Chapter 7

Political Economy

 Separation of politics and economy is unsustainable

 Study of the interaction between politics and economics
 Relationship between state and markets
 Has a long association with Marxism
 Links power to ownership of wealth
 Use of theories and approaches developed within economics to analyze politics

Approaches to Political Economy

State-centric political economy

 Developed out of mercantilism

 takes the state to be the most significant economic actor
 Also called “economic nationalism”
 Markets
 Not natural
 Shaped by the exercise of state power
 Mercantilist strategy
 High on export, low on import (protectionism- import restrictions)
 Defensive mercantilism
- Designed to protect infant industries and weaker economies from unfair
competition from stronger economies
 Aggressive mercantilism
-strengthen national economy for the purpose of expansionism and war
 Weakened with its association with “beggar-thy-neighbor” policy (policies pursued at the
expense of other states)
 Revived with the idea of state capitalism

Classical/ Neoclassical political economy

 Derived from Adam Smith and David Ricardo

 Individuals
 Rationally self-interested creatures
 Utility maximizers
 Key economic actors
 Unregulated market economy tends towards long-run equilibrium
 Adam Smith
 Invisible hand of the market (price mechanism) brings supply and demand
 First systematic attempt to explain workings of economy
 Free-market theorist
 Implies a policy of laissez-faire
 State leaves the economy alone
 Market is left to manage on its own
  “leave to do”
 Explained by theory of perfect competition

Marxist political economy

 Capitalism
 System of class exploitation
 Fatal instability
 Social classes
 Key economic actors
 Karl Marx
 Defined class in terms of economic power
 Division of capitalist society
- Bourgeoisie and proletariat
 Surplus value
- Value that is extracted from the labor of the proletariat through capitalist
exploitation
 Economic exploitation
- Essential feature of the capitalist mode of production

Capitalism

 As economic system
 generalized commodity production
 privately owned
 resources being allocated through price mechanism
 wage labor
 material self-interest
 As ideology
 Overlaps with classical liberalism
 Defending private property, personal self-striving, and meritocracy

Economic system

 Form of organization
 Goods and exchanges are produced, distributed, and exchanged
 For Marxists: mode of production

Pure capitalist and socialist systems

 An illusion

Varieties of Capitalism

Enterprise capitalism

 “liberal capitalism”
 “American business model”
 “pure” capitalism
  Faith in the untrammeled workings of market competition
 Market as self-regulating mechanism
 Keep public ownership to a minimum
 Strong labor organizations are viewed as obstacle to profit maximization
 Has a tendency towards material inequalities and social fragmentation
 Growth of the public and private debt

Social capitalism

 Friedrich List
 State intervention should be used to protect infant industries from rigours of foreign
competition
 Social market
 Market competition + social cohesion and unity
 Largely free from government interference
 Stress on partnership, cooperation, and subsidiarity, as opposed to free market
 Provide workers and vulnerable groups with social guarantee
 Stakeholder capitalism
 Tends to encourage inflexibility and push-up taxes due to high levels of social expenditure

State capitalism

 “authoritarian capitalism”
 State plays crucial directive role
 Non-liberal
 Emphasis on cooperative, long-term relationships
 “collective capitalism”
 Relational markets
 Emphasis on teamwork and collective identity
 State as the one that guides investments
 Tends to be unresponsive to global market conditions

Keynesianism

 By John Maynard Keynes

 Against the idea that the market is natural and is self-regulating
 Laissez-faire policies caused instability and unemployment
 Regulating aggregate demand
 Macroeconomics
 When unemployment rises, government should increase public spending or cut taxes
 Was unable to anticipate stagflation

Neoliberalism

 Rolling back of the government’s intervention

 Reaganism (USA) and Thatcherism (UK)
 Amounts to market fundamentalism
  Absolute faith in the market

Globalization

 Complex of processes
 Kenichi Ohmae
 Borderless world
 Scholte
 Linked to growth of supraterritorial
 Goes hand in hand with localization, regionalization, and multiculturalism
 Complex web of interconnectedness
 National and global events constantly interact
 Proto-globalization
 established transnational economic globalization
 early form of globalization
 Contemporary globalization
 World economy as a single economy
 Gone hand in hand with neoliberalism

Forms of Globalization

Economic Globalization

 No national economy is an island

 Global economy
 Reduced capacity of national governments to manage their economies

Cultural Globalization

 Information, commodities, and images that have been produced in one part of the world enter
into a global flow
 McDonaldization
 Empowered by information revolution

Political Globalization

 growing importance of international organizations

 supranational bodies are able to impose their will on nation-states
 idealist commitment to internationalism

Washington Consensus

 remaking of the world economy along neoliberal lines

 led developing and transition states to pursue policies such as free trade, market liberalization,
etc.
 coined by John Williamson
 based on orthodox model of development as growth and drawing on the ideas of neoliberalism
 stabilize, privatize, and liberalize
Chapter 8

Society

 collection of people (but not always)

 occupy the same territorial area
 has regular patterns of social interaction
 stable set of interrelationships
 characterized by social divisions
 very stuff and substance of politics itself
 shapes politics
 distribution of wealth and other resources conditions nature of state power
 social divisions and conflicts help to bring about political change
 influences public opinion and political culture
 shapes political behavior (with processes involved with elections)
 Marxist: is characterized by irreconcilable conflict
 Liberal: harmony exists amongst competitions
 Conservative: organic
 Modern society
 Hollowing out of social connectedness
 Changes linked to postindustrialism, information societies, and growth of individualism

Status

 Position within a hierarchical order

 Person’s role, rights, and duties

Industrialization

 Major factor for shaping modern societies

 Caused social class to be the central organizing principle of society
 Group of people to share similar social and economic position
 Non-Marxist: Based on income and status (middle “non-manual” class vs. working
“manual” class)
 Marxist: class as the most fundamental social division
 History of class struggle (bourgeoisie vs. proletariat)
 Max Weber: theory of stratification
- Economic or class differences + political parties and social statuses
- Status as social estimation of honor
 Weakened with postindustrial societies

Postindustrial societies

 Decline of labor-intensive industries

 More on service industries rather than manufacturing ones
 Significant growth in white-collar workforce
 More individualistic and instrumentalist attitudes
 Distinguished by growing atomism
 Collection of self-sufficient and self-interested individuals
 Weakening of social connectedness
 Popularized by Daniel Bell
 From labor theory to knowledge theory of value
 Shift from Fordist to non-Fordist era
 Large-scale mass-production methods pioneered by Henry Ford
 Produced standardized cheap products
 Structured by solidaristic class solidarity
 “2/3, 1/3” society
 2/3 are relatively prosperous
 J.K Galbraith: contented majority
 Provided electoral base for anti-welfarist and tax-cutting policies
 Underclass
 Suffered from social exclusion and not just deprivation of material necessities
 Suffers from multiple deprivations
 Has a knowledge/weightless economy
 Knowledge is the key source of competitiveness and productivity
 Caused by borderless digital media
 Source of citizen empowerment and constraint on government power
 Internet- networks of networks
 Connectivity- links between devices
 Tendency for cult of information
 People can’t distinguish between information and knowledge, experience, and wisdom
 Information society
 Information is the core of economic and cultural activities
 Wider use of computerized processes and internet
 Replaced physical capital with knowledge
 Individualism
 Caused by industrial capitalism
 Belief in importance of individual over any social group or collective body
 Consumerism
- Encourages people to think and act on their own
- Consumption as self-expression
- Personal happiness is equated with acquisition of material possessions
- Emphasis on immediate gratification
 Margaret Thatcher: “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women
and their families
 Emile Durkheim: anomie
- Weakening of values that may lead to negative emotions
- caused by weakening social codes and norms
 Socialists: legitimized selfishness and greed
 Liberals: mark of social progress
 Protestant religions: Yes
  Catholic societies: nope

Identity politics

 Politics of difference
 Defiance against group marginalization and disadvantage
 Embracing and asserting a sense of collective identity
 Source of liberation
 Laid out by postcolonialism
 Expose and overturn the cultural and psychological dimensions of colonial rule
 Inner subjugation can still persist even after institutional decolonialization
 Legitimizing non-Western political ideas and traditions
 Franz Fanon: imperialism theory
- decolonialization is more than just a political process
- psychological dimension of colonial subjugation
 Edward Said (founding figure of postcolonial theory): orientalism
- Western political and cultural hegemony over the rest of the world

Manifestations of identity politics

Race and ethnicity

 Black nationalism
 Prototype for identity politics
 Emphasis on consciousness raising
- Remodel social identity through pride, self-worth, and self-assertion

Cultural Diversity

 Multiculturalism
 Attempts to balance diversity against cohesion
 As descriptive term: diversity arising from the existence within a society of two or more
groups
 As normative term: positive endorsement of communal diversity
 Importance of beliefs, values, and ways of life in establishing a sense of self-worth for
individuals and groups alike
 Liberal multiculturalism
- Commitment to freedom and toleration
- Ability to choose one’s own moral beliefs
 Pluralist multiculturalism
- Based on value pluralism (competing and equally legitimate conceptions of “good
life”)
- Exposes corrupting nature of Western culture
 Cosmopolitan multiculturalism
- Endorses cultural diversity and identity politics as transitional states in a larger
reconstruction of political sensibilities and priorities
- Celebrates what cultures can learn from other cultures
 - Society as melting pot
 May be incompatible with a sense of national identity
 May endorse diversity at the expense of unity

Gender and Identity

 Gender
 Social and cultural distinctions between males and females
 Social construct
 gender equality
 sexual differences have no social or political significance
 Simone de Beauvoir: “women are made, they are not born”
 Equality feminism
 Gender equality in terms of formal rights, control of resources, or personal power
 Difference feminism
 There are deep and possibly ineradicable differences between men and women
 Trans theory
 Rejection of binary conception of gender
 Gender continuum

Religion and Politics

 Liberal secularism
 Emphasis on public/private divide
 Religion
 potent means or regenerating identity politics and social identity in modern
circumstances
 because of diversity, people tend to have greater thirst for the sense of meaning,
purpose, and certainty
 gives people ultimate frame for reference
 powerful sense of social solidarity
 Islamism
 Upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism
 Intense and militant faith in Islamic beliefs that is above the principles of social life and
politics
 Religion over politics
 Political creed based on Islamic ideas and principles, but is not Islam itself
 Ayatollah Khomeini
- supreme leader of first Islamic state)

Chapter 9

Political culture

 emerged in the 50s and 60s

 people’s psychological orientation
 pattern of orientations to political objects
Approaches to Political Culture

Civic-culture approach

 specific attitudes which are crucial to the success of modern democracies

 evident in the writings of Almond and Verba (identified political culture that will effectively
uphold democratic politics)
 blend of:
 participant political culture
- citizens pay close attention to politics
- popular participation is desirable and effective
 subject political culture
- passivity amongst citizens
- have limited capacity to influence government
 parochial political culture
- absence of a sense of citizenship
- people identifying with their locality rather than the nation
- having no desire/ ability to participate in politics
 reconciles the participation of citizens in the political process with the viral necessity for
government to govern
 democratic stability
 underpinned by a blend of activity and passivity
 deference to authority is healthy
 political values and attitudes shape behavior

Marxist approach

 “the ideas of the ruling class are in epoch the ruling ideas”
 Ideas and culture are part of a superstructure that is determined by economic base (mode of
production)
 Culture is essentially class-specific
 The social existence of an individual determines their consciousness
 Everything is just bourgeois ideology and has hegemony over the rest of the classes
 Ascendancy or domination of an element of a system
 Antonio Gramsci
- ability of a dominant class to exercise power by winning the consent of its subjugates
- Class system is upheld by thus bourgeois hegemony
 Competitions in ideologies and politics exist but are very unequal

Conservative approach

 Traditional values that have been passed down from earlier generations
 Belief in a cultural bedrock
 Michael Oakeshott
 Traditional values must be respected on account of their familiarity that brings a sense
of reassurance, stability, and security
  Prefer to the familiar to the unknown
 Has a tendency to impose a particular moral system on the rest of society

Political Culture in Crisis

Decline of social capital

 Social capital
 Social and cultural factors that underpin wealth creation
 Social connectiveness
 Robert Putnam
 Influenced by communitarianism
- A person is constituted through the community
- Individuals are shaped by the communities
 Emergence of post-civic generation
 Caused by suburbanization, rise of 2-career families, and television
 Traditional political attitudes and allegiances have been weakened

Culture wars

 Due to political polarization

 Consensus and compromise have been replaced by antagonism and hatred
 Wars of identity
 Gained impetus from globalization
 Open vs. closed political attitudes
 Anywhere vs. somewhere (Brexit)

Media

 Politically significant and powerful political actors

 Instead of family, media has become the principal mechanism where issues and policies are
presented to the public

Theories of media

Pluralist model

 Highlights diversity and multiplicity

 Media as an ideological marketplace
 Political impact is neutral
 Ensures informed citizenry
 Watchdog role of media

Dominant-ideology model

 Mass media as politically conservative

 Aligned to interests of economic and social elites
 Promotes compliance or political passivity
  Gramsci (Marxist): media propagates bourgeois ideas, acting in the interests of major
corporations and media moguls
 Ownership dictates what the media shows the public
 Noam Chomsky & Ed Herman
 Propaganda model
- Has five filters of media distortion:
- Business interests of owner
- Sensitivity to views of advertisers and sponsors
- Getting info from people that are also of power (agents of power)
- Pressure applied to journalists
- Belief in benefits of market competition and consumer capitalism

Elite-values model

 Focuses on how media output is controlled instead of ownership

 Journalists and editors enjoy significant professional independence
 Media political bias is based on the values of groups that are disproportionally represented
among its senior professionals

Market model

 Media reflects, rather than shape, the views of the general public
 Media will give what people want to watch and would agree with to maximize their profits
 Tyranny of ratings

Impact of Traditional Media

Enhancing/Threatening democracy

 Free press is considered one key feature of democratic governance

 Promotes democracy by fostering public debate and being a watchdog
 Agents of political education
 Media has a tendency to be tainted by clear political biases
 Power without responsibility
 Often times, media professionals and political elites have a symbiotic relationship

Media and Political leadership

 Growing interest in the personal lives and private conducts of senior political figures
 Obsession with image rather than issues and policies
 Turns elections into horse races and beauty pageants that just depend on televisual skills of the
candidate
 Greater media attention, greater political leverage

Culture of contempt

 Created a climate of corrosize cynicism leading to popular disenchantment with politics

Policy-making
  There is a surplus of information
 24/7 governments
 Quick answers are given at the expense of good analysis
 Media sets political agenda

Chapter 12

Elections

 Democracy in practice
 Means through which people can control their government

Representation

 Politicians as server of the people

 Individual or group stands/acts on behalf of larger body of people
 Indirect form of democratic rule

Models of representation

Trustee model

 Trustee
 Acts on behalf of others
 Uses his/her superior knowledge
 Edmund Burke: “your representative owes you his judgment and he betrays if he
sacrifices it to your opinion”
 Gives mature judgment and has enlightened conscience
 had strong elitist implications
 John Stuart Mill: not all political values are of equal value, plural voting
 Not all citizens know what is best for them

Delegate model

 Delegate
 Has no or little capacity to exercise his or her own judgment or preferences
 Bound closely to the views of represented
 Mouthpiece
 Doesn’t think for himself/herself
 Controlled by the public
 Doesn’t provide own vision/ inspiration but just reflects the views of constituents
 Favors the use of referendums
- Electorate can express a view on a particular issue of public policy
- Device of direct democracy
- Provides checks for government

Mandate model
  Party gains a popular mandate that authorizes it to carry out whatever policies or programs it
outlined during campaign
 Instruction or command from a higher body that demands compliance
 Party as the agent of representation
 Limits government policies to the manifesto commitments made during campaigns
 Document outlining the policies or programs a party proposes to pursue if elected to
power

Resemblance model

 Representatives are selected based on how much they typify or resemble the group they claim
to represent
 Government is a microcosm of the society
 Miniature version of a larger body with exact features and proportion
 Government members are drawn from all groups and sections in society
 Descriptive representation
 Takes account of a politician’s social and other characteristics to determine whether
they are qualified to be a representative of a group

Elections

 Intrinsically linked to representative process

 Joseph Schumpeter
 Very heart of democracy
 Democracy as a means of filling public office by a competitive struggle for the people’s
vote

Functions of elections (Harrop & Miller)

Bottom-up/ conventional view:

Recruiting politicians

Making government

Providing representation

Influencing policy

Top-down/ radical view:

Educating voters

Building legitimacy

Strengthening elites

 Proudhon: “universal suffrage is counter-revolution”

 Political discontent and opposition can be neutralized by elections

Electoral system
  Set of rules that governs the conduct of election
 Majoritarian vs. proportional systems

Majoritarian

Single-member plurality system

 “first past the post”

 Single-member constituencies
 Voters select a single candidate
 Plurality of votes (not absolute majority) is needed to win
 Results in a single-party government

Second ballot system

 Single-candidate constituencies
 Single-choice voting
 Overall majority is needed by a candidate to win on the first ballot
 If overall majority is not met, second ballot is run between the two leading candidates

Alternative vote system/ supplementary vote

 Single-member constituencies
 Preferential voting
 Voters provide a ranking of preferred candidates (just one alternative in supplementary vote
system)
 50% of votes are needed to win

Proportional

Mixed-member proportional system/ additional member system

 Proportion of seats are filled using single-member constituencies

 Remaining seats are filled by using the party-list system
 Voters choose a single candidate and a preferred party

Single-transferable- vote system

 Multimember constituencies
 Parties may put forward as many candidates as there are seats to fill
 Voters provide candidate preferences (ranks)
 A quota (based on Droop formula) must be met to win

Party-list system

 Single constituency (entire country) or multimember constituencies (by regions)

 Voters will choose a party
 Parties will be given a number of seats directly based on the percentage they got from elections
 Some countries require a threshold of percentage for a party to be given seats
Theories of voting

Party-identification model

 Earliest theory of voting behavior

 Electors regard parties as their own party
 Voting as a manifestation of partisanship

Sociological model

 Links voting behavior to economic and social position of the group where they belong
 Social alignment
 Interest plus socialization
 Tendency to ignore individual and the role of personal self-interest
 Has weakened with postindustrialism

Rational-choice model

 Shifts attention to individual

 Voting as a rational act
 Basis of personal self-interest
 Encouraged by pluralism and individualism

Dominant-ideology model

 How voters interpret their position depends on how it has been presented top them through
education, by the government, and media
 Tendency to take individual calculation and personal autonomy out of the picture altogether

Chapter 11

Political parties

 Organized for the purpose of winning government power

 Has formal membership
 Adopt broad issue focus
 United by shared political preferences and general ideological identity
 Recent inventions
 Major organizing principle of modern politics
 Vital link between state and civil society
 May be authoritarian or democratic
 Mark of political modernization
 Part of a superstructure of mass politics

Types of Party

By membership

Cadre
  Party of notables
 Trained and professional party members that have a high level of political commitment and
doctrinal discipline
 Reliance on politically active elite that can offer leadership to masses

Mass party

 Heavy emphasis on broadening membership to construct a wide electoral base

 Heavier stress on recruitment and organization rather than ideologies and political convictions
 Otto Kirchheimer: catch-all parties
 Reduce their ideological baggage to appeal to the largest possible number of voters

By representation (by Sigmund Neumann)

Representative parties (delegate vibes)

 primary function of securing votes in election

 reflect public opinion rather than shaping them
 adopt a catch-all strategy
 pragmatism before principle

Integrative parties (trusteeship vibes)

 proactive political strategies

 mobilize, educate, and inspire masses

By obedience with rules

Constitutional parties

 acknowledge rights of other parties

 operate within a framework of rules and constraints
 belief in division between party and state
 respect in electoral competitions

Revolutionary parties

 anti-system
 anti-constitution
 aim to seize power and overthrow existing constitutional structures
 upon winning becomes ruling or regime parties
 establishes permanent relationship with state machinery once elected
 creates a fused party-stated apparatus

By ideologies

Left-wing parties

 commitment to change through social reform or wholesale economic transformation

 gain support from poor and disadvantaged
Right-wing parties

 uphold the existing social order

 force for continuity
 gain support from contented middle class

By governance

Mainstream parties

 conventional/traditional parties
 operate within the established rules of political game
 strongly oriented around acquisition and maintenance of power
 have catch-all features
 tendency toward center ground of politics

Populist parties

 challenges authority of a political establishment

 only legitimate source of political and moral authority rests with “the people”
 anti-party parties
 have narrowly focused electoral and political strategy

Functions of parties

Representation

 primary function of parties

 articulate the views of members and voters
 inputting devices of the government
 Anthony Downs: politicians as entrepreneurs

Elite formation and recruitment

 Provide training ground for politicians

 Political leaders are drawn from a relatively small pool of talent

Goal formulation

 Parties as major source of policy initiation

 Mandate
 Reduced by catch-all and personalized politics

Interest articulation and aggregation

Socialization and mobilization

 Parties as agent of education

Organization of government
  Give governments a degree of stability and coherence
 Facilitate cooperation between branches of government

Party systems (Duverger)

One-party systems

 Single party enjoys monopoly of power

 Party functions as permanent government
 One-party states
 May be due to communism or nation building after experiencing colonialism

Two-party systems

 Dominated by two major parties

 Only 2 parties enjoy sufficient electoral and legislative strength
 Larger party is able to rule alone
 Power alternates between the 2 parties
 Offers healthy opposition

Dominant-party systems

 Number of parties compete, but only a single party dominates and enjoys prolonged periods in
power
 Causes for factional conflicts within the dominating power

Multiparty systems

 Competition amongst more than 2 parties

 Increased likelihood of coalition
 Create internal checks and balances

Chapter 12

Interest groups

 Children of representative government

 Have distinct and clear-cut position
 Tocqueville- associations that are powerful instruments for action
 Aim to influence policies or government actions
 Seek to exert influence from outside instead of capturing political power
 Have a narrow issue
 Have more formal organizations than social movements

Classification of groups

Communal groups

 Embedded in the social fabric

 Membership based on birth
  Shared heritage, tradition, and loyalties

Institutional groups

 Part of the machinery of the government

 Enjoy no measure of autonomy or independence
 E.g, bureaucracy & military

Associational groups

 People who come together to pursue shared, but limited, goals

 Voluntary membership
 Usually seen as a feature of industrial societies
 E.g: interest groups/ pressure groups (UK)
 By the scope of the people who would benefit from the actions taken by interest group
- sectional groups- “protective/functional groups”, “private interest group”
- exist to advance/protect the interest of their members
- functional- only concerned with material aspect
- promotional- “cause/attitude group”, “public interest groups”, NGOs (may be
operational [projects-centered] or advocacy [promoting knowledge]
- advance shared values, ideals, or principles
- promote collective benefits not limited to their members
 By their relationship with government
- insider groups – regular, privileged, and institutionalized access to government through
routine consultation
- usually key economic interests
- outsider groups – not consulted, or at least not regularly, by government
- lacking formal access to government

Models of interest group politics

Pluralist model

 Most positive image of group politics

 Groups can defend individuals from government and promote democratic responsiveness
 Political power is fragmented and dispersed
 Decisions made through bargaining ang interaction
 Arthur Bentley: “when the groups are adequately stated, everything is stated”
 organized groups are building blocks of the political process
 groups as agents of interest articulation and aggregation and is the very stuff of democratic
process
 Robert Dahl
 Developed a conventional pluralist position
 Neopluralism- against corporations holding power over government
 Coined the term polyarchy
 Groups can make themselves heard during the stages of decision making
Corporatist model

 Aims to trace the implications of closer links between groups and the state
 Certain groups enjoy privileged positions in relation to government
 Corporatism
 State-specific phenomenon
 Incorporating organized interests into the processes of government
 Authoritarian corporatism
- Political intimidation of industry and destruction of independent trade unions
 Liberal corporatism
- Organized interests are granted privilege and access to policy formulation
 Invariably favors economic or functional groups

New right model

 Derived form the individualism that lies at the heart of neoliberal economics
 Preference for market economy driven by self-reliance and entrepreneurialism
 Influenced by public-choice theory
 Public goods- benefits can’t be withheld even from individuals that didn’t contribute
 Interest groups as major determinant of prosperity or economic failure
 Inverse relationship between strong interest groups and economic growth and national
prosperity

Principal factors determining group influence

Political culture

 Determines whether interest groups are legitimate or not and if their formation is allowed or
prohibited

Institutional structures

 Establishes points of access of groups

Relationship with political parties

 Interest groups may influence political parties to have more direct access to power

Public policy

 How much the state intervenes in economic and social life

 Interventionism goes hand in hand with corporatism
 The reach of the government will also be just the reach of interest groups

Channels of access of interest groups

Bureaucracy

 Key institution for policy formulation

Assembly
  Lobbying

Courts

 Only limited significance since judiciary are usually unable to challenge legislation

Political parties

 Via campaign financing

Media

 To attract attention and garner public sympathy

International organizations

Social movements

 Collective behavior
 Requires a level of commitment and political activism
 Intended and planned
 New social movements are leftist and postmaterialistic

Chapter 13

Constitution

 Supposed to provide a description of government

 Supposed to be a linchpin of liberal democracy
 There is nothing to prevent a constitution being undemocratic or authoritarian
 Lays down meta-rules for the political system
 Rules that govern the government itself
 Bring stability, predictability, and order
 Establish duties and functions of government institutions
 Relatively recent development
 Usually established after an upheaval (war, revolution, or national independence)
 Constitutional change
 Reapportionment of both power and political authority

Classifications of constitutions

By form/status

Written constitution

 Enshrined in laws
 Human artefacts
 Not entirely written

Unwritten constitution
  Custom and tradition
 Organic entities
 Not entirely unwritten
 Convention
 Significant in unwritten constitution
 Based on custom and precedent
 Present in all forms of constitution, whenever rules aren’t clear

Codified constitution

 Based on the existence of single authoritative document

 Document itself is authoritative
 Highest law of the land
 Difficult to amend or abolish
 Power of legislature is constrained
 Supremacy lies with non-elected judges

Uncodified constitution

 absence of a single authoritative document

 legislature enjoys sovereign or unchallengeable authority

By changeability

Rigid

Flexible

By enforcement

Effective

 practical affairs of government are constitutional

 can limit governmental behavior

Nominal

 may accurately describe behavior but fail to limit it

Façade

 constitution is only a propaganda

By content/ institutional structure

Monarch vs. republic

Unitary vs. federal

Parliamentary vs. presidential

Pluralistic vs. monopolistic

Purpose of constitution

Empowering states

 mark existence of states

 lays-out state’s jurisdiction

Establishing values and goals

 embody a set of political values, ideals, and goals

 not neutral
 entangled with ideological priorities

Providing government stability

 acts as organizational chart

 defines guidelines for government
 formalize and regulate relationships between political bodies
 provides predictability

Protecting freedom

 freedom
 ability to think or act as one wishes
 constrains government

Legitimizing regimes

 to promote compliance
 to determine membership and acknowledgment by other states

Law and Morality

Law

 distinctive form of social control

 backed up by means of reinforcement
 what may or may not be done
 objective
 Aristotle and Plato: must be rooted in a moral system of some kind
 Protects individual liberty
 Above politics
 International law
 Soft law- can’t be enforced
 Obeyed by countries in the hopes to gain benefit or reduce harms

Morality

 ethical questions
 between right and wrong
  what should and should not be done
 subjective

Positive law

 by John Austin
 defined law in terms of the fact that it was established and enforced
 law is law because it is obeyed
 not based on conformity of law to moral or religious principles
 H.L.A. Hart
 Primary rules- regulate social behavior
 Secondary rules- confer powers on the institutions of government
- lay-out how primarily rules are made

Judiciary

 Decides legal disputes

 Adjudicate on the meaning of the law
 Liberal-democratic: must be independent and non-political
 May have external or internal biases

Chapter 14

Branches of government

Executive

 Branch of government
 Execution or implementation of policy
 Political executive
 Bureaucratic executive
 Pyramidal
 Tends to be centralized around the leadership of a single individual
 Provides leadership

Legislature

 Makes law

Judiciary

 Interprets law

Functions of political executives

Ceremonial leadership

 Giving state authority personal form

 Maintains public support and therefore sustains legitimacy
Policy-making leadership

 Direct and control the policy process

 Develop coherent economic and social programs

Popular leadership

 Mobilize support that ensures public cooperation and compliance

Bureaucratic leadership

 Running the machinery of the government

Crisis leadership

 Take swift and decisive action

 Emergency powers

Presidents, prime minister, & cabinet

President

 Formal head of a state

 Constitutional presidents
 Non-executive presidents
 Feature of parliamentary governments
 Confined largely to ceremonial duties
 Figurehead
 No power
 Presidential executives
 Limited
- Operates within constitutional framework
 Unlimited
- Dictatorships
- Unchecked powers

4 crucial relationships of presidents

With congress

 Most crucial
 Success rate- proportion of legislative programs by the president that survives congressional
scrutiny

With federal bureaucracy

 Acts as a constraint

With media
Prime ministers

 Responsible to the assembly

 Power is derived from their leadership of the majority party

Cabinet

 All political executives feature a cabinet of some sort

 Committee of senior ministers
 Represents various departments

Theories of leadership

Natural gift

 Aristotle: leaders are born

 Nietzsche: ubermensch

Sociological phenomenon

 Leaders are created by particular sociohistorical forces

 Product of collective behavior

Organizational necessity

 Arises because of the need for coherence, unity, and direction within any complex institution

Political skill

 Skill can be learned and practiced

 Akin to the art of manipulation
 Cults of personality

Styles of leadership (Burns, 1978)

Laissez-faire leadership

 Leader doesn’t interfere much

 Hands-off approach

Transactional leadership

 Hands-on style
 Unity and government cohesion

Transformational leadership

 Leader is an inspirer or visionary

 Gardner: leader who creates a story

Populism

 Anti-politics
 Not driven by ideologies, but by the demands of the people
 Not a representative but a part of the people
 Unafraid to be politically unconventional