Phil Gov: Political Power

Lord Acton

“All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely“

Walter Annenberg

The greatest power is no money power, but political power

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.“

Aung San Suu Kyi

Politics

• the process of determining who gets what, when and how

Power

• the ability to control the behavior of others, even against their will

Authority

• is institunalized power, whose exercise is governed by the norms and statuses of organizations

Politics as power

• ‘politics is at the heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human groups, institutions and societies‘

COMPULSORY

• Direct control over others

EX: Military Intervention Sanctions

INSTITUTIONAL

• Rules and procedures shape behavior

EX: UN, WTO, IMF

STRUCTURAL

• Positions in social structures define capacities

EX: Core vs. periphery economies

PRODUCTIVE

• Creation of meaning, norms, identities

EX: Human rights discourse, labeling “terrorists”

Monarchy

• one - ‘true‘ (common interest)

Aristocracy

• few - ‘true‘ (common interest)

Polity

• many - ‘true‘ (common interest)

Tyranny

• one - ‘despotic‘ (selfish interest)

Oligarchy

• few - ‘despotic‘ (selfish interest)

Democracy

• many - ‘despotic‘ (selfish interest)

Herbie Hancock

State defined as by Aristotle:

• the state is a union of families and villages having for its ends a perfect self sufficing life by which we mean a happy and honourable life

State defined as by Bluntschli:

• state is a politically organised people of a definite territory

State defined as by Woodrow Wilson:

• people organised for law within a definite territory

State defined as by Garner:

• the stare is a community or persons, more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, independent (or nearly so) of external control and possessing an organised government to which the great body of inhabitants render habitual obedience

State

• community of persons, permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, having a government of their own and enjoying freedom from external control

• independent political entity with clear geographoc bounderies

Elements of the state

• people

• territory

• government

• sovereignty

People

• mass of population living within the state

Territory

• fixed portion of the surface of the earth inhabited by the people of the state

Government

• agency through which the will of the state is formulated, expressed and carried out

Sovereignty

• the supreme power of the state to command and enforce obedience

Nation

• the people, created by a shared belief that the people inside a country are connected to each other

• a large population that shares the same culture, language, traditions, history…

Globalization

• process by which different parts of the world interact economically, politically and culturally