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# Daily Answer Writing: Sociology (Day 8)
- URL: https://www.upscprep.com/daily-answer-writing-sociology-day-7-2/
- Published: 2024-10-17T15:58:46.000Z
- Updated: 2024-10-26T05:43:31.000Z
- Description: UPSC Mains Answer Writing
- Author: UPSCprep.com
- Tags: Socio Daily Writing

### Questions

1. Examine the statement, “Bureaucracy is a rational action in an institutional form”. (10 Marks)
2. Explain Durkheim's basic arguments on suicide. Analyse the high suicide rates of contemporary Indian society with Durkheim's theory. (20 Marks)

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### Download Model Structures PDF

[Daily Answer Writing\_ Sociology (Day 8)Daily Answer Writing\_ Sociology (Day 8).pdf1 MBdownload-circle](https://www.upscprep.com/content/files/2024/10/Daily-Answer-Writing%5F-Sociology--Day-8-.pdf "Download")

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### Model Structures

**Q1\. Examine the statement, “Bureaucracy is a rational action in an institutional form”. (10 Marks)**

**Introduction**

- Define bureaucracy and legal rational action

**Main Body**

- Bureaucracy is the medium through which rational-legal authority is carried out
- Weber studied it and made an IDEAL TYPE for Bureaucracy based on legal-rational authority.
- Inevitable in modern society -- as it’s the only mechanism to cope up with large-scale admin requirements
- Explain rational action
- Critical Analysis
  - Specialist without spirits
  - Iron cage of rationality
  - Rule ritualism and loss of individual creativity. It leads to red-tapism (Merton)
  - Official dictatorship kind (Master and Mistress of their own will)
  - Nexus and influence of others over bureaucracy
- Roberto Michels - Calls bureaucratic sys in democracy as iron law of oligarchy - as they usurp all power
- Merton - over emphasis on rules led to goal displacement

**Conclusion**

- Yet, Bureaucracy is transforming itself according to change in the social system. It could adapt to social and admin changes. Examples-
  - Digitalization - less hierarchical
  - In India, lateral entry adoption in top-level bureaucracy

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**Q2\. Explain Durkheim's basic arguments on suicide. Analyse the high suicide rates of contemporary Indian society with Durkheim's theory.** (**20 Marks)**

**Introduction**

- Definition of Suicide as given by Durkheim-
- All cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself he knows will produce the result. OR
- Suicide: A Study in Sociology is an 1897 book written by French sociologist Émile Durkheim. It was the first methodological study of SUICIDE, a social fact in the context of society.

**Main Body**

- Refutation of earlier existing Psychological and Biological aspects of suicide.
  - Earlier studies - value loaded, lacks objectivity
  - Durkheim applied Comparative analysis method and dwelled on Objective analysis of the social fact - SUICIDE
- Durkheim concluded that suicide rates are higher:
  - in men than women
  - for those who are single
  - for people without children than people with children.
  - among Protestants than Catholics and Jews.
  - among soldiers than civilians.
  - in times of peace than in times of war.
  - the higher the education level, the more likely it was that an individual would choose suicide.
- Four types of suicide - which are based on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces: social integration and moral regulation.

![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfI6akZNX0i3_wvsm63XRqXHfJgFXsLLFxE4bVkhDu_QSp8uwPXUHCPgpJiQSv4zxG50RStX19TfIgu5RZtCRBhLxJk8PDSatr_5mLt8ql8JJrfmVkZYZyF7eOulNf8LNqfT-WeVt3Fd7xVA7WzLl8AZpcR?key=VuIC_Zb26cLDX-Q1FWA6CQ)

- **High suicide rates as per Durkhiem's conception in contemporary Indian society** (can write in COHERENCE WITH ABOVE DIAGRAM ) -
  - Egoistic suicide - Upsc students, Kota Coaching students
  - Altruistic suicide - Armed forces, Chipko Movement, Protestors
  - Anomic suicide - Farm waiver loans, Rape Victims
  - Fatalistic suicide - Constables in CRPFs, IPS officers suicide
- What can be done to reduce suicide rates in India
    - Student counselling, HR dept to increase integration → thus reducing Optimal regulation and integration-suicides.

**Conclusion**

- Durkheim's theory caused a revolution in the field of understanding the basic causes of Suicide in contemporary Indian society.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/92/07/9207d054-5e99-4b26-b8c8-424994497a07/content/images/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-7.03.14-AM.png) 

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