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The historical approach to the Bible with explicit reference to the social sciences (including sociology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, economics, social psychology, and political science) became popular among biblical scholars and archaeologists during the 1970s, often induced by social turmoil in several countries. Any endeavour to reconstruct a societal development according to a sociological or anthropological model without using as much historical data as possible, be it from textual, iconographic, or archaeological sources, is very risky. Sociological models will never reach the degree of unambiguity that is a distinguishing feature of scientific models. Therefore, a model that is not permanently tested against data can be misleading. This chapter discusses the social history of ancient Israel, arguing for a careful balance between sociological theory and anthropological knowledge on the one hand, and exegetical and historical investigation on the other. It also examines social-historical perspectives on the early monarchy in Israel and Judah up to the ninth century, along with social-historical perspectives on problems associated with religion and politics during the period.

A great deal has been written about electoral behaviour in the UK since the mid-1960s, and an increasing volume of data has been analysed to test ideas regarding which people vote for what party (or don't vote at all), and why. This chapter presents an overview of that literature, stressing its main arguments and illustrating its major conclusions. ‘Traditional’ approaches to British electoral behaviour argued that sociological factors dominated party choice decisions, with the responsive voter factors important only for that portion of the electorate who were not firmly committed to one of the political parties and were therefore open to persuasion either before or during the election campaigns. Over recent decades, however, this position has come under considerable attack. A decreasing proportion of voters now identify with and habitually vote for one party, and more are making their decisions based on contemporary conditions and their evaluations of the relative merits of the political parties — their policies, their credibility as governments, the quality of their leaders, and so forth.

This chapter examines theoretical models of suicide and nonfatal suicidal behaviors. The models of suicidal behavior include sociological, psychological, biological, family, and biopsychosocial models. Sociological models are categorized into egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic suicides. Psychological models include psychodynamic, cognitive, social learning, and psychological and interpersonal models. The chapter also discusses the developmental theories that are applicable for constructing models of suicidal processes.