Traditionally there have been four main areas of research: the socio-political formation of the modern state; how social inequality influences politics; how social movements outside of the formal institutions affect formal politics; and power relationships within and between social groups. There are three major theoretical frameworks: pluralism, elite or managerial theory, and class analysis.
Pluralism sees politics primarily as a contest among competing interest groups. Social class theory analysis emphasizes the political power of capitalist elites.
Key Terms social policy : Guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare. A government. Power Power is frequently defined as the ability to influence the behavior of others with or without resistance. Learning Objectives Differentiate between power and constraint, using real life examples. Key Takeaways Key Points Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to humans as social beings.
The sociological examination of power concerns itself with discovering and describing the relative strengths: equal or unequal; stable or subject to periodic change. Power may derive from a number of sources, including social class material wealth can equal power , resource currency material items such as money, property, food , personal or group charisma, or social influence of tradition compare ascribed power.
Researchers have documented the bystander effect: they found that powerful people are three times as likely to first offer help to a stranger in distress. Key Terms unilateralism : A tendency of nations to act on their own, or with only minimal consultation and involvement with other nations. Learning Objectives Give examples of the three types of authority as defined by Max Weber and what distinguishes all of them from coercion or force.
Key Takeaways Key Points Power can be exerted by the use of force or violence. Weber states that legitimacy distinguishes authority, from coercion, force, power, leadership, persuasion and influence. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control.
The three attributes of authority are status, specialist skills, and social position. Authority and Legitimate Violence Max Weber conceived of the state as a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force. Key Takeaways Key Points Weber defines the state as a community successfully claiming authority over legitimate use of physical force in a given territory.
Besides the police and the military, private force can be used too, as long as it has legitimacy derived from the state. Key Terms right of self-defense : The right of self-defense according to U. Max Weber : — A German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself. Traditional Authority Traditional authority refers to a form of leadership in which authority derives from tradition or custom.
Learning Objectives Compare patrimonial government with feudalism within the context of traditional authority. Key Takeaways Key Points Weber traced traditional domination back to patriarchs, their households, and the ancient tradition of family. In such systems, the master is designated in accordance with the rules of inheritance.
All officials are personal dependents or favorites of the ruler, and are appointed by him. Feudalism replaced the paternal relationship of patrimonalism with a contract of allegiance based on knightly militarism. Key Terms feudalism : A social system that is based on personal ownership of resources and personal fealty between a suzerain lord and a vassal subject.
Defining characteristics of feudalism are direct ownership of resources, personal loyalty, and a hierarchical social structure reinforced by religion. The leaders of these countries typically enjoy absolute personal power. Rational-Legal Authority Rational-legal authority is a form of leadership in which authority is largely tied to legal rationality, legal legitimacy, and bureaucracy. Learning Objectives Recall the three characteristics of the modern state, according to Weber.
Key Takeaways Key Points Unlike charismatic authority and traditional authority, rational-legal authority derives its powers from the system of bureaucracy and legality. The modern state based on rational-legal authority emerged from the patrimonial and feudal struggle for power uniquely in Western civilization. A modern state exists where a political community has created an administrative and legal order, binding authority over citizens, and the legitimate use of physical force.
Key Terms authority : The power to enforce rules or give orders. Further, they are enforced by a government that monopolizes their enactment and the legitimate use of physical force. Usually in large organizations and government operations.
Learning Objectives Create a model of a hypothetical charismatic leader in a hypothetical government which describes the charisma and explains in detail how it is legitimized, used, and maintained.
In contrast to the current popular use of the term charismatic leader, Weber saw charismatic authority not so much as character traits of the charismatic leader, but as a relationship between the leader and his followers.
A cult of personality refers to when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. The methods of charismatic succession are search, revelation, designation by original leader, designation by qualified staff, hereditary charisma, and office charisma.
Key Terms routinization : Charismatic authority almost always endangers the boundaries set by traditional or rational legal authority. It tends to challenge this authority, and is thus often seen as revolutionary.
Usually this charismatic authority is incorporated into society. Legitimacy is a belief, held by individuals, about the rightfulness of a rule or ruler. It has collective effects when it is widely shared in a society. In domestic political life, these effects may include a stable social order that appears consensual. In international political life, the effects of collectively held legitimated rules include social order but also implies the end of international anarchy.
In international political life, the effects of collectively held legitimated rules include social order but also perhaps the end of international anarchy. Buchanan, Allen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Flathman, Richard E. Goodin and Philip Pettit eds. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. Cambridge MA: Blackwell. Gaventa, John.
Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Hardin, Russell. Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Hesli, Vicki L. Reisinger, and Arthur H. Tyler, Tom. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tyler, Tom R. Jost and Brenda Major eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weber, Max. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Further Reading Baer, Josette. Assessing the Legitimacy of Secession. Clark, Ian. Legitimacy in International Society. For Locke—unlike for Hobbes—political authority can thus not be absolute. John Simmons uses them to argue that we should distinguish between the moral justification of states in general and the political legitimacy of actual states.
I will come back to this point in section 3. Joseph Raz links legitimacy to the justification of political authority. According to Raz, political authority is just a special case of the more general concept of authority , , He defines authority in relation to a claim—of a person or an agency—to generate what he calls pre-emptive reasons.
Such reasons replace other reasons for action that people might have. For example, if a teacher asks her students to do some homework, she expects her say-so to give the students reason to do the homework.
Authority is effective, on this view, if it gets people to act on the reasons it generates. There are limits to what even a legitimate authority can rightfully order others to do, which is why it does not necessarily replace all relevant reasons.
When is effective or de facto authority legitimate? In other words, what determines whether the pre-emption thesis is satisfied? The normal justification thesis explains why those governed by a legitimate authority ought to treat its directives as binding. It thus follows as a corollary of the normal justification thesis that such an authority generates a duty to be obeyed. Note that even though legitimate authority is defined as a special case of effective authority, only the former is appropriately described as a serving its subjects.
Illegitimate—but effective—authority does not serve those it aims to govern, although it may purport to do so. The idea expressed by the warranty thesis is that legitimacy morally justifies an independently existing authority such that the claims of the authority become moral obligations.
Those who link political legitimacy to the problem of justifying authority tend to think of political coercion as only a means that legitimate states may use to secure their authority. According to a second important interpretation, by contrast, the main function of legitimacy is precisely to justify coercive power.
For an excellent discussion of the two interpretations of legitimacy and a defense of the coercion-based interpretation, see Ripstein ; see also Hampton On coercion-based interpretations, the main problem that a conception of legitimacy aims to solve is how to distinguish the rightful use of political power from mere coercion.
One way to capture the thought is that, on these views, legitimacy relates to the way in which the rightful use of political power creates or constitutes political authority. Again, there are different ways in which this idea might be understood.
Both manners of creating a sovereign are equally legitimate. And political authority will be legitimate as long as the sovereign ensures the protection of the citizens, as Hobbes believes that the natural right to self-preservation cannot be relinquished Leviathan , chapter Beyond that, however, there can be no further questions about the legitimacy of the sovereign.
Another way in which the relation between legitimacy and the creation of authority may be understood is that the attempt to rule without legitimacy is an attempt to exercise coercive power—not authority. Rousseau contrasts a legitimate social order with a system of rules that is merely the expression of power.
Coercive power is primarily a feature of the civil state. While there are some forms of coercive power even in the state of nature—for example the power of parents over their children—Rousseau assumes that harmful coercive power arises primarily in the civil state and that this creates the problem of legitimacy.
Such a state would be legitimate. Legitimate political authority is created by convention, reached within the civil state. Specifically, Rousseau suggests that legitimacy arises from the democratic justification of the laws of the civil state Social Contract I:6; cf. For Kant, as for Hobbes, political authority is created by the establishment of political institutions in the civil state.
It does not pre-exist in individuals in the state of nature. What exists in the pre-civil social state, according to Kant, is the moral authority of each individual qua rational being and a moral obligation to form a civil state.
It helps people conform to certain rules by eliminating what today would be called the free-riding problem or the problem of partial compliance. The civil state, according to Kant, establishes the rights necessary to secure equal freedom. Unlike for Locke and his contemporary followers, however, coercive power is not a secondary feature of the civil state, necessary to back up laws. According to Kant, coercion is part of the idea of rights.
The thought can be explained as follows. Any right of a person—independently of whether it is respected or has been violated—implies a restriction for others. Coercion, in this view, is thus not merely a means for the civil state to enforce rights as defenders of an authority-based concept of legitimacy claim. Instead, according to Kant, it is constitutive of the civil state.
Legitimacy, for Kant, depends on a particular interpretation of the social contract. For Kant, the social contract which establishes the civil state is not an actual event. The criterion is the following: each law should be such that all individuals could have consented to it. The social contract, according to Kant, is thus a hypothetical thought experiment, meant to capture an idea of public reason.
As such, it sets the standard for what counts as legitimate political authority. Because of his particular interpretation of the social contract, Kant is not a social contract theorist in the strict sense. The idea of a contract is nevertheless relevant for his understanding of legitimacy. On the difference between voluntaristic and rationalistic strands in liberalism, see Waldron Kant, unlike Hobbes, recognizes the difference between legitimate and effective authority.
For the head of the civil state is under an obligation to obey public reason and to enact only laws to which all individuals could consent. If he violates this obligation, however, he still holds authority, even if his authority ceases to be legitimate.
Kant famously denied that there is a right to revolution Kant, Perpetual Peace , Appendix II; for a recent discussion, see Flikschuh This obligation is such that it is incompatible with a right to revolution. A right to revolution would be in contradiction with the idea that individuals are bound by public law, but without the idea of citizens being bound by public law, there cannot be a civil state—only anarchy.
As mentioned earlier, however, there is a duty to establish a civil state. In particular, the obligation to obey does not cease when the laws are unjust. But Kant stresses that the head of state is bound by the commands of public reason. While there is no right to revolution, political authority is only legitimate if the head of state respects the social contract.
But political obligations arise even from illegitimate authority. In , Ripstein argued that much of the contemporary literature on political legitimacy has been dominated by a focus on the justification of authority, rather than coercive political power Ripstein In the literature since then, it looks as if the tables are turning, especially if one considers the debates on international and global legitimacy section 5.
But prominent earlier coercion-based accounts include those by Nagel and by contemporary Kantians such as Rawls and Habermas to be discussed in sections 3. Let me briefly mention other important coercion-based interpretations. Her theory links the authority of the state to its ability to enforce a solution to coordination and cooperation problems. Coercion is the necessary feature that enables the state to provide an effective solution to these problems, and the entitlement to use coercion is what constitutes the authority of the state.
The entitlement to use coercion distinguishes such minimally legitimate political authority from a mere use of power. Hampton draws a further distinction between minimal legitimacy and what she calls full moral legitimacy, which obtains when political authority is just. Buchanan also argues that legitimacy is concerned with the justification of coercive power.
Buchanan points out that this makes legitimacy a more fundamental normative concept than authority. Like Hampton, he advocates a moralized interpretation of legitimacy. Political authority, in his approach, obtains if an entity is legitimate in this sense and if some further conditions, relating to political obligation, are met Stilz offers a coercion-centered account of state legitimacy that draws on both Kant and Rousseau.
Historically speaking, the dominant view has been that legitimate political authority entails political obligations. While this is still the view many hold, not all do. Some take the question of what constitutes legitimate authority to be distinct from the question of what political obligations people have. Ronald Dworkin defends a view of this sort. Dworkin treats political obligations as a fundamental normative concept in its own right.
For a critical discussion of this account, see Simmons ; Wellman Applbaum offers a conceptual argument to challenge the view that legitimate political authority entails an obligation to obey. But, Applbaum argues, Hohfeldian powers, unlike rights, are not correlated with duties; they are correlated with liabilities.
To be sure, the liability might be to be subject to a duty, but to be liable to be put under a duty to obey should not be confused with being under a duty to obey see also Perry on this distinction. The argument highlights what today is sometimes called the subjection problem Perry : how can autonomous individuals be under a general—content-independent—obligation to subject their will to the will of someone else?
Wolff argues that because there cannot be such a general obligation to obey the state, states are necessarily illegitimate. Edmundson has a first response to the anarchist challenge. He argues that while legitimacy establishes a justification for the state to issue directives, it does not create even a prima facie duty to obey its commands.
He claims that the moral duty to obey the commands of legitimate political authority arises only if additional conditions are met. Simmons has a different response to Wolff.
Simmons draws a distinction between the moral justification of states and the political legitimacy of a particular, historically realized, state and its directives. If it can successfully be shown that having a state is morally better than not having a state Simmons , the state is justified. But moral justification is only necessary, not sufficient, for political legitimacy, according to Simmons.
The reason is that our moral obligations are to everyone, including citizens of other states, not to the particular state we live in. While there is no general moral duty to obey the particular state we live in, we may have a political obligation to obey if we have given our prior consent to this state.
The absence of a general moral duty to obey the state thus does not imply that all states are necessarily illegitimate Simmons Insofar as legitimacy, understood normatively, defines which political institutions and which decisions made within them are acceptable, and, in some cases, what kind of obligations people who are governed by these institutions incur, there is the question what grounds this normativity.
This section briefly reviews different accounts that have been given of the sources of legitimacy. While there is a strong voluntarist line of thought in Christian political philosophy, it was in the 17 th century that consent came to be seen as the main source of political legitimacy.
The works of Hugo Grotius, Hobbes, and Samuel Pufendorf tend to be seen as the main turning point that eventually led to the replacement of natural law and divine authority theories of legitimacy see Schneewind ; Hampton Raz helpfully distinguishes among three ways in which the relation between consent and legitimate political authority may be understood : i consent of those governed is a necessary condition for the legitimacy of political authority; ii consent is not directly a condition for legitimacy, but the conditions for the legitimacy of authority are such that only political authority that enjoys the consent of those governed can meet them; iii the conditions of legitimate political authority are such that those governed by that authority are under an obligation to consent.
Locke and his contemporary followers such as Nozick or Simmons , but also Rousseau and his followers defend a version of i —the most typical form that consent theories take. Greene defends a version of this view she calls the quality consent view. Versions of ii appeal to those who reject actual consent as a basis for legitimacy, as they only regard consent given under ideal conditions as binding.
Theories of hypothetical consent, such as those articulated by Kant or Rawls, fall into this category. Such theories view political authority as legitimate only if those governed would consent under certain ideal conditions cf.
David Estlund ff defends a version of hypothetical consent theory that matches category iii. Authority, in this view, may thus be justified without actual consent. Estlund defines authority as the moral power to require action. Estlund uses normative consent theory as the basis for an account of democratic legitimacy, understood as the permissibility of using coercion to enforce authority.
Although consent theory has been dominating for a long time, there are many well-known objections to it. As mentioned in section 2. Other objections, especially to Lockean versions, are about as old as consent theory itself.
The attempt to legitimize political authority via consent is thus, at best, wishful thinking Wellman What is worse, it may obscure problematic structures of subordination Pateman In the utilitarian view, legitimate political authority should be grounded on the principle of utility.
This conception of legitimacy is necessarily a moralized one: the legitimacy of political authority depends on what morality requires. Christian Thomasius, a student of Pufendorf and contemporary of Locke, may be seen as a precursor of the utilitarian approach to political legitimacy, as he rejected voluntarism and endorsed the idea that political legitimacy depends on principles of rational prudence instead Schneewind ; Barnard Where Thomasius differs from the utilitarians, however, is in his attempt to identify a distinctively political—not moral or legal—source of legitimacy.
By thus distinguishing legitimacy from legality and justice, Thomasius adopted an approach that was considerably ahead of his time. Jeremy Bentham rejects the Hobbesian idea that political authority is created by a social contract. According to Bentham, it is the state that creates the possibility of binding contracts.
The problem of legitimacy that the state faces is which of its laws are justified. Bentham proposes that legitimacy depends on whether a law contributes to the happiness of the citizens. For a contemporary take on this utilitarian principle of legitimacy, see Binmore A well-known problem with the view that Bentham articulates is that it justifies restrictions of rights that liberals find unacceptable.
According to Mill, both individual freedom and the right to participate in politics are necessary for the self-development of individuals Mill On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government , see Brink ; Ten With regard to the defense of liberty rights, Mill argues that the restriction of liberty is illegitimate unless it is permitted by the harm principle, that is, unless the actions suppressed by the restriction harm others On Liberty , chapter 1; for a critical discussion of the harm principle as the basis of legitimacy, see Wellman ; see also Turner Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
Many are not convinced that such instrumentalist reasoning provides a satisfactory account of political legitimacy. Rawls f and Jeremy Waldron f object that the utilitarian approach will ultimately only convince those who stand to benefit from the felicific calculus, and that it lacks an argument to convince those who stand to lose.
Fair play theories offer one answer to this problem see Klosko and the entry on political obligation. Another answer comes from perfectionist theories. Raz tries to show how an account of legitimacy based on beneficial consequences is compatible with everyone having reasons to obey the directives of a legitimate authority. For criticisms of this approach, see Hershovitz and , Nussbaum , and Quong His suggestion is that the justification of the state can be grounded in the samaritan duty to help others in need.
Associated restrictions of their liberty by the state, Wellman claims, are legitimate. An important legacy of consent theory in contemporary thought is manifest in accounts that attribute the source of legitimacy either to an idea of public reason—taking the lead from Kant—or to a theory of democratic participation—taking the lead from Rousseau.
Advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. As of in Europe, there are twelve monarchies: seven kingdoms, one grand duchy, one papacy, and two principalities, as well as the diarchy of Andorra.
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control.
Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next. Forms of government and other political structures associated with oligarchy usually include aristocracy, meritocracy, plutocracy, military junta, technocracy, and theocracy.
Aristocracy is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. In the origins in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy. In later times, aristocracy was usually seen as rule by a privileged group, the aristocratic class, and contrasted with democracy. Similarly, plutocracy is rule by the wealthy.
Unlike systems such as democracy, plutocracy is not rooted in a political philosophy and has no advocates; the term is only used in a pejorative sense. Ali Khamenei, depicted here, current holds the position of Supreme Leader in Iran. The Supreme Leader is a religious figure who has arguably the most political power in Iran. Technocracy is a form of government in which experts in technology would be in control of all decision making.
Scientists, engineers, and technologists who have knowledge, expertise, or skills, would compose the governing body instead of politicians, businessmen, and economists. In a technocracy, decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their field.
Theocracy is a form of government in which official policy is governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious group.
An Islamic state is a state that has adopted Islam, specifically Sharia Islamic Law , as its foundations for political institutions, or laws, exclusively, and has implemented the Islamic ruling system and is therefore a theocracy. Although there is much debate as to which states or groups operate strictly according to Islamic Law, Sharia is the official basis for state laws in the following countries: Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Oman and Iran.
Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. American Politics. Search for:. Forms of Government. Forms of Government Forms of government are categorized by the power source and power structure of any given state. Learning Objectives Compare and contrast the various forms of government.
Key Takeaways Key Points Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state. Examples include aristocracy, technocracy and meritocracy.
Examples include authoritarian, totalitarian and fascist governments. Governments with monarchic attributes are ruled by a king or a queen who inherits their position from their family, which is often called the royal family. Plutocracy defines a society or a system ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens.
Unlike systems such as democracy, capitalism, socialism or anarchism, plutocracy is not rooted in an established political philosophy and has no formal advocates. See also Province. Democratic Governments Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.
Learning Objectives Discuss the central elements of direct and representative democracies. Key Takeaways Key Points Democracy allows people to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws.
It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. A democratic government contrasts to forms of government where power is either held by one, as in a monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy or aristocracy.
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