Iranian Journal of Sociology
Year:2011 | Volume:11 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

The present paper, takes country as a unit of analysis, and relies on the Boolean algebra to answer the following question: what combinations of indicators of relative deprivation lead to generate political violence? The relative deprivation theoretical approach, on the basis of certain arguments, predicts that political violence is more likely to occur in countries that suffer from both diachronic and synchronic deprivations. This paper is an attempt to empirically test the above hypothesis based on the theories of relative deprivation with regard to the Middle Eastern Muslim countries in a period of twenty years. The paper employs the Boolean analysis technique. The results of Boolean analysis show that during the period under study, two different causal patterns of deprivation have led to political violence in the Middle Eastern Muslim countries. The first is the combination of strong ethnic-group discrimination and low economic inequality; and the second is the combination of strong ethnic-group discrimination and rapid development. On the other hand, theoretical achievements based on the Boolean minimization show that among the countries under study, the occurrence of political violence is not related to economic inequality. Group discrimination is also a necessary cause for political violence, that is, all the countries experiencing political violence have had group discrimination.

In Iran most rural studies have tended to focus on the, village' as an economic or material entity. Viewed as such, these studies neglect the question of the political, as an independent and determining variable in the analysis of issues relating to social relations and cultural and economic development. The present paper attempts to demonstrate that the question of the political has a significant role to play in distinguishing between foes and friends, as it has in determining the nature of the social affairs. Thus, the paper seeks to study the effects and consequences of the political on villagers' social relations and interactions. The phenomenological method of analysis which is used here is based on data generated by the interview and lived experience. The results show that the political elements of rural life such as friendship relation, neighborhood ties, discussions, give-and-take, trust, and participation, are based on perception of groups classed either as foe or friend.

There exists in the literature of political sociology a paradoxical relationship between corruption and political stability. Some researchers believe that corruption tends to create political instability; others claim that corrupt governors buy their opponents in a manner conforming to the rule of political corruption. This article adopts the conservative approach; one that claims corruption tends to create political instability. Moreover, the authors here add the effect of income inequality to such a relationship and claim that income inequality can regulate this relation to the effect that it as a mediator can accentuate the impact of control of political corruption on political stability. The authors' claim is tested by the data gathered by some international institutions for 208 countries in the period of 1996-2009. Results support the authors claim about the effect of control of political corruption on political stability. Yet as to the regulatory effect of income inequality on this relationship, results show a week influence in total. Such results are indicative that only in Asian countries this effect is significant.

This paper studies the effects of the social capital and its components on life satisfaction among the youth. Upon reviewing ideas the prominent classical theorists have put forward on the concept of social capital, we begin to deal with the theoretical as well as the empirical relationships as proposed to exist between social capital and life satisfaction. The approach used here is a combined or incorporative one. This is a survey-method research and the data has been collected through interviewing 410 young individuals between 15-29 years of age residing in urban section of the Paveh Township. Descriptive results of the study have shown that the degree of the youth's life satisfaction is medium but the degree of their social capital is estimated as high. Analytical results have also shown that among the different variables of social capital, the variable of knowledge and attention to social, political and public affairs have the most explanatory effect on life satisfaction situation.

The behavior of a university citizen includes actions such as altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, sportsmanship and the like. Such behavioral inventory is not officially defined in the employees' code of conduct, yet it is expected of employees to observe the standard behavior, which is seen important in the maintaining the dynamics of university. Survey is employed as the method of this study. The population includes the entire administrative and educational employees of Isfahan University that is 445 people out of which 118 people were chosen as the sample, based on Cochran formula. In this study the stratified random sampling technique was used. The statistical method was Structural Equation Modeling and Path Analysis. In order to calculate the coefficients we used the LISREL Method. The analysis of all statistics and the data has been done by Spss 17.The results show that: The OCB was lower than average and the variables could explain 31% of changes in cooperative interactions variable, 51% changes in the useful suggestion veriable, 73% changes in self training variable and 64% changes in favorable climate variable as the different dimensions in OCB.

Sociologists considered studying sports since 1960's. The area that has come to be called the sociology of sports encompasses issues such as violence in sports, economics and sports, politics and sports and the like. This article deals with socialization of sports, hence we concentrate on factors that facilitate the entry of the individual into the field and helps continuation of sports activities. The problem of the study is stated as: with respect to the role of socializing factors in stimulating persons towards sports, as being emphasized by sociologists of sports, and with regard to significant role played by the family in the process of socialization of the individual, sports activity can be considered as a behavioral pattern that takes shape under influence of the general process of socialization. Then our question is: What are the influences on sports activity as exerted by the socializing factors, especially those of the family?This study employs the survey method, and sampling is selected by the Cochran formula. The volume of the sample, 400 sportsmen, is determined by multi phase sampling technique, These sportsmen originate from sports clubs of the Ahwaz County. Having conducted the primary test data was collected using the questionnaire. The data was analyzed using the SPSS software. The results show that relationship between the degree of being a sports family, support given by the family, the perception of the family on sports, acceptance by family members, and sports socialization were Significant.