Political Change and Progress Lecture Review
The Problem of Political Change and the Concept of Progress
I. Understanding & Assessing Political Change
The Problem of Political Change
Historical Context: Critiques of government and religion significantly increased
Legitimacy of Dissent: Dissent became more accepted and legitimate.
New Political Theories: These theories were both positive (observing power as it exists) and normative (making judgments about how power should be).
Core Challenge: The problem of political change revolves around how we understand, manage, prescribe, and justify transformations in the political sphere.
**Key Aspects:
How to comprehend and evaluate political change.
How to make political theory an active force in driving that change.
Modern Political Thought Focus: Often concerned with the scope and pace of political and social change.
Role of Political Theory in Real Political Change
Practical Engagement: Modern theorists responded directly to real political conditions, understanding their work as more than a hypothetical or 'academic' exercise.
Methodology:
Observing ongoing political events.
Responding to perceived flaws in existing systems.
Formulating recommendations justified by their diagnoses of societal problems.
Influential Figures: Most modern political theorists, such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, and Madison, aimed to influence concrete political change.
Themes in Theories of Political Change
Progress
Tradition
Utopia (a concept for ideal societies)
II. The Concept of Progress
Progress as Political Theory
Fundamental Premise: Progress is based on the idea of moving forward and making advancements.
Core Beliefs:
Change is inherently happening.
This change is generally considered good.
Goals of Progress: To make advancements on negative societal issues like poverty, ignorance, and superstition.
Shift in Values: Marked by a decrease in religious faith and an increase in reliance on science, reason, and logic.
Individual Autonomy: Emphasizes greater individual self-determination and self-improvement.
Modernity & Reason
Focus of Modern Political Thought: Primarily concerned with understanding, analyzing, and prescribing the pathways of Western modernity.
Characteristics:
Inward focus and self-reflection.
Centrality of reason and logic.
Heywood & Chin's Perspective on Reason (p. 19):
Explanatory Power: Reason enables humans to explain the natural world, understand their society, and grasp the historical process.
Capacity to Shape Destiny: Reason empowers individuals and collectives to shape their own destinies.
Human Judgment in Politics: Politics becomes a domain where human judgment is the sole basis for pursuing (or not pursuing) an ideal, institution, or political program.
Significance of Human Agency: Human agency (our ability to act and choose) gains new explanatory and normative importance within this framework.
"Forward March of History"
Method for Progress: Achieved by understanding, analyzing, and evaluating the past in comparison to the present.
Reason as a Resource: The ability to reason is considered "the key resource of thinking about politics" (Heywood & Chin, p. 19).
Path to Modernization: Reason is seen as the catalyst for modernization and progress.
Critique: The emphasis on progress can lead to mindsets of superiority, inferiority, and exclusion based on a group's perceived ability to make progress.
Counter-Perspective: Not all modern theorists agreed with an inevitable 'forward march of history'; some valued tradition, custom, and conservation, believing that not all political/social change is necessarily good.
III. Historical Context of Political Change (1400s-1800s)
Divine Right to Rule
Definition: The belief that a ruler is appointed by a deity (god) to govern the people.
Structure of Authority: People live under the ruler's absolute authority, typically in a hereditary monarchy.
Ruler's Power: The monarch possesses absolute power, acting with what is believed to be the will of god.
Challenging Authority: Little to no opportunity for subjects to challenge the monarch's authority or use of power.
Historical Prevalence: Common in Western Europe until the 1400s-1700s AD.
Factors Disrupting Divine Right:
The invention of the printing press.
The Protestant Reformation.
Periods of political and religious instability, particularly in England.
Timeline of Key Events in the Modern Era
1450: Gutenberg's printing press becomes operational.
1455: Printing of Gutenberg Bibles.
1517: Martin Luther's 95 Theses initiates the Protestant Reformation.
1534: King Henry VIII renounces papal authority, founding the Church of England.
1607: English settlement established at Jamestown, VA.
1630: Puritans establish Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1648-50: Second English Civil War; Execution of King Charles I.
1651: Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan is published.
1688: Glorious Revolution in England establishes a constitutional monarchy.
1689: John Locke's Second Treatise of Government is published.
1754-1763: French & Indian War fought in North America.
1755: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Second Discourse.
1776-1783: American Revolution.
1776: Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
1787: U.S. Constitution written in Philadelphia.
1789-1799: French Revolution.
1790: Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.
1790: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Men.
1792: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
1848: Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.
Modern Political Thought & Reason (1500s-1800s AD)
Individualism: Men recognized as unique individuals possessing natural rights and the capacity for reason.
Disruption of Power: This framework fundamentally challenged the dynamics of power based on divine right, which had suppressed political dissent and granted absolute power to rulers.
Self-Governance: Emphasized the right of each individual to govern themselves.
Consent of the Governed: Governments derive their power from the people and the consent of the governed.
Social Contract: Individuals surrender some of their autonomy in exchange for the security provided by a government.
Natural Rights (Locke): Included life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.
IV. Comparing Reform & Revolution
Progress Through Reform
Nature of Change: Involves making changes to existing structures rather than replacing them entirely.
Approach: Characterized by adaptation, gradual modification, and improvements, akin to 'tinkering' rather than 'scrapping' the system.
Pace and Scope: Change is gradual in both speed and scope.
Key Principle: Referred to as "Change within continuity."
Benefits of Reform:
Peaceful: Avoids social disruption and violence.
Social Cohesion: Helps maintain societal unity.
Trial & Error: Allows for small changes, experimentation, and adjustments without drastic consequences.
Liberal Reformism & Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism: A framework for ethical and political decision-making.
Core Principle: Strives to maximize overall happiness/pleasure and minimize pain/discomfort.
Means and Ends: Often, the ends (outcomes) are seen to justify the means (actions taken).
Definition of Rightness: Rightness is determined by the promotion of happiness rather than abstract ethical goodness.
Guiding Principle for Governance: "Greatest happiness for the greatest number of people."
Advocacy: Supporters argue that utilitarianism provides an objective measure for evaluating change, contrasting with subjective, normative judgments.
Progress Through Revolution
Nature of Change: Entails fundamental political disruption, discarding existing power structures, and starting anew.
Scope of Change: Aims for comprehensive change, believing that reform cannot adequately fix deep-seated structural problems.
Goal: To re-establish a lost moral order.
Shared Characteristics of Revolution:
Periods of sudden and dramatic societal transformation.
Often involves violence.
Characterized by popular uprisings and mass participation (e.g., marches, riots).
Concerns with Reform from a Revolutionary Perspective:
Reform fails to address fundamental, underlying problems.
Reform tends to prop up and preserve existing power structures, attempting to salvage what is considered irredeemable.
Question for Reflection
If you support the theory of progress, which method—reform or revolution—do you find more preferable for political change, and why?
What specific aspects of reform or revolution make it a more desirable mode for achieving political change?
V. Tradition & Conservatism
Tradition
Definition: Refers to "anything transmitted or handed down from the past to the present" (p. 26).
Examples: Customs, practices, institutions, ideologies, bodies of belief, political or social systems.
Three Main Forms of Traditionalist Stances:
Continuity of the Past: Maintaining established ways and opposing change, often equating to liking the status quo.
Reclaiming the Past: An attempt to 'turn back the clock' by returning to a perceived 'golden age'.
Necessity of Change for Preservation: Accepting change as a controlled means to preserve core values or systems.
Status Quo
Definition: The current state of affairs; the way things exist now.
Support for Status Quo (First Form of Traditionalism): Supporters favor maintaining current conditions into the future without significant changes.
Perception of Change: Change is viewed as threatening and uncertain, whereas the status quo is known, comfortable, and safe.
Risk Aversion: The uncertainty and fear associated with change are considered risky and potentially not worth the effort.
Ideological Association: Strongly associated with conservative ideology, which typically advocates for preserving the status quo.
Edmund Burke & Conservatism
Edmund Burke: An influential political theorist and British politician in the late 1700s.
Key Work: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
View on Change: Argued that not all change is good or represents progress.
Conception of Society: Described societies as social contracts "between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
Emphasis: Stressed the importance of preserving traditions and customs.
Rationale: Believed that the social contract and its traditions reflect "the collected reason of the ages."
Conservatism as an Ideology
Origins: Began developing in the 19^{th} Century as a reaction and opposition to certain elements of the Enlightenment.
Points of Opposition to Enlightenment:
Excessive trust in the reason of the individual.
The Scientific Revolution's impact on traditional thought.
Popular sovereignty (absolute rule by the people).
Other Opposition: Also opposed industrialization.
Areas of Agreement with Liberalism: Maintained some elements of individualism.
Core Desires: Shared a desire for social and political harmony.
Primary Goal: To preserve tradition and time-tested beliefs and practices.
Approach to Change: If change is necessary, it should be in the form of reform, not revolution.