POL 1004 REVISION

As this is the last lecture that I shall deliver to POL 1004, I have decided to break my own rules and post my class notes for this lecture on my blog.  Before proceeding, however, I would like to thank you all for your commitment to this class and the enthusiasm that you have shown over the semester.  It has certainly been a joy to teach you and I shall miss teaching POL 1004 in the future. 

Having said this, as I have been reassigned, I shall now look forward to seeing you again in POL 2039, (International Political Economy), a second-year course that I shall now teach in the first semester of 2016 together with Dr Lauren Paremoer. 

POL 1004 REVISION

We must understand the structure or underlying premises that underpinned the first quarter of POL 1004

1).  Comparative method

2). Theories from political theorists

Thus the core themes that we should know are:

1).  Power; Authority; and legitimacy

2).  Elites

3). Political development and modernization

How do we link these concepts through political theory?

Look for comparison:

First Stream

Plato; Locke; Weber; Huntington

Second Stream

Hobbes; Machiavelli

Third Stream

Rousseau and Marx:  Skokpol , Gurr and Davies

Lets start with Plato:  Key is the notion of the good.  Illusions can be dangerous as they can lead to the destruction of society.

Locke:  Crisis of Legitimacy: King exceeded the scope of his authority:  There is a social contract between rulers and ruled.  The government rules by the consent of the governed. 

We introduce Weber through Kenneth Boulding who argues that a state exercises power in a variety of ways:

1). Force                                 (coercion)

2). Exchange                          (Locke’s productive exchange)

3). Creating obligations        (KISS:  Inspire loyalty in the citizens)

Weber sees authority as a means of validating power

Looks to:

1)   Traditional authority

2)   Charismatic authority

3)   Legal rationalism

Weber argues that legitimacy is the key to political stability and is nothing less than the source of a regime’s survival and success.

Thus we can link Weber to the problem of obligation or why citizens feel obliged to acknowledge the authority of government.

Huntington builds on Weber

He looks at the problem of change through the lenses of political development.  He argues that political development can be defined as political modernization. Also in defining the criteria to measure political development, Huntington ultimately arrives at the notion of an ’increase in nationality and political participation’.  In contrast, political decay describes how chaos and disorder can arise from social modernization, increasing more rapidly than political and institutional modernization.  Arises in the ‘sclerosis of democratic institutions’.

N.B.  Huntington ranks order over democracy

Q).  How do states move from traditional to modern societies?

Look at Lucien Pye’s five crises of modernization and political development for answers:

1). Identity                 process of nation building

2). Legitimacy            legitimate nature of authority and proper responsibilities of                             government

3). Participation        conflicting demands: when new constituents are included

4). Penetration          autonomy of the bureaucracy over society

5). Distribution          capacity of the bureaucracy

How do we tie in elites?

Key issue is,  who rules?

A). See how Mosca breaks down elites through the ages

1). Property                                       military elite

2). Religious symbols                        religious elite

3). Commerce and wealth                economic elite

4). Advanced countries                    merit elite     

Ties in with Locke and Weber in terms of how elites control society.  Note: ‘Political Formula’ or Mimetism.

B). Maintenance of elites

Elites must hold the support of society or we get a crisis of authority

Maintenance of elites is picked up by Michels through his “Iron Law of Oligarchy:  Closed elites will create competing elites.

Note that Pareto concentrates on the circulation of elites, which brings us back to the idea of continuous change as espoused by the early Greeks Heraclitus and Parmenides. 

Second Stream looks at crisis through power

Hobbes in Leviathan argues for a strong state with the autonomy to govern to avert civil war.

Theme is congruent with Machiavelli who deals with the nature of power by opposing ‘Fortune’ to ‘Virtue’.

Underlying principle is that the ruler must rely on good laws and good arms:  i.e. a strong standing army to maintain power.

Finally look at legitimacy in crisis

Start with Rousseau who identifies breakdown through alienation

Picked up by Marx who looks at the transformation of society through revolutionary stages:

Key to the concept lies in Marx’s idea that technical change will lead to class conflict as social change lags.

Hence we see history evolving through distinct epochs or stages.  For Marx power is equated through economic life and this is a major departure from Weber who views power through political institutions.

Crisis in effect leads to a loss of legitimacy.  Hence there is a breakdown of authority and in a revolutionary period, a loss of power.

All ties back to elites as a loss of authority and power will lead to a rise of a competing elite, which not only assumes power, but changes society in its own image.  See also Theda Skokpol who argues that revolutions occur when revolutionaries exploit peasant frustration with the old regime in a period when the regime has already lost its effectiveness. Note too Ted Gurr’s ideas on ‘relative Deprivation’, and Davies’ ‘J curve’.

In contrast, we can look at effective modern states, where we look for:

1). Social control:       who makes the laws and what are they

2). Compliance:         does the population conform to state demands. 

3). Participation:       State organization of population

4). Legitimacy:           Acceptance of the state’s rules of the game.  Social control                                 as true and right.