Political sociology can be understood as the study of how “society” engages in political processes. Another way of approaching this relationship is to consider how political power is contested by, distributed among, and impacting different social groups.
Topics pertaining to political sociology include power, nation-states and empires, the state as a political actor, political participation, revolutions, social movements, and globalization. A central, overarching theme is the interplay between macro-sociological processes and micro-sociological actors.