Download Chapter 8 Power, Politics, and Government

Power, Politics, and Government

power
 The
essence of politics is power. Power is the capacity
of people or groups to control or influence the actions
of others, whether those others wish to cooperate or not.
 There are three mechanisms for controlling the actions
of others: reward, punishment, and controlling of
information.

Authority and power legitimation
 Sociologists
classify power into two categories,
depending on the circumstances surrounding its use.
Power used in a way that is generally recognized as
socially right and necessary is called legitimate power.
 Power used without social approval is referred to as
illegitimate power.
 A single example can clarify this distinction. Gangsters
who demand and receive protection money from a
shopkeeper by threatening violence are using
illegitimate power. Government agencies that demand
and receive a sales tax from the same shopkeeper are
using legitimate power.
Forms of government

Democracy
 Democracy
means literally “rule of the people.” In a
true democracy, the powers of government derive from
the formal consent of the governed, and citizens have a
right to participate in decision-making process. In a
representative democracy, the most common type, citizens
vote for officials to represent them. Only in very small
democratic systems can each citizen affect government
by direct involvement; this type of democracy is called
participatory or direct democracy.

Totalitarianism （极权主义）
 Totalitarianism
is a form of government, run by a single
party, in which there is governmental surveillance（监视）
and control over all aspects of life.
 The totalitarian state creates an official ideology, a total
worldview and a set of rules of behavior. Rival
worldviews are suppressed, rival religious groups are
persecuted, and the works of many artists and
intellectuals are censored.

Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of government in which ultimate
authority is vested in a single person. The ruler may be either
a monarch (a hereditary ruler), or a dictator (someone who
has come to power and typically holds that power by
means of force). Ideology and political parties do not
play a major role in the authoritarian regime.
 There are important differences between authoritarian and
totalitarian regimes:


An authoritarian regime is one that does not tolerate political
opposition but is prepared to allow institutions and sectors of society
to function free of the state provided they do not engage in political
activity. A totalitarian regime is one that seeks to impose state control
over every institution of society, regardless of whether it engages in
political activity or not and with the intention of …integrating society
as a whole within an all-embracing political design. (Berger, 1986:8384)
 Authority
refers to legitimate power that is institutional
in nature. Max Weber classified the main sources of
social authority into three types:
 Traditional
authority is authority that is conferred by custom
and accepted practice. In a hereditary monarchy, the power
of the head of the government is legitimated by birth.
 Charismatic authority is authority that is generated by the
personality or exceptional personal appeal of an individual.
 Legal-rational authority is authority that rests on rationally
established rules.

The state
 Some
legitimate power or authority is found in every
group or organization. But in modern societies it is the
state, or nation-state, ‘that successfully claims a
monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion and
physical force within a territory” (Weber, 1919).
 The state is the institution that holds supreme power in a
society and that claims a monopoly over the legitimate
use of force. It dictates when, where, and how much
physical force may be rightfully used.

Perspectives on the distribution of political power
The pluralist perspective considers society to be the sum of
many different interest groups—including social classes,
political groups, unions, economic organizations, and
consumers.
 These different groups continually make demands on,, and
attempt to influence, the state’s leaders and officials.
 The role of the state is to mediate among the interest groups,
achieve a public consensus, and pass laws that reflect that
consensus, thereby maintaining social order (Rose, 1967;
Dahl, 1961).

 The
elitist perspective. The so-called classical elitists—
notably Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca, and Vilfredo
Pareto—tended to see the masses as “apathetic,
incompetent, and unwilling or unable to govern
themselves” (Marger, 1982).
 These were some of the conditions, they believed, that
naturally led to a situation know as oligarchy, or rule by
a select few.
 What has become known as the “iron law of oligarchy”
asserts that that elite rule will eventually prevail in
every large-scale, bureaucratic grouping almost as a
basic reality of human nature, no matter how democratic
the grouping may appear to be.