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The Role of Social Organizations in Society
Human beings are social creatures who mostly prefer to live in groups.
Because individuals must interact with others within a society, there must be systems which allow for the procreation of life, making decisions, producing goods, creating meaning and purpose (religion, language & culture), and organizing people into an orderly society.
Many social organizations have been established within Canadian society to deal with the universal problems of ordered social life.
Some examples:
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The Role of the Social Contract in Society
People find it convenient and useful to live together. In order to do this, they form societies which become nations or states.
People cannot live together successfully unless there is some basic agreement about the fundamentals of life that can be relied on to give predictability and order.
The Reality of Interdependence
In the reality of daily living, a tension exists between the needs and wants of individuals, groups of individuals, and the needs and wants of the larger society.
Social Contract
Every social grouping has a set of understandings, often tacit, which everyone in the group subscribes to.
These understandings must, in some way, define for all members of the group how they can expect to be treated and how they are expected to treat others.
Freedom & order and equality & hierarchy are four important considerations which in some way are defined and distributed by these understandings.
There are various labels for these understandings and expectations: rules in games, manners in social situations, ethics in professional matters, and laws in relation to the state.
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Reconciling Individuality with Interdependence
Individuals and the contributions they can make to society vary from person to person. Society also prizes certain kind of contributions more than it does other contributions.
Traditionally it has been the custom to reward people with different levels of power, privilege, and wealth.
Decision Making within Social Organizations
The ability to make decisions and carry them out is critical to the well being of individuals within society.
Without this ability people often find that they their needs and concerns are disregarded often to their detriment.
Consequently there has been a great deal of competition within society to control and use power.
The sources of power are the control of:
Power may be carried out by:
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Power and Decision Making in Society
All social organizations must establish some method of dealing with
power:
In 1864, a group of men, led by John A. Macdonald, met at Charlottetown to establish what was to become Canada.
The Fathers of Confederation established a social contract based on the basic values coming out of the British world view:
The revolutionary republican values coming out of the American world view were seen as being disorderly and risky.
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Resolving Conflict within Social Organizations
Society is a social organization and individuals collectively
within it have to make decisions about how best to settle the
conflicts which arise.
Societies change in many of their fundamental relationships. Canada has been no exception to this process. When Canada was formed in the nineteenth century, it was primarily a rural farming society which:
Some examples of controversial change:
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The Resolution of Conflict
Conflict within a society which is not reconciled in some way can be very destructive.
Some examples of unreconciled conflict:
Negotiated Change
There are a number of mechanisms societies may use to resolve disputes:
Where neither of these exist and the parties will not or cannot find an agreement, the government will have to step in and make a decision in the form of laws and/or policies which will be enforced with sanctions by the courts.Imposed Change
Often one or both sides to a dispute will not willingly accept the disposition of the dispute. Somewhere in society there must be the residual power to make and enforce unpopular decisions. This can result in the creation of:
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The Role of Government in Modern Democratic Societies
Modern governments are expected to assume responsibility for protecting the political and social rights of their citizens.
Governments must supervise and resolve conflicts which inevitably
arise among private interests and between private interests and
government.
Government's main task is the preservation of a unified state in which its citizens have a sense of communal belonging and commitment to the basic principles of the state.
Governments are responsible for regulating the economy. Citizens of a state see this as a major responsibility and use it as an important measure of the government's success;
In most political systems the following functions have been generally recognized as belonging to the government (public):
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Making Decisions in a Parliamentary Democracy
Decision making can be a difficult process and Canadian society has established mechanisms to accomplish this.
In Canada the central political organization is Parliament which has the power to:
;
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The Political Process
Every society and culture has a political process of some kind.
This process may be vastly different than the Canadian process, but
it is no less a political process.
The many people groups of Africa developed their own political processes over the centuries. As one would expect, there were similarities and differences between these political processes.
When European nations began to compete for control of Africa, they amalgamated large territories and groups of people with many geographical, cultural, and linguistic differences into single political entities. For example, Britain joined two distinct geographical regions and more than 250 cultural groups when it created Nigeria in 1914.
Establishing a New Political System in Nigeria
Britain extended its control over Nigeria by ruling through local chiefs and rulers. This allowed the British to control the overall direction of policies while still giving some freedom to local African rulers to set local policies. Legislative councils were also established to represent local opinion, but they had little influence.
The political system established by the British in Nigeria did not really change until the late 1940's when the legislative council was made more representative of the population and its powers were expanded.
Nigeria became independent in 1960 and developed a political system similar to that in Britain. However, the country had virtually no experience with democratic political processes.
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Renegotiating the Social Contract
The inexperience of the Nigerian people with democracy was made worse by the division of political parties according to cultural groups. This resulted in conflict between the various groups.
The conflicts worsened as it became obvious that the Hausa people, who made up about 50% of the population, were able to dominate the government.
The Hausa put the interests of its region and people before the interests of the other regions and other cultural groups.
The smaller cultural groups in Nigeria felt powerless to bring about the policies they wanted.
Although Nigeria had the form of democracy, most people were unfamiliar with the democratic political process, having come from a completely different political culture. Consequently some of the people who felt locked out of power turned to a tried and true method of gaining power - violence.
The Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970)
The Ibo people of Eastern Nigeria especially resented the ability of the Hausa to dominate the government in Nigeria. The Ibo formed a majority in the Eastern part of Nigeria and felt themselves to be superior to the Hausa in culture, technology, and wealth.
The Ibo used military power to overthrow the government in 1966 and establish a military dictatorship. Six months later another military coup led by the Hausa overthrew the Ibo regime and established another military dictatorship.
By this time the Ibo felt that the only way to avoid dominance by the Hausa was to break away from Nigeria. The result was a bloody civil war between the Ibos and the rest of Nigeria.
| Table of Contents: Grade Ten Unit One |