Comprehensive Politics and Authority: Key Concepts and Theorists

Politics

What we all do to achieve our desires. It's any systemic effort, performed in any place in the social field to move other men in pursuit of some design cherished by the mover.

Coalitions

The joining of forces by two or more parties during conflict of interest with other parties.

Power

It's the main currency to get others to do what you want. It's the social ability to induce others to do what you want.

Forms of Power

It comes in three forms: influence, coercion, and authority.

Influence

It's the ability to persuade others to do your will, to convince them to do what you want them to do.

Types of Influence

Try to convince them to do what rights through rationalization is what an appeal is to intellectual reasoning influence. This is done through passion of influence, self interest influence, and group solidarity of influence.

Passion of Influence

It's the ability to inspire and motivate others through one's own passion.

Self Interest of Influence

It's the ability to persuade others by appealing to their self interest.

Group Solidarity of Influence

Part of humanity.

Difference between Coercion and Influence

Coercion is involuntary and influence is voluntary because you convinced someone.

Coercion

The deliberate subjection of one will to another through fear of harm or threats of harm.

Monopoly of Legitimate Violence

Governments can use it to protect people from the government, to protect citizens from harming each other like prison and the justice system, and finally governments want to protect themselves from harm or threats.

Authority

A form of power in which people obey commands not because they have been rationally persuaded or because they fear the consequences of disobedience, but simply because they respect the source of the command.

Reason for Coercion

Because coercion comes in addition to authority. For people that aren't deferential to authority.

Legitimacy

The feeling of respect for authority that exists in those that obey- it's what makes authority possible.

Max Weber

A German sociologist, economist, and political theorist known for his work on bureaucracy, authority, and the relationship between politics and society.

Politics (according to Max Weber)

Defined as the struggle for power.

Ethic of Responsibility

A concept in political leadership introduced by Max Weber.

Forms of Authority

Traditional, legal, and charismatic.

Traditional Authority

The domination based on inherited position.

Legal Forms of Authority

Legal authority, moral authority, and traditional authority.

Charismatic Authority

Based on the projection and perception of extraordinary personal qualities.

Three Poles of Authority

Aristocrats/nobility, monarchs, and clergy.

Aristocrats/Nobility

Social classes that hold positions of power and privilege in society.

Monarchs

A sovereign head of state, especially a queen, king, or emperor.

Clergy

The body of all people ordained for religious duties.

Jean Bodin

A French political philosopher known for developing the theory of sovereignty.

Sovereignty

The authority to overrule all other authorities.

Abilities of Sovereignty

The authority to overrule all other authorities, the ability to make laws, the ability to enforce the law, and the maintenance of executive functions.

Personal Sovereignty

Sovereignty invested in only one person.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

A Swiss-French philosopher whose ideas on popular sovereignty and the social contract influenced modern political thought.

Legitimate Political Authority (according to Rousseau)

Comes from the general will of the people.

Ingredients of a State

Population, territory, and sovereignty (government).

Definition of State

A state exists when a sovereign power effectively rules over a population residing within the boundaries of a fixed territory.