States, Regimes, and Governments - POL101

States, Regimes, and Governments:

  • State --> organization, maintaining a monopoly of force over a territory

    • Taxation

    • Monopoly of force

    • Rely on institutions

      • Police, courts, etc.

    • A set of political institutions that generate + execute policy

    • Some states may be more effective with their institutions

      • May not be able to implement laws etc. as easily as others

    • To achieve effectiveness -- need power and legitimacy

    •  Use of the police vs. the military

  • State power and state legitimacy

    • State with large police and military, but has small legitimacy

    • State with small police and military, has large legitimacy

  • State legitimacy stability can vary over time

  • The more you're accepted as legitimate the less power you will need

  • Why are some states more legitimate than others?

    • Different sources of legitimacy

 

Sources of Legitimacy

  • Traditional

    • Habits, customs, historical practices

    • Not limited to monarchies; following traditional values of family (North Korea)

  • Charismatic

    • Qualities of the person in charge

    • Charismatic leaders

      • Mandela

      • Hitler

      • Trump

      • Ghandi

  • Legal-rational legitimacy

    • Following the procedures and the offices that created them

    •  Parliamentary systems and long-term prime ministers; is it normal to get tired of a leader after a decade (a psychology perspective)

 

Regime

 Regime = the fundamental norms and rules of politics towards where power should lay and how it should be used

  • Democratic regimes

  • Non-democratic regimes

  • Constitutions!

 Constitution = basic rulebook for a state that limits powers of all authorities, including legislators; recognizes citizens common fundamental rights

  •  Language of the Canadian constitution vs. another constitution (use of 'the Queen'); "unwritten constitution" of the UK

  • Limited government

  • Even with majority in parliament you are limited in what you can do

  • Oldest constitution - Magna carta, 1215

  • Newest constitution - Sudan, 2022

  • Afghanistan constitution --> the Quran

  • An expression of ideology and philosophy

    • Religion

      • Secular vs. religious

      • Islamic Republic of Iran

  • An expression of basic laws of the regime

    • Human Rights Clause of Germany

  • Providing organizational frameworks for political systems

    • Explains how a country should be run

    • Horizontally ---> relationship of legislative, executive, and judiciary

      • How much power should the parliament (legislature) have?

      • Canada --> Legislature "can fire the executive tomorrow"; parliament is dominant

      • US --> All three are equal

    • Vertically --> National, Regional, Local

      • France --> unitary

      • UK --> unitary

      • Spain --> between Federal + unitary

      • Unitary systems --> national decides everything (for the most part)

      • Unitary vs. federal systems

 

**Governments*

 Government = the leadership or elite in charge of running the state

  • Was the person part of the elite before they became president?

  • Military leaders overrepresented in newly established states

 

Classification of States and Regimes

Democratic Regimes

  1. Need citizen involvement in decision-making

    • On any level

    • Directly or through elected representatives

  2. Need a system of representation

    • System of representative opportunity requires a system to determine representation

  3. Electoral system

    • Mechanism to find the representative

  4. Some degree of equality among citizens

    • It may not be 100%

    • Right to vote between citizens vs non-citizens?

    • Age to vote?

    • Prisoners?

  5. Rule of law

    • Some kind of law that include everyone(?)

  6. Grant freedoms to citizens

    • Freedom of press

    • Religion

    • Assembly

    • Speech

  • Parliamentary democracies

  • Presidential democracies

  • Presidential-parliamentary democracies (France)

 

Non-democratic regimes

  • Traditional regimes (monarchies and theocracies)

    • Yemen, Vatican, Afghanistan

  • Military regimes

    • Sudan, Myanmar

  • Dominant-Party regimes (political parties are ruling the country)

    • China

 

Transitional regimes

 

Hybrid Regimes

  • Russia

  • France