to
ignore health problems for longer. Young men also engage in more risk-taking
behavior, such as speeding, drug-taking, early-age sexual activity, getting drunk and so
on, than do women (Lupton 1999). Most men try to follow the cultural ideal that they
should be strong, keep pain to themselves, and “tough it out.” The woman’s model, in
contrast, is more likely to involve sharing feelings and seeking help from others,
characteristics that are compatible with the sick role.
 Some feminists argue that the processes of pregnancy and childbirth have been
appropriated and 'medicalized' by modern medicine. Rather than remaining in the
hands of women - with the help of midwives in the home - childbirth now occurs in
hospitals under the direction of predominantly male specialists. Pregnancy, a common
and natural phenomenon, is treated as an 'illness' laden with risks and danger.
Feminists argue that women have lost control over this process, as their opinions and
knowledge are deemed irrelevant by the 'experts' who now oversee reproductive
processes (Oakley 1984).
TOPIC 17: GLOBALISATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE
 Globalization has lot of meanings. It is a term that is not well defined, with different
meanings and different groups, and globalization is a term that is value-laden and
controversial.
 Globalization is the spread of worldwide practices, relations, consciousness, and
organization of social life (Ritzer). Globalization theory (Robinson, 2007) also emerged as
a result of a series of developments internal to social theory, notably the reaction against
earlier perspectives such as modernization theory.
 Giddens (2009) defined globalization as the fact that we all increasingly live in one world,
so that individuals, groups and nations become ever more interdependent.
Theories of Globalization
 Globalization can be analyzed culturally, economically, politically, and institutionally. For

each type of analysis, a key difference is whether one sees increasing homogeneity or
heterogeneity.
 Held et al.(1999) came up with three schools of thought: sceptics, hyperglobalizers and
transformationalists.
(a) The hyperglobalists perspective
 They argue that globalization is a very real phenomenon whose consequences can be felt
everywhere. As per the hyperglobalist analysis, the previous eras are sometimes described
as pre-globalisation or as periods of internationalisation.
1. “Borderless” economies-One of the best-known hyperglobalizers, the Japanese writer

Kenichi Ohmae (1990, 1995), sees globalization as leading to a 'borderless world' - a
world in which market forces are more powerful than national governments. Some argue
that the state is now a minor player globally when compared to a huge and growing
borderless global economy that nation-states are unable to control. Many corporations are
seen now to be multinational rather than national, in their ownership and internationally
distributed production facilities, workforces and consumers. Such corporations that often
get mentioned include Coca-Cola and McDonalds, or media multinationals such as News
Corporation that have stakes in many forms of media, from newspapers to book
publishing, the internet and Television, and across different areas of the globe (Thompson
1995; Edward & McChesney, 2004)
2. Changing role of the nation-state- It is argued that individual countries no longer control
their economies because of the vast growth in world trade. National governments and the
politicians within them are increasingly unable to exercise control over the issues that
cross their borders - such as volatile financial markets and environmental threats.
Whereas nation-states once controlled markets, now markets often control nation-states.
According to the hyper-globalists, contemporary globalization is fundamentally
associated with the erosion of the power and authority of the nation-state.
3. Declining importance and influence of national governments- Citizens recognize that
politicians are limited in their ability to address these problems and, as a result, lose faith
in existing systems of governance. Some hyperglobalizers suggest that the power of
national governments is also being challenged from above - by new regional and
international institutions, such as the European Union, the World Trade Organization and
others. Taken together, these shifts signal to the hyperglobalizers the dawning of a global
age in which national governments decline in importance and influence (Albrow 1997). A
variety of other factors threaten the autonomy of the nation-state, including flows of
information, illegal immigrants, new social movements, terrorists, criminals, drugs,
money (including laundered money and other financial instruments), sex-trafficking, and
much else.
(b) The sceptics perspective
 Some analysts argue that the idea of globalization is overstated and that most theories of
globalization amount to a lot of talk about something that is not really new. They are
concerned with the abstract nature of globalist perspectives, which seem to be thin on
empirical substantiation and make sweeping claims about processes as if they affect all
areas of the world evenly and with the same responses.
1. Present levels of economic interdependence are not unprecedented-The sceptics in the
globalization controversy argue that present levels of economic interdependence are not
unprecedented. Pointing to nineteenth-century statistics on world trade and investment,
they contend that modern globalization differs from the past only in the intensity of
interaction between nations. By placing cultural, economic, political, social and
technological developments on an evolutionary time-line, the sceptics argue that
globalization has existed for centuries and that the sum of recent developments only
changes the scale and scope of globalization and not the intrinsic characteristics of the
phenomenon itself.
2. Current world economy is not sufficiently integrated to constitute a truly globalized
economy-The sceptics agree that there may now be more contact between countries than
in previous eras, but in their eyes the current world economy is not sufficiently integrated
to constitute a truly globalized economy. This is because the bulk of trade occurs within
three regional groups - Europe, Asia Pacific and North America - rather than a genuinely
globalized context. The countries of the European Union, for example, trade
predominantly amongst themselves. The same is true of the other regional groups, thereby
invalidating the notion of a single global economy (Hirst 1997)
3. Regionalization within the world economy-Many sceptics focus on processes of
regionalization within the world economy such as the emergence of major financial and
trading blocs. To sceptics, the growth of regionalization is evidence that the world
economy has become less integrated rather than more so (Boyer and Drache 1996; Hirst
and Thompson 1999). Compared with the patterns of trade that prevailed a century ago, it
is argued that the world economy is actually less global in its geographical scope and more
concentrated on intense pockets of activity
4. National governments continue to be key players-Sceptics also reject the view that
globalization is fundamentally undermining the role of national governments and
producing a world order in which they are less central. According to the sceptics, national
governments continue to be key players because of their involvement in regulating and
coordinating economic activity. Governments, for example, are the driving force behind
many trade agreements and policies of economic liberalization.
(c) The transformationalists perspective
 Transformationalists take a position somewhere between sceptics and hyperglobalizers.
The transformationalist analysis claims to either rescue globalist arguments (Held et al
1999) or to have a more sophisticated advance on sceptic arguments (Hay & Marsh 2000)
1. Globalization occurring but old patterns remain-They see globalization as the central
force behind a broad spectrum of changes that are currently shaping modern societies, but
though the global order is being transformed, many of the old patterns remain.
Globalization involves profound transformative change and
is a central driving force behind changes reshaping the world.
2. The nation-state still has an important, albeit transformed role-.National governments,
for instance, still retain a good deal of power in spite of the advance of global
interdependence.
3. Transformations not restricted to economics alone-These transformations are not
restricted to economics alone, but are equally prominent within the realms of politics,
culture and personal life.
4. There are not clear distinctions between the domestic and the international in economic,
social and political processes-For instance, aspects of national culture such as media,
film, religion, food, fashion and music are so infused with inputs from international
sources that national culture is no longer separate from the international. This is a
transformatory driving force because this globalization changes peoples’ life experiences.
5. Globalization as a dynamic and open process that is subject to influence and change-
Unlike hyperglobalizers, transformationalists see globalization as a dynamic and open
process that is subject to influence and change. It is developing in a contradictory fashion,
encompassing tendencies that frequently operate in opposition to one another.
Globalization is, therefore, not a one-way process but a two-way flow of images,
information and influences.
6. Nation-states are restructuring in response to new forms of economic and social
organization-Rather than losing sovereignty, as the hyperglobalizers argue, nation-states
are restructuring in response to new forms of economic and social organization that are
non-territorial in basis, including corporations, social movements and international bodies.
Transformationalists argue that we are no longer living in a state-centric world;
governments are being forced to adopt a more active and outward-looking stance towards
governance under the complex conditions of globalization (Rosenau 1997).
Associated theories of globalization

 While the globalization stands itself as a theory, there are three distinct theories which
have close links with the globalization. Such related theories of globalization include the
World culture theory, World system theory and World polity theory.
(a) The World-System Theory
 Immanuel Wallerstein develops a theoretical framework to understand the historical
changes
involved in the rise of the modern world.
 The origins of the modern world-system lie in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe,
where colonialism enabled countries like Britain, Holland and France to exploit the
resources of the countries they colonized.
Core. The most developed, Industrialized and affluent

Nations
Semi-periphery. Intermediate in terms of

Affluence,
With a degree of autonomy and economic diversity
Periphery. The most powerless, with narrow

Economic Base in agriculture or minerals.
Source of cheap labor for core Multinational
Corporations.
 This allowed them to accumulate capital which was ploughed back into the economy; thus
driving forward production even further. This global division of labor created a group of
rich countries, but also impoverished many others, thus preventing their development.
 Wallerstein argues that the process produced a world-system made up of a core, a semi-
periphery and a periphery.
 He described this complex intertwining of economies as the 'modern world-system', which
was a pioneer of globalization theories.
 And although it is clearly possible for individual countries to move 'up' into the core - as
have some newly industrialized societies - or to drop 'down' into the semi-periphery and
periphery; the structure of the modern world-system remains constant.( Giddens, 2009:
128)
 Core countries focus on higher skill, capital-intensive production, and the rest of the world
focuses on low-skill, labor-intensive production and extraction of raw materials. This
constantly reinforces the dominance of the core countries.
(b) The World Polity Theory
 The theory views the world system as a social system with a cultural framework called
world polity, which encompasses and influences the actors, such as nations, international
organizations, and individuals under it.
 The World polity theory views the primary component of the world society as “world
polity,” which provides a set of cultural norms or directions in which the actors of the
world society follow in dealing with problems and general procedures.
 The world polity contains no single actor or institution defining what is valuable for the
world as a whole. "Instead of a central actor, the culture of world society allocates
responsible and authoritative actor hood to nation-states" (Meyer et al. 1997).
(c) The World Culture Theory
 World culture theory is a label for a particular interpretation of globalization that focuses
on the way in which participants in the process become conscious of and give meaning to
living in the world as a single place.
 In this account, globalization "refers both to the compression of the world and the
intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole"; in other words, it covers the
acceleration in concrete global interdependence and in consciousness of the global whole
(Robertson 1997: 8).
 Globalization standardizes the contents of the cultures of the world into one single culture
spread by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Community
and the World Trade Organization in tandem at the expense of United Nations and its
specialized agencies like UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, and the nation-states.
Effects of globalization on modern society
NB: also refer to notes on effects of globalization on family and education
Positive effects
 Increased numbers in search of new markets and economic opportunities- As the

world rapidly moves towards a single, unified economy, businesses and people move
about the globe in increasing numbers in search of new markets and economic
opportunities. Capitalist economic theory holds that a completely liberalized global market
is the most efficient way to foster growth, because each country specializes in producing
the goods and services in which it has a comparative advantage. Yet, in practice, cutting
trade barriers and opening markets do not necessarily generate development. Rich
countries and large corporations dominate the global marketplace and create very unequal
relations of power and information. As a result, trade is inherently unequal and poor
countries seldom experience rising well-being but increasing unemployment, poverty, and
income inequality.
 Cultural map of the world changes- networks of peoples span national borders and even
continents, providing cultural connections between their birthplaces and their adoptive
countries (Appadurai 1986). People of one culture, if receptive, tend to see the flaws in
their culture and pick up the culture which is more correct or in tune with the times.
Cultural Hybridization also occurs. Cultural Hybridization is a very positive, even
romantic, view of globalization as a profoundly creative process out of which emerge new
cultural realities and continuing if not increasing heterogeneity in many different locales.
The concept that gets to the heart of cultural hybridization, as well as to what many
contemporary theorists interested in globalization think about the nature of transnational
processes, is glocalization. Glocalization can be defined as the interpenetration of the
global and the local resulting in unique outcomes in different geographic areas. A cultural
hybrid would involve the combination of two or more elements from different cultures or
parts of the world. Among the examples of hybridization (and heterogenization,
glocalization) are Ugandan tourists visiting Amsterdam to watch two Moroccan women
engage in Thai boxing, Argentinians watching Asian rap performed by a South American
band at a London club owned by a Saudi Arabian (Ritzer)
 Legal Effects- Increased media coverage draws the attention of the world to human rights
violations. This leads to improvement in human rights. This leads to the creation of
international awareness and empowerment. The International Criminal Court have
promise to bring to justice any person who commit genocides or/and crimes based on a
worldwide criminal code, while inter-governmental cooperation increasingly bring to trial
some of the most notorious international criminals
 Improved quality of products due to globe competition- As the domestic companies
have to fight out foreign competition, they are compelled to raise their standards and
customer satisfaction levels in order to survive in the market. Besides, when a global
brand enters a new country, it comes in riding on some goodwill, which it has to live up
to. This creates competition in the market and a survival of the fittest situation.
Negative effects (apply world systems theory, hyperglobalism)
 Unfair trade-critics are concerned that wealthy countries can force economically weaker
nations to open their markets while protecting their own local products from competition
(Wallerstein 1974). This can be particularly true of agricultural products, which are often
one of the main exports of poor and developing countries (Koroma 2007). Agricultural
subsidies
and other trade barriers in the US and the EU prevent poor countries from gaining
access to the most important markets. Meanwhile, poor countries open up their own
markets to US and EU exports.
 Dominant role of transnational corporations-trade is so dominated by transnational
corporations that new trade rules mainly benefit those companies. Some critics of
globalization worry about the growing influence of enormous international financial and
industrial corporations that benefit the most from free trade and unrestricted markets. They
fear these corporations can use their vast wealth and resources to control governments to
act in their interest rather than that of the local population (Bakan 2004).
 Unemployment-Globalization is a blame to world’s unemployment situation though it
brought some jobs opportunities. Despite the fact that it brought jobs opportunities to the
global but it is still a blame to the current situation. “It’s true that global economic
integration and increased travel have resulted in increased competitiveness at the national
and enterprise levels, forcing producers to find ways to cut costs, improve efficiency, and
raise productivity”(Kigundu M.N.,2002).
 Cultural imperialism-Globalization has led to the spread of western culture and influence
at the expense of local culture in developing countries like Africa. Most people now in
developing countries cop what people in developed countries do. So, its like they ignore
their own culture and practice western culture (Goyal K.A., 2006). For example dressing
styles and eating habits, language. All these can affect management in one way or another
example it can cause misunderstandings because of language barrier.
Social Change
 Social change is the transformation of culture and social institutions over time (Macionis
2012).
 The process of social change has four major characteristics:
 Social change is uneven. In a given society, some cultural elements change faster than
others. William Ogburn’s theory of cultural lag (1964; see notes on, “Culture”) states
that material culture (that is, things) usually changes faster than nonmaterial culture
(ideas and attitudes).
 Social change is sometimes intentional but often it is unplanned. e.g. the discovery of
airplane, people knew this would increase speed travel. However it was not realized how
this would affect society in future. companies can expand worldwide due to air travel
but no one predicted the numerous crashes and deaths related to airplanes
 Social change often creates conflict. The spread of Western culture into other parts of
the world, made possible by the ease of communication, has often resulted in a clash of
values between and within nations and, can be the basis for international conflict.
 Some changes matter more than others. Some changes (such as clothing fads) have
only passing significance; others (like the invention of computers) may change the
world.
Causes of Social Change
 Culture. First, invention produces new objects, ideas, and social patterns. Rocket
propulsion research, which began in the 1940s, has produced spacecraft that reach toward
the stars. Second, discovery occurs when people take note of existing elements of the
world. For example, medical advances enhance understanding of the human body. Third,
diffusion creates change as products, people, and information spread from one society to
another. For example, the expressions uh-huh (yes) and unh-unh (no) come from West
Africa (Andersen 2017).
 Conflict. Inequality and conflict in a society also produce change. Karl Marx saw
class conflict as the engine that drives societies from one historical era to another
 Ideas. Max Weber also contributed to our understanding of social change. Although
Weber agreed that conflict could bring about change, he traced the roots of most social
change to ideas. For example, people with charisma (Martin Luther King Jr. is one
example) can carry a message that changes the world.
 The fact that industrial capitalism developed primarily in areas of Western Europe
where the Protestant work ethic was strong proved to Weber (1958, orig. 1904–05) the
power of ideas to bring about change.(refer to religion and social change)
 Demographic Change. Women are having fewer children, and more people are living
alone. Migration within and among societies is another demographic factor that promotes
change.
 Social Movements. They are large numbers of people who organize to promote or resist
social change. Examples of social movements include: women’s movements, labor and
trade union movements, nationalist movements, anti-racist movements, gays and lesbian
movements, environmental or green movements, peace movements, animal rights
movements, pro and anti-abortion movements, political movements. Some social
movements are transnational social movements, in which an organization crosses national
borders, such as the reactionary terrorist group al Qaeda or even the Taliban.
 Social Institutions (refer to religion and social change, education and social change,
family and social change etc.)
 Technology. Some would say that improving technology has made our lives easier.
Imagine what your day would be like without the Internet, the automobile, or electricity.
Advances in medical technology allow otherwise infertile women to bear children, which
indirectly leads to an increase in population. Of course there are drawbacks. The
increasing gap between the technological haves and have-nots––sometimes called the
digital divide––occurs both locally and globally.
Theories of Social Change
(a) Evolutionary Theory

 Social theorists seeking an analogy to the biological model of Charles Darwin originated
evolutionary theory, in which society is viewed as moving in a definite direction.
 Early evolutionary theorists generally agreed that society was progressing inevitably
toward a higher state.
 One of the theories (of spencer) relates primarily to the increasing size of society. Society
grows through both the multiplication of individuals and the union of groups
(compounding).
 The increasing size of society brings with it larger and more differentiated social
structures, as well as the increasing differentiation of the functions they perform.
 Auguste Comte (1798–1857) - He saw human societies as moving forward in their
thinking, from mythology to the scientific method-his evolutionary theory, or the law of
the three stages.
 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)- Spencer also offers a theory of evolution from militant to
industrial societies. Earlier, militant societies are defined by being structured for
offensive and defensive warfare. While Spencer was critical of warfare, he felt that in an
earlier stage it was functional in bringing societies together (for example, through military
conquest) and in creating the larger aggregates of people necessary for the development of
industrial society. However, with the emergence of industrial society, warfare ceases to be
functional and serves to impede further evolution. Industrial society is based on
friendship, altruism, elaborate specialization, recognition for achievements rather than the
characteristics one is born with, and voluntary cooperation among highly disciplined
individuals. Such a society is
held together by voluntary contractual relations and, more important, by a strong common
morality. The government’s role is restricted and focuses only on what people ought not
to do.
 Émile Durkheim ([1893] 1933)- maintained that society progressed from simple
(mechanical solidarity) to more complex (organic solidarity) forms of social organization.
 However, the neo-evolutionary theorists do not assert that change proceeds along the same
path. They recognize that different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes
progress. They argued that older theories of evolution were sometimes ethnocentric in
their propositions
(b) Functionalist Theory
 Functionalists argue that change generally occurs in a gradual, adjusting fashion and not in
a sudden violent, radical fashion. The functionalist perspective minimizes the importance
of change. It emphasizes the persistence of social life and sees change as a means of
maintaining society’s equilibrium (or balance)
 Change, according to them, comes from basically three sources
 Adjustment of the system to exogenous change (e.g. war, conquests-refer to spencer’s
ideas of militant to industrial)
 Growth through structural and functional differentiation ( e.g. changes in the size of
population through births and deaths )
 Innovations by members of groups within society (e.g. inventions and discovery in a
society)
 According to functional theorists, societies that are structurally simple and homogeneous,
such as foraging or pastoral societies, where all members engage in similar tasks, move to
societies more structurally complex and heterogeneous, such as agricultural, industrial,
and
postindustrial societies, where great social differentiation exists in the division of labor
among people who perform many specialized tasks.
 Spencer argued that societies move from “homogeneity to heterogeneity” (Andersen
2017).
 Durkheim similarly argued that societies move from a state of mechanical solidarity to
organic solidarity
 The consequence (or function) of increased differentiation and division of labor is a higher
degree of stability and cohesiveness in the society, brought about by mutual dependence
(Parsons 1966, 1951a).
 Parsons (1902–1979) viewed society as being in a natural state of equilibrium. By
“equilibrium,” he meant that society tends toward a state of stability or balance.
 Parsons would view even prolonged labor strikes or civilian riots as temporary disruptions
in the status quo rather than as significant alterations in social structure.
 Therefore, according to his equilibrium model, as changes occur in one part of society,
adjustments must be made in other parts. If not, society’s equilibrium will be threatened
and strains will occur.
 Parsons (1966) maintained that four processes of social change are inevitable.
 Differentiation refers to the increasing complexity of social organization. The
transition from medicine man to physician, nurse, and pharmacist is an illustration of
differentiation in the field.
 Adaptive upgrading, follows differentiation whereby social institutions become more
specialized in their purposes. The division of physicians into obstetricians, internists,
surgeons, and so forth is an example of adaptive upgrading.
 Inclusion of groups that were previously excluded because of their gender, race,
ethnicity, or social class. e.g. the inclusion of women into the institution of work after
attainment of independence in Zimbabwe
 Value generalization, the acceptance of preventive and alternative medicine is an
example of value generalization: society has broadened its view of health care or the
society now have accepted a new view of women after independence in Zimbabwe
 All four processes identified by Parsons stress consensus— societal agreement on the
nature of social organization and values (B. Johnson 1975; Wallace and Wolf 1980).
 Although Parsons’s approach explicitly incorporates the evolutionary notion of continuing
progress, the dominant theme in his model is stability. Society may change, but it remains
stable through new forms of integration.
 Critics have pointed out that the functionalist view neglects revolutionary changes which
are profound and sudden. This view also overlooks the possibility of a society going
through long periods of mal-integration, as during times of economic recession (Eshleman
and Cashion: 1983: 533)
(c) Conflict Perspective
 While functionalists see change as a means of maintaining society’s equilibrium (or

balance), in contrast, conflict theorists contend that social institutions and practices persist
because powerful groups have the ability to maintain the status quo.
 Functionalist perspective minimizes the importance of change to maintaining society’s
equilibrium, Conflict theorists argue that change has crucial significance, since it
is needed to correct social injustices and inequalities (proletariat revolution).
 In contrast to functionalists’ emphasis on stability, Marx argues that conflict is a normal
and desirable aspect of social change. In fact, change must be encouraged as a means of
eliminating social inequality (Lauer 1982).
 Karl Marx accepted the evolutionary argument that societies develop along a particular
path. However, unlike Comte and Spencer, he did not view each successive stage as an
inevitable improvement over the previous one.
 History, according to Marx, proceeds through a series of stages, each of which exploits a
class of people.
 He identified several modes of production in the history of humankind. These are:
(a) Primitive communalism
(b) Slavery- Ancient society exploited slaves
(c) Feudalism- the estate system of feudalism exploited serfs
(d) Capitalism- modern capitalist society exploits the working class.
(e) Socialism- resources and means of production are collectively owned. Transitory
phase towards communism.
(f) Communism- an economic and political system where all societal members are
socially equal It is sometimes viewed as the same as socialism, however it is the finest
form of socialism.
 Ultimately, through a socialist revolution led by the proletariat, human society will move
toward the final stage of development: a classless communist society, or “community of
free individuals,” as Marx described it in 1867 in Das Kapital (Bottomore and Rubel
1956:250).
 Ralf Dahrendorf (1958) found that the functionalist and conflict perspectives were
ultimately compatible, despite their many points of disagreement. Indeed, Parsons spoke
of new functions that result from social change, and Marx recognized the need for change
so that societies could function more equitably.
(d) Symbolic Interaction Theory

 Because symbolic interaction focuses on more micro level behaviors, it does not explain
the wide-scale social changes that other theorists analyze.
 Symbolic interaction theorists might, for example, look at the fashion changes and how
people adapt and respond to these changes.
 Social change also comes from the behaviors of people as they reformulate their ideas and
attitudes.
 Changes in public attitudes and how people think are signs of social change, as symbolic
interaction theory would point out.
Summary of theories of social change
Evolutionary Theory Functionalist Theory Conflict Theory Symbolic
Interaction
Theory
How do societies  Society was  Societies change  Conflict is inherent  Social change
change? progressing from simple to in social relations, occurs when
inevitably toward a complex and from and society new meaning
higher state from an undifferentiated changes from a systems
being “barbaric”. to a highly class-based to a develop
differentiated classless society around
division of labor. people’s
behaviors and
attitudes.
What is the  The increasing size  Technological  Economic  Changes in
primary of society brings innovation inequality drives people’s
cause of social with it larger and and globalization social change attitudes
change? more differentiated make and beliefs
social structures and society more drive social
differentiation of the differentiated change
functions they but still stable.
perform. Societies
evolve through
compounding, that
is, by unifying more
and more adjoining
groups.
What is the  A new form of  Individuals remain  Individuals are  People have to
impact social order is integrated into the faced with conflict, adapt to new
of social change created(Durkheim) whole because but the powerless understandings
on individuals? society seeks may organize to that emerge
equilibrium. drive social change. from social
change
TOPIC 18: URBANISATION
Industrialization and urbanization in Zimbabwe
 Industrialization refers to the period of social and economic changes which transforms
the human society from agriculture society (agrarian society) to the industrial society.
 It is the development of industries in a country or region on a wide scale.
 Industrialization is a part of a larger modernization processes in which economic changes
i.e. development is closely linked with the social changes in the human society with
involvement of technological advancements with particular focus on development of
large-scale metallurgy & production process.
 It deals with the mass production in factories for consumption of many by means of trade
in
market.
 Urbanization is the process by which towns develop and the bulk of the population of a
country come to live in the city
The links between industrialization and urbanization
 Industrialization enables urban and territorial planning-Industries can provide
sustainable urbanization with immense driving force. This is particularly critical for the
spatial planning of special economic zones (SEZ). A special economic zone is an area in
which the business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country.
 Sustainable industrialization leads to sustainable urbanization-integrating advanced
industrial development ideas, technologies and products into urban development is an
effective and efficient way to promote sustainable urbanization. Sustainable
industrialization can also provide strong support for financing of sustainable urbanization.
 Urban growth coupled with industrial development induces rural-urban migration-
industrialization creates more jobs which attracts more people to the city. This leads to
urban development as more residential stands are developed, more service providers are
attracted e.g. retailers, insurance. such migration accelerates the pace of urbanization
(apply Marxist ideas)
 Urbanization continues after Industrialization occurs-As industrialization creates
economic growth, the demand for improved education and public works agencies that are
characteristic of urban areas increases. This demand occurs because businesses looking for
new technology to increase productivity require an educated workforce, and pleasant
living conditions attract skilled workers to the area. Once an area is industrialized, the
process of urbanization continues for a much longer period of time as the area goes
through several phases of economic and social reform.
 Both require strategic locations-Throughout the history of human civilization,
urbanization patterns have been the strongest near large bodies of water. Initially, this was
just to meet the water and food needs of large populations. However, due to
industrialization, the trend of urbanization along waterways has continued because large
bodies of water are needed to sustain the industry. Not only do many businesses require
large quantities of water to manufacture products, but they also depend on oceans and
rivers for the transportation
of goods.
 Both results in altered social life- both create excessive population pressure on the
existing public utilities with the result that cities suffer from the problems of slums, crime,
unemployment, urban poverty, pollution, congestion, ill-health and several deviant social
activities (refer to Durkheim’s Mechanical and Organic Solidarity as well as Ferdinand
Tönnies’ Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft).
Factors leading to industrialization in Zimbabwe

 Availability of natural resources-Abundance of forests lead to cheap resource for
building material. Large supplies of water is vital source for human life, source for power
for businesses. Other minerals like coal at Hwange have led to development of thermal
power industry.
 Growing Population-Population growth will cause an increase of demand. More people
creates more needed goods and in turn lead to growth of industry.(apply Marxist ideas)
 Improved transportation-this increases demand, increased supply and in turn increase of
shipping needs. Railroad business booms as a result.
 High Immigration-As people immigrate, some immigrants are skilled in trades that
would help industry grow. Unskilled workers provided cheap labor. More people results in
more workers e.g. the influx of people from Mozambique and Malawi in the 1980s and
early 1990s
 Availability of investment capital
 New inventions-make it easier to make products e.g. new inventions in transportation,
such as the steam engine, help make it easier to get products from the factories to the
people
 However the role of MNCs (use Gramsci’s ideas) may lead to de-industrialization as they
sometime bring labor saving technologies which require less human labor.
 Unstable political environment-With a stable political environment, business owners can
be more confident that they can invest in the economy and know that investments will be
secure. A stable political environment tends to lead to stable markets that help businesses
and the economy grow. In Zimbabwe a number political unrests have hampered
industrialization .e.g the violent land grabbing by local Zimbabweans in the late 1990s,
violent election periods of 2002 and 2008 have somehow scared investors away
Factors leading to urbanization in Zimbabwe

 Urbanization is a social, economic and political phenomenon
Political factors
 Post-colonial growth policies- In the case of Zimbabwe, the country followed

macroeconomic policies that paved way for urbanization. Zimbabwe adopted a series of
post-independence policies that include the Statutory Instrument 216 of 1994 of the
Regional Town and Country Planning Act which provided the impetus for the ascendance
of the informal sector through the reduction of regulatory holdups hence different players
to enter into the production and distribution of goods and services. This allowed activities
such as hairdressing, wood and stone carving, tailoring, book- binding, welding among
others to be deregulated.
 Removal of colonial segregating policies- The change to majority rule in 1980 saw the
lifting of decades of racial restrictions to the ―Right to the City, (United Nations 2005).
The urban population of Zimbabwe rose rapidly from 23% in 1982 to 30% by the early
1990s. This paved way for rural – urban migration
 Demise of agricultural sector- The failure by growth points to plug migration into large
cities has resulted in the major cities like Harare the capital experiencing swift growth.
Because Zimbabwe‘s economy was once propped up by agriculture, hitherto its backbone,
this sector‘s demise over the past decade resulted in once bustling growth points such as
Murambinda, Mupandawana, Magunje, Dotito, Kotwa and Sanyati among others,
experiencing inertia. Out of the more than 40 growth points that were named just after
independence only one, Gokwe, in the Midlands Province, still maintains its town status
Economic factors
 Employment opportunities in towns-Cities offer better access to wealth and services that
many rural areas lack. Rural inhabitants typically move to cities to exploit economic
opportunities and improve their social mobility. People move from the rural areas hoping
that they can secure a better source of income for example the rise of the informal sector
in Zimbabwe has caused a lot of people to move into major towns such as Harare, Gweru,
Kwekwe, Bulawayo and Mutare. (apply Marxist theory)
 Commercialization-Commerce and trade play a major role in urbanization in Zimbabwe.
Commercialization and trade comes with the general perception that the towns and cities
offer better commercial opportunities and returns compared to the rural areas.
Social factors
 Better education and health facilities opportunities in towns-The current rate of
urbanization in Zimbabwe has been largely due to developmental imbalances between
urban and rural centres, (Hope et al 1999). As a result, students travel to cities to go to
universities (apply theories and ideas on social stratification)
 Post-colonial land policies-before the country attained its independence in 1980 the black
population was confined to living in the reserves created by the settler government for
example the Chivi, Shangani and Gwaai reserves. However, the attainment of
independence promoted the movement of people from the so called reserves to other areas
with better living conditions and the major points of departure for these populations were
major cities hence an increase in the population residing in urban areas in Zimbabwe in
this regard.
 Modernization and changes in the mode of living-As urban areas become more
technology savvy together with highly sophisticated communication, infrastructure,
medical facilities, dressing code, enlightenment, liberalization, and other social amenities
availability, people believe they can lead a happy life in cities. In urban areas, people also
embrace changes in the modes of living namely residential habits, attitudes, dressing,
food, and beliefs. As a result, people migrate to cities and the cities grow by absorbing the
growing number of people day after day.(add ideas of youth culture)
 Environmental causes-due to climate change and several aspects climate change such as
drought and flooding for example flooding in Muzarabani has forced people to relocate It
is important to note that the tidal wave of forced migration creates discontentedness in the
poorest and most deprived parts of the country. The recurrence and persistence of disasters
in many rural parts of Zimbabwe has also increased the migration of people to nearby
towns. When the natural habitat of farming families is destroyed due to deforestation, or
other environmental destructions they are forced to find somewhere else to live
Effects of Urbanization
Positive effects of urbanization (apply functionalism)
 Creation of employment opportunities

 Technological and infrastructural advancements
 Improved transportation and communication
 quality educational and medical facilities
 Improved standards of living- Urbanization erodes mechanical solidarity, Durkheim
explained, but it also generates a new type of bonding, which he called organic solidarity,
social bonds based on specialization and interdependence. Durkheim optimistically
pointed to a new kind of solidarity. Where societies had been built on likeness (mechanical
solidarity), Durkheim now saw social life based on difference (organic solidarity).
For Durkheim, urban society offered more individual choice, moral tolerance, and
personal privacy than people find in rural villages. In sum, Durkheim thought that
something is lost in the process of urbanization, but much is gained.
 Development of new survival strategies- According to German sociologist Georg Simmel
(1858–1918) individuals perceive the city as a crush of people, objects, and events. To
prevent being overwhelmed by all this stimulation, urbanites develop a blasé attitude,
tuning out much of what goes on around them. Such detachment does not mean that city
dwellers lack compassion for others; they simply keep their distance as a survival strategy
so that they can focus their time and energy on the people and things that really matter to
them.
Negative effects of urbanization (apply conflict and Malthusian theories, ideas on social
stratification)
 Weakening of close, long-lasting social relations- the German sociologist Ferdinand

Tönnies (1855–1937) used the German word Gemeinschaft (“community”) to refer to a
type of social organization in which people are closely tied by kinship and tradition. The
Gemeinschaft of the rural village joins people in what amounts to a single primary
group. Durkheim’s concept of mechanical solidarity bears a striking similarity to
Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft. By and large, argued Tönnies, Gemeinschaft is absent in the
modern city.
 On the contrary, urbanization creates Gesellschaft (“association”), a type of social
organization in which people come together only on the basis of individual self-interest.
In the Gesellschaft way of life, individuals are motivated by their own needs rather than
by a desire to help improve the well-being of everyone. By and large, city dwellers
have little sense of community or common identity and look to others mainly when
they need something. Tönnies saw in urbanization a weakening of close, long-lasting
social relations in favor of the brief and impersonal ties or secondary relationships
typical of business. This concept, which parallels Durkheim’s organic solidarity,
reveals an important difference between the two thinkers. Both thought the growth of
industrial cities weakened tradition, but Durkheim optimistically pointed to a new kind
of solidarity.
 Housing problems- With the increase in the number of people living in urban centers,
there is continued scarcity of houses. This is due to insufficient expansion space for
housing and public utilities, poverty, unemployment, and costly building materials which
can only be
afforded by few individuals. There is the spread of unlawful resident settlements
represented by slums and squatters.
 Overcrowding- Overcrowding is a situation whereby a huge number of people live in a
small space. This form of congestion in urban areas is consistent because of
overpopulation and it is an aspect that increases day by day as more people and
immigrants move into cities and towns in search of better life. Most people from rural or
undeveloped areas always have
the urge of migrating into the city that normally leads to congestion of people within a
small area.
 Water and sanitation problems-Because of overpopulation and rapid population
increase in most urban centers, it is common to find there are inadequate sewage facilities.
Municipalities and local governments are faced with serious resource crisis in the
management of sewage facilities. As a result, sanitation becomes poor and sewages flow
chaotically, and they are drained into neighboring streams, rivers, lakes, or seas.
Eventually, communicable diseases such as typhoid, dysentery, plague, and diarrhea
spread very fast leading to suffering and even deaths. Overcrowding also highly
contributes to water scarcity as supply falls short of demand.
 Poor health and spread of diseases-The social, economic and living conditions in
congested urban areas affects access and utilization of public health care services. Slum
areas in particular experience poor sanitation and insufficient water supply which
generally make slum populations susceptible to communicable diseases. The
environmental problems such as urban pollution also cause many health problems namely
allergies, asthma, infertility, food poisoning, cancer and even premature deaths.
 Urban crime-Issues of lack of resources, overcrowding, unemployment, poverty, and lack
of social services and education habitually leads to many social problems including
violence,
drug abuse, and crime. Most of the crimes such as murder, rape, kidnapping, riots, assault,
theft, robbery, and hijacking are reported to be more prominent in the urban vicinities.
Besides, poverty related crimes are the highest in fast-growing urban regions. These acts
of urban crime normally upset the peace and tranquility of cities/towns.
Government policies on urbanization
(a) The Growth Point Policy
 An industrial decentralization policy was adopted in Zimbabwe in the first five-year
development plan introduced in 1980 (after independence). Industrialist were encouraged
to locate their industries outside Harare, Bulawayo and other urban industrial cores, and
locate at designated centres or growth points in the rural areas.
 This strategy saw the establishment of Chisumbanje, Wedza, Murewa, Nkayi, Jerera,
Sanyati, Mataga, Mushumbi, Maphisa and Gutu as the focal points for this programme
(Rambanapasi 1990).
 These growth points were to act as centers of economic development, with the intention
that they will eventually become natural centres of economic growth in the disadvantaged
areas and as a result would reduce urbanization as they would limit the flooding of people
into urban areas (Carr 1997; Perroux, 1958).
 However, scholars like (Conyers, 2001) point out that this strategy failed to produce the
intended result and curb urbanization. This is largely because the growth points lacked a
strong economic base, poor investment levels, inadequate infrastructure, unsatisfactory
government support and financial incentives, like tax concessions among other things. To
make matters worse, cuts in government expenditure under the auspices of economic
reforms in the 1990‘s came into being before the programme of infrastructure
development
and service provision was accomplished.
(b) Operation Restore Order 2005 (Murambatsvina)
 Rapid urbanisation in the major cities of Zimbabwe brought with it the challenge not only
of
unemployment but also came with it the accommodation challenges. As decent houses
could not be afforded, the urban poor which makes up almost three quarters of the
population
resorted to squatting and the development of shanty houses.
 By the year 2005, the situation had become worse resulting in government embarking on
an internationally condemned Operation Murambatsvina/ Restore Order. The operation
demolished cabins, illegal structures and informal productions (Vambe 2008, Tibaijuka
2005).
 However, although some people relocated to the rural areas, the so called Operation
Restore Order did not yield the intended results. This is because the process attracted
severe criticism nationally and internationally.
 It is interesting to note critics like (Chirisa 2007) lamenting the action by the government
as ―the hen that eats her own eggs. From a human rights perspective it is argued that the
campaign followed gross human rights violations as people were used to their own houses
without due notice, process or compensation (Sachikonye 2006).
 Internationally, critics believed that this operation was a stance by the government to
punish the so called opposition cohorts alleged to be residing in urban areas (ICG 2005,
Tibaijuka 2005).
 Above all, Murambatsvina made people desperate to such an extent that they started
settling at any open space in makeshift homes thus paving way to another government
campaign Operation Settle and Prosper of 2006.
(c) Operation Garikai/ Hlalani Kuhle/ Settle and Prosper
 This movement was a property ownership scheme aimed at offering decent housing to
those affected by Operation Murambatsvina.
 However, this also failed because it failed to meet the shelter needs of the evictions.
Qualification to this scheme was based on proof of formal employment and a specified
salary which made it unaffordable to the homeless especially those who were employed in
the informal sector. It also failed because it failed to prioritize the victims of the operation
(Chikuwa).
 About 700,000 people were left deserted after the demolition of houses, as well as
informal traders when their goods were confiscated.
 The failure of the campaign can be noticed in that in less than a decade the informal sector
had resuscitated, taking new shapes in scope, dimension and variations. This gave a clear
picture that the bulldozer was a temporary solution as it could not deal with the informal
sector (AAPS, 2012).
 A good example of this is Harare today, plagued by informal actions such as vending,
illegal transport operators, money changers, informal settlements, urban agricultural
activities, educational informality and small enterprises
(d) The Toll Gate System
 This was in a bid to limit the number of people moving into towns. The tollgate system
saw the building of tollgates on major roads such as the Harare- Bulawayo road, the
Harare-Masvingo road and lastly but not least, the Harare- Mutare road.
 This system also saw the increase in the tollgate fee to a double of the usual amount.
 However, this strategy worked to a lesser extent as it only increased the
revenue of the transport authority, (ZINARA) and did not necessarily fulfill what it was
intended to.
 This failure was because, public transport operators as a response strategy created their
own escape routes to flee from the tollgates as well as increased the passenger travelling
fee so that they can balance their profit as they pay for the tollgates. This generally meant
that the tollgate system has failed to reduce urbanization in Harare.
(e) The New National Housing Policy (2012)
 The new housing policy of 2012 focuses on the promotion of Community Based
organization to meet housing needs in Zimbabwe.
 However, the policy is crippled by the lack of financial support and most importantly due
to bureaucracy in land administration.
(f) Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio- Economic Transformation (ZIMASSET)
 This macro-economic blueprint is aimed at achieving sustainable development and socio
equity through indigenization, empowerment and employment creation.
 The programme is expected delivery to deliver 125,000 housing units and/or serviced
stands whilst, the ZANU PF Party‘s manifesto targets 250,000 units and/or serviced
stands, by the end of the ZIM-ASSET plan period, December 2018 (Ministry of Local
Governance, Public Works and National Housing).
 However, the programme is yet to bring any results as the shortage of housing and
unemployment is still on the rise due to urbanization. Many urban dwellers still reside in
poor housing conditions, and cases of job losses are on the rise. It also important to note
that
the majority of the people in need of housing in Zimbabwe fall within the low income
bracket hence the Programme is yet to reflect any positive results so far.
TOPIC 19: GOVERNANCE AND CITIZENSHIP
 Governance entails the process or the power of governing. It is the process of running a
government. Government is a formal organization that directs the political life of a
society (Macionis 2012). Government power can be held by one individual, a selected few
or a majority
 Modern governments have many jobs, such as:
 Providing national security
 Keeping order
 Establishing a justice system
 Welfare services for those in need
 Regulating the economy
 Educational systems
 A citizen is regarded as a legally recognized member of a state, with associated rights and
obligations. Citizenship therefore entails the state of being a citizen. Henslin (2012)
defines citizenship as the concept that birth (and residence or naturalization) in a country
imparts
basic rights
 The term state refers to the organized system of power and authority in society. The state
is an abstract concept that includes the institutions that represent official power in society,
including the government, the legal system (law, courts, and the prison system), the
police, and the military (Andersen et al 2017).
 The state determines who is a citizen and who is not. Numerous institutions make up the
state, including the government, the legal system, the police, and the military.
 The government creates laws and procedures that regulate and guide a society.
 The military is the branch of government responsible for defending the nation
against domestic and foreign conflicts.
 The court system is designed to punish wrongdoers and adjudicate disputes. Court
decisions also determine the guiding principles or laws of human interaction.
 Law is a fundamental type of formal social control that outlines what is permissible
and what is forbidden.
 The police are responsible for enforcing law in the community and for maintaining
public order.
 The prison system is the institution responsible for punishing those who have broken
the law.
Types of Government
 Monarchy
 A monarchy is a government in which a single person (a monarch) rules until he or she
dies or abdicates the throne. Usually, a monarch claims the rights to the title by way of
hereditary succession or as a result of some sort of divine appointment (divine right) or
calling
 Monarchy is commonly found in the ancient agrarian societies; the Bible, for example,
tells of great kings such as David and Solomon.
 Today, claims of divine right are rare, although monarchs in a number of nations—
including Saudi Arabia and Oman—still exercise almost absolute control over their people
(Macionis 2012) .
 A few nations today, however, are run by governments wherein a monarch has absolute or
unmitigated power. Such nations are called absolute monarchies.
 In today’s global political climate, monarchies far more often take the form of
constitutional monarchies, governments of nations that recognize monarchs but require
these figures to abide by the laws of a greater constitution.
 Many countries that are now constitutional monarchies evolved from governments that
were once considered absolute monarchies. In most cases, constitutional monarchies, such
as Great Britain and Canada, feature elected prime ministers whose leadership role is far
more involved and significant than that of its titled monarchs.
 Democracy
 A democracy is a form of government that strives to provide all citizens with an equal
voice, or vote, in determining state policy, regardless of their level of socioeconomic
status.
 It is a political system that gives power to the people as a whole.
 In a literal sense, democracy means government by the people. The word democracy
originated in two Greek roots—demos, meaning “the populace” or “the common people,”
and kratia, meaning “rule.”
 Democracies, in general, ensure certain basic rights for their citizens. First and foremost,
citizens are free to organize political parties and hold elections.
 Leaders, once elected, must abide by the terms of the given nation’s constitution and are
limited in the powers they can exercise, as well as in the length of the duration of their
terms.
 Most democratic societies also champion freedom of individual speech, the press, and
assembly, and they prohibit unlawful imprisonment.
 The term representative democracy, which is virtually synonymous with republic, can also
be used to describe a government in which citizens elect representatives to promote
policies that favor their interests.
 Authoritarianism
 In authoritarian states, popular participation is denied or severely curtailed.
 It is a political system that denies the people participation in government
 In such societies, the needs and interests of the state are prioritized over those of average
citizens
 The absolute monarchies in Saudi Arabia and Oman are authoritarian, as is the military
junta in Ethiopia (Macionis 2012).
 Totalitarianism
 It involves virtually complete government control and surveillance over all aspects of a
society’s social and political life.
 Germany during Hitler’s reign, the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and North Korea today are
classified as totalitarian states. Hitler organized a ruthless secret police force, the Gestapo,
which searched for any sign of dissent. Spies even watched how moviegoers reacted to
newsreels, reporting those who did not respond “appropriately” (Hippler 1987). Saddam
Hussein acted just as ruthlessly toward Iraqis. The lucky ones who opposed Hussein were
shot; the unlucky ones had their eyes gouged out, were bled to death, or were buried alive
(Amnesty International 2005). The punishment for telling a joke about Hussein was to
have your tongue cut out.
 In the broadest sense, totalitarianism is characterized by strong central rule that attempts to
control and direct all aspects of individual life through coercion and repression.
 It also characterized by single-party government. As the term itself implies, such
governments have a total concentration of power, allowing no organized opposition.
Denying the people
the right to assemble and controlling access to information, these governments create an
atmosphere of personal isolation and fear.
 Socialization in totalitarian societies is intensely political with the goal of obedience and
commitment to the system. In North Korea, pictures of leaders and political messages are
everywhere, reminding citizens that they owe total allegiance to the state.
 Theocracy
 Government leaders are members of the clergy(church officials), and the legal system is
based on the religious law
 Leaders are “divinely guided” (chosen and lead by a supreme being) e.g. the Vatican
(pope) and Iran
 Dictatorship
 It is a government in which one person has nearly total power to make and enforce laws.
 Dictators rule primarily through the use of coercion, which often includes torture and
executions.
 Typically, they seize power rather than being freely elected (as in a democracy) or
inheriting power (as in a monarchy).
 If a small group seizes power, the government is called an oligarchy. The occasional
coups in Central and South America and Africa, in which military leaders seize control of
a country, are often oligarchies. Although one individual may be named president, often it
is military officers, working behind the scenes, who make the decisions. If their
designated president becomes uncooperative, they remove him from office and appoint
another.
 Some dictators are quite charismatic and manage to achieve a certain popularity, though
their supporters’ enthusiasm is almost certainly tinged with fear.
 Other dictators are bitterly hated by the people over whom they rule.
 Dictatorship is substituted by known terms such as autocracy, military junta,
authoritarianism, totalitarianism or fascism. Examples include Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler,
Saddam Hussein, Cambodia’s Pol Pot
DEMOCRACY TOTALITARIANISM
 A wide variety of views openly  Only one view point (that of the
expressed government) allowed
 The judges and the law are controlled by
 An independent judiciary (judges and the government
magistrates) and legal system  No civil liberties-the power of the police
 Civil liberties ( the right to protest, to and the state is complete and absolute
demonstrate)  The press is government controlled
 A free press, radio and television ( there
is freedom press)  No true, free elections
 Elections to choose between genuinely
different parties
Constitutionalism
 Modern constitutionalism basically involves uniting the democratic rule of men with the
constitutional rule of democracy (Hart 2003)
 Sachikonye (2010) argues that just as the mere existence of a constitution does not
guarantee constitutionalism , it follows that the existence of democracy does not
necessarily mean that there is constitutionalism
 A constitution is the formal or informal system of primary principles and laws that
regulates a government or other institutions
Importance of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No.20 Act 2013)

NB take further notes from the cited chapters of the constitution especially examples. You
may add your own points from the other chapters of the constitution
 Gives people the right to choose their own form of government which suit their particular
circumstances and traditions. This therefore promotes democracy
 Enables people to have the opportunity to put enduring limits on their government. This
leads to separation of powers. Through the electoral law people can decide who to vote in
or vote out (chapter 7)
 It guides people on the national values and principles. These include human dignity,
achievement of equality, promotion of human rights and freedoms (chapter 1:3)
 Contains the bill of rights (chapter 4)
 It sets up standards which people can use to gauge the performance of the government
 It clarifies citizenship issues (chapter 3)
 Guides people on national symbols (chapter 1:4)
 Specifies languages recognized in the country (chapter 1:6)
 Enlightens people on the institutions to combat corruption and crime (chapter 13)
 However there are some contradictions between the constitution and some of the already
in use Acts of parliament. When the constitution was amended in 2013 it was supposed to
be in line with these Acts to avoid such contradictions. For instance:
 The Children’s Act defines a child as a person under the age of sixteen years while the
Constitution of Zimbabwe (section 81) define a child as any person below the age of 18
years. There is thus a discord in the definition of a child which may pose some challenges
when it comes to the implementation of child welfare issues.
 Section 22 of Marriage Act allows girls to marry at the age of 16 whilst section 78 of the
constitution says every person who has attained the age of 18 years has the right to found a
family. In cases of sexual abuse and child marriage, the police and courts still make use of
the existing laws like the marriage Act.
 Section 70 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [chapter 9:23] provides for
punishment of people who engage in sexual acts with children below 16 years. The
constitution only recognizes 18 years as the age of consent to marriage leaving ages 16
and 17 years vulnerable to sex outside marriage. The constitution should have put the age
of consent to sex and marriage at the same level to avoid such challenges
Power and Authority
 German sociologist Max Weber defined power as the ability to exercise one’s will over
others (Weber 1922). Henslin (2012) defines power as the ability to carry out your will,
even over the resistance of others
 To Weber, power is about getting your own way, even against the opposition of others.
 According to Schaefer (2012) there are three basic sources of power within any political
system: force, influence, and authority.
 Force is the actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one’s will on others. When
leaders imprison or even execute political dissidents, they are applying force; so, too,
are terrorists when they seize or bomb an embassy or assassinate a political leader.
 Influence, on the other hand, refers to the exercise of power through a process of
persuasion. e.g. what election candidates do to voters at a rally.
 Weber’s also defined the concept of authority as power that people perceive as legitimate
rather than coercive. According to Henslin (2012) legitimate power is called authority. This
is power that people accept as right. In contrast, illegitimate power—called coercion—is
power that people do not accept as just
 A person’s authority is often limited. Thus, a referee has the authority to decide whether a
penalty should be called during a football game, but has no authority over the price of
tickets to the game
Forms of power
1. Legitimate power
 It is traditional power – the type of power a manager, executive, or another leading official
in an organization has due to the status of their position. The people over whom you exert
legitimate power know that non-compliance would bring sanctions e.g. loss of their jobs
2. Reward power
 A leader who has the ability to reward an employee or team member (with money, praise,
promotion etc.) has reward power.
3. Coercive power
 Coercive power is the opposite of reward power; a leader who can punish a subordinate
or team member has coercive power. Because the threat of punishment can persuade an
employee to act a certain way, this type of leadership power is called “coercive power.”
Chiefs and village heads possess this power by making subjects fear banishment from the
area
4. Referent power
 Referent power is all about “who you know.” A leader with lots of referent power may
have many connections or a large social network they can use to their advantage. Such
rich social capital make people want to be identified with him/her. Thus one wields power
over them
5. Expert power
 People who have more knowledge or experience than other members of their society
exhibit expert power. For example, a graduate in the Tonga rural society is given much
credence in his/her views concerning community development issues. Also an Information
Technology expert wields power over those who want their ICT gadgets fixed
6. Information power
 One gains information power when they know something other people want to know.
This information could be anything from gossip to intricate knowledge about a person, a
job advert or the society at large.
7. Charismatic power
 Similarly, charismatic leaders have the ability to influence others. While they may or may
not have an established network of contacts, they usually have a natural ability to persuade
or inspire others. It also includes one’s personal traits like good looks, bravery,
exceptional talent like singing, playing soccer etc. Thus one wields power over those who
want to be identified with his/her charisma
Advantages of Power
 Advantage of referent & expert power is that it can inspire those without it to
to aim higher and reach the level.
 People can influence each other positively towards nation building e.g. information power
 Coercive power brings social solidarity and social order
Disadvantages of Power
 Power Corruption- result in harmful consequences in which the power is abused for
accomplishment of personal objectives.
 Charismatic power prevents new learning opportunities from occurring. Charismatic
leaders convince others to follow their own vision. That means people tend to abandon
their own dreams, creativity, or plans because they see something “better” through the
perspective of the leader they choose to follow. Instead of following their own
opportunities for growth, they push the leader to become better, stronger, and more
influential.
Forms of authority
 Max Weber ([1913] 1947) developed a classification system for authority that has become
one of the most useful and frequently cited contributions of early sociology. He identified
three ideal types of authority: traditional, rational-legal, and charismatic.
 Ideal type does not refer to what is ideal or desirable, but to a composite of characteristics
found in many real-life examples. A particular leader, then, may show a combination of
characteristics.
 Weber did not insist that only one type applies to a given society or organization. All can
be present, but their relative importance will vary. Sociologists have found Weber’s
typology valuable in understanding different manifestations of legitimate power within a
society
1. Traditional Authority
 It is power legitimized by respect for long-established cultural patterns. Woven into a
population’s collective memory, traditional authority means that people accept a system,
usually one of hereditary leadership, simply because it has always been that way.
 Preindustrial societies, said Weber, rely on traditional authority.
 A monarchy is an example of a traditional system of authority. Within a monarchy, kings
and queens rule, not necessarily because they have won elections, but because of
longstanding tradition e.g. village heads in most rural areas of Zimbabwe
 Traditional authority declines as societies industrialize. Hannah Arendt (1963) pointed out
that traditional authority remains strong only as long as everyone shares the same beliefs
and way of life.
 The advantage of traditional authority is that it promotes social solidarity and social order
as people are united by customs and tradition behind their leader. Coups and social unrests
are very uncommon under such authority
 However, traditional authority is also a source of strength for patriarchy, the domination
of women by men. This traditional form of power is still widespread, although it is
increasingly challenged
2. Rational-Legal Authority
 Weber defined rational-legal authority (sometimes called bureaucratic authority) as power
legitimized by legally enacted rules and regulations. Rational-legal authority is power
legitimized in the operation of lawful government
 People obey not because national leaders are charismatic or because of social traditions,
but because there is a legal system of authority established by formalized rules and
regulations.
 Rational–legal authority, is based not on custom but on written rules. Rational means
reasonable, and legal means part of law. Thus rational–legal refers to matters that have
been agreed to by reasonable people and written into law (or regulations of some sort).
The matters that are agreed to may be as broad as a constitution that specifies the rights of
all members of a society or as narrow as a contract between two individuals. Because
bureaucracies are based on written rules, rational–legal authority is sometimes called
bureaucratic authority.
 Bureaucracy is a formal organization characterized by an authority hierarchy, a clear
division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonality.
 In contrast to traditional authority, rational-legal authority comes not from family
background but from a position in government organization. A traditional monarch rules
for life, but a modern president like in Zimbabwe accepts and gives up power according to
law, which shows that presidential authority lies in the office, not in the person.
 The advantage of this type of authority is that it promotes constitutionalism in a country.
Leaders will be ruling guided by set rules. Officials are guided by the prescribed rules,
policies and practices rather than by patronage or other privileged treatment.
 The other advantage is predictability. The rules, regulations, specialization, structure and
training import predictability and thereby ensure stability in the society. Conformity to
rules and roles in the structural framework bring about order to cope with complexity
 However the disadvantage is that bureaucratic authority is sometimes characterized by
rigidity. Rules and regulations in a bureaucracy are often rigid and inflexible. Rigid
compliance with rules and regulations discourages initiative and creativity. It may also
provide the cover to avoid responsibility for failures.
3. Charismatic Authority
 Finally, Weber claimed that power can turn into authority through charisma. Charismatic
authority is power legitimized by extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion
and obedience.
 Unlike traditional and rational-legal authority, charismatic authority depends less on a
person’s ancestry or office and more on personality.
 It is derived from the personal appeal of a leader. Charismatic leaders are often believed to
have special gifts, even magical powers, and their presumed personal attributes inspire
devotion and obedience. e.g. Prophet Walter Magaya of PHD Ministries
 Because charismatic authority flows from a single individual, the leader’s death creates a
crisis. Survival of a charismatic movement, Weber explained, requires the routinization
of charisma, the transformation of charismatic authority into some combination of
traditional
and bureaucratic authority (Macionis 2012).
Advantages of charismatic authority
 It is a leadership style which creates an emotional appeal. People are inspired by
charismatic leaders because they see a chance to reach their
own dreams. These leaders give them a chance to do something that feels bigger than
themselves. They want to follow these people because they feel like there is an
emotional connection between themselves and the leader.
 Also charismatic authority gives people a chance to think differently. When a charismatic
leader shares their vision, it gives people a chance to think differently about a specific
subject. In some instances, they can even begin to think of bigger plans or dreams that are
achievable. Even though it sometimes requires a leap of faith to follow a charismatic
leader, when the message is strong enough, there will always be people who are willing to
take the risk.
Disadvantages of charismatic authority
 It is dependent upon the energy levels of the leader. Charismatic leadership is centered
on the energy levels of the individual involved. Encouraging people to follow a
specific vision or dream can be an exhausting experience. If energy levels begin to
sink, there will be fewer followers willing to come along. If that energy is depressed
for a prolonged time, then some people may abandon the vision altogether. That is
why many charismatic leaders eventually experience burnout. They’re stuck carrying
the emotional load for everyone.
 It can be used for selfish ambition. In Zimbabwe some media reports had it that people
were convinced by some charismatic leaders of Pentecostal church organizations to
buy anointed bricks, pens, bangles etc. which financially benefitted leaders not
congregants. People mostly bought because of the faith they had in the leader.
The functions/role of the state
 Legislative role. The state make a positive legislative environment and policy
framework that enables various arms of the state to explore and achieve their potential
while maintaining a high standard of operations to protect public interest. In making
laws, the state decrees which actions are or are not legitimate. Punishments for
illegitimate actions are enforced, and systems for administering punishment are
maintained
 Meeting social needs. The functionalist Talcott Parsons (1967) sees the state as an
authoritative being. It is regarded as legitimate as long as it achieves what he calls
‘collective goal’, which are to care for the society.
 Maintaining law and order. Protest movements that challenge state authority or disrupt
society may be repressed through state action, such as through police or military force.
Even in democratic societies, social control can be exercised in multiple ways,
including electronic surveillance.
 Mediating between different groups. Pluralists see the state as an honest broker which
takes account of all the conflicting demands made on it by different sections of
society. It makes sure none gets its own way all the time e.g. the government can make
a decision which favors informal sector such as permitting small scale mining. On the
other it might decide against such a move in order to take account of the protests of
environmentalists
 However Marxists see the functions of state more in a negative perspective.
1. Engels believed that the state was necessary to ‘hold class antagonists in check’.
According to Engels, the exploited majority had to be held down to prevent them from
asserting their interests and threatening the position of the ruling class. This could be
through force and coercion (the police, the prisons and the army as state run institutions to
repress the exploited members of society)
 The state could also be manipulated by the bourgeoisie. The state often relied upon
borrowing money from the bourgeoisie in order to meet its debts hence the
bourgeoisie could withhold loans if the policies are not beneficial to them
2. Ralph Miliband argued that the state could sometimes act as ‘the direct tool or instrument
of those who possess economic power’. They used it to preserve their economic
dominance and preventing threats to their position.
3. Poulantzas described the state as ‘the factor of cohesion of a social formation’ i.e. the state
as part of superstructure was vital for maintaining the stability of the capitalist system
4. Antonio Gramsci the Neo Marxist talked of a ‘reciprocity between structure and
superstructure’: although the infrastructure could affect what took place in the
superstructure, the reverse was also possible.
 He further pointed out that the ruling class sometimes made the state hegemonic.
Hegemony is when the ruling class managed to maintain its control by gaining
approval and consent of members of society. It was largely achieved not through
force but by persuading the population to accept the political values of the ruling
class
5. David Coates the Neo Marxist also noted that the state’s freedom of action is limited by
Multinational Corporations. Attempts to control multinationals are unlikely to be
successful since they can move resources from country to country regardless of whatever
laws a particular government passes.
 The actions of governments are further restricted by major international financial
institutions and World Bank. If a state borrows from IMF ( International Monetary
Fund) they have to comply with the IMF’s instructions on how their economies
should be managed e.g. ESAP (economic structural adjustment Programme) in
Zimbabwe in the early 1990s was introduced as per the terms of these international
financial institutions
The concept citizenry
 Citizenry refers to a whole body of citizens
 Active citizenry are members of society who take charge of their future and are the agents
of what they want to happen in their communities. It requires inspirational leadership at all
levels and every aspect of life. They should possess the following qualities:
 Empowered – They understand that rights must be exercised with the
responsibilities
and are not shy to assert these. They have access to accurate, up to date
information
about government and its activities. Thus the government is obliged to provide
information so that citizens can know what they are entitled to.
 Fairness – citizens must not only know the structures and processes that exist but
how
government processes work, especially their accessibility by women, children,
youth and people with disabilities. They play the game by its rules so that
everything is predictable and transparent.
 Inclusivity – must not only embrace the constitutional values of equality, dignity
and
freedom but are willing to include or involve every one irrespective of their
position,
status, creed or race. Everyone must have a sense of belonging and equal chance to
exercise rights.
Qualities and characteristics of a good citizenry
 A good citizenry always obey the law and respect authority.
 A good citizenry always contribute to society and the community by performing civic
duty. They helpful and considerate, willing to put others first. They helps people who
are not in a position to help themselves. They participate in the social life of their city
or town, and they look for ways to make their communities a better place to live. That
is, if they see a problem in their community they look for ways to solve it.
Here are some ways to be active in your community:
 Attend community events and gatherings – keep your eyes open for events that
are happening in your area such as festivals and funerals
 Participate in a community-driven cleanup projects e.g. the national clean up
campaigns of every first Friday of the month in Zimbabwe.
 Help out your neighbors.
 A good citizenry also love their country and show patriotism. Patriotism is having and
showing devotion for your country. It means having an attachment to certain national
cultural values and showing critical loyalty to your nation. Patriotism should not be
confused with nationalism. Nationalism is thinking of your nation as being superior to
others, and worthy of dominance. Patriots are proud of their country, but they
understand that other people are also rightly proud of theirs.
 A good citizenry shows courtesy and respect for the rights of each other. They respect
each other and their property. They listen to the views of each other and thinks about
what they have to say.
 A good citizenry are trust worthy and honest.
 A good citizenry shows tolerance.
 A good citizenry exhibits accountability.
 A good citizenry possess self-discipline. They are well mannered and pleasant
 A good citizenry contributes to their nation by being productive. They works hard.
They make a positive contribution to their nation.
 They are always willing to learn. Keep themselves well-Informed through:
 Various news sources that cover local, national and global news.
 Books on important world issues.
 Biographies of people who have helped shape the world.
Contributions of citizens towards patriotism and nation building in Zimbabwe
 Some ways citizens show patriotism include the following:
 Obeying the rule of law.
 Paying taxes.
 Brushing up on one’s country’s history
 Learning the national anthem.
 Flying the country’s flag
 Respecting the environment and not damaging it in anyway.
 Being responsible. Not wasting water or electricity. Paying bills on time.
 Good citizens contribute to the nation building by:
 Being productive. They’re productive employees, business owners, artists, public
servants, caregivers, and so on.
 Sharing their skills, talents, and abilities with others.
 Participating in the nation’s political life. They vote during elections or run for
political office.
 Offering mentorship. They talk to their own children or others about civics and teach
them to be good citizens.
 However factors which may affect good citizenry include:
 Corruption
 Globalization
 Urbanization
TOPIC 20: DEVIANCE, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL
Deviance
 It may be defined as non-conformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a
significant number of people in a community or society (Giddens 2009). All social norms
are
accompanied by sanctions promoting conformity and protecting against nonconformity.
 Sanctions may be positive (offering rewards for conformity) or negative (punishing
behavior that does not conform). Sanctions can be levied informally or formally. Informal
sanctions are less organized and more spontaneous reactions to non-conformity for
example, when an individual makes a sexist or racist comment is met with disapproving
responses from friends or work colleagues. Formal sanctions are applied by a specific
body of people or an agency to ensure that a particular set of norms is followed. The main
types of formal sanction in modern societies are those represented by the courts and
prisons.
 According to sociologist William Graham Sumner, deviance is a violation of established
contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law (1906). It
can be as minor as picking your nose in public or as major as committing murder.
Although the
word “deviance” has a negative connotation in everyday language, sociologists recognize
that deviance is not necessarily bad (Schoepflin 2011). In fact, from a structural
functionalist perspective, one of the positive contributions of deviance is that it fosters
social change. For example, war in Zimbabwe that brought independence was a result of
the action of people who engaged in deviant activities as at the time because rising against
the settler regime was regarded deviant.
 “What is deviant behavior?” cannot be answered in a straightforward manner. Whether an
act is labeled deviant or not depends on many factors, including location, audience, and
the individual committing the act (Becker 1963). It can however generally be viewed as
behavior which is disapproved of by most people in society and which does not conform
to society norms and values. Deviance can be criminal or non-criminal.
The Social Construction of Deviance

 Deviance is socially constructed whether an act is deviant or not depends on society’s
response to that act in a time of war, acts usually considered morally wrong, such as
taking killing, may actually be rewarded.
 Deviance varies according to cultural norms. The concept of deviance is complex
because norms vary considerably across groups, times, and places. In other words, what
one group may consider acceptable, another may consider deviant. For example, in
some parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Muslim Africa, women are circumcised.
Termed clitoridectomy and infibulation, this process involves cutting off the clitoris
and/or sewing shut the labia — usually without any anesthesia. In America, the thought
of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation as it is known in the United States,
is unthinkable; female genital mutilation, usually done in unsanitary conditions that
often lead to infections, is done as a blatantly oppressive tactic to prevent women from
having sexual pleasure. No thought or action is inherently deviant; it becomes deviant
only in relation to particular norms. Because norms vary from place to place, deviance
also varies.
 People become deviant as others define them that way. Everyone violates cultural
norms at one time or another. Have you ever walked around talking to yourself?
Whether such behavior defines us as mentally ill or criminal depends on how others
perceive, define, and respond to it. Among the Pokot of East Africa, for example,
women are expected to enjoy sex, while among the Gusii a few hundred miles away,
women who enjoy sex are considered deviant. Also, the act of drinking alcohol is not
intrinsically deviant. The societal reaction to it determines deviance.
 How societies set norms and how they define rule breaking both involve social
power. The law, declared Karl Marx, is the means by which powerful people protect
their interests. A homeless person who stands on a street corner speaking out against
the
government risks arrest for disturbing the peace; a mayoral candidate during an election
campaign who does exactly the same thing gets police protection. In short, norms and
how we apply them reflect social inequality.
 Notions of deviance change. In a time of war, acts usually considered morally
reprehensible, such as taking the life of another, may actually be rewarded. Whether an
act is deviant or not depends on society’s response to that act. The definition of
deviance can also change over time. Acquaintance rape (also called “date rape”), for
example, was not considered social deviance until fairly recently. Women have been
presumed to mean yes
when they said no, and men were expected to “seduce” women through aggressive
sexual behavior.
 Labeling. Labeling theory focuses on police, probation officers, psychiatrists, judges,
teachers, employers, school officials, and other regulators of social control. These
agents, it is argued, play a significant role in creating the deviant identity by
designating certain people (and not others) as deviant. An important aspect of labeling
theory is the recognition that some individuals or groups have the power to define
labels and apply them to others. This view ties into the conflict perspective’s emphasis
on the social significance of power. In developed countries, studies confirm the public’s
suspicions that in some jurisdictions, police officers are much more likely to stop Black
males than White
males for routine traffic violations, in the expectation of finding drugs or guns in their
cars.
 Sociologists distinguish two types of deviance: formal and informal.
 Formal deviance is behavior that breaks laws or official rules. Crime is an example.
There are formal sanctions against formal deviance, such as imprisonment and fines.
 Informal deviance is behavior that violates customary norms. Although such deviance
may not be specified in law, it is judged to be deviant by those who uphold the
society’s norms.
 Deviance and crime are not synonymous, although in many cases they overlap.
Crime
 It is one form of deviance, specifically, behavior that violates particular criminal laws. Not
all deviance is crime. Deviance becomes crime when institutions of society designate it
as violating a law or laws.
 Crime is the violation of a society’s formally enacted criminal law (Macionis 2012). It is
punishable through formal sanctions. Walking to class backward is a deviant behavior.
Driving with a blood alcohol percentage over the state’s limit is a crime.
 Criminology is the study of crime from a scientific perspective. Criminologists include
social scientists such as sociologists who stress the societal causes and treatment of crime.
 Society generally socializes its members to view certain crimes as more severe than
others. For example, most people would consider murdering someone to be far worse than
stealing a wallet and would expect a murderer to be punished more severely than a thief.
Types of crime
 The types of crimes committed are as varied as the types of criminals who commit them.
 Most crimes fall into one of two categories— crimes against people or crimes against
property.
 Crimes against people (Violent crimes) - are based on the use of force or the threat of
force. Rape e.g. Pastor Gumbura, murder and armed robbery e.g. Chidhumo and
Masendeke fall under this category.
 Human Trafficking- compelling or coercing a person to engage in some
form of labor, service, or commercial sex. The coercion is overtly physical, but it
can also be psychological and subtle, such as a pimp who recruits prostitutes into a
network of sex work by initially seeming to be a boyfriend.
 Gender-Based Violence- the term used to describe the various forms of violence
that are associated with unequal power relationships between men and women.
Although both men and women can be victims of gender-based violence, it far more
frequently victimizes women and girls (Bloom 2008).
 Property Crimes (Nonviolent crimes) - involve the destruction or theft of property but
do not use force or the threat of force. Because of this, they are also sometimes called
“property crimes.” Larceny, car theft, and vandalism are all types of nonviolent crimes.
If you use a crowbar to break into a car, you are committing a nonviolent crime; if you
mug someone with the crowbar, you are committing a violent crime.
 Identity Theft- is defined as the use of someone else’s personal identifying
information, usually for purposes of some kind of fraud (Allison et al. 2005).
 Elite and White-Collar Crime. Refers to criminal activities by people of high
social status who commit crime in the context of their occupation (Sutherland and
Cressey 1978). White-collar crime includes activities such as embezzlement
(stealing funds from one’s employer), involvement in illegal stock manipulations
(insider trading),
and a variety of violations of income tax law, including tax evasion.
 Hate Crimes. A criminal offense that is motivated in whole or part by bias against a
“race, religion, disability, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation” (www.fbi.gov).
 Victimless Crimes- are those that violate laws but where there is no complainant.
Victimless crimes include various illicit activities, such as gambling, illegal drug use,
and prostitution. While some claim acts like these are victimless, others argue that they
actually
do harm society.
 Cybercrimes-these are ICT related crimes. Advances in technology have provided
exciting new opportunities and benefits, but they also heighten vulnerability to crime. P.
N. Grabosky and Russell Smith (1998) identified some types of technology-based crime:
 Electronic vandalism and terrorism such as interference with computerized
systems e.g. hacking or computer viruses
 Conducting illicit business without being detected or simply manipulating telecom
and mobile phone services in order to receive free or discounted telephone calls.
 Electronic money-laundering can be used to 'move' the illegal proceeds from a
crime in order to conceal their origins.
 In Zimbabwe, there is a gross abuse of social media platforms like Tweeter, WhatsApp,
Facebook which has led to the crafting of a Cyber Bill yet to be passed by parliament to
regulate these cyber-crimes.
Differences between Deviance and Crime

 Definition of Deviance and Crime. Deviance entails the violation of social norms
whereas crime entails the contravention of enacted laws of criminal offenses
 Breadth of concepts. The concept of deviance is much broader than that of crime. Crime
refers only to nonconformist conduct that breaks a law. Many forms of deviant behavior
are not sanctioned by law.
 Nature of punishment. Deviance is not punishable by law but crime is always punishable
by law e.g. courts, imprisonment. Society has no coercive power to deal with deviance but
governments have the power of punishment to tackle crime.
 Explicitness. Deviant rules are not written but criminal rules written.
 Agents of social control. Agents of social control for deviance are societal pressure and
fear of gods whereas agents of control for crime are police and judiciary.
 Severity. Deviance is not severe but crime can be mild to severe.
Theories of crime and deviance

A. Sociological Theories
Functionalism
 According to functionalists, deviance is a common part of human existence, with positive
as well as negative consequences for social stability.
 Durkheim: crime and deviance inevitable. In his pioneering study of deviance, Emile
Durkheim (1964a, orig. 1893; 1964b, orig. 1895) made the surprising claim that there is
nothing abnormal about deviance. In fact, it performs four essential functions:
 Deviance affirms cultural values and norms. There can be no good without evil and
no justice without crime. Deviance is needed to define and support morality.
 Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries. By defining some individuals as
deviant, people draw a boundary between right and wrong. For example, a college
marks the line between academic honesty and cheating by disciplining students who
cheat on exams. Deviance promotes boundary maintenance between 'good' and 'bad'
behaviors.
 Responding to deviance brings people together. People typically react to serious
deviance with shared outrage. In doing so, Durkheim explained, they reaffirm the
moral ties that bind them e.g. if there is a murderer in the society, people are joined
by a common desire to control this type of apparently senseless violence. When
people come together against criminal activities in-group solidarity develops.
 Deviance encourages social change. Deviant people push a society’s moral
boundaries, suggesting alternatives to the status quo and encouraging change.
Today’s deviance, declared Durkheim, can become tomorrow’s morality (1964b:71,
orig. 1895) e.g. Rap and hip-hop music first emerged as a deviant subculture as young
African Americans developed their own style of dress and music to articulate their
resistance to the dominant White culture. Now, rap and hip-hop have been
incorporated into mainstream youth culture. Deviance has an adaptive function; it can
introduce new ideas and
challenges into society and therefore can be an innovative force.
 Durkheim saw crime and deviance as social facts; arguing that both were inevitable and
necessary elements of modern societies. According to Durkheim, people in the modern
age are less constrained than those in traditional societies. Because there is more room for
individual choice, it is inevitable that there will be some non-conformity or deviance.
There
would never be a complete consensus in any society about the norms and values which
govern it.
Dysfunctions of deviance
 Threat to social order because it makes life difficult and unpredictable.
 Deviance also divert valuable resources e.g. to prisons – because to control wide spread
deviance precious resources are called upon and shifted from other pressing social issues.
 Robert Merton: Structural Strain Theory.
 Some deviance may be necessary for a society to function, but Robert Merton (1938,
1968) argued that society can be set up in a way that encourages too much deviance.
 Strain theory argues that people engage in deviant behavior when they are unable to achieve
socially approved goals by legitimate means. Merton’s structural strain theory traces the origins
of deviance to the tensions caused by the gap between cultural goals and the means
(institutionalized/structural means) people have available to achieve those goals.
 Cultural goals refer to the objectives held out as legitimate or desirable for the members of a
society to achieve e.g. from birth, we’re encouraged to achieve the “Dream” of financial success.
 Institutionalized /structural means refer to approved ways of reaching cultural goals e.g.
working hard or pursuing higher education
 Strain refers to the frustrations people feel when they want to achieve cultural goal of
success but find their way (means) to it blocked.
 When the institutionalized means are out of balance with the cultural goals, deviance is
likely to occur. According to Merton, this imbalance, or disjunction, between cultural
goals and structurally available means can actually compel the individual into deviant
behavior (Merton 1968).
 This structural strain produces deviance. According to Merton, poor and working-class
individuals are most likely to experience these strains because they internalize the same
goals and values as the rest of society but have blocked opportunities for success.
Structural strain theory therefore helps explain the high correlation that exists between
unemployment and crime.
 Merton used Durkheim’s concept of 'anomie' to describe the strain put on individuals'
behavior when widely accepted cultural goals conflict with their lived social reality or
institutionalized means. People experience a gap that Merton called anomie, a sense of
normlessness.
 Not everyone in our society stands on equal footing. A person may have the socially
acceptable goal of financial success but lack a socially acceptable way to reach that goal.
 According to Merton’s theory, an entrepreneur who can’t afford to launch his own
company may be tempted to embezzle from his employer for start-up funds.
 Merton defined five ways people respond to this gap between having a socially accepted
goal and having no socially accepted way to pursue it.
1. Conformity: Those who conform choose not to deviate. They pursue their goals to the
extent that they can through socially accepted means. It involves acceptance of both
the overall societal goal (“become affluent”) and the approved means (“work hard”).
 If conformity does not occur, then cultural–structural strain exists, and at least one of
four possible forms of deviance is likely to result: innovative deviance, ritualistic
deviance, retreatism deviance, or rebellion (Andersen 2017).
2. Innovation: people accept the goals of society but use illegitimate means to try to
reach them. Examples are embezzlers, robbers, and con artists.
3. Ritualism: people conform to social values, though they have lost sight of the values
behind these standards. A ritualist would be someone who dedicates herself to a
boring job, even though it has no career prospects and provides few rewards. Work
becomes simply a way of life rather than a means to the goal of success. An example
would be the bureaucratic official who blindly applies rules and regulations without
remembering the larger goals of the organization. Their response is considered
deviant because they cling to the job even though they have abandoned the goal.
4. Retreatism: people reject both cultural goals and institutional means so that a person
in
effect “drops out.” Some alcoholics, drug addicts, and street people can be described
as retreatists (or withdrawn). The deviance of retreatists lies in their unconventional
lifestyle and also in what seems to be their willingness to live this way.
5. Rebellion: A handful of people rebel and replace a society’s goals and means with
their own. Terrorists or freedom fighters look to overthrow a society’s goals through
socially unacceptable means. Unlike retreatists, however, rebels seek to give society
new goals, as well as new means for reaching them.
 Subcultural theory
 Following Merton's work, Albert Cohen also saw the contradictions within society as
the main cause of crime.
 But while Merton emphasized individual deviant responses, Cohen saw such adaptive
responses as occurring collectively through the formation of subcultures.
 Cohen argued that boys in the lower working class who are frustrated with their
positions in life often join together in delinquent subcultures, such as gangs.
 These subcultures reject middleclass values and replace them with norms that celebrate
defiance, such as delinquency and other acts of non-conformity.
 Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin (1960) agreed with Cohen that most delinquent
youths emerge from the lower working class. But they argue that the boys most 'at risk'
are those who have internalized middle-class values and been encouraged, on the basis
of ability, to aspire towards a middle-class future. When such boys find they are unable
to realize their goals, they become particularly prone to delinquent activity e.g. most
working class pupils who tried to study hard at school towards a better future may end
up forming gangs if they fail at school.
 Walter Miller (1970, orig. 1958) adds that delinquent subcultures are characterized by
among others:
 Trouble, arising from frequent conflict with teachers and police.
 A desire for freedom, often expressed as anger toward authority figures.
 A belief in fate, a sense that people lack control over their own lives.
 Need for excitement, the search for thrills or danger;
Evaluation of functionalism ideas on crime and deviance
Strengths
 Functionalist theories rightly emphasize connections between conformity and deviance in
different social contexts (Giddens 2009).
 It emphasizes that social structure, not just individual motivation, produces deviance.
 Lack of opportunity for success is a key differentiating factor between those who engage
in
criminal behavior and those who do not.
 Functionalists also point out that what appears to be dysfunctional behavior may actually
be functional for the society.
Weaknesses
 Critics of the functionalist perspective argue that it does not explain how norms of
deviance are first established. Despite its analysis of the ramifications of deviant behavior
for society as a whole, functionalism does little to explain why some behaviors are defined
as normative and others as illegitimate.
 Functionalists see deviance as having stabilizing consequences in society, but they tend to
overlook the injustices that labeling someone deviant can produce.
 The tendency in functionalist theory to assume that the system works for the good of the
whole too easily ignores the inequities in society and how these inequities are reflected in
patterns of deviance.
 Merton, Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin can all be criticized for presuming that middleclass
values have been accepted throughout society. It would also be wrong to suppose
that a mismatch of aspirations and opportunities is confined to the less privileged.
Conflict theory-Marxism
 It looks to social and economic factors as the causes of crime and deviance. Unlike
functionalists, conflict theorists don’t see these factors as positive functions of society.
They see them as evidence of inequality in the system.
 Karl Marx: An Unequal System
 In a capitalist society, the ownership of most industry and commerce is in the hands of a
few. According to Marxists the values and the laws of society are heavily influenced by
the wishes of this powerful group.
 The values-capitalism is based upon materialism and competition. Media encourages
people to buy more and instills competition for possessions. Marxists argue that this
constant stress on possessions, and the need to compete in order to own, drives people
into trying to obtain things in any way they can. In short capitalism is based upon
greed and once greed is unleased it is difficult to hold back. Because some groups of
people have access to fewer resources in capitalist society, they are forced into crime
to sustain themselves.
 The laws-laws largely reflect the wishes of the powerful, according to Marxists. Thus
the criminal law looks after their interests. The laws therefore make the activities of
other groups criminal and justify the activities of the powerful. The idea that the law
operates impartially to bring justice, they say, is a cultural myth promoted by the
capitalist class. They point out that the law is really an instrument of oppression, a tool
designed by the powerful to maintain their privileged position (Chambliss 2000,
1973/2007; Spitzer 1975; Reiman 2004).
Example of Marx’s idea: The law
 Sioux Manufacturing in North Dakota made helmets for the U.S. ground troops in Iraq
and
Afghanistan. Two former managers reported that the company had set their looms to use
less
Kevlar—a fabric that deflects some shrapnel and bullets—than they were supposed to.
The
charge was serious, for doing this would endanger U.S. soldiers, perhaps causing some to
die. But would anyone actually do such a thing? Government officials investigated, and
found that the accusation was true. Employees had even doctored records to show that the
company had used the correct amount of Kevlar. (Lambert 2008)
 What was the punishment for a crime this serious? When the executives of Sioux
Manufacturing were put on trial, for how long were they sentenced to prison? Actually,
those
who ordered this crime weren’t even put on trial, and no one spent even a night in jail.
The company just paid a fine—and then the government gave them another contract to
make more helmets. Of course, they had to reset their looms. Contrast this with poor
people who are caught stealing cars and sent to prison for years. How can a legal system
that proudly boasts “justice for all” be so inconsistent? The upper classes, conflict theorists
point out, can also better hide crimes they commit because affluent groups have the
resources to mask their deviance and crime. As a result, a working-class man who beats
his wife is more likely to be arrested and prosecuted than an upper-class man who engages
in the same behavior.
 The role of social control agents
 Social control agents are those who regulate and administer the response to deviance,
such as the police and mental health workers.
 Members of powerless groups may be defined as deviant for even the slightest infraction
against social norms, whereas others may be free to behave in deviant ways without
consequence. Oppressed groups may actually engage in more deviant behavior, but it is
also true that they have a greater likelihood of being labeled deviant and incarcerated or
institutionalized, whether or not they have actually committed an offense. This is evidence
of the power wielded by social control agents.
Evaluation of Marxist theory on crime and deviance
Strengths
 It links the commission, perception, and treatment of crime to inequality in society
 Offers a powerful analysis of how the injustices of society produce crime and result in
different systems of justice for disadvantaged and privileged groups.
 It insight into the significance of power relationships in the definition, identification, and
handling of deviance.
Weaknesses
 Critics point out that laws protect most people, not just the affluent, as conflict theorists
argue.
 Although conflict theory offers a powerful analysis of the origins of crime, it is less
effective
in explaining other forms of deviance.
 Economic interests alone cannot explain all the deviance observed in society.
 As Durkheim argued, deviance is functional for the whole of society, not just those with a
major stake in the economic system.
Symbolic Interactionism
 Sociologists studying crime and deviance in the interactionist tradition focus on deviance
as a socially constructed phenomenon. They reject the idea that there are types of conduct
that are inherently 'deviant'. Rather, interactionists ask how behaviors come to be defined
as deviant
and why certain groups and not others are labelled as deviant.
 Labeling Theory
 It is the idea that deviance and conformity result not so much from what people do as from
how others respond to those actions. Labeling theory stresses the relativity of deviance,
meaning that people may define the same behavior in any number of ways.
 Howard Becker is one of the sociologists most closely associated with labelling
perspectives. Becker argued that 'deviant behavior is behavior that people so label'.
 Consider these situations:
1. A college student takes a sweater off the back of a roommate’s chair and packs it for a
weekend trip,
2. A married woman at a convention in a distant city has sex with an old boyfriend, and
3. A city mayor gives a big contract to a major campaign contributor.
 We might define the first situation as carelessness, borrowing, or theft. The consequences
of the second case depend largely on whether the woman’s behavior becomes known back
home. In the third situation, is the official choosing the best contractor or paying off a
political debt? The social construction of reality is a highly variable process of detection,
definition, and response.
 By and large, the rules in terms of which deviance is defined are framed by the wealthy
for the poor, by men for women, by older people for younger people, and by ethnic
majorities for minority groups. For example, many children wander into other people's
gardens, steal fruit or play truant. In an affluent neighborhood, these might be regarded by
parents, teachers and police alike as innocent pastimes of childhood. In poorer areas, they
might be seen as
evidence of tendencies towards juvenile delinquency.
 What is considered deviant changes over time and can vary significantly across cultures.
 People’s reactions, not the action itself, produce deviance as a result of the labeling
process. Michael Haralambos refers to the act of nudity (removing all clothes from the
body) in
Western society as a case illustration: Nudity in the bedroom, where the actors are
husband and wife, is generally interpreted as normal behavior. Should a stranger enter,
however, nudity in his or her presence would usually be considered deviant. Yet, in
particular contexts, such as nudist camps or certain holiday beaches, nudity in the
presence of stranger’ s would be seen as perfectly normal by the participants. Thus there
is nothing intrinsically normal or deviant about the act of nudity. It only becomes deviant
when others label it as such.
 Linked with conflict theory, labeling theory shows how those with the power to label an
act or a person deviant and to impose sanctions—such as police, court officials, school
authorities, experts, teachers, and official agents of social institutions—wield great power
in determining societal understandings of deviance
 Once the label is applied, it sticks, and it is difficult for a person labeled deviant to shed
the label—namely, to recover a non-deviant identity. To give an example, once a social
worker or psychiatrist labels clients as mentally ill, and those people will be treated as
mentally ill, regardless of their actual mental state.
 Labeling theory helps explain why convicts released from prison have such high rates of
recidivism (return to criminal activities). Convicted criminals are formally and publicly
labeled wrongdoers. They are treated with suspicion ever afterward and have great
difficulty finding legitimate employment: The label “ex-con” defines their future options.
 Former inmates struggle to find employment after release from prison.
 Sociologist Edwin Lemert expanded on the concepts of labeling theory and identified two
types of deviance that affect identity formation.
 Primary deviance is a violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects
on the individual’s self-image or interactions with others. Speeding is a deviant act, but
receiving a speeding ticket generally does not make others view you as a bad person,
nor does it alter your own self-concept. Individuals who engage in primary deviance
still maintain a feeling of belonging in society and are likely to continue to conform to
norms in the future.
 Secondary deviance occurs when a person’s self-concept and behavior begin to change
after his or her actions are labeled as deviant by members of society. The person may
begin to take on and fulfill the role of a “deviant” as an act of rebellion against the
society that has labeled that individual as such. For example, consider a high school
student who often cuts class and gets into fights. The student is reprimanded frequently
by teachers and school staff, and soon enough, he develops a reputation as a
“troublemaker.” As a result, the student starts acting out even more and breaking more
rules; he has adopted the
“troublemaker” label and embraced this deviant identity. Deviant identity is the
definition a person has of himself or herself as a deviant. Most often, deviant identities
emerge over time (Simon 2011; Lemert 1972).
Master status and stigma
 Secondary deviance can be so strong that it bestows a master status on an individual. A
master status is a label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual.
 Secondary deviance marks the start of what Erving Goffman (1963) calls a deviant career.
As people develop a stronger commitment to deviant behavior, they typically acquire a
stigma, a powerfully negative label that greatly changes a person’s self-concept and social
identity. A stigma operates as a master status, overpowering other aspects of social
identity so that a person is discredited in the minds of others and becomes socially
isolated.
 Sometimes, however, an entire community formally stigmatizes an individual through
what Harold Garfinkel (1956) calls a degradation ceremony, operating much like a high
school graduation ceremony in reverse.
Retrospective and Projective Labeling
 Once people stigmatize an individual, they may engage in retrospective labeling,
interpreting someone’s past in light of some present deviance (Scheff, 1984). For example,
after discovering that a priest has sexually molested a child, others rethink his past,
perhaps musing, “He always did want to be around young children.” Retrospective
labeling,
distorts a person’s biography and typically deepens a deviant identity.
 Similarly, people may engage in projective labeling of a stigmatized person, using the
person’s deviant identity to predict future actions. Regarding the priest, people might say,
“He’s going to keep at it until he gets caught.” These definitions affect the individual’s
self-concept, increasing the chance that they will come true.
The effects of labelling
 It may produce a self- fulfilling prophecy whereby the “deviant identification” becomes
the controlling one.
 The deviant may confirm and accept their deviant identity.
 A deviant subculture is eventually created when labeled deviants group together upon a
common understanding of the identity they are given.
 Edwin Sutherland: Differential Association Theory
 Sutherland maintained that through interactions with a primary group and significant
others, people acquire definitions of proper and improper behavior. From the different
groups we associate with, we learn to deviate from or conform to society’s norms
(Sutherland 1924, 1947; Sutherland et al. 1992).
 The theory suggested that individuals learn deviant behavior from those close to them who
provide models of and opportunities for deviance. According to Sutherland, deviance is
less a personal choice and more a result of differential socialization processes. A teen
whose friends are sexually active is more likely to view sexual activity as acceptable.
 Sutherland’s theory may explain why crime is multigenerational. A longitudinal study
beginning in the 1960s found that the best predictor of antisocial and criminal behavior in
children was whether their parents had been convicted of a crime (Todd and Jury 1996).
 Children who were younger than ten years old when their parents were convicted were
more likely than other children to engage in spousal abuse and criminal behavior by their
early thirties. Even when taking socioeconomic factors such as dangerous neighborhoods,
poor school systems, and overcrowded housing into consideration, researchers found that
parents were the main influence on the behavior of their offspring (Todd and Jury 1996).
 Travis Hirschi: Control Theory

 Continuing with an examination of large social factors, control theory states that social
control is directly affected by the strength of social bonds and that deviance results from a
feeling of disconnection from society. Individuals who believe they are a part of society
are less likely to commit crimes against it.
 Our inner controls include our internalized morality—conscience, religious principles,
ideas of right and wrong. Inner controls also include fears of punishment, feelings of
integrity, and the desire to be a “good” person (Hirschi 1969; McShane and Williams
2007). Our outer controls consist of people—such as family, friends, and the police—who
influence us not to deviate.
 The stronger our bonds are with society, the more effective our inner controls are (Hirschi
1969).
 Travis Hirschi (1969) identified four types of social bonds that connect people to society:
 Attachment-When we are closely attached to people, we worry about their opinions of
us. People conform to society’s norms in order to gain approval (and prevent
disapproval) from family, friends, and romantic partners. Weak family, peer, and
school relationships leave people freer to engage in deviance.
 Commitment-a person having a stake in society that he/she don’t want to risk, such as
a respected place in family, a good standing at college, a good job has more to lose
from
committing a crime than a person who doesn’t have a career or ties to the community.
 Involvement-Extensive involvement in legitimate activities— such as holding a job,
going to school, or playing sports—inhibits deviance (Langbein & Bess, 2002). By
contrast, people who simply “hang out” waiting for something to happen have time
and
energy to engage in deviant activity.
 Belief-Strong belief in conventional morality and respect for authority figures restrain
tendencies toward deviance. People who have a weak conscience (and who are left
unsupervised) are more open to temptation (Stack, Wasserman, & Kern, 2004). An
environmentalist is more likely to pick up trash in a park, because a clean environment
is a social value to him (Hirschi 1969).
 This theory can be summarized as self-control, says sociologist Travis Hirschi. The key to
learning high self-control is socialization, especially in childhood. Parents help their
children
to develop self-control by supervising them and punishing their deviant acts (Gottfredson
and Hirschi 1990; Hay and Forrest 2006).
Evaluation of symbolic interaction theory on crime and deviance

Strengths
 Labelling perspectives have been important, because they begin from the assumption that
no act is intrinsically 'deviant' or 'criminal’.
 Deviance involves a clash of competing definitions.
 Those who “differentially associate” with delinquents, deviants, or criminals learn to value
deviance.
 Social control depends on people anticipating the consequences of their behavior.
Weaknesses
 Critics of differential association theory have argued that this perspective tends to blame
deviance on the values of particular groups.
 Children from deprived backgrounds are more likely than richer children to steal from
shops. It is not being labelled that leads them to steal in the first place, but the
backgrounds from
which they come.
 It is too determinist. It assumes that once a person has been labeled their deviance will
inevitably become worse. The labeled person has no option but to get more involved in
deviant activities.
Feminist theory
 Feminist theorists hold that previous theories on deviance have centred on male deviance
and thus are inadequate when it comes to understanding female deviance and crime. For
example, liberal feminists have critiqued Merton’s anomie theory for its failure to note
that women experience both reduced societal goals and the means to achieve them when
compared to those of men. Just as women are confronted with obstacles in their climb to
the top of the corporate ladder, so are they limited in their opportunities to engage in
deviant acts such as corporate crime
 Robert Merton’s strain theory, for example, defines cultural goals in terms of financial
success. Traditionally, at least, this goal has had more to do with the lives of men because
women have been taught to define success in terms of relationships, particularly marriage
and motherhood (E. B. Leonard, 1982).
 Feminists point to the double standard in viewing behaviour as deviant in women but not
deviant in men. This is particularly the case when it comes to sexuality. While young men
are expected to “sow wild oats,” girls’ virginity is to be protected. Therefore, sexual
activity in young girls is much more likely to be labelled as promiscuous (i.e., deviant)
and in need of control, than is the case in young males
 Social control theory has been applied by other feminists to examine why, considering
unequal access to social goals, more women do not become criminal. Heidensohn (1996)
suggests that it is because of the ways in which women are doubly controlled—by
ideologies of appropriate behaviour for women in society and by their role in the family.
Being controlled in both the public and the private spheres ensures that they are likely to
be more conformist than men.
 Socialist feminism notes that women are exploited by capitalism and patriarchy.
Capitalism is dominated by men therefore women are left with lower paying jobs and
fewer economic resources, this leads to deviance e.g. shoplifting, prostitution.
 Socialist feminists hold the view that since gender relations are not “natural,” but rather
produced by social, cultural, and historical conditions, gendered patterns of deviance will
reflect these conditions. For example, the social acceptability of smoking for women (and
the labelling of some women smokers as deviants) has been shaped by history, class, and
sexuality.
 Radical feminists argue that patriarchy i.e. male domination over females keeps women
more tied to family and the home therefore, women are more likely to be singled out as
deviant when they separate themselves from domestic roles e.g. although the law states
that the man and women are equality guilty, the prostitute is more likely to be arrested and
charged than her male customer.
 Since men control social institutions and ideologies, they are in a position to define what
is considered deviance. This can be seen in the regulation of prostitution, which results in
a higher rate of arrest and conviction for the female prostitute than for the male.
B. Biological theories
 These can also be called non-sociological theories. They are the physiological and
psychological explanations of causes of criminal or deviant behaviour.
Physiological theories
 Cesare Lombroso (1836- 1909)
 He argued that criminal types could be identified by a collection of anatomical features.
He investigated the appearance and physical characteristics of convicted criminals, such as
the
shape of the skull and forehead, jaw size and arm length, and concluded that criminals
displayed signs of atavism. That is, they had traits held over from earlier stages of human
evolution.
 Furthermore, these individuals displayed visible physiological characteristics that could be
used to identify them as deviant.
 William Sheldon
 He suggested that general body structure might predict criminality.
 He crosschecked hundreds of young men for body type and criminal history and
concluded that criminality was most likely among boys with muscular, athletic builds.
Psychological theories
 Hans Eysenck (1964)
 The psychologist, Hans Eysenck (1964) suggested that abnormal mental states are
inherited; these can either predispose an individual to crime or create problems during the
process of socialization.
 Eysenck argues that there are two extreme types of personalities, which people are born
with: extrovert and introvert. Most people are born with a personality biased to one or the
other.
 The extrovert is fun-loving and outward going. The introvert is quiet and reserved.
Eysenck argues that the extrovert character is harder to socialize into the values of society
and is more likely to deviate. Most criminals are therefore people of extrovert character
who have been badly socialized.
Criticism of biological theories to crime and deviance
 Psychological theories of criminality can at best explain only some aspects of crime.
While some criminals may possess personality characteristics distinct from the remainder
of the population, it is highly improbable that the majority of criminals do so.
 There are many different types of crime, from violent and aggressive murders and
assaults, to the calculated and well-planned fraud, which makes it implausible to suppose
that those who commit crimes share the same psychological characteristics.
 Biological approaches to criminality presume that deviance is a sign of something 'wrong'
with the individual rather than with society. Biological theories of crime are positivist in
nature.
Social control
 The term social control refers to the techniques and strategies for preventing deviant
human behavior in any society. Social control occurs on all levels of society.
 In the family, we are socialized to obey our parents simply because they are our parents.
 Peer groups introduce us to informal norms, such as dress codes, that govern the behavior
of their members.
 Colleges establish standards they expect of students.
 In bureaucratic organizations, workers encounter a formal system of rules and regulations.
 Finally, the government of every society legislates and enforces social norms.
 The underlying goal of social control is to maintain social order, an arrangement of
practices and behaviors on which society’s members base their daily lives. Think of social
order as an
employee handbook and social control as a manager. When a worker violates a workplace
guideline, the manager steps in to enforce the rules; when an employee is doing an
exceptionally good job at following the rules, the manager may praise or promote the
employee.
 The forms social control take can be divided into the formal and the informal.
 People use informal social control casually to enforce norms. Examples include smiles,
laughter, a raised eyebrow, and ridicule. This is a result of informal sanctions. Informal
sanctions emerge in face-to-face social interactions. For example, wearing flip-flops to an
opera or swearing loudly in church may draw disapproving looks or even verbal
reprimands, whereas behavior that is seen as positive—such as helping an old man carry
grocery bags across the street—may receive positive informal reactions, such as a smile or
pat on the back
 Formal social control is carried out by authorized agents, such as police officers, judges,
school administrators, employers, military officers, and managers of movie theaters. It can
serve as a last resort when socialization and informal sanctions do not bring about desired
behavior. This is a result of formal sanctions which brings formal social control. Formal
sanctions are ways to officially recognize and enforce norm violations. If a student
violates
her college’s code of conduct, for example, she might be expelled. Someone who speaks
inappropriately to the boss could be fired. Someone who commits a crime may be arrested
or imprisoned. On the positive side, a soldier who saves a life may receive an official
commendation.
Agencies of informal social control are also the agencies of socialization. They include:
 The family— family members, particularly your parents, are very effective at
discouraging “deviant” behaviour. This is especially true when it comes to promoting or
forbidding gender specific behaviour- parents manipulate their children into behaving
appropriately (eg it may be acceptable for a boy to do things a girl would not be permitted
to do). However in modern industrial society the family functions have been affected
which affect informal social control.
 The education system— teachers employ many informal sanctions to discourage certain
behaviour. This can range from a “look” to a more formal punishment such as a detention
for not completing work. The Hidden curriculum can also be employed by teachers to
encourage or discourage certain behaviour from girls and boys.
 Peer groups— we all have a need to “fit in” with others and join a “cultural comfort
zone.” The peer group is very effective in discouraging inappropriate behaviour as those
members of the group who do not conform are ostracized from the group. Informal
sanctions such as gossip serves as an effectual means of social control. In BaTonga tribe
of Binga, gossip is still one of the tools used to control anti-social behaviour largely
among women. In cases of deviant behaviour, a song can be composed that is sung on
traditional events; hence this will instill fear of being sung in songs
 The workplace— certain standards of behaviour are expected from certain occupations.
The work place provides formal sanctions to those who do not conform to this behaviour.
 The mass media— the media presents images, perhaps in the form of stereotypes, of how
individuals and groups are expected to behave. The media informally sanctions deviance
by broadcasting acceptable and unacceptable standards. However the use of internet has
posed many threat in as far as informal social control is concerned because usually people
access it privately.
 Religion—this is a very powerful form of social control to people who believe. In the past
religions provided formal systems of control as you could be sent to prison for disobeying
religious laws. Nowadays, religious controls are less formal and have an effect only on the
religious (the threat of being sent to hell is still a powerful motivator for good behaviour
for many!) By teaching what behaviour is not acceptable, and what the sanctions will be,
they are agents of social control. Informal social control works so well that most people
behave in an acceptable way most of the time. When informal social control doesn't work,
for more social control takes over and deals with the offenders.
Agencies of formal social control
 The legislature
 Members of parliament are responsible for debating on issues or bills that may be
passed into law. These laws may be forms of social control.
 Law may be defined as governmental social control (Black 1995). Acts of parliament
like Domestic Violence Act controls human behavior within families. Section 33 of
the Criminal Law (Codification) and Reform Act forbids “undermining authority of or
insulting the president” e.g. Chrispen Rambu, an MDC councilor in Chipinge was
arrested on such charges for calling The President of Republic of Zimbabwe, His
Excellency Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa a “fool”.
 Section 31 of the same Act (ibid) forbids publishing or communicating false
statements prejudicial to the state e.g. the arrest of Lovemore Zvokusekwa of 7094
unit J Chitungwiza on 18/04/2020 @ 1600hrs for publishing false press statement
document purported to be issued and signed by president of Republic of Zimbabwe,
His excellency Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa headlined “Extension of lockdown
period by 13 days only” (CID Harare Central C.R 164/04/2020).
 Sociologists see the creation of laws as a social process. Because laws are passed in
response to a perceived need for formal social control, sociologists have sought to
explain how and why such a perception arises.
 Within systems of norms, societies have legal codes that maintain formal social
control through laws, which are rules adopted and enforced by a political authority.
Those who violate these rules incur negative formal sanctions. Normally, punishments
are relative
to the degree of the crime and the importance to society of the value underlying the
law.
 The police
The role of the police force is to enforce the law and to investigate crimes.
 To enable them to do this, the police have rights that all very citizens do not; they can
arrest people, tell them to disperse (move on), and use reasonable force if they are not
obeyed.
 Marxist sociologists see society as deeply divided they view the police as one of the ways
in which the ruling class maintains its power and wealth.
 The police are servants of the ruling class.
 They enforce laws the ruling class has passed, and make sure that the working class
does not threaten the system.
 From this point of view, the creation of police forces was connected to the rise of
capitalism rather than of industrialism.
 The police have been used against working-class and protest movements.
The police however do not only serve capitalism but also protect the working class
against crime. This is why there is a rather ambivalent attitude to the police; many
people are rather suspicious of them, disliking the feeling of being watched over, yet
they turn to the police when they need them.
Although the main duties of the police are solving crime, they spend a lot of time on
other work. A police officer is as likely to be in the police station, writing reports and
carrying out administrative work as to be on patrol. Traffic and dealing with accidents
also take up a lot of time.
 The judiciary
This refers to the courts, which try those accused of crimes and convict and sentence those who
are found guilty.
 Most serious cases are dealt with by High court, with a judge and jury while minor
offences are dealt with by Magistrates Courts, which are presided over by a magistrate.
 The courts have a variety of sanctions (or sentences) available to them when someone
is found guilty of breaking the law –
Absolute discharge-- the person is guilty but no action is taken against him or her.
Conditional discharge -- no action is taken, but if the person commits another
offence he or she will be sentenced for both the new crime and the first one.
Fine-- the offender has to pay a sum of money. A fine is the punishment for about
three quarters of all those found guilty.
Probation order-- an offender who is on probation is supervised by a probation
officer for between six months and three years. This means the offender is being
checked up on regularly and also that he or she gets help to stop him or her offending
again.
Community service order-- the offender has to do work which is helpful to the
community without being paid. Sentences are for some hours of community service
Prison-- this is reserved for the most serious offences.
 The penal system
This refers to the people and organizations that deal with offenders. These include prisons and
probation service. Their role is to deal with people who have been found guilty of offences. The
penal system has several purposes:
 To punish individuals who have been found guilty and provide retribution for the
victims of crime.
 To rehabilitate offenders, to try to ensure that they will not commit further crimes. To
achieve this, prisons may offer training and education, teaching skills so that offenders
will have a chance to get a job and “go straight.”
 To deter -- the punishment acts as a warning to others of what they can expect if they
break the law. The media play a part in this by reporting what sentences offenders have
been given.
 To protect members of the public from potentially dangerous individuals.
Recently there has been much debate about whether or not the penal system is effective in
achieving these aims. The debate has particularly focused on the prison system and whether or
not prisons rehabilitate, deter, protect or even effectively punish offenders. The fact that a lot
of prisoners reoffend and sent back to prison may suggest that the prison system lacks
effectiveness. However, it is difficult to think of another form of punishment which would be
more or as effective given the fact that the death penalty is outlawed in many countries around
the world (the USA is an obvious exception).
 Formal social control in Zimbabwe has been heavily affected by lack of resources e.g. for
police and prisons, corruption in various institutions.
Measurement of Crime
 Crime statistics have come up with different and conflicting conclusions. This is mainly
because the ways through which crime statistics is obtained have their own different
disadvantages.
Strengths and weaknesses of official crime statistics

1. Police crime figures
 These are official statistics recorded and published by the police. These are useful as they:
 Are easy to access.
 Can be used to identify trends.
 Show the backgrounds of criminals.
 Official statistics on crime are important for describing the extent of crime and various
patterns in the perpetration and victimization by crime.
 In the past these have been taken to be accurate until sociologists began to question their
reliability because official police records only have crime known to police yet not all
crime is reported to police. Individuals do not report crime to police for several reasons
like: -
 Lake of faith in police investigation and solutions.
 They have been intimidated by the perpetrator.
 Shock, fear and embarrassment of the victim.
 Seeing the crime as trivial or fear police see the crime as trivial.
 Rape is particularly known to be vastly underreported. Victims may be reluctant to report
for a variety of reasons, including that the police will not take the rape seriously,
especially if the assailant was known to the victim. Also, the victim may not want to
undergo the continued stress of an investigation and trial. Proof of penetration, the identity
of the rapist and the fact that the act occurred without the woman's consent all have to be
forthcoming. A woman may
feel that she is the one on trial, particularly if her own sexual history is examined publicly,
as often happens in such cases.
 Police do not record all crime that is reported to them because: -
 Officers use their own discretion to consider crime worth recording. Research finds that
the police are less likely to “count” some rapes, such as those in which the victim is a
prostitute, was drunk at the time of the assault, or had a previous relationship with the
assailant.
 Officers may want to run away from crime that has a lot of paper work.
 Cases that do not have enough evidence may not be taken as crime.
 Official rules on defining what constitutes crime worth recording change from time to
time.
 The police define, classify, and record certain behaviors as falling into the category of
crime— or not. Labeling theorists think that official rates of crime (and deviance) do not
necessarily reflect the actual commission of crime; instead, the official rates reflect social
judgments. In an interesting example, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center in 2001, officials debated whether to count the deaths of thousands as
murder or as a separate category of terrorism. The decision would change the official
murder rate in New York City that year. In the end, these deaths were not counted in the
murder rate (Andersen 2017).
2. Victim survey and Self-report

 Victim surveys: - are anonymous surveys of individuals, asking for details of crimes
committed against them even if these were not reported to police within a set period. They
are more representative than police records as they include figures of reported and
unreported crimes. They also tend to use a large sample and have a high response rate.
 Sociologist Jock Young (1988) questioned the validity of victim survey by pointing
out that each respondent’s definition of what’s crime is different ... some people are
also more willing to reveal their experiences than others. Although Young accepts
victim surveys have a place in research he maintains that they do not give a full picture
of crime. They require that victims understand what has happened to them and are
willing to disclose such information to interviewers. Fraud, income tax evasion, and
blackmail are examples of crimes that are unlikely to be reported in victimization
studies.
 Self-report studies: - these are anonymous surveys asking individuals about crimes they
have committed. They representative of the population like victim surveys. Their major
drawback is that is that respondents may not believe that their crimes won’t be reported to
others including the police however they are important in searching who commits crime.
Distribution of Crime
 Some groups of people seem to commit crime more than others or at least get caught out
more than other people. Common trend seems to be that: -
 Young people are convicted of crime more than older people.
 Men are convicted of crime more than women.
 Urban areas have much more crime than rural areas.
 Most criminals are people with a lowers class background.
 People ethnic minority background has more chances of arrest and conviction.
(a) Gender and crime

 According to official statistics, men commit far more crime than women.
 Overall, nearly 5 times as many men as women found guilty or cautioned.
Why do women commit less crime?
 Socialization. Boys and girls are socialized differently. Girls are expected to be more
passive, while boys are encouraged to be more active and also to be tough and be able to
fight when necessary. These differences may make it more likely that boys will get into
trouble with the police later.
 Opportunity. Females often have less opportunity to commit crime than men. As children
and teenagers, girls are usually more closely supervised; parents will want to know where
they are, what they are doing and when they will be home. Boys are often given (or take)
more freedom. Later, women are usually responsible for looking after children. This also
restricts opportunities for crime. Women are much more likely to commit theft, usually
from shops, than violent crime.
 Patriarchy- Heidensohn (1996) suggests that it is because of the ways in which women
are doubly controlled—by ideologies of appropriate behaviour for women in society and
by their role in the family. Being controlled in both the public and the private spheres
ensures that they are likely to be more conformist than men. In fact, all over the world, the
greatest gender differences
in crime rates occur in societies that most severely limit the opportunities of women.
 Law enforcement agents-law enforcement officials are gender biased. They reluctant to
define women as criminals. Police and other officials regard female offenders as less
dangerous than men and ignore some activities for which males would be arrested.In
Zimbabwe, a woman cannot be convicted for rape but aggravated indecent assault (section
66 of the Criminal law (codification) and reform Act chapter 9:23). Behavior of a pregnant
woman is regarded as abnormal and unstable during and 6 months after delivery. So courts
are lenient in sentencing them. Also woman nursing a child serves half of the full sentence
as the other is regarded as being saved by the child she is nursing (it is not usually
considered relevant if a man on trial has children).
 Pollak also put forward the 'chivalry thesis’ where he argued that female offenders are
treated more leniently because male police officers tend to adopt a 'chivalrous' attitude
towards them. There is some evidence that female lawbreakers are quite often able to
escape coming before the courts because they are able to persuade the police or other
authorities to see their actions in a particular light.
 They invoke what has been called the 'gender contract'- the implicit assumption that to
be a woman is to be erratic and impulsive, on the one hand, and in need of protection
on the other (Worrall 1990). On this view, it is argued that the police and courts do act
chivalrously, and do not seek to punish women for behavior which would be
considered unacceptable in men.
 Biological determinism - men are more aggressive because of hormonal differences (in
particular, the presence of testosterone).Arguments based on biological determinism
assume that differences between women and men are “natural” and, presumably, resistant
to change. Women are also preoccupied with reproduction. (Refer to notes on gender).
 Statistics underestimate female crime
The statistics only record crimes reported to the police and recorded as crimes. It may be that
the types of crime women to commit are less likely to be reported; perhaps women are better at
concealing the evidence. Otto Pollak (1950) suggested as much, contending that certain
crimes perpetrated by women tend to go unreported. He saw women's predominantly domestic
role as providing them with the opportunity to commit crimes, such as poisoning, in the home.
Pollak regarded women as naturally deceitful and highly skilled at covering up their crimes.
This was grounded in biology, as women had learned to hide the pain and discomfort of
menstruation from men and were also able to fake interest in sexual intercourse in a way that
men could not.
Women committing more crimes than in the past

 The number of offences by women has been rising faster than the rise in crimes in general.
It seems that women are committing more offences that used to be the case.
 Explanations for this can be developed from the reasons given above for women's lower
rates of crime:
 Changing socialization -- the socialization of girls today includes the importance of
being assertive and resourceful, rather than always relying on a male. The media have
played a part in this, for example through role models and programs like Mai
Chisamba show, Oprah Winfry show. This has exposed women more to the world of
crime as they are now socialized to be more independent.
 Greater opportunity -- women now have similar opportunities than men, including
opportunities to commit crime. They go out to work more, and go out more at night.
Women are growing increasingly independent financially and professionally. Women
are now more likely to be employed in jobs that present opportunities for crimes, such
as property theft, embezzlement, and fraud.
(b) Age and crime
 Official crime rates rise sharply during adolescence, peak in the late teens, and then fall as
people get older.
Juvenile delinquency
 Delinquency refers to the undesirable antisocial behaviour of young people. It may include
some crime, but it also covers deviant behaviour that is not criminal, such as defying
authority, chewing tin from school and so on. It can cover staying out late, wearing,
outrageous dress or tattoos and body piercing. For girls, sexual activity under the age of 16
may be a cause for concern.
Are the statistics accurate?

 Self-report studies and other research tend to confirm that young people commit a lots of
offences, though usually fairly minor ones. However, there some reasons for doubting that
this is the whole picture:
 Teenagers attract close social control, watched over by parents and at school by teachers.
The police also see them as potential troublemakers. So it may be that offences they
commit are highly likely to be noticed.
 On the other hand, crime by older people may be under recorded; they are more likely to
be in occupations where white-collar crime, which we know to be under recorded, is
possible. White-collar crime, illegal acts committed in the course of business activities,
often by affluent, “respectable” people.
Explanations of delinquency
 Some of the factors linked to delinquency are:
 family problems such as the breakdown of the parents’ marriage
 failure at school
 Use of alcohol and drugs.
 Availability of time because young people are least likely to be tied down with a job
and a family. Matza has called youth a period of drift, when young people do not feel
totally committed to society.
Peer groups and subcultures

 Peer groups may encourage delinquent behavior. Sometimes the peer groups they have
clear norms and values that indicate the existence of a subculture.
What can be done about delinquency?

 Curfews -- young children not to be out without an adult after a set time.
 Parental responsibility -- encouraging parents to intervene more to try to prevent
delinquency. Part of this may be to make parents pay compensation to victims of their
children's crimes.
 Providing activities to keep young people occupied such as afterschool clubs.
 Reducing exclusions from school -- on the grounds that being allowed to stay on and
allow someone to move away from trouble by being able to study and perhaps get
qualifications.
(c) Ethnic group, race and crime

 Both race and ethnicity are strongly linked to crime rates. Law enforcement is
concentrated in
lower-income and minority areas. People who are better off are further removed from
police scrutiny and better able to hide their crimes.
(d) Social class and crime
 It seems that there is a strong link between a person's position in the social class hierarchy
and their likelihood of committing a crime. In simple terms, the lower their class position,
the higher their criminality. Indeed, working-class young people have the crime rate that is
about eight times higher than that of upper or middle class youth.
 When you look at the prison population, it is a similar story, with working-class people
being hugely overrepresented. Crime rates in inner city areas and council estates are also
typically higher than in moral areas or the suburbs. These areas, of course, are largely
working class.
 However, many sociologists believe that the crime rates in relation to class say more about
the structure of society rather than the reality of the situation
 When and if white-collar criminals are prosecuted and convicted, they tend to receive
somewhat lighter sentences. Middle and upper-income people may be perceived as being
less in need of imprisonment because they likely have a job and high-status people to
testify for their good character. White-collar crime is simply perceived as less threatening
than crimes by the poor.
(e) Geographical location and crime (Durkheim’s ideas of mechanical and organic
solidarity, Simmel’s blasé attitude ,Tonnies’ Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft)
 Crime rates are higher in urban areas than in rural areas. This so because:
 In urban areas there are greater opportunities for criminal activity with presence of
shops, warehouses etc
 In urban areas there is far less informal social control. People do not know each other
and are therefore less likely to be inhibited in stealing from another locally.
 Houses in urban areas are more nucleated necessitating hiding of criminal activities.
 High technological use in urban areas.
 Socialization through media in urban areas.
 High active population in urban areas
 However these statistics can be criticized on the grounds that policing in rural areas is
different from those in urban areas. In rural areas policeman are less likely to arrest
offender, preferring merely to warn them. Some know offenders in person thereby
affecting crime statistics.
TOPIC 21: MASS MEDIA
 The mass media are the means for delivering impersonal communications to a vast
audience. The term media (plural of medium) comes from the Latin word for “middle,”
suggesting that media connect people. Mass media arise as communications technology
(first newspapers
and then radio, television, films, and the Internet) spreads information on a massive scale
(Macionis 2012). Giddens (2009) notes that these are referred to as 'mass' media, because
they communicate to a mass audience comprised of very large numbers of people.
 According to Andersen (2017) the term mass media refers to the channels of
communication that are available to wide segments of the population— the print, film, and
electronic media. Communication refer to the transfer of information from one individual
or group to another
 The mass media have extraordinary power to shape culture, including what people believe
and the information available to them. If you doubt this, observe how much the mass
media affect your everyday life. A YouTube video “goes viral” e.g. that of the murder of
George Floyd (25 May 2020) by a white policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota US which
led to mass protests, arrest and charge of the police officer and his accomplices. Also,
friends may talk about last night’s episode of a particular show e.g. Estate blues or
“Wadiwa wepa moyo” on ZBC TV. Some may have even met their partners or spouses via
electronic media. Your way of dressing, talking, and even thinking has likely been shaped
by the media, despite the fact that most people deny this, claiming “they are just
individuals.” For many families, TV and video are the “babysitters.”
 One of the truly powerful communicators of culture is television.
 The widespread availability of Internet-based blogs, chat groups, and social networks is,
however, radically changing how people communicate, including about current events.
Young people, especially, spend more time using computers for games and other leisure
activities than they use for reading (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012a). Facebook,
Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp and other electronic networks have become such a common
form of interaction that they are now referred to as social media—the term used to refer to
the vast networks of social interaction that new media have inspired.
 Such usage increases the possibility of democratic participation by allowing the open
discussion and transmittal of information (Ferdinand 2000). At the same time, however,
these forms of communication can mean increased surveillance, both by governments and
by hackers. As with other forms of culture, how these networks are used and controlled is
a social process.
 Canadian media theorist, Marshall McLuhan (1964), argued that different types of media
have very different effects on society. His famous dictum is that, 'the medium is the
message'. That is to say, society is influenced much more by the type of the media than by
its content, or the messages, which are conveyed by it. A society in which satellite
television plays an important part, for example, is obviously a very different society from
one that relies on the printed word carried aboard an ocean liner.
Ownership and control of the Mass Media
 Ownership and control of mass media is used to create a picture of the social world
beneficial to the ruling class.
 Owners have ultimate control over a company and have power over which type of
audience will be reached. Like managers control a business, media ownership and control
is ideological because the ruling class is trying to control how people see the social world.
 The ruling class is able to control directly and indirectly how people think about the things
happening in society by their ability to control and limit the information people receive.
 Government/ State Media Ownership
 Government or state media are part of a government, which function as its mouthpiece. It
is a media that works for mass communication , which is ultimately controlled and funded
by the state, e.g. ZBC( Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation)
 In Zimbabwe certain media do not advertise or publish information pertaining to certain
political parties, companies because it’s their editorial policies.
 The state may impose censorship on the mass media. Governments have also taken over
the control or certain media in order to protect local media and industry. Where the state
controls the media, the editorial policy focuses on satisfying the needs of the Government.
The Government can introduce limiting legislation limiting the ownership of different
forms of media
Advantages
 It is not guided by an individual interest. It is media for the people.
 It can act as a voice for the voiceless. It accommodates voices of general public
 Contents are considerably more credible, reliable and accurate compared to that of
independent media
 State media have far much greater reaches than independent media. They are preferred
for national campaigns which require maximum public attention.
Disadvantages
 It serves a particular interest group not general people. Usually current regimes use it
as a propaganda tool e.g. ZBC has been labelled a propaganda tool for ruling party
ZANU PF
 It can be manipulated by the ruling party hence reducing its credibility and efficiency
 It is not independent of the government as the government may censor the content
which it deems illegal, immoral or unfavorable to e.g. Channel 2 was removed for
being accused of broadcasting lesbianism and gay behaviour contrary to our
constitution
 Private ownership
 These are commercial media house that is privately owned for profits (e.g. the gazette) and
community media houses that are owned and controlled by communities (e.g. radio
dialogue).
Advantages
 Owners are in control of their company
 Provides more opportunity for advertising
 More diverse shows which might not be offered by state media
Disadvantages
 It can be biased and it is not obliged to provide impartial or unbiased information e.g.
The Daily News and News Day have been accused of being biased towards the
opposition MDC
 The owner can force his opinion to be reported by the workers
 Marxists say Media ownership controls media content
 Media owners control what we see in the media:-

 They exploit their power position to manipulate the content of the media.
 Capitalist media owners tell news editors stories to cover and views to put across.
 The media ends up putting across the views that serve the interest of capitalism.
 The media reflects the ideas of the ruling class (including the media owners).
 Media reinforces and broadcast the world view of the elite.
 The views of the ruling class are presented as the natural, common-sense views
society should hold.
 It means one set of ideas dominates over other ideas, a phenomenon known as
cultural Hegemony/supremacy.
 Pluralism say media reflects the values and beliefs of society

 Society gets the media it wants; media outlets respond to market demand if not they go out
of business.
 In this case the market matters no matter who owns the media.
 Pluralists do acknowledge the media will express some opinion more than others but they
see it as a reflection of the most common views in society rather than bias from
journalists, editors and owners.
 The Media act as “Watchdog”- This watchdog role is intended to keep governments from
taking too much power from the people and overstepping their bounds. Central to this role
is the notion that the press works independent of the government. The “freedom of the
press” allows the media to act as the eyes and ears of the people.
 The media also engages in investigative reporting, which can uncover dangers or
corruption that the media can then expose so that the public can demand change.
Media Content
 Media regulation policies in many countries have directly influenced the content of the
media.
 In politics, properties of media corporations bring in their political views, which are a
cause of concern to political parties holding different political positions.
 Through editorial policies they dictate the form of content, which should appear in their
media.
 The content of the press may be in the ownership of most newspapers. The contents may
be biased and distorted deliberately. This may also influence voting behaviour during
elections of given Governments.
 The media content maybe biased towards the needs of pressure groups such as women
action groups. The media may help the pressure groups to highlight issues concerning
gender and age.
 Different perspectives and ideology can influence the content of different media. The
capitalists would ensure that the media content propagates their values and ideology.
Pluralism: - media content reflects diversity in society.
 Society is made up of different and interacting parts and the state oversees and keeps
them in check.
 Believe that the content of media reflects the values of society
 Any media that reflects the values in society will be popular and stay in business and
any that does not will go.
 Media regulates itself.
Postmodernism: - media content reflects a consumerist identity.
 Peoples’ identity comes from what they buy and what kind of culture and media they
choose to consume.
 Media show people what they can buy and what kind of life style they can choose
from.
 There is no dominant set of ideas; society presents many choice and alternative
opinions.
 In the media a piece of information or an image can be distorted intentionally in order
to make it appear correct to viewers; it’s made less true or appear truer.
 News is influenced by practical constrains like time, space, and money.

 News is influenced by the values and practices of Journalists
 News is influenced by society; it’s socially constructed.
Perspectives on Mass Media
(a) Functionalism
 In the mid-twentieth century, functionalist theorists such as Charles Wright (1960)

focused on the ways in which the media helps to integrate and bind societies together.
 For mass media, this means examining how audiences interact with media and how they
use media
 Different media provide different primary uses.
 Macro analysis: how media functions for the society as a whole
 Microanalysis: how media functions for the individual
Functions of Mass Media
 Surveillance/Information function- The media provides us with a continuous flow of
information about our society and the world, from webcams and radio reports alerting us
to traffic jams, to rolling weather reports (e.g Cyclone Idai warning), the stock market and
news stories about issues that might affect us personally.
 Interpretation function- Media outlets interpret messages in more or less explicit and
ethical ways. Newspaper editorials have long been explicit interpretations of current
events, and now cable television and radio personalities offer social, cultural, and political
commentary that are full of subjective interpretations. Although some of them operate in
ethical grey areas because they use formats that make them seem like traditional news
programs, most are open about their motives.
 Socialization and Instructive function- Some media outlets exist to cultivate knowledge
by teaching instead of just relaying information. TV has great potential in socialization
e.g. The History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and the Discovery Channel,
serve more instructive functions. Mass media play a significant role in providing a
collective experience for members of society. Think about how the mass media bring
together members of a community or even a nation by broadcasting important events and
ceremonies (such as inaugurations, press conferences, parades, state funerals, and the
Olympics) and by covering disasters.
 The mass media is a powerful socializing agent. For sociologists significance of the
media is not limited to the content of media messages. Media affect how we learn about
our world and interact with one another. Media literally mediate our relationship with
social institutions. We base most of our knowledge on government news accounts, not
experience. We are dependent on the media for what we know and how we relate to the
world of politics because of the media-politics connection. We read or watch political
debates followed by instant analysis and commentary by "experts." Politicians rely on
media to communicate their message
 Offers social control- media stresses the basic values of society in their contents,
emphasizing the difference between the normal and the deviant. This emphasis is achieved
in two ways:
 By selection of material. A typical news story consists of a ‘shocking’ event, such as a
violent crime which highlights what society disapproves of-normal everyday behaviour
is not regarded as news
 By presentation, reporting deviant events in a way that shows they are not approved of-
newspapers generally present their news on criminals, drug takers, etc. in such a way as
to show their disapproval.
 Linkage or Bonding function-Media outlets can bring people closer together, which
serves the bonding function. For example, people who share common values and interests
can gather on online forums (e.g. social media), and masses of people can be brought
together while watching coverage of a tragic event like September 11 (2001) disaster in
America.
 Diversion function- We all use the media to escape our day-to-day lives, to distract us
from our upcoming exam, or to help us relax. When we are being distracted, amused, or
relaxed, the media is performing the diversion function.
 Entertainment-The media provides amusement, a diversion from the rigors of work and
acts to reduce social tensions. This is essentially the function of a release valve for society,
allowing people to set aside their problems and conflicts, at least temporarily.
 Mobilization-The media can be used to encourage people to contribute to economic
development, to support and uphold moral rules and to mobilize the population in times of
war. This can be through very direct public campaigns, but also in much more subtle
ways, such as the moral tales within soap operas or films, for example.
Dysfunction of media
 In addition to the functions just noted, the media perform a dysfunction. Sociologists
 The Narcotizing Effect- Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton (1948) created the term
narcotizing dysfunction to refer to the phenomenon in which the media provide such
massive amounts of coverage that the audience becomes numb and fails to act on the
information, regardless of how compelling the issue. Interested citizens may take in the
information but make no decision or take no action. Consider how often the media initiate
a great outpouring of philanthropic support in response to natural disasters or family
crises. Research shows that as time passes, viewer fatigue sets in. The mass media
audience becomes numb, desensitized to the suffering, and may even conclude that a
solution to the crisis has been found (S. Moeller 1999)
(b) Conflict Perspective

 Conflict theorists argue that the mass media maintain the privileges of certain groups.
 Moreover, powerful groups may limit the media’s representation of others to protect their
own interests.
 Ideology and bias in the media
 Karl Marx, saw ideology as important in the reproduction of relations of class domination.
Powerful groups are able to control the dominant ideas circulating in a society so as to
justify their own position. Thus, according to Marx, as religion is often ideological in
teaching the poor to be content with their lot, ideology prevent the powerless to gain a true
perspective on their lives
 John Thompson argues that the critical notion is to be preferred, because it links ideology
with power. Ideology is about the exercise of symbolic power - how ideas are used to
hide, justify or legitimate the interests of dominant groups in the social order For instance,
the ideological aspects of TV news reporting and how it systematically generates bias. For
example, when reporting on industrial disputes, news reports tend to favour government
and management at the expense of striking workers. The effects of strikes, causing
disruption for the public, are much more likely to be reported on than their underlying or
immediate causes.
 In general, Thompson argues that mass media - including not only the news but also all
varieties of Programme content and genre - greatly expand the scope of ideology in
modern societies. They reach mass audiences and are, in his terms, based on 'quasi-
interaction' - that is, audiences cannot answer back in a direct way.
 Those who construct the news act as 'gatekeepers' for what gets on the agenda - in other
words, what the public hears about at all. Strikes in which there were active confrontations
between workers and management, for instance, might get widely reported, while more
consequential and long lasting industrial disputes might be largely ignored.
 This term (gatekeeping) describes how material must travel through a series of gates (or
checkpoints) before reaching the public. Thus, a select few decide what images to bring
to a broad audience. In many countries the government plays a gatekeeping role.
 The Marxist, Hall agrees that news is supportive of capitalist interests because those in
powerful positions have better access to media institutions than the less powerful. Hall
argues that this is a result of the news values employed by most journalists. In particular,
most journalists rank the views of politicians, police officers, civil servants and business
leaders (Hall calls these groups primary definers) as more important (or credible) than
those of pressure groups, trade unionists or ordinary people. Hall calls this the hierarchy
of credibility.
 Hoggart wrote that TV news goes through four filters:
 Time and resources
 Visual value
 News value
 Prevailing culture
 The first two are practical or technical, the second two are cultural or ideological.
 The Digital Divide
 Worldwide, low-income groups, racial and ethnic minorities, rural residents, and the
citizens of developing countries have far less access than others to the latest
technologies—a gap that is called the digital divide. People in low-income households
and developing countries, for example, are less likely than others to have Internet access.
When marginalized people do gain Internet access, they are still likely to trail the
privileged.
 According to Schaefer (2012) the digital divide is most evident in developing countries.
In Africa, 4 percent of the population has Internet access. These fortunate few typically
pay the highest rates in the world—$250 to $300 a month—for the slowest connection
speeds.
(c) Symbolic interactionism
 Interactionists are especially interested in shared understandings of everyday behavior.

These scholars examine the media on the micro level to see how they shape day-to-day
social behavior. Increasingly, researchers point to the mass media as the source of major
daily activity; some argue that television serves essentially as a primary group for many
individuals who share TV viewing.
 Types of interaction in media
 Face-to –face interaction- such as people talking at a party, is rich in the cues used by
individuals to make sense of what others say.
 Mediated interaction- involves the use of a media technology - paper, electrical
connections, and electronic impulses. Characteristic of mediated interaction is that it is
stretched out in time and space - it goes well beyond the contexts of ordinary face-to-face
interaction. Mediated interaction takes place between individuals in a direct way - for
instance, two people talking on the telephone - but there is not an opportunity for the same
variety of non-verbal cues.
 Mediated quasi-interaction. This refers to the sort of social relations created by the mass
media. Such interaction is stretched across time and space, but does not link individuals
directly: hence the term 'quasi-interaction'. The two previous types are 'dialogical':
individuals communicate in a direct way. Mediated quasi-interaction is 'monological': a
TV programme, for example, is a one-way form of communication. People watching the
programme may discuss it, and perhaps address some remarks to the TV set - but, of
course, it does not answer back.
 Impact on social behaviour

 Online social networks, in fact, have become a new way of promoting consumption.
Advertisers have traditionally marketed products and services through spot ads, mass
mailings, or billboards, whether they are promoting flat-screen televisions or public
service messages like “Don’t drink and drive.” Recently in 2020 , various media platforms
have been used to alert people on the spread of COVID 19 e.g. “ stay home and travel
tomorrow” mantra via ZBC.
 Media plays an important role in creating and propagating shared symbols.
 Media can construct symbols on its own.
 By using symbolic interactionist theory, researchers can look at the ways media affects a
society’s shared symbols and, in turn, the influence of those symbols on the individual
(Jansson-Boyd, 2010).
 Source of friendship networks
 Interactionists note, too, that friendship networks can emerge from shared viewing habits
or from recollection of a cherished television series from the past. The rise of the Internet
has also facilitated new forms of communication and social interaction.
(d) Feminist Perspective
 Feminists share the view of conflict theorists that the mass media stereotype and
misrepresent social reality.
 According to this view, the media powerfully influence how we look at men and women,
communicating unrealistic, stereotypical, and limiting images of the sexes.
 Women as sex objects-Women are often shown as being shallow and obsessed with
beauty. They are more likely than men to be presented unclothed, in danger, or even
physically victimized. Pornography presents women as sex objects and seems to make
viewing
women that way acceptable. In music videos, women wear sexy and skimpy clothing and
are more often the object of another’s gaze than is true for their male counterparts; music
videos are especially represented in sexualized ways (Coy 2014; Collins 2004). Many
health professionals and researchers see the persistent media portrayal of ideal female
bodies as a contributory factor in the problem of eating disorders, particularly amongst
young women.
 Unequal news coverage-When women achieve newsworthy feats in fields traditionally
dominated by men, such as professional sports, the media are often slow to recognize
their
accomplishments. Even when they are covered by the press, female athletes are not
treated equally by television commentators. When they are not successful, they are more
likely than men to be described as lacking in athletic ability.
 Media reinforce and maintain gender divisions- Angela McRobbie discovered that main
stories in the girl’s magazine Jackie described a girl as someone to be looked at and
appreciated, rather than someone who went out and about doing things. The main theme
of the magazines was romance and love. McRobbie argues that the magazines encourage
girls to be passive and to regard only romance as truly important in their lives. The
stereotype of what are female characteristics is constantly reinforced by the media. In
terms of social control women who challenge the stereotype are regarded as being odd in
some way or deviant. Research studies have repeatedly demonstrated that representations
of girls and
women in the mass media overwhelmingly use traditional stereotypes of gender roles.
Women are conventionally seen in domestic roles as housewives and homemakers,
objects of male sexual desire or in working situations that extend the domestic role -
such as nurses, carers or office workers. Generally, such representations have been
fairly consistent across news reports, drama and entertainment programming, leading
Gaye Tuchman (1978) to refer to the symbolic annihilation of women on television.
Tuchman (idid) analyzed the representation of women in the media, women were in jobs
which were extensions of their domestic roles.
 Ownership and control of media- it reproduces patriarchal ideology. Men still fill many
journalist roles.
Media effects on human behavior and society
 Marxist view of transmission of ideology assumes attitudes and behaviour are influenced.
Alternative views say that there's influence but the result is dependent on the
characteristics of the audience. It is argued that media content exerts an
overwhelmingly negative effect on impressionable young audiences.
PASSIVE AUDIENCE APPROACHES- Sociologists have argued that media content can
have a direct effect upon their audiences and trigger particular social responses in terms of
behaviour and attitudes.
1. Promotion of violent behavior:The hypodermic syringe model (‘magic bullet’ theory)

 This compares the media message to a drug injected by syringe. The model is based on
the assumption that the audience (patient) passively and directly accepts the message
and does
not critically engage with it in any way.
 Under this view, the media is seen as 'drugging' the audience, destroying its ability to
think critically about the wider world (Marcuse 1964).
 Imitation or copycat violence-Bandura et al. (1963) showed a film of children being
violent to dolls to another group of children, who were then given dolls themselves.
They found that the children tended to imitate the violence on the screen. They
concluded on the basis of this experiment that violent media content could lead to
imitation or copycat violence.
 Disinhibiting effect -McCabe and Martin (2005) concluded that media violence has
a disinhibiting effect – it convinces children that in some social situations, the ‘normal’
rules that govern conflict and difference can be suspended, i.e. discussion and
negotiation can be replaced with violence with no repercussions.
 Desensitisation effect-Newson argued that sadistic images in films were too easily
available and that films encouraged viewers to identify with violent perpetrators rather
than victims. Furthermore, Newson noted that children and teenagers are subjected to
thousands of killings and acts of violence as they grow up through viewing television
and films. Newson suggested that such prolonged exposure to media violence may have
a drip-drip effect on young people over the course of their childhood and result in their
becoming desensitized to violence. Newson argues that they see violence as a normal
problem-solving device and concluded that, because of this, the latest generation of
young people subscribe to weaker moral codes and are more likely to behave in anti-
social ways than previous generations.
Criticism of the hypodermic model
 A number of critiques have developed of the imitation-desensitization model of media

effects, e.g. some media sociologists claim that media violence can actually prevent real-
life violence.
 Audiences are very diverse and react in different ways. Young (1981), argues that
seeing the effects of violence and especially the pain and suffering that it causes to the
victim and their families, may make us more aware of its consequences and so less
inclined to commit violent acts. Sensitization to certain crimes therefore may make
people more aware and responsible so that they avoid getting involved in violence.
 Long term and short term effects may differ.
 Sociologists are generally very critical of the hypodermic syringe model because it
fails to recognize that audiences have very different social characteristics in terms of
age, maturity, social class, education, family background, parental controls, etc.
 Ignores other media effects; watching violent films may act an outlet of aggression
rather than a cause of it. Fesbach and Sanger (1971) found that screen violence can
actually provide a safe outlet for people’s aggressive tendencies. This is known
as catharsis. They suggest that watching an exciting film releases aggressive energy
into safe outlets as the viewers immerse themselves in the action.
2. Manipulation of audience: The propaganda model / the mass manipulative model

 Herman and Chomsky (1988) argue that the media participate in propaganda campaigns
helpful to elite interests. They suggest that media performance is largely shaped by market
forces and that built into the capitalist system is a range of filters that work ceaselessly to
shape media output, e.g. advertisers want their advertising to appear in a supportive selling
environment whilst government can pressure the media with threats of withdrawal of TV
licences and therefore control the flow of information
 Cohen and Young used the term the mass manipulative model. Marxists say the media
transmit the dominant ideology to keep the working class falsely conscious. Further,
people are persuaded to consume, and fantasy distracts people from the miseries of
capitalism. Marxists say the media is directly controlled by the ruling class, while
structuralists say journalists and editors are themselves influenced by ruling class ideology
and willingly go along with the interests of capitalists.
 According to this model, audiences are viewed as passive and uncritical receivers.
 Norris (1996), claims that media coverage of political issues can influence voting
behaviour. Although sociologists are generally of the opinion that in the short term the
mass media do little to change people’s voting intentions, however, exposure over a long
period of time to a political message can change people’s opinions towards it.
Evaluation
 Interactionist say that viewers are not passive sponges, and that they make choices and if
they want something, then it would be provided as it is profitable.
 Schlesinger (1990) is critical of theories that focus on the power of elites or owners
because the media do not always act in the interests of the powerful. Contemporary
politicians are very careful about what they say to the media because they are very aware
that the media can shape public perceptions of their policies and practices and perhaps
influence voting behaviour, as well as putting them under considerable pressure to resign.
ACTIVE AUDIENCE APPROACHES- see the media as far less influential. They believe
that people have considerable choice in the way they use and interpret the media.
1. People modify or reject media messages :The two-step flow model

 Katz and Lazarsfeld (1965) suggest that personal relationships and conversations with
significant others, such as family members, friends, teachers and work colleagues, result
in people modifying or rejecting media messages.
 Step 1 media message reaches the audience
 Step 2 media message is interpreted by the audience’s opinion leaders and it influences
them.
 Opinion leaders are key members in society whose reactions directly influences others and
these play an important role by interpreting the media message for others then shape what
influence the message might have.
Criticism of the two step flow model

 There may be no dominant opinion leaders or consensus on the meaning of media
messages.
 Ignore that meaning of media messages may be imposed by the powerful.
2. Consumers use the media to satisfy specific needs:The uses and gratification model
 Audiences use the media to meet their own needs (Lull 1990). For example, you may
enjoy watching a show like “Estate Blues” on ZBC while simultaneously tweeting about it
on Twitter with your friends.
 Wood (1993) illustrated how teenagers may use horror films to gratify their need for
excitement.
 Blumler and McQuail (1968) identify four basic needs which people use the media to
satisfy.
 Diversion- people may immerse themselves in particular types of media to make up for
the lack of satisfaction at work or in their daily lives, e.g. playing FIFA games on
computer may compensate for the lack satisfaction after a defeat of one’s team in a live
match.
 Personal relationships – media products such as internet may compensate for the
decline of community in our lives. One may treat a WhatsApp group as an alternative
family.
 Personal identity - people may use the media to ‘make over’ or to modify their identity.
 Surveillance – people use the media to obtain information and news in order to help
them make up their minds on particular issues.
Evaluation
 Marxists are critical of this model because they suggest that social needs may be socially
manufactured by the media and may therefore be ‘false needs’.
3. Media message pass through filters: The selective filter model
 In his selective filter model, Klapper (1960) suggests that, for a media message to have
any effect, it must pass through three filters.
 Selective exposure – the audience must choose to view, read or listen to the content of
specific media. Media messages can have no effect if no one sees or hears them.
However, what the audience chooses depends upon their interests, education, work
commitments and so on.
 Selective perception – the audience may not accept the message; some people may take
notice of some media content, but decide to reject or ignore others.
 Selective retention – the messages have to ‘stick’ in the mind of those who have
accessed the media content.
Evaluation
 However, research indicates that most people have a tendency to remember only the
things they broadly agree with.
4. Audience's class and cultural background affects media interpretation: The

reception theory
 Stuart Hall's account of reception theory (1980) focuses on the way in which an audience's
class and cultural background affects the way in which it makes sense of different media
'texts' – a term that is used to encompass various forms of media from books and
newspapers
to films and CDs.
 Some members of an audience may simply accept the preferred reading 'encoded' in a text
- such as a news bulletin - by its producer. This preferred reading, Hall argues, is likely to
reflect the dominant or mainstream ideology.
 However, Hall argues that the understanding of a text also depends on the cultural and
class background of the person interpreting it. Other members of an audience may take an
'oppositional' reading of a text, because their social position places them in conflict with
the preferred reading. For example, a worker involved in strike action or a member of an
ethnic minority is likely to take an oppositional reading of a text such as a news story on
industrial or race relations, rather than accept the dominant reading encoded in the text by
its producer.
FURTHER READING ON THE EFFECTS OF MASS MEDIA
 Media and crime

 Media over report crime- media institutions try to earn profits from attracting as many
viewers, listeners or readers as possible. This results in some crime which are of greater
“human interest’ being over reported compared to others.
 Media creates stereotypes and moral panic- the media creates a stereotype of the ‘typical’
sort of crime and creates public fear about it- which lead to moral panic. People get
worried about certain crimes, law and order tend to focus more on that stereotyped
deviance ignoring other forms of crime.
 Media creates a label- due to some criminals being reported whilst wearing certain types
of dressing, the police and public can see that style of dress signifying ‘trouble’. so
anybody dressed like that is a possible troublemaker e.g. during the post-election violence
which occurred in Harare on 1 August 2018 , soldiers and police were reported to have
targeted those in red, the regalia color of opposition MDC. It was alleged that anyone in
red was labelled a troublemaker.
 The amplification of deviance- the result of the above media activities result in actual
deviance than in a situation where it wasn’t present.

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B.

11. RACE AND ETHNICITY ________________________________________________3

13. POVERTY ___________________________________________________________20

14. ENTERPRISE AND WORK_____________________________________________26

16. POPULATION AND HEALTH___________________________________________52

17. GLOBALISATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE________________________________73

19. GOVERNANCE AND CITIZENSHIP______________________________________93

20. DEVIANCE, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL_____________________________105

21. MASS MEDIA________________________________________________________129

First edition published 2020

Social Construction of Race

Characteristics of majority groups

(a) Ethnocentrism (refer to notes on culture for positives and negatives)

(f) Symbolic Interactionism

Impact on the Transport sector

Euro-centric analysis on economic sanctions

(a) Blaming the Victim (poor)

 Downward social mobility (refer to notes on social stratification)

Positive impact (functionalist ideas)

Socialization and enterprise

Affirmative action at workplace

(d) Small and Medium Enterprise Development Corporation (SMEDCO)-

(e) Zimbabwe Development Bank (ZDB): Infrastructure Development Bank of

 How to handle small projects

 How to tackle large projects

How to Write Business Proposals

1. The Basics of a Business Proposal

3. The 3 ‘P’s of a Winning Business Proposal

4. Things to Remember When Writing a Business Proposal

Measures to manage conflict

Mechanization and automation in production

Disadvantages of mechanization and automation in production

Resort and recreational areas in Zimbabwe

1. Recreational parks to visit in Zimbabwe (https://matobohillslodge.co.zw/travel-

Factors affecting tourism in Zimbabwe (https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/what-is-

Measures taken to boost tourism in Zimbabwe

Factors affecting leisure activities

Factors affecting the number of births (birth and fertility rate)

b) Mortality (death) rate

Factors affecting the number of deaths

Pull factors in rural areas

Push factors (reasons for emigration)

Challenges to healthcare delivery in Zimbabwe

(a) Functionalist Theory

 The Physician’s Role

 Globalization can be analyzed culturally, economically, politically, and institutionally. For

(a) The hyperglobalists perspective

1. “Borderless” economies-One of the best-known hyperglobalizers, the Japanese writer

(b) The sceptics perspective

Associated theories of globalization

Core. The most developed, Industrialized and affluent

Semi-periphery. Intermediate in terms of

Periphery. The most powerless, with narrow

 Increased numbers in search of new markets and economic opportunities- As the

Theories of Social Change

(a) Evolutionary Theory

(c) Conflict Perspective

 While functionalists see change as a means of maintaining society’s equilibrium (or

(d) Symbolic Interaction Theory