Sociological Analysis

Sociology is the study of society, involving the study of the social lives of people, groups and societies, for example, relationships between people, group and societies (American Sociological Association, 2005). This essay will show and analyses what the relationship is between the state, the law, surveillance, religion and society.

Michael Mann expressed “the essence of the state’s functions is a monopoly of binding rule-making” (Mann, 1984, p.112). In every state, there is also power, the state has power over the civil society within its domains. Within the state there are elite people who are empowered to undertake actions without negotiation with civil society groups, this is because these people have authority due to their social status

310). Emile Durkheim has his own definition of religion which is: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which write into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (Van krieken, 2014, pp.310). In 2010, 84% of society’s people claimed to belong to some kind of religion, this estimated to be around 5.8 billion people in the world (Pewforum, 2012). In Australia, the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 No 64 has been written and passed as a law to which gives them permission to do surveillance. It seems to be that the law enforcements and military also use the surveillance to spy and keep track of potential terrorists, but this unfortunately are most of the time religious groups, for example, Muslims. This is because of some people from this religion having been involved in terrorist behaviour, but does not mean the whole religious group are terrorist. This is where surveillance becomes discriminative, having its main focus more on a certain religion; David Lyon wrote “surveillance today sorts people into categories, assigning worth and risk, in ways that have real effects on their life chances. Deep discrimination occurs, thus making surveillance not merely a matter of personal privacy but of social justice” (Lyon, 2006, p.