session 1

WHAT IS POLITICS ?
• Found everywhere —many industries (sports, film) and social groups
• People use their position or popularity to advocate — Angelina Jolie or Leonardo Di Caprio
• Those actions that contribute to the making of a common policy for a group of people constitute
politics — The questions of those policies and the making of those policies are political questions.
• Politics exists within any of these groups whenever they make a decision that will apply to all
the members of the group
• The ongoing competition between people, usually in groups, to shape policy in their favour
• Politics always involves the exercise of power by one person or persons over another person or
persons — Power is the ability of one person to cause another to do hat the first wishes, by
whatever means.

1. Defining characteristics of politics

• Politics always involve the making of common decisions for groups of people — those decisions
are made by some members of the group exercising power over other members of the group.

• Power may be:

- Stark — when a police officer stops a demonstrator fro marching up the street
- Subtle — when a group of poor people, by their very misery, elicit positive governmental action
on their behalf.

2. How do we exercise power?

• Coercion — Forcing someone to do something he did not want to do (forcing to eat veggies /
laws / blackmail)

• Persuasion — convincing someone that that is what they really want to do (political parties)

• Construction — making the alternative so unattractive that only one option remains (last round
of elections)

3. Implicit and Manifest power?

• Manifest Power — Based on an observable action by A that leads B to do what A wants. (A police
officer’s signal to stop a driver)

• Implicit Power — B does what A desires not because of anything A says or does but because 1:“B
senses that A wants something done” and 2:“for any of a variety of reasons B wishes to do what A
wants done”

 4. The elite power (Digeser)

• An elite controlling ideas and public opinion such that it does not even occur to some groups to
want the things they should want.

• An elite might exercise power by:

- Preventing discussion of proposals it does not want to see on the table
- Influencing what people want so that incovenient proposals never occur to them in the first
place.

• HOW? by Agenda-Setting — Putting on the agenda certain topics so that we only think about that
(10 strategies of distracting the attention)
- Pedro sanchez focusing on Franco’s exhumation instead of focusing on the problems that Spain
was suffering at the moment because he was trying to take the attention away from the shitty
job he was doing.

Ultimately politics is about power, specifically the power to shape others’ behavior. Power in politics is getting people to
do something they wouldn’t otherwise do—and sometimes having them think it was their idea. — Niccolò Machiavelli

5. Political Power
• Biological explanation:
- ARISTOTLE for survival
- Modern explanation: Forming political system and obeying its leaders are innate passed on
with ones genes
If humans are naturally political, how do we explain political parties falling apart or people disobeying.

• Psychological explanation:
- The Milgram experiment, 1963
- Obedience, peer pressure Abu ghraib (military prison Iraq)
- Groupthink, ignoring doubters (Pearl Harbour, Bay of pigs) — most people are conformists

• Cultural explanation
- Nature vs nature
- Teaching children to behave a certain way
- Behaviour is learned
- Parents, school, churches and the mass media
- Change in society is slow and difficult
- Similar patterns (many world leaders having accounts in Panama — Mossack-Fonseca)

• Rational explanation
- If leaders fear that people are rational, they will respect the public’s ability to discern
wrongdoing (elections)

• Irrational explanation
- People are basically irrational, especially when it comes to politics
- They are emotional, dominated by myths and stereotypes, and politics is really the
manipulation of symbols.

 session 2

POWER and LEGITIMACY

• Connection among people, the ability of one person to get others to do his or her bidding
• Power is earned, not seized

1. Power in politics
• Power is a sort of enabling device to carry out or implement policies and decisions.
• You can have praiseworthy goals, but without power to implement them, they remain wishful
thoughts.

2. Politics as a choice of a common decision

• When we view a political outcome as a matter of choice — we explain the outcome by the fact
that it was needed; either y socket as a whole or by some politically significant figures.

• Parliamentary government works most smoothly when prime ministers control tightly how
individual members vote — most parliamentary systems have developed tightly disciplined
parties, so the political leaders devised all sorts of rewards and punishments to keep their party
members in line.

• Politics consists of making common decision for a group of people through the use of power; it is
used to find a common solution to a common problem — (politics consists of public choice)

3. Sources of power
• AUTHORITY — a person, or group, has authority if there is general agreement among those
involved that he has the right to control certain decisions and that those decisions should be
complied with.

• GOVERNMENT — a group of people with ultimate authority within a territory. It is unique

because all of its power involves authority and there is (usually) no limit to the range of activities
over which it may exercise authority. Most governments themselves impose some limits on their
authority (US government rules out the exercise of authority over what religion people are to
follow)

4. Legitimacy and Authority

• The crux of government and of its ability to function effectively, is the government’s wide-ranging
authority to organise the lives of its people. Paradoxically, this authority exists only because the
people believe it to exist and that it is appropriate.

• We call the existence of this sort of feeling, to the extent that it does exist, the legitimacy of the
government.

5. Sources of Legitimacy
• by RESULTS — A government gains and retains legitimacy by providing them with what they
want the most (economic security, security of the borders, pride in their nation…).. If the
government does not provide these things, its legitimacy might be called into question.

• by HABIT — Once a government has existed for a while, people become accustomed to obeying
its laws. People expect to operate under one government or another and so whatever government
there is at the moment is likely to be regarded as legitimate.

• by HISTORICAL, RELIGIOUS OR ETHNIC IDENTITY — Governments tend to enhance their

legitimacy by the ties that exist between themselves and the people because of the government
leaders’ past accomplishments and/or ethnical similarities between the leaders and the people.
(i.e. independence movements — Israel, India or Algeria)

• by PROCEDURES — By following certain steps in setting itself up, procedures in which many
people have confidence, so that they will start off with a fund of trust for any government that has
been stablished along these lines. (i.e. Democracy)

session 3

WHAT IS POLITICAL SCIENCE ?

• It’s a method of how to study politics — objective analysis of politics

• In the words of Harold Lasswell, it’s the study of “who gets what”, although some say that is
determined by the economic system

• It’s an empirical discipline that accumulates quantified and qualified data — with that data we
find persistent patterns — generalisations — which become firmer and are then called — theories
(in a few cases these theories become even firmer and we call them laws)

• It is reasoned, balanced, supported with evidence and theoretical

 1. Political Science vs Politics

• Political science is training in objective and often complex analysis
• The practice of politics requires fixed, popular and simplified opinions

• Political science can contribute to good government — often by warning those in office that all is
not well.

2. Subfields of Political Science

• DOMESTIC POLITICS: focuses on institutions and processes (mostly at national level) and it
includes parties elections, public opinion and executive and legislative behaviour.

• COMPARATIVE POLITICS: examines politics within other nations, trying to establish

generalisations about institutions and political culture; as well as theories of democracy, stability
and policy. It may be focused on various regions “Latin American politics” or “East Asian politics”.

• INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: studies politics among nations — including conflict, diplomacy,

international law, international organisations and international political economy. The study of a
country’s foreign policy has one foot in domestic politics and one in International relations.

• POLITICAL THEORY: attempts to define the good polity (often focused on major thinkers)

• PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: studies how bureaucracies work and how they can be improved

• CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: studies the application & evolution of the Constitution in a legal system

• PUBLIC POLICY: studies the interface of politics and economics with an eye to developing effective
programs.

3. Political Science vs History and Journalism

• Different goals but common features

• History studies the past, and not all history focuses on politics

• Journalism covers the present, and not all news are on politics

• What they share is — focus on unique events

• Where historians and journalists seek to explain the unique circumstances of an event, political
scientists seek to generalise.

 4. Theories in Political Science

Theories provide structure that give meaning to patterns of facts; theories are suggestions as to how
the facts should be organised.

➡ BEHAVIORALISM
• Concentrates on actual behaviour rather than thoughts and feelings
• Political scientists accumulated statistics from elections, public-opinion surveys and votes in
legislature
• Behavioralists gave political theory an empirical basis
• Examine the values and attitudes of citizens
• Best work is — voting patterns (lots of valid data)
• Examine only what exists at a given moment — neglecting of the possibility of change (their
studies are time-bound)

➡ POSTBEHAVIORALISM
• Postbehavioralists recognise that facts and values are tied together.
• They use the qualitative data of the traditionalists and the quantitive data of the
behavioralists.
• They look at history, institutions, public opinion and rational-choice theory

➡ NEW INSTITUTIONALISM

• In 1970’s political science pulled away from behaviouralism and rediscovered institutions —
this was proclaimed “New Institutionalism” in the 1980’s.

• Its crux is that government structures (legislatures, parties, bureaucracies…) — take on lives
of their own and shape the behaviour and attitudes of the people who live within and benefit
from them. Institutions are not simply the reflection of social forces.

• Legislators behave as they do because of the rules laid down long ago and reinforced over
time — once you understand these rules you predict how politicians logically try to maximise
their advantage under them.

• The preservation and enhancement of the institution becomes one of politicians’ major goals;
therefore — institutions even if outmoded or ineffective tend to rumble on. (Monarchy)

 ➡ “SYSTEMS THEORY”

• The “political systems” model devised by David Easton — contributed to our understanding of
politics by simplifying reality but in some cases departed from reality

• Its essence is — You cannot change just one component because that changes all the others

• Politics of a given country act as a feedback loop (like a biological system)

- Citizens demands “inputs” are
recognised by the government who
process them into authoritative
decisions and actions “outputs” which
have an impact on the social, economic
and political environments, then the
citizens express their demands again as
“feedback” (which is the crucial link of
the system — which may modify the
earlier decision). What goes on in the
“conversion process” was left opaque —
a “black box”

• There are some problems with the systems model, and they seem to be in the “black box” of
the conversion process — much happens in the mechanism of government that is not initiated
by and little to do with the wishes of the citizens. (i.e. cigarettes and lung cancer or the
dangers of sugar)

• MODIFIED SYSTEMS THEORY

to better reflect reality —
putting the “conversion
process” of government first
because it originate most
decisions, rather than the
citizenry (the public reacts only
later.

➡ RATIONAL-CHOICE THEORY

• Political behaviour can be generally predicted by knowing the interests of the actors involved,
because they rationally maximise their interests.

• They set up political decisions as if they were table games — game theory — game scan show
how decision makers think (their choices are never easy or simple); games can even be
mathematised and fed into computers.

• The great weakness of game theory is that it depends on correctly estimating the “payoffs”
that decision makers can expect — and these are only approximations arrived at by
examining the historical record.

 session 4

POWER

1. Power
• It’s the ability to influence: an outcome to achieve an objective or a person to act in a different
way that he/she normally would

• It involves the exercise of volition (will) — power over someone else involves altering his volition

• Power can be latent or manifest

• Different types of power are generally blended together when power is made manifest

2. Definition and Characteristics of power

• Power is one of the most important concepts in political science

• Power is seen as a defining element of discipline

• Power affects how resources are distributed, how countries interact, wether peace or war prevails
and how groups and individuals pursue their interests

• Power can be:

- Latent (inactive) — held in reserve
- Manifest (active) — deployed
• The possession of latent power by one agent can be highly effective in producing changes in a
second agent. The mere possibility that the first agent will activate power can be feared by the
second agent and elicit changes in the second agent’s actions. (i.e. Cold War)

3. Types of power
• FORCE — is power involving physical means

• PERSUASION — is nonphysical power in which the agent using it, makes its use clear and known

• MANIPULATION — is nonphysical power in which the agent using power conceals its use

• EXCHANGE — is the use of power through incentives

 4. Force
• Force is the exercise of power by physical means

• Force can include acts of physical violence and of physical obstruction

• It can be violent (9/11 or the Talibans) or non-violent (Ghandi or MLK)

• Restraining, assaulting, raping, assassinating, impeding access to an object…

• Force can include:

- embargoes and boycotts (deny physical access of resources)
- blockades and barricades (deny physical access to a place)
- revolutions and riots (physically mobilise groups in support of or opposition to a government
or policy)
- blocking access to a courthouse, voting booth, public school or abortion facility

• Non-Violent Approach (according to Martin Luther King)

- First: force was never to be used violently — people used their bodies physically to try to
obtain objectives and to make other agents act in ways they would not, on their own,
otherwise choose to act.
- Second: force is legitimate only when verbal negotiations with authorities failed to end
segregation and discrimination.
- Third: force was acceptable only if conducted after self-scrutiny, in which the individual
examined their motives and ensured that their use of force would not be motivated by anger,
revenge, or other self-gratifying motives.
- Fourth: Force was acceptable only when employed to alter discriminatory laws.
✴ Henry Brown mailed himself

5. Persuasion
• Nonphysical type of power in which the agent using power makes its intentions and desires
known to the agent over whom power is exercised.

• Person A persuades B by explaining A’s desires, choices and will and then produces a change in B
in conformity with A’s desires, choices and will. B is altered from his preferred course (power has
been exercised over B), but B as not been acted on physically.

• Persuasion is a major part of politics — lobbying, speechmaking, debating, writing letters, issuing
position papers and making proclamations., laws and policies.

• Persuasion may fail, but when it works, it can be an impetus to political and social change.

• i.e. Shirin Ebadi

 6. Manipulation
• Nonphysical use of power in which the agent exercising power over a second agent conceals the
aims and intentions motivating the exercise of power.

• When manipulation is successful — the agent over whom power is exercised is unaware that
power has been used.

• If you are persuaded, you feel it; if you are manipulated, you don’t.

• How can you resist something if you don’t know it exists? Manipulation power is very difficult to
oppose because of its cloaked quality.

7. Exchange
• It involves incentives — one agent gives another agent an item in return for another item

• One agent can obtain an objective or exercise power over another agent by giving the second
agent the incentive to concur with the first agents will — if the second agent knows he/she will be
rewarded, the second agent has an incentive to concur.

• Power has been exercised, to such extent that the second agent concurred with the first agent’s
wishes as a result of having been influenced by the incentive.

• i.e a government wants citizens to buy fuel-efficient cars and offers them a monetary incentive to
do so; and citizens respond favourably to his incentive.

• Adrian Severin, Romania — MEP accepted the promise of two people to give him 100k€ in
exchange of putting down favourable amendments (they turned out to be undercover journalists)

• LOGROLLING is a practice in a legislative body in which one person agrees to vote for a second
person’s favoured bill if the second person, in exchange, will vote for the first person’s favoured
bill. Votes are exchanged as a means of pursuing desired objectives and altering the behaviour of
others.

• International war on drugs has included exchange as a part of its arsenal of weapons:
- The US gives economic aid to Colombian coca growers who agree to shift to a different crop
- The UN gives cash to Afghan poppy farmers who agree to shift to a different crop

• After 9/11, Bush used exchange in order to build International opposition to Afghanistan’s ruling
Taliban; he gave economic assistance to various members of the “Six Plus Two Group” (formed by
US, Russia and the states bordering Afghanistan)

• EXCHANGE VS MANIPULATION — Manipulation is difficult to analyse because it veils its own

use, exchange can be puzzling because of the reciprocity of gains it offers.
- In exchange even the agent over whom power is exercised is gaining something — the incentive
to attain a desired object makes exchange work

10

 STATES and NATIONS

1. Characteristics of States
• States are organisations claiming ultimate rule-setting and rule-enforcing authority within their
borders.

• States consist of government offices which have a number of political tasks (providing security,
extracting revenues and forming rules — for resolving disputes and allocating resources within its
territory)

• They may be organised as unitary, federal or confederal systems

• SOVEREIGNTY — the ability of states to act as ultimate rule-making and rule-enforcing

organisations.

• LEGITIMACY — the belief by citizens that the state operating over them is proper

2. Functions of States
• Providing SECURITY — by creating military establishments, seeking membership in international
treaty organisations and pursuing isolationism.

• FUNDING — their operations through extraction, states may create tax structures to fund
expansive or limited social welfare programs

• by setting rules for CONFLICT RESOLUTION — states create court systems

• by setting rules for RESOURCE ALLOCATION — states may create distribution systems that are
capitalist, socialist or a combination of both.

• in ENFORCING ITS RULES — a state relies primarily on force (physical aggression against its own
population), persuasion (the issuance of decrees or laws), manipulation (propaganda) and
exchange (fostering a growing economy in order to “buy” acquiescence from its citizens)

3. Six types of Government — Aristotle

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 4. Effective, Weak and Failed States

• EFFECTIVE states:
- Control and tax their entire territory
- Laws are mostly obeyed
- Government looks after general warfare and security
- Corruption is fairly minor
- Taxes of 25-50% of GDP
- Democracies with free and fair elections
- i.e. Canada

• WEAK states:
- Penetration of crime into politics
- Government does not have the strength to fight lawlessness, drug trafficking, corruption,
poverty and breakaway movements.
- Justice is bought
- Democracy is preached more than practiced — elections are often rigged
- Little is collected in taxation
- i.e. Mexico

• FAILED states:
- Incapable of minimal governance
- Warlords, militias and drug lords do as they wish
- There is no law besides the gun
- Territorial weapon threatens
- Education and health standards plunge
- i.e. Venezuela

5. Stages of Political Development (Fukuyama)

12

 6. Sovereignty and Legitimacy of States

• States that have both — are viewed as having a type of power different from that held by mere
individuals and groups, because these states are viewed as appropriate holders of ultimate power.

• SOVEREIGNTY: When a state provides security, extraction and rule making; you can say it is an
effective state. Even if it has the offices, but it’s unable to exercise sovereignty — failed state.

• LEGITIMACY: When a state’s citizens view their sovereignty as appropriate, proper or acceptable

7. Types of States (Organisation)

• UNITARY STATES

- Concentrate power at the central, or national, level — UK, France, Japan and China)
- Unitary system — gives little autonomy to its component areas (most governance radiates from
the capital city

- First-Order civivl divisions — largely administrated by national authorities with small local
inputs (departments in France, provinces in Netherlands, counties in Sweden and prefectures
in Japan

- Center-Periphery tensions (Regionalism) — grew in the 1970’s by economical and cultural

reasons, lack of local control over political decisions and often regions hold resentments with
the larger nation because of conquering and forcibly merging them. (Devolution in Britain,
Decentralisation in France, Autonomy in Spain and Prefectures in Japan)

• FEDERAL STATES

- The first-order civil divisions of federalism — have considerable political political powers that
cannot be easily overridden by the central government (US and Brazilian states, and German
Länder)

- The components of Federal system are usually represented in an upper house — US senate or
German Bundesrat.

- The central government does run areas that are inherently national — foreign, defence and
monetary policy.

- The states typically control education, police, highways and other close-to-home affairs
- Because of the not so clear division of powers — federalism rests on a delicate and changing
balance between central power and local autonomy.

13

• CONFEDERATIONS

- Are a third alternative (to unitary and federal systems)

- The component parts can override the central government (unlike the unitary which
concentrates its power in the national capital or the federal with balances it between the centre
and the components)

✴ Many existing states are new — fewer than 30 states now in existence were independent with their
own governing system in 1800

8. Are states the most important agents of political decision

making?

• States claim ultimate power to make rules and provide security but — they have non-state rivals:

‣ International terrorism

‣ Non-state organisations:
- multinational corporations (MNCs) — some are richer than entire countries. They transport
money, jobs, personnel…from one country to another (MNCs have the power to leave a state
with unattractive taxation or labour policies and relocate somewhere else) — this
transportability, hinders the states’ ability to govern their own economies.

- nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) — important agents in the area of international

conflict resolution. They also shape political processes by exerting direct pressure on MNCs (A
number of NGOs pressured McDonalds-MNC to make more sustainable packaging).

- Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) — political organisations in which membership is

held exclusively by states. IGOs have a significant impact on political relations between states.
i.e. UN, Organisation of American States (OAS), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) and the UN Conferences on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

9. Are states likely to decline and be replaced by some other form

of political organisation?

• Even powerful states have these rivals (MNCs, NGOs and IGOs), so potentially states are subject
to forces threatening to waken them

• FORCES THAT THREATEN THE STATE’S EXISTENCE:

- Technological development
- Global Problems (AIDS, global warming and terrorism)
- Citizens looking at entities other than states for information, leadership and ethical guidance
- Strengthening of the resources and appeals of groups within a state’s borders
- Increasing know-how on the part of citizens to analyse and resist state authority

14

 10. Nations

• A nation is a group with a sense of unity — members share a common language, culture, history,
ethnicity and/or religion.

• Nations may or may not have their own states

• More than one nation may exists within a state’s boundaries — multinational state

11. Nations and States

• National identity, or nationalism, may precede the emergence of a nation’s state

• Some nations exist without ever demanding the creation of their own states — nationalism is a
way of affirming a group’s identity and a basis for demanding respect for a group’s interest.

12. Multinational states

• A state with numerous ethnic, language, and religious groups with varying degrees of nationalist
sentiment

• Wether expressed violently or peacefully — nationalism may pose difficulty for state sovereignty
and legitimacy

15

 session 5

IDEOLOGIES AND IDEOLOGICAL STYLES

1. What is an Ideology?
• An ideology begins with the belief that things can be better — it is a plan to improve society

• Ideology is “a verbal image of the good society, and of the chief means of constructing such a
society”

• Ideology is often based on political and economic theories but simplified and popularised to sell to
mass audiences, build political movements and win elections.

2. Ideologies and Political theories

• CLASSIC LIBERALISM — John Locke emphasised individual rights, property and reason

• COMMUNISM — Hegel emphasised that all facets of a society (art, music, architecture, politics,
law…) hang together as a package, all the expression of an underlying Zeitgeist.

• Ideologists ideas are simplified and popularised — Ideologists want plans for action, not abstract
ideas

3. Liberalism
• Liberalism thinks as the highest good of society — ‘the ability of members of a society to develop
their individual capacities to the fullest’

• Characteristics:
- Society should be as free as possible from government interference
- Ability of people to develop individual capacities
- Individuals are responsible for their own actions
- Democracy is the most appropriate form of government
- Intellectual freedom
- Economic freedom

• John Locke — “Government with the consent of the governed” // John Stuart Mill — reconciled
individual freedom with the general good of society

• LIBERTY — A political concept for freedom from undue or oppressive restraints on a person’s
actions, thoughts or beliefs imposed by the state — constrained by the harmed principle

16

 CLASSICAL LIBERALISM MODERN LIBERALISM

No government interference Relevant government intervention

Government protects life, property and liberty All individuals valued equally

Focuses on economic freedom for individuals Social justice (equity)

USA Republicans USA Democrats

DISADVANTAGES

CLASSICAL LIBERALISM MODERN LIBERALISM

Created monopolies Government can try to overstep its boundaries

Class separation All At times too bureaucratic

Excessive social protection can lead to a lack of

Markets cannot “correct themselves” automatically innovation and allows people to do bare minimum to
survive

Lead to high corruption

Exploitation of labour and natural resources

• TYPES OF LIBERALISM

- USA: Liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal program of the
Democratic administration of President Roosevelt.

- EUROPE: Liberalism is associated with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire

policies

*laissez-faire - economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from government intervention.

17

 4. Conservatism

• A belief in the value of stablished and traditional practices in politics and society

• A dislike of a change or new ideas in particular areas of society

• Typically associated with right-wing politics

• CHARACTERISTICS
- Counteract liberalism
- Group content over individual happiness
- Institutions
- Various ramifications
- Authority and power

• VALUES
- Tradition
- Organic society
- Hierarchy and authority
- Property

• DISADVANTAGES
- Minimal change in society
- Narrow minded attitude
- System of prejudice and inequality
- Against free healthcare

CLASSICAL CONSERVATISM CLASSICAL CONSERVATISM

Values religion and morality Strong supporters of economic rights

Limited role of government Less bound by social ethics

Economics limited by social ethics More market-oriented

Implementation of gradual change Support general privatisation of most industries

Greater support for nationalism and patriotism

Implementation of gradual change

18

 • CDU (Christian Democratic Union) — Merkel

- Popular leader
- Centrism & secularity
- Core beliefs
- Werteunion — union of values
- Family values, immigration and compulsory military
- Christianity — “Preservation of god’s creation”
- High taxes

• United Russia — Putin

- New society, old traditions of Society era
- Community people
- Religion and ethnic classes
- Political/economic power

• Donald Trump
- Small government, concentration on capitalism
- Immigration issues
- Gun policy
- Homeland security
- Abortion

5. Socialism
• Judeo-Christian tradition includes some of the oldest ideas of socialism — Book: of Deuteronomy,
of Acts and of Timothy.

• EARLY THINKERS/THEORISTS:
- Henry de Saint-Simon — viewed socialism as a large social system with coordinated economic
activity
- Robert Owen — believed in smaller, competent communities that were responsible for the
wealth produced
- Christian Socialism — Religion needed for social stability
- Karl Marx…

6. Karl Marx
• KARL MARX
- Analysed capitalism and divided society in 2 classes — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
- He defined class in terms of functions, not in terms of income levels
- He thought of capitalism as contradictory and progressive

• KARL MARX & SOCIALISM

- Goal of socialism — focus on the positive characteristics of capitalism and get rid of the
negative ones
- Solution — abrogate social classes (adults share ownership of goods and services earned and
state officials, and later citizens, monitor these good and services)

19

 7. Marxism
• Ideology that pursuits the expropriation of the means of production of the bourgeoisie and hand
them to the proletariat; so the working class are the only ones that benefit form the result of their
work.

• MARXISM-LENINISM
- Ideology that pursuits the emancipation of the working class form capitalism with a revolution
- Lenin (communist ideology) — his idea was creating a party formed by the working class that
violently destroyed capitalism — this ideology triumphed in the Russian Revolution of 1917

8. Social Democracy
• Rejects Marxism-Leninism because it considers the advocacy of a vanguard party something
authoritarian.
• Supports peaceful, legal efforts to work towards socialism
• Views socialism as a way of organising society so that all groups are guaranteed some level of
social well-being and economic security

✴ DISADVANTAGES — Less individuality, lack of innovation and more bureaucracy

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 9. Fascism

• CHARACTERISTICS
- Origins — early 1920s in Italy
- Leaser as saviour
- “Anti” movement
- Nationalism (racism)
- Shared interest
- Totalitarian State — ideological monopole
- Elitism — Glorified violence — Militarisation

• REGIMES
- Fascist Italy
- Nazi Germany
- Japanese Fascism
- Franco’s Spain
- Brazil
- Chile

• DISADVANTAGES
- No free Speech
- Abuse of power
- Barriers to investment
- Targeting specific groups
- Large funds spent on military defence
- Desire for land expansion

• NEOFASCISM
- After WW2
- Extreme nationalism — racial purity
- Difference between fascists and Neofascists?

- Neofascists parties in Europe?

- Neofascists parties in the US?

21

 10. Feminism
• Affirms that women should have equality with men; and should posses as much autonomy as men
• Rejects patriarchy whenever manifest in intellectual, cultural, religious or political traditions and
practices
• Includes traditional/liberal, socialist, radical and diversity feminist perspectives

TRADITIONAL FEMINISM SOCIALIST FEMINISM

- Gender equality
- Voting rights
- Right to education
- Equal job opportunities
- Equal wages
- The mainstream of society itself should be radically changed
- The goal is to organise socialism; not to bring women into the
capitalism mainstream on an equal basis to men
- It conceptualises capitalism and patriarchy as mutually
reinforcing

RADICAL FEMINISM DIVERSITY FEMINISM

- Rejects liberal feminism
- Opposition to mainstream
institutions and politics
- Analyses how men as a group have
oppressed women and offers
alternatives to this oppression
- Defends LGTBQ+ rights
- Criticises the narrow focus of liberal feminism
- Draws on experiences of women form multiple
ethnic, racial, cultural and international
backgrounds
- Views other forms of feminism (specially liberal) as
concerned primarily with a narrow cross-section
(white middle class women)

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11. Environmentalism

• A perspective that encompasses a broad range of views concerned with the preservation,
restoration, or improvement of the natural environment.

• Rejects the belief that humans are the centre of the universe and masters of nature

• Suggests that economic value is not the only value to consider when calculating the words of
natural resources — importance of viewing natural resources form an ecological perspective
(protection the natural resources found within the Earth’s ecosystems)

• EXAMPLES OF PARTIES AND LEADERS

- Green Party of Germany
- The Values Party of New Zealand
- United Tasmania Group of Australia
- Wangari Maathai (political activist and environmentalist)
- Al Gore (former vice president USA and environmentalist)

• ECOSYSTEM INTEGRITY REQUIRES:

- Certain resources be protected from depletion
- Land or water be conserved
- Development projects involving roads, dams, and construction the reduced

12. Populism

• A political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are just
recorded by established elite groups. It is becoming more common as globalisation is decreasing.

• Goal — make the voices of the less fortunate heard and reconfigure the system

• IDEOLOGY vs POLITICAL STYLE

- Populism exists in both political extremes
- Ideology is specific to a political party or political movement
- Therefore, populism is more of a political style

• EXAMPLE — France
- Both against EU for very different reasons
- Melenchon: imposing market sanctions
- Le Pen: controlling the borders

• Leader — a hero rather than a politician (presents himself as a normal person: one of the people,
ready to fight for the rights of others and makes the crown feel like a family)

• COMMON ENEMY — establish a common enemy — unite and feel as if they have a choice “we”

• LANGUAGE — aggressive language to address the enemy, direct and easy speech (simple solution)

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 13. Nationalism
• Advocacy of or support for the political independence of a particular nation or people
• Privileging: economy, industry and people above foreign influence
• TRUMP — Enemy: immigrants
• CHAVEZ — Enemy: elite

14. Elitism

• CHARACTERISTICS:
- Social construct
- Higher ranking or hierarchy
- Institutions
- Political power is held by a small and wealthy group of people
- Influence over policy making and mass media
- “Movers and Shakers”
- Clear separation between social groups

• ELITISTS:
- Gaetano Mosca
- Robert Michels
- Robert Dahl

• Mechanisms behing elitism in RECENT POLITICS:

- Members of Congress
- George W. Bush and the America’s richest elite

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 session 7

GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEMS: democracy & non-democracy

1. Regimes

• a REGIME (system of governance) — is a combination of patterns that determines:

- Methods of access to the principal public offices
- Characteristics of the actors omitted to or excluded from such access
- Strategies that actors may use to gain success
- Rules followed in the making of publicly binding decisions

• To work properly:
- The whole thing must be INSTITUTIONALISED — a written body of laws — a written constitution
- The various patterns must be habitually KNOWN, PRACTICED and ACCEPTED (by most, if not all, actors)

• Regime forms
- Democratic, autocratic, authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannical, totalitarian, absolutist, traditional,
monarchic, oligarchic, plutocratic, aristocratic and sultanistic
- Each of these forms may be broken down into subtypes

• Rulers
- All regimes depend upon the presence of rulers — occupy specialised authority roles & give commands
- What distinguishes democratic rulers form non-democratic rulers —- the norms that condition how the
ruler comes to power and the practices that hold them accountable for their actions

2. Public Realm

• Encompasses the making of collective norms and choices that bind the society and are backed
by the state — its content can vary among democracies (depending on preexisting distinctions
between: the public and the private, state and society, legitimate coercion and voluntary
exchange, collective needs and individual preferences.

• The liberals — defend restricting the public realm as narrowly as possible

• The socialists — would extend the public realm through regulation, subsidies and even collective
ownership of property
• They are both equally democratic, but in a different way

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 3. Citizens

• Citizens are the MOST DISTINCTIVE ELEMENT in democracies

• All regimes have rulers and public realm, but only democratic regimes have citizens
• Many restriction on citizenship were imposed in partial democracies, according to — age, race,
literacy, property ownership, taxpaying status…

4. Elections

• Democracies — regular, fair and honest elections

• Elections only happen intermittently — allow citizens to choose highly aggregated alternatives
offered by parties, which can derive in a bewildering variety (specially in early stages of
democratic transition)

• Between the intervals of elections, citizens can seek to influence public policy through
intermediaries like — interest associations, social movements, locality groupings, clientist
arrangements…

5. Modern Democracy

• Modern democracy — offers a variety of competitive processes and channels for the expressions of
interest and values (from associations and parties, functional and territorial, collective and
individual) — all are integral to its practice

6. Majority rule

• Any governing body that makes decisions combining the votes of more than half of those eligible
and present — is democratic (wether the majority emerges within an electorate, a parliament, a
committee, a city council or a party caucus)

• The problem arises when numbers meet intensities — when a properly assembled majority
regularly makes decisions that harm some minority (threatened cultural or ethnic group)

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7. Protection of minority rights

• Constitutional provisions that place certain matters beyond the reach of majorities — bills of rights

• Demands for coexisting majorities in a few different constituencies(distrito electoral) — confederalism

• Guarantees securing the autonomy of local/regional governments against demands of central
authority — federalism
• Grand coalition governments that incorporate all parties — consociationalism
• Negotiation of social pacts between major social groups like business or labour — neocorporatism

8. Cooperation

• Actors must voluntarily make collective decisions binding on the polity as a whole

• They must cooperate in order to compete

• They must be capable of acting collectively through parties, associations and movements in order
to select candidates, articulate preferences, petition authorities and influence policies

• Cooperation and deliberation — goes under the rubric of ‘civil society’

• By remaining independent of the state — they can restrain the arbitrary actions of rulers and
contribute to forming better citizens (who are more aware of preferences of others, more self-
confident in their actions and more civic-minded — willing to sacrifice for the common good)

9. Representatives

• Representatives (wether directly or indirectly elected) do most of the real work in democracies

• Most are professional politicians — desire to fill key offices

• The central question — how representatives are chosen and held accountable for their actions

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10. Procedures that make democracy possible

• Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials

• Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is
comparatively uncommon

• Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election of officials

• Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices in the government

• Citizens have the right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political
matters broadly defined

• Citizens have the right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative
sources of information exist and are protected by the law

• Citizens also have the right to form relatively independent associations organisations, including
independent political parties and interest groups

11. Procedures that make democracy possible

• ELECTED OFFICIALS — are elected by citizens and have control over government decisions about
policy (modern democracies are representative)

• FREE, FAIR AND FREQUENT ELECTIONS — officials are chosen in these elections (coercion is
uncommon)

• FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION — citizens can express themselves without punishment

• ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF INFORMATION — newspapers, magazines, books… alternative

sources that are not controlled by the government or other parties, exist and are protected by law

• ASSOCIATIONAL AUTONOMY —right to form relatively independent associations or

organisations, including independent political parties and interest groups

• INCLUSIVE CITIZENSHIP — if an adult is a permanent resident of the country and subjected to its
laws, it can’t be denied the rights that are available to others and necessary to the following
political institutions: right to vote in free fair elections, run for office, free expression, access
independent sources of information, form and participate in independent political organisations
and rights to other liberties and opportunities necessary to the effective operation of the political
institutions.

★ These six political institutions constitute a new type of political system and a new kind of popular
government — a modern type large-scale democratic government — Polyarchal Democracy (Dahl)

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12. History of modern representative democracies

• At first — citizens elected higher lawmaking officials

• Then — there was a gradual expansion of the rights of citizens to express themselves on political
matters and to seek and exchange information

• Followed by — the right to form associations with clear political goals

• Political ‘factions’ (small groups within a large one) were viewed as dangerous for political order,
stability and a threat to the public good. Political associations were often allowed to exist as
clandestine associations — but later emerged form the shadows — what once were ‘factions’,
became political parties

13. US and de Tocqueville

• Alexis de Tocqueville (a young French aristocrat) visited the US in the 1830s and saw that the five
democratic political institutions mentioned above, were already installed in America.

• The institutions seemed to him so planted and dominant that he referred to the US as a
democracy — “The people were sovereign, society governs itself for itself, and power of the
majority was unlimited”

14. What democracy is NOT

• Democracies are not necessarily more efficient economically than other forms of government

• Democracies are not necessarily more efficient administratively

• Democracies are not likely to appear more orderly, consensual, stable or governable than the
autocracies they replace

• Democracies will have more open societies and polities than the autocracies they replace, but not
necessarily more open economies.

15. Democratic governments

• Few perfect democracies exist — we speak of degrees of democracy — democracy is a set of

processes or arrangements to which countries conform to varying degrees. A government that may
look democratic form one standpoint, may look undemocratic from another.

• Countries may be in transition — moving towards or away from democracy.

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 16. Democracy presupposes that:

• Participatory democracy — people are free to participate in the governing process

• Pluralist democracy — All people are free to participate in the governing process

• Developmental democracy — People are aware of what they are doing when participating in the
governing process, so that their participation is a process of achieving self-government

• Protective democracy — Government in not dictatorial and oppressive toward the people

17. Performance

• Levels of democracy are measured by examining the quality of life of the people — quality of life
is influenced by governmental laws and policies.

• For that we examine factors as income levels, literacy rates, life expectancy, access to medical
care, vulnerability to crime and other quality-of-life issues

• High rates of poverty in a country that is rich in resources and in the technology needed to
develop them — might raise the question of wether government policies reflect the interest of
citizens.

18. The democratic bargain

• It requires an agreement among labor unions, corporations, environmentalists… and all other
groups to take their chances on the outcome of a process of policy making in which the
population as a whole gets the deciding voice.

• Each group accepts the end result and hopes that it will be able to get enough of what it wants
out of the process.

19. Stable Democracies

• Of the 104 independent states in 1960, only 29 have had uninterrupted record of electoral
democratic government over the time since then — most of these are prosperous industrialised
states whose people rather compromise on the “democratic bargain”

• However, some poor states have also had steady histories of democratic government (India,
Jamaica, Costa Rica…)

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20. Authoritarian democracies

• At the bottom range of democracies — authoritarian democracies — in which there possibly isn’t
enough democracy in the system.

• In Russia — the constitution gives the president immense power but Vladimir Putin has added to
this by intimidating the opposition and the press

• In Zimbabwe — President Mugabe won several elections in large part by campaigns of

intimidation, assault and beatings of supporters of the opposition.

• The term “authoritarian democracies” indicate that these states are at the margin of both regimes

21. NON-DEMOCRACY

• Government in which the people are not self-governing in terms of inputs and outputs

• Non-democracies may also be in transition and usually are much more numerous

• Non-democratic governments have not linked the demos (people) and kratein (process of ruling)

• People are not self-governing nor in position to direct government policy towards the expression
of people’s interests

• Non-democracies also have degrees — a government may be more nondemocratic in terms of

participation than in terms of performance, or more nondemocratic in terms of pluralism than in
terms of protection

• Firstly — governments may be antiparticipatory (deny freedom of participation) — governments

may also mobilise people by ordering the people to act in certain ways (i.e. attend political rallies)
but may remove any sort of expression of the people’s interests. The government may also restrict
participation to certain segments of people. (i.e. South African government’s policy allowed for
elections, but it restricted voting and office-holding, only the minority white population could)

• Second — suppressing certain groups (such as students, journalists, opposition parties…), this
suppression — reduces participation in politics from members of these groups and violates the
logic of: protective democracy, pluralistic democracy and developmental democracy.

• Third — government outputs may delink the government and the people (citizens have been
closed off from democratic participation in the input aspect of politics — laws are not a reflection
of citizens interests). Nondemocratic leaders say that they want to increase the citizens living
standards (they may look as if they were trying to be performance democrats)

• Fourth — decision making may be done by military, party, family or individual elites

• Finally — rules determining political succession are unclear.

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22. AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM

• Those who hold power are not responsible for their actions — NOT A DEMOCRACY

• i.e. USSR (1917-1991), Saudi Arabia and DR Congo

• MILITARY GOVERNMENT — is the most dramatic alternative to democratic government, a group

of officers who use their troops to take over the governmental apparatus and run it themselves
(coup d’etat = golpe de estado)

• ONE-PARTY STATES — most authoritarian systems are one-party systems. The existence of a
reasonably large national political party that supports the government and provides institutional
basis for it. Compared to military rule, the one-party state offers a more stable and responsive
form of government

• MONARCHY — not to confuse with constitutional monarchies (Spain, Sweden or Great Britain)
where hereditary monarchy exists as part of democracy; monarchs play a symbolic role

• THEOCRACY — state ruled by religious leaders, its legitimacy comes from shared faith of the
citizens. i.e. Vatican City

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5 essay type question (10 lines minimum each)

i.e. Explain the concept of modern liberalism/ advantages and disadvantages + example

Explain the concept of non-violent approach

Explain the agents of political culture

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