Section 1: Political Science Major

A Popular Major

It is safe to say that most people have a negative view of politics. Politicians are generally seenas sleezy, lying people who would do anything to win power or gain public attention.

They are generally considered people who always have ill intent.

And yet, political science is one of the most popular majors on most college campuses. It is

an area that many find fascinating (especially once they understand it a bit) and important, and it is an area that many are willing to commit their professional lives to.

Why People Study It

One big reason is that people who study or are involved in politics see it very differently

than most others. To them:

• Politics is how people achieve good results for many others instead of just

themselves. Most people choose areas of politics, like diplomacy, because they can

use it achieve goals that help many people instead of simply making a living.

• Politics is also necessary. There is no avoiding it.

A Practical Career

But people involved in politics are also generally not idealists. Instead, being involved in

politics means understanding that:

• People have different interests and will generally fight for their own interest instead of a

common good.

• People have different ideologies and therefore see the common good as something

different. This also causes conflict.

• There are people, including authoritarian leaders, who do fit the description of being

self-interested and ruthless. These people must be dealt with.

Careers

Political science majors tend to be several types of people:

• People who want to study the law.

• People who want to run for public office or work somewhere within government.

• People who want to make positive impact and want to understand how it is done. This

includes people who want to start or work in non-government organizations.

• People who want to be involved in international relations.

Section 2: Political Science

Types of Disciplines

To understand political science, a starting point is by understanding what different areas

are. Students think of them as majors, but professors often call them “disciplines.” Some

disciplines are:

• Biology

• Literature

• Sociology

• Computer science

• Political science

What is Being Disciplined?

A key question is, what is being disciplined? The answer is that each field disciplines the

mind in different ways. This means two main things:

• Each field is not just a topic. It has some starting assumptions or theories. (Biology, for

example, starts with the assumption that all living beings evolved through natural

selection.)

• Each field uses particular tools to study those concepts. Biologists mostly use the

experimental design, for example.

What is Political Science?

Everything about government is not political science. Instead, like other fields, political

science is a disciplined approach to studying things related to government. Therefore:

• Political science is not about current events. Political scientists and majors in political

science often keep up with the news, but that is not how we study politics.

• Political science is not history. Some political scientists use history to help understand

current politics, but they do not study history for history’s sake.

Key Assumptions

Political scientists also disagree on what these key assumptions are and how they should do

their research.

• For some, political science is about the sociology of government. It is entirely about how

government works, but does not include interpersonal power outside government.

• For others, political science is more about the sociology of power. It’s about power

relations, not only in government, but in society in general.

In This Class

In this class, we are going to focus on both, especially where they overlap.

• We will spend time explaining what power is and why it is important in all areas of life.

• We will also spend a great deal of time explaining how government, and especially the

US government, works.

Section 3: What is Power?

The Question?

What is power? If a professor were to ask a group of students, what power is in one word,

they would likely come up with a long list that includes the following:

• Control

• Influence

• Money

• Authority

• Prestige

• Strength

Influence

While all of these terms are related to power, the most important on the list would be

influence. Influence is the capacity to change another person (or group of people’s) behavior. It

includes:

• Getting them to do things that they would not otherwise do.

• Getting them to not do things that they would otherwise do.

Power as Influence

The only problem with influence as a concept is that it is about one person (or set of

people) influencing another person (or set of people.) When we talk about someone being

powerful, it’s like having many influences. The powerful person in a social group is the one that

influences one person one way and another person another way. It’s an overall influence.

We therefore can define power as aggregate influence in a social setting. It’s the total

influence within a social group. That social group might be a family, a company, a group of

friends, a committee in Congress, or an entire country.

Question: Professor’s Power

Power is not just about government. It impacts all areas of social life. For example, we could

ask the question: What power does a professor have over students in a class?

Professors hold many resources of power over their students. They include:

• Grades

• More knowledge about the subject

• Letters of recommendation

• Authority that comes with a title

Page 6 of 8

• The college’s backing

Question: Power of Students?

We could also ask the opposite, and more interesting, question: What power do students

have over the professor?

While students as individuals do not hold the resources of power that a professor has, they

do have ways of influencing professors:

• They can refuse to come to class.

• They can write negative comments on the professor’s SOI’s (i.e., class evaluations.)

• They can file complaints against the professor.

• They can convince other students to not take a professor’s class.

Resources and Distribution of Power

This discussion about professors and students highlights two important things about power:

• Power is mostly about resources of power. This can include a title, money, an army, or

anything else that can increase the influence over others.

• There is always a distribution of power. Nobody can possibly hold all the resources of

power. While power can be distributed widely or held mostly by one person, there is

never a situation in which one person holds all the resources of power.

Resources of Power – A Mugger

Let’s take another example – someone getting mugged

• The mugger usually has resources of power:

o A weapon (knife or gun)

o Dressing to look dangerous

o Surprise – they often jump out of nowhere

Resources of Power – Person Getting Mugged

But the person getting mugged also has resources of power. While it is probably better to

usually just hand over the cash, the person being assaulted can also take other steps.

• They can scream.

• They can fight back.

• They can kick the mugger and then run.

• They can calmly refuse to comply. “I dare you to shoot me!”

Even in the worst situation, a person always has resources of power. There are always ways

to defend oneself.

Power Over a Chair

Another example: Consider the chair that you are sitting on. As long as nobody else stops

you, you could do whatever you want to that chair. You could smash it, stand on it, make fun of

it, hold it over your head, or dance on it. The chair won’t object.

Why don’t you have power over that chair?

The reason you don’t have power over a chair is that the chair doesn’t have a mind. It is not

intelligent.

• Influence and power require minds. The entire point is that you get people to behave

differently. Objects don’t behave. They just exist.

• More specifically, power dynamics require intelligence.

o There is no such thing as insect power (even though there are queen bees.)

Social insects follow commands sent through chemicals.

o But there is such a thing as power relations in monkey society.

Power Dynamics Among Animals

Any time there are social interactions among animals with at least some intelligence, they

go through behavior that create power dynamics.

• Troops of animals virtually always have a dominant animal (often the dominant male)

who often has to fight other members of the troop to get to that position.

• The higher the intelligence of the animal, the more complex the power dynamics

become. Monkeys often have complex social behavior that leads to some monkeys in

the troop having a dominant position while others are lower in status.

Absolute Power

This leads to another conclusion. There is no such thing as absolute power. This means that

even the most authoritarian leaders in history did not have absolute power.

For example, Hitler did not have absolute power over Nazi Germany and the territories it

controlled.

• People did actively resist.

• Some people also helped Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis hide or escape.

• Hitler could not control what others thought.

Eleanor Roosevelt

This leads to a critical point made by Eleanor Roosevelt:

• “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

People try to make other feel inferior as a way of gaining some form of dominance. But the

person being verbally attacked doesn’t have to give in. In fact, the only way that this behavior

works is if the person being attacked goes along with it.

All Human Relations

This leads to a critical, fourth point. All human relationships have power dynamics. There is

always a distribution of power among people, and it is usually not equal. This includes in

• Friendships

• Dating or marriage relationships

• Parents and children

• Work relationships

Power and Democracy

Finally, in this course we will be talking a lot about democracy. Based on what we discussed,

we can see that:

• Democracy is mostly about a wide distribution of power. It’s not that the public runs the

government. However, because the people running government have to get public

support, this distributes more power to the masses.

• At the same time, while the public has less power in an authoritarian regime than a

democracy, the public still has influence over the government. One reason is because

the public can resist and potentially overthrow the regime.

Lecture 2

Section 1: Is American Democracy Under Threat?

America: World’s Most Stable Democracy...

If you read political science writing after World War II until around a decade ago, you’d find

that most political scientists considered the US to be the world’s most stable democracy:

• It has been a democracy longer than any other country in the world

• It had many signs of a stable democracy, including a powerful economy with a high

standard of living for most people

• The US was the undisputed leader of the free world, and it was an active (if not always

perfect) drive for democracy across the world

or Under Threat?

Not many political scientists would make the same claim today. While nobody knows what

will happen in the future, experts are seeing signs that show real danger:

• Both the US population and politicians have been deeply polarized. (Polarization is when

the country divides into two camps, with each camp villainizing the other group.)

• The US federal government has become paralyzed to the point that it has become

nearly impossible to govern. This paralysis often happens right before a democratic

government collapse.

• Both the Democratic and Republican parties question the other’s right to govern. For

example, after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, an angry mob attacked

the US Capitol to stop the count of electoral votes, which would finalize Joe Biden’s

victory. The mob chanted to kill Vice President Pence, and several organized groups

(who were heavily armed) appeared ready to murder several Democratic politicians as

well.

Global Perspective

This concern about American democracy is not happening in a vacuum. Instead, the most

prominent voices among political scientists are experts who study democracy around the

world. They are seeing troubling changes around the world and parallels between the US and

other countries that were democracies but slid into authoritarianism.

To make sense of this change, we have to return to the end of the Cold War.

Cold War Ends

After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union (which were allies against Nazi

Germany during the war) became bitter enemies. While the US was (mostly) promoting the

spread of democracy, the Soviet Union was promoting the spread of Communism. The

Communist regimes were often brutal dictatorships.

Then, around 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed. The countries that the Soviet Union

dominated split from the Russians and switched to western democracies.

Page 3 of 9

Post-Cold War Optimism

However, this increase in the number of democracies was not just in the former Soviet

Union and its satellite states. It actually began in the mid-1970s and seemed to be spreading

throughout the globe. This produced widespread optimism within the western world.

Francis Fukuyama

For example, a political scientist named Francis Fukuyama became famous for arguing

around 1990 that western democracy had won:

• He argued that liberal democracy was the best form of government.

• He also argued that democracy had won the war of ideas. People widely accept

democracy as the best form of government

• While not all countries were democracies, Fukuyama argued that it was simply a matter

of time before they become democratic.

Democracies as Waves

However, there was another theory that was not so optimistic. It argued that democracy

comes in waves. The number of democracies had increased over the twentieth century, but like

waves, the rise in the number of democracies were repeatedly followed by a decline in the

number of democracies.

Three Waves of Democracy

Political scientists often argue that there have been three waves of democratization:

1. The first wave started with the United States and rose rapidly after World War I.

However, especially with the Great Depression, many of these democracies collapsed

into authoritarian regimes, like Nazi Germany.

2. The second wave came after World War II, but then many of the new democracies

around the world also collapsed.

3. The third wave began in 1974, with Spain becoming a democracy. The biggest increase

in democratizations came around 1990 with the end of the Soviet Union.

Decline of Democracy

Many political scientists believe that we are now in the middle of the downward side of the

wave. Countries around the world that were democracies have slipped back into

authoritarianism

• Russian democracy was very short lived

• A number of European countries (notably Hungary and Turkey) have become

authoritarian

• Democracy movements in the Middle East were crushed

Page 4 of 9

• There is a worldwide rise of leaders actively working to undermine democracy. India and

Brazil are two examples in which countries run by right-wing populists appear to be

moving away from democracy.

So, the question is whether the United States is part of this downward movement. Nobody

knows for sure what will happen in the next decade—since nobody has a crystal ball or can see

into the future—but there are potential worrying signs.

To understand this more, we need to explain two key concepts: democracy and

authoritarianism.

Section 2: Democracy

What it Means

When we talk about democracy, we are actually using a shorthand for a much more specific

type of government. The best way to describe it would probably be liberal, representative

democracy, though most people shorten it to “liberal democracy” or “representative

democracy.” All three words are critical to it:

• Democracy comes for two Greek words: “demos” (meaning “the people”) and “kratos”

(meaning “rule”). Democracy therefore means rule by the people.

• Representative means someone selected by many people to speak and vote on their

behalf in government.

• Liberal, in this context, means based on rights. More on that below.

Other Ways of Saying It

Representative democracy is also sometimes called “western democracy,” “modern

democracy” or “mass democracy”

• Western democracy was often used because liberal democracy originated in the United

States and western Europe.

• Modern democracy is used to distinguish it from “ancient democracy”, which existed in

Athens Greece in the fifth century BC. In ancient Athens, all citizens participated directly

in the running of the government.

• Mass democracy means a democracy with a very large number of citizens, often called

“the masses.” This term is used to distinguish it from democracy within small

communities.

Main Characteristics

Liberal democracies have a number of standard characteristics.

1. They have regular, free elections. While elections are central to modern democracy,

they are not enough. For example, many authoritarian states have regular elections, but

they are hardly free or fair. If there are opposition parties, the system is so rigged

against them that they can never win.

2. Natural rights, which are rights that every single person is born with. They include the

right to free speech, the right to religion, and the right to life, to name a few. We will be

discussing this more in a later lecture.

3. Free press. The public has to be exposed to competing views about politics, and the

public should also hear criticisms of the government and its leaders.

4. Political participation. Citizens cannot have just the right to vote. They also have to

participate in politics, to pressurize the government. This includes not just voting, but

also being involved in other ways, like peaceful protests.

Page 6 of 9

5. Independent judiciary. The courts cannot be controlled by other parts of the

government, nor can they focus on pushing an ideological agenda.

6. Competing political parties. Political parties are organizations that run candidates for

office as team. They simplify voting, since it is easier (for example) to know the general

difference between a Democrat and a Republican than to know much about hundreds

of different candidates. The general argument is that mass democracy is impossible

without multiple political parties.

7. Civil Society. This one is less known by most people, so I’ll deal with it separately in the

next subsection.

Civil Society

Civil society is when a society has many organizations independent of the government. The

types of organizations that can make up civil society include:

• Non-profit organizations

• Interest groups, like the NRA

• Religious organizations

• Universities – assuming that they have independence from the government

• Private businesses

There is some debate asto why civil society is so important, but the major reasons are as

follows:

• Independent organizations create centers of power independent of the government.

When the government overreaches, many of these organizations are likely to push back

• Independent organizations produce sources of information for people other than the

government

• Independent organizations make it easier for people to band together and challenge the

government.

Page 7 of 9

Section 3: Authoritarianism

Definition

Many people, when talking about governments that are not democratic, like to use the

term “dictatorship.” The term is built on the idea that there is a single person who is dictating

all the government’s policies.

However, political scientists tend to use the term authoritarianism, or say that a country is

ruled by an authoritarian regime. It has a simple definition. An authoritarian regime is any

government that is not a democracy.

There is a simple reason why authoritarianism is defined as not democratic.

• Democracies around the world all look roughly the same. They all have regular elections,

a free press, competing political parties, and a national legislature (i.e., a congress or

parliament.)

• Authoritarian regime can be extremely different from each other. They vary widely. The

one thing that they all have in common is that they are not democratically run. Even if

they have elections, those elections cannot lead to a new group winning power over the

government.

Still Widespread

It’s also important to point out that there are more authoritarian regimes in the world than

democracies, and that there are more people who live under authoritarian rule than

democratic rule. What this means is that authoritarian regimes still have a huge impact on how

most of the world’s population lives.

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is the most extreme version of authoritarianism. Its primary characteristic is

that the government attempts to gain control over all aspects of life. This often means:

• Radical ideology that explains everything in simple terms

• Destruction of all institutions that are not promoting the ideology – in other words, it

works to eliminate civil society. Religious organizations are a good example of an

institution totalitarian regimes often try to destroy

• All activity is supposed to be promoting the regime. This includes an education system

that indoctrinates children into the ideology of the regime.

1984

For quite some time, political scientists and the public thought that totalitarianism was the

most common form of authoritarianism. Some even equated the two. For example, George

Orwell’s 1984 was a book about a terrible, future world in which people lived in one of three

totalitarian regimes, in which people’s every thought and action was regulated by the state.

Page 8 of 9

Why Totalitarianism is Not That Common

As it turned out, totalitarianism was to become a far less common form of authoritarianism:

• Running a totalitarian regime requires incredible amounts of resources and energy that

most regimes don’t have

• It is also very hard to justify and sustain with most populations. This increases the

chances of rebellion

• It was primarily the regime type for Nazi regimes (specifically Italy and Germany) and

communist regimes. Today, the main example of a totalitarian regime is North Korea.

Page 9 of 9

Section 4: Competitive Authoritarianism

What It Is

Instead, a new type of authoritarian regime has emerged over the past few decades that is

almost exactly opposite of totalitarianism. It is called competitive authoritarianism:

• It pretends to be a democracy when it is not

• It has regular elections with opposition parties, but those elections are completely

rigged

• It also pretends to have a free press, but instead that press is controlled entirely by the

government

• Examples: Russia, Singapore, Hungary

How It Works

Competitive authoritarianism stays in power not so much by terrorizing everyone in the

population, but by pretending to be a democracy:

• They use the veneer of democracy to maintain support by the public and push back

criticism

• They also fake democracy to cover up corruption

Fear in America

So, these countries have elections with real opposition parties, but:

• The governing party always wins;

• The press is controlled by the government;

• Opposition is squashed, but quietly.

So, the fear among political scientists is not that the US will become totalitarian. It’s virtually

impossible to imagine that a Hitler-like figure will take over.

Instead, the fear is that the US will slip into competitive authoritarianism. It will continue to

pretend to be a democracy, but in fact it will be controlled by a single party with no realistic

way for any other party, or the public, to challenge it.