Authotarianisme and public control

1. Do authoritarian regimes by nature rely on force to intimidate a

hostile public or can authoritarianism be accepted or even
embraced by the people?

Violence and Surveillance

Compliance and obedience are often enforced

Close observation and use of force against the population

Use violence as a mechanism of public control

Threaten those who challenge the political order

Sever retribution

Arbitrary arrest

Detention without trial

Torture

Death

Death Squads: police and military troops targeted

individuals suspected of harboring political views

Terror

Affected all individuals: writers, artist, students, farmers, and

workers

Accused of political sabotage

Fear that any one could be arrested

Public could be controlled

Turn public against itself

Close watch over the population

Prevents opposition from organizing

Instill uncertainty among population

Internal security force or secret police

Monitor: public activity, spying individuals,

interrogating members of the public

Telephone tapping, creation of huge network of public

informers

Cooptation: process by which individuals outside of an organization are brought into

a beneficial relationship with it, making them dependent on the system for certain
rewards (Widespread under authoritarianism )

Coercion: public obedience is enforced through violence and surveillance

Cooptation

Corporatism: authoritarian systems attempted to solidify control over the

public by creating or sanctioning a limited number of organizations to
represent the interest of the public, and restricting those not set up or approved
by the state

Meant to replace independent organization

Find labor unions, agricultural associations, student groups,

neighborhood committees

State, society, and the market are viewed as a single body

Gives public a limited influence

Clientelism: coopts the public by providing specific benefits or favors to a single

person or small group in return for public support

Relies on individual patronage

Creates a patron-client relationship

Coopting individuals:

State jobs, state-run sectors of the economy, business contracts or licenses,

public goods, kickbacks, and bribes

Rent-seeking: political leaders essentially rent out parts of the state to their
patrons, who as a result control public goods

Economic resources:

Doled out for political reasons

Economic problems emerge

Resources are siphoned off

Personality cult:

The public is encouraged to obey the leader based on his or her extraordinary
qualities and compelling ideas. all wise, all knowing, all seeing

Role of Media and Culture

Promoted through: radio, news reports, public rallies, art, music, films.

1.What is social capital and how can it help in forming a civil society?

Social capital is about the value of social networks, bonding similiar people and bridging
between diverse people with norms of reciprocity.
The commonalities of most definitions of social capital are that they focus on social relations
that have productive benefits. The variety of definitions identified in the literature stem from
the highly context specific nature of social capital and the complexity of its conceptualization
and operationalization.
Civil society

Society of citizens
Citizenship
Right and duties

Modern complexity:
happiness is dangerous
Living in the modern civil society means

Globalisation & individualisation But also

Coping with risks

Moving through networks

Learning to change and changing to learn

Modern society is a risk society

Risk may be defined as a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities
induced and introduced by modernization itself (Beck)

"In contrast to all earlier epochs (including industrial society), the risk society is
characterized essentially by a lack: the impossibility of an external attribution of
hazards. In other words, risks depend on decisions, they are industrially produced and
in this sense politically reflexive(Beck)

Understanding and dealing with risk is essential to a dynamic economy and an innovative
society"
Modern society is a network society

National, regional and local economies depend ultimately on the dynamics of the
global economy to which they are connected through networks and markets (Castels)
The network enterprise: a new form of organisation characteristic of economic
activity, but gradually extending its logic to other domains and organisations
Pattern of networking, flexibility and ephemeral symbolic communication in a culture
organised around the electronic media (Castels)
Virtual reality: timeless time and space of the flows

The complexity of citizenship

Citizenship as status:
o the legal contract between State and individual, incl. nationality
Citizenship as social role:
o The sense of belonging and inclusiveness, focus on inter-relations

Corner stones of civil society

Citizens:

Freedom
Voluntas (free will)
Voluntairy work life

Society:

Acceptance
Commitment
Integration

State: regulation to self regulation

Protection
Participation
Empowerment

Political Science

AL FITRA WAHYU RISANDHI

125120207121020
Communication Science
Faculty of Social and Political Science
Brawijaya University
Malang
2012