Politics and Economy

Power

The ability to achieve and influence decisions within a political system, whether others agree or not.

Government

A formal organization that exercises authority and makes rules for a society, pushing policies and enforcing laws to maintain order and provide public services.

Compliance

The requirement for the population to listen and follow the rules for the government to function.

Weber’s Idea

Most governments do not use open threats to control people; instead, they try to get people to accept their authority willingly.

Foundations of Compliance

Governments get people to obey through laws, traditions, beliefs, and the perception that their power is legitimate.

Politics

The major social institution by which society organizes decision-making and distributes power and resources.

Weber’s Definition of Power

The ability to achieve desired ends over the objection of others.

Traditional Authority

Power that is legitimized by respect for long-standing cultural patterns and beliefs.

Rational-Legal Authority

Power legitimized by legally enacted rules and regulations (The U.S. Constitution).

Charismatic Authority

Power legitimized by the extraordinary personal qualities of a leader.

Democracy

A political system that gives power to the people as a whole.

Monarchy

A political system in which power is legitimized by traditional authority and held by a single family.

Totalitarianism

A centralized political system that extensively regulates people’s lives.

Authoritarianism

Any system that denies people participation in their own governance and leaves ruling to the elites.

A form of Legal-Rational Authority:

Constitution

Theories of Power

The different understandings of how power is distributed in a society.

Power-Elite Model

Political power as being concentrated in the hands of small groups, especially among the very rich

Marxist Political Economy Model

Power isn’t evenly distributed, but it’s also not held by a strictly political elite

Agrarian Revolution

First big economic change; when people learned how to domesticate plants and animals

The Industrial Revolution

Second major economic revolution (1800s)

Information Revolution

Technology has reduced the role of human labor; it shifted to the production of ideas rather than goods

Percentage of today’s farmers?

2%