Basic Concepts and Theories in Political Science

7

Keywords: basic concepts in political science

Basic Concepts / Theories

            The Political System is made of three (3) important parts:

                        a) The Political Regime

                        b) The Political Personnel

                        c) The Political Community

The Regime - is the structure of the institutional configuration of government e.g., in U. S. we have three branches of government and different levels of government e.g., federal, state, and local.

The Political Personnel - are the people in government at any particular time or place e.g., Richard Nixon was the political personnel in the office of the Presidency during 1969 - 1974.

The distinction between the regime and personnel can be seen in the change that occurred with the following:

            President Richard Nixon in USA

            Adolph Hitler in Pre WWII Germany

            In the U. S. Nixon resigned as President but the office of the Presidency continued,

            we changed personnel but not regime.

In Germany there was no change in personnel but there was an important change in regime.  Germany went from a democracy to an authoritarian and then a totalitarian regime under Adolph Hitler’s leadership.

The Political Community are all those affected by government.

There are three (3) models of how the political process works within the political regime.

            1) Elitism

            2) Participatory Democracy

            3) Pluralism

 http://www.kean.edu/~ckelly/basicconcepts.doc

Elitism maintains society is hierarchically organized with a few deciding and the many following.  Elitism makes no claim of being democratic.

There are two (2) variations of elitism:

1) One school of thought maintains that elitism is natural and can be beneficial for society

                e.g., Plato’s Republic wise philosopher-kings will rule for the betterment of society.

            2) Another school of thought maintains that elitism is inevitable to do human nature,

bureaucracy, or the economic system.  This school maintains that elitism is an exploitative type

of system, where the rulers exploit the ruled e.g., Marx maintain that in Feudalism and Capitalism the rulers ruled in their own interest at the expense  of the many.  (See Chart I)

Participatory Democracy maintains that in order for the political system to be truly democratic, society has to be democratized, i.e., all structure in society, family, job, church, etc. have to abandon their hierarchical structure and become democratic.

In order to appreciate what the proponents of participatory democracy are saying it is useful to view democracy on a continuum ranging from pure totalitarianism to pure democracy.

ABSOLUTE                                      Reality                                    ABSOLUTE

Totalitarianism------------------------------------------------------------Pure Democracy

e.g. George Orwell’s             Somewhere in between                      Equal Influence

          1984                                                                                                 for all

Proponents of Participatory Democracy wants to break down the hierarchical structure and move toward collective decision-making where the many are deciding their own fate.  Some proponents of Participatory Democracy concede that it is impractical to achieve absolute equality of influence but nonetheless that should be the goal of society e.g. Marx’s Communist Utopia.

Pluralism maintains that the political system is hierarchically structured, i.e., there are a few deciding and many follows.  Despite this fact, pluralism maintains democracy is possible, i.e., the many can make the few responsive, accountable and accessible.  The way this is done is as follows:

            1) No one group in society has a monopoly of power.

            2) In order to make governmental policy coalitions of groups have to be formed and

                groups in society are pragmatic enough to work out compromises.

            3) There is a basic consensus w/n society that rules out violence as a legitimate

                 way to resolve group conflict.

                        a) this consensus also involves a widespread agreement on a mechanism for

                            making decisions.,

                        b) this mechanism is considered legitimate i.e., the losers are willing to comply

                            with the decision of the winners.

                        c) another requirement is that the winners permit the losers to criticize and

                            challenge the winners’ decision.     See figure-1, Pluralism.gif

A Pluralist democracy is characterized by competition by power by organized groups.  The unorganized have little or no power in the political system.

Political Regime - regardless of the type of regime all regimes seek legitimacy.  Legitimacy is the tacit or explicit support of the regime by its people.  Usually it is an emotional identification with the regime.  The regime is legitimate when the people believe that institutional structures of the government are the most appropriate for society.

There are various sources of legitimacy.  Max Weber speaks of three (3) ideal types of legitimacy:

            1) Traditional - people support the regime out of habit and custom.

            2) Rational legal - people support the regime because the explicit rules and procedures of

                government make sense to the people--the people prefer on rational grounds the rule

                of law over other types of rule.

            3) Charismatic - people support the regime because of an emotional identification with the

                personality of the leader of the regime.

According to Weber we find mixes of the three (3) types of legitimacy in every society but it is possible to categorize regime by the dominant source of legitimacy.  (See Chart II)

Political Culture - In order to understand legitimacy it is important to comprehend the political culture of society.

Political culture is the values, beliefs, attitudes and aspirations of the people in society which orient them politically.  In order for a regime to be legitimate there has to be widespread agreement in society on certain sets of values i.e., some sort of a consensus.

Ideology is an explicit set of values that orients people in society in terms of what they can expect from government and what government should do for them and society.  It speaks to human nature, the role of government in society and the relationship of politics and economics.  It also advances the economic interests of a social class in society.

The three (3) main ideologies of politics are Conservatism, Liberalism and socialism.  There are many variations of the ideologies i.e., fascism, Nazism, communism, populism, etc., but they all can be traced back to one or more of three.  (See Chart III)

POLITICAL SCIENCE

LECTURE NOTES                                                                          DR. CHARLES KELLY

CHART I

MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY – ECONOMIC DETERMINISM

Stages of History	Environment	Societal Relationships	Territorial Political Units	Classes	Source of Legitimacy	Economic System
Primitive Communism	Abundance	Harmony	None	None	None	None
Feudalism	Scarcity	Conflict	City-state	Noble vs. Peasants	Religion	Agrarian
Capitalism	Less Scarcity	Conflict	Nation-state	Bourgeoisie       vs. Proletariat	Nationalism	Industrial
Socialism	Least Scarcity	Conflict	Regional Camps	Proletariat      vs. Bourgeoisie	Working-class Consciousness	Highly Industrialized
Communism	Sufficiency	Harmony	Global Society	None	Equality	Nearly Automated

CHART II

WEBER’S TYPOLOGY OF DIFFERENT POLITICAL REGIMES

(THE TYPE OF REGIME LEGITIMACY INFLUENCES POLITICAL STABILITY)

TYPES OF LEGITIMACY	PROBLEM I Dealing with Transfer of Power	PROBLEM II Dealing with the Pheno- menon of Change	POLITICAL STABILITY (Dealing with Problems  I & II)
CHARISMATIC (Regime accepted by the   People because of the  personality of its leader)	Deals Poorly (Cannot Transfer   Personality of Leader)	Deals Well (Can Muster Necessary    Political will	Less Stable
TRADITIONAL (Regime accepted because  it based on tradition and  custom)	Deals Well (e.g., law of primogeniture)	Deals Poorly (Can not break   with   Tradition	Less Stable
RATIONAL - LEGAL (Regime accepted because   procedures are perceived  logical and reasonable)	Deals Well (Elections, explicit line of  succession)	Deals Well (Legislation, Amendments  and judicial review)	Most Stable

CHART III

MAJOR IDEOLOGIES

                         Class                 Historical               Economic                Role of                  Nature of               Source of

                                Constituency        Origins                   System                   Government         Man                       Power                 

Conservatism	Nobility	18th Century	Mercantilism	Paternalistic (Strong  Government)	Anti-Social	Land
Liberalism	Middle Class	19th Century	Capitalism	Laissez Faire (Weak Government)	Social	Commerce
Socialism	Working Class	20th Century	Centrally Owned and Planned Economy	Interventionist (Strong Government	Malleable	Numbers & Organizations

Dr. Charles P. Kelly

http://www.kean.edu/~ckelly/basicconcepts.doc (ms-word/97 )

----- End -----

CODE: 11