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Q.No1Critically evaluate the Institutional Approach.Answer: Criticisms of the institutional approach in comparative political analysis have come in consecutive waves, in the early part of the twentieth century and later in the 1950s. A refined version of the approach reappeared after each wave of criticismThe approach was criticized before the study of institutions attained a comparative nature (however restricted) at the turn of the century. It was said to be not only (i) speculative but also (ii) prescriptive and normative. (ii)It was concerned with only irregularities and regularities and ignored relationships. (iv)It focussed on individual countries and therefore was non-comparative. It was said to be (v) ethnocentric as it focused on western European democracies.(vi) As it focussed on formal structure, both constitutional and governmental it was said to be descriptive. (vii) It did not focus on analysis but at the same time was historical. (viii)The contributors tended to ignore the upper chambers of UK, the US and the USSR. (ix) Methodologically, they were said to be incomplete, at least in part. Theoretically, however, they were said to have failed to recognize the essence of political life. With Bryce and his contemporaries, the nature and content of the institutional approach went through a phase of transformation. The approach attained a comparative character and at the same time attempted to combine theoretical contexts with governmental practices. In the 1950s, the institutional approach, as it developed with Bryce, Lowell and Ostrogorski, once more faced severe criticism by political scientists like David Easton and Roy Macridis. David Easton criticized Bryces approach in his work The Political System (1953), calling it mere factualism. Easton claimed that this approach had affected American Political Science admitting that although Bryce did not neglect theorieshis aversion to making explanatory or theoretical models, had led to a surfeit of facts and as a result to a theoretical malnutrition. It will not be difficult to understand why Easton felt that Bryces approach had misguided American Political Science in the wrong direction. Jean Blondel defends the institutional approach from critics like Easton who attacked its factualism. Blondel argued that the charge of surfeit of facts was incorrect since very few facts were actually available to political scientists to analysepolitics comprehensively. Actually, there was hardly any knowledge of the structures and activitiesof key institutions of most countries, especially about the communist countries and the underdeveloped countries. It was important, therefore, to collect more facts, considering that governments tended to hide facts rather than pass them on.Any successful study had to be based on facts. Reasoning would not be possible in the absence of facts or data. This, along with the point that facts were not easy to get hold of, made them vital to the study of political analysis. In 1955, Roy Macridis felt that the comparative study of governments should be reoriented. He felt that in the present form, comparative study had been comparative in name only. According to Macridis the orientation of the institutional approach was non-comparative, parochial, static and monographic. He said that a fair amount of work was essentially descriptive.He owed this to the analysis being historical or legalistic, and therefore quite narrow. In the 1950s, it became obvious that there was a dearth of facts which was a cause of concern. It was not possible to make proper generalizations. According to Blondel, there was, a surfeit of models instead of a surfeit offacts. He pointed out that building models without basing them on facts would lead to misinformation. It was not easy to obtain information about certain countries. Also, wrong information was likely to influence and reinforce preconceptions about those countries. In 1971, while writing about Latin American Legislatures, W.H. Agor stated that legislatures in that part of the world were not strong. With no facts available for the purposes of the study, the reliance was more on evidence which wasimpressionistic. Thus, those who followed the institutional approach emphasized the need for collecting and coming up with ways of collecting facts. The criticisms were, however, followed by works that had a more comparative focus and included non-western countries.

2What are the five bases of power as developed by social psychologists French and Raven?The five bases of power ( Each point carries 2 marks, 2 x 5 = 10 marks)Answer: The five bases of power were proposed by the social psychologists French andRaven, in a now-classic study (1959). They developed a scheme of five categories of power which reflected the different bases or resources that power holders rely upon. Two additional bases (informational and connectional) were later added.(i) Coercive powerCoercive power means the application of negative influences onto employees. It might refer to the ability to demote or to withhold other rewards. It is the desire for valued rewards or the fear of having them withheld that ensures the obedience of those under power. Coercive power tends to be the least effective form of power as it builds resentment and resistance within the targets of coercive power. (ii) Legitimate powerLegitimate power refers to power of an individual because of the relative position and duties of the holder of the position within an organization. Legitimate power is formal authority delegated to the holder of the position.(iii) Referent powerReferent power means the power or ability of individuals to persuade and influence others. It is based on the charisma and interpersonal skills of the power holder. Here the person under power desires to identify with these personal qualities, and gains satisfaction from being an accepted follower.(iv) Expert powerExpert power is an individual's power deriving from the skills or expertise of the person and the organization's needs for those skills and expertise. Unlike the others, this type of power is usually highly specific and limited to the particular area in which the expert is trained and qualified.(v) Reward powerReward power depends upon the ability of the power wielder to confer valued material rewards; it refers to the degree to which the individual can give others a reward of some kind such as benefits, time off, desired gifts, promotions or increases in pay or responsibility.3 Explain the ways to safeguard liberty.Answer: The importance of individual liberty cannot be stretched too far as it would resultin anarchism or an irresponsible individual for whom liberty would mean license to act according to his whims. Democracy is considered to be the best available form of government for safeguarding liberty as each individual has the right to freely express his thoughts, and if he does not like the government, he is free to influence public opinion in democratic ways in order to affect a change in thegovernment. However, now, even in democracies, individual liberty is not safe because of the increasing tendency for governments to allow more and more power to the states. The problem, therefore, is how to safeguard the freedom of the individual from both the conscious and unconscious encroachment madeby the state. It is correct to say that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. No mechanicaldevice can safeguard the liberty of the people if they do not have the courage to resist willful invasion made on their liberty by the government. It is argued that the fundamental liberties of the people should be defined and categorically mentioned in a constitution to prevent encroachment by the government. This necessitates an independent and impartial judiciary to interpret the constitution and to decide disputes arising out of conflicts of jurisdictions. It should, however, be mentioned that neither a written constitution with fundamental liberties enshrined therein, nor an independent impartial judiciary can be adequate safeguard of individual liberty. Lastly, the liberty of citizens can best be safeguarded when the state action is unbiased. People should be able to get a remedy for all their reasonable grievances. All class privileges should be abolished because there can be no liberty in a society where the rights of some depend upon the pleasure of others. No group or class of people should be discriminated against in the matter of enjoyment of rights or privileges.

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4Communitarianism is the belief that the self or person is constituted through the community. Analyse the concept in view of this statement.Answer: The term community stands for a form of society whose members are informedby the community spirit or a sense of community. It denotes a network of relationships which are characterized by intimacy and durability. It may be distinguished from association, which is based on impersonal and contractual relations. Liberal theory equates society with association, whereascommunitarian theory equates society with community to determine the nature and extent of social obligation. Communitarians argue that an individual cannot assure full development of his personality unless he is committed to the spirit of community toward his fellow-beings.Communitarianism is the belief that the self or person is constituted through the community, in the sense that individuals are shaped by the communities to which they belong and thus owe them a debt of respect and consideration; there are no unencumbered selves. Although it is clearly at odds with liberal individualism, communitarianism has a variety of political forms. Left-wing communitarianism holds that community demands unrestricted freedom and social equality (the view of anarchism). Centrist communitarianism holds that community is grounded in an acknowledgement of reciprocal rights andresponsibilities (the perspective of Tory paternalism and social democracy). Rightwingcommunitarianism holds that community requires respect for authority and established values (the view of the New Right). Communitarianism is a contemporary philosophy. It marks a departure from the philosophy of liberalism because it places the relation between an individual and society in a new perspective. The communitrianism repudiates the picture of the self-implied inthe liberal theory. Liberal theory implied an unencumbered detached from preexistingsocial form, as exemplified by the concept of possessive individualism. It postulates that an individual is the sole proprietor of his own person or capacities for he owes nothing to society. Such a view denies his commitment to other individuals, traditions, practices and conception of the good. It holds that self isprior to its ends. It is fully competent to choose its ends as well as its roles and dispositions. In contrast to this atomistic view of individual, communitarianism advances the concept of situated self, as constituted by social role, practices and situations, in other words, communitarianism holds that an agents identityis constituted by specific commitments to his social situations.While liberalism insists on liberty of individual, his interest and rights, communitarianism focuses on his social identity and upholds acceptance of authority because it expresses our common will or reflects our common identity, our shared values and believes. It is significant to note that liberalism had oneliberty of the individual but atomistic view of society held by liberalism let to the erosion of the sense of responsibility and the moral standards attached thereto. Communitarianism seeks to restore that sense of responsibility and reconstruct moral standards on that basis.A major critique of contemporary Anglo-American liberalismcertainly the critique that resonates most in East Asia has been termed communitarianism. The basic themes of the communitarian critique have a long history, but modern day communitarianism began in the upper reaches of Anglo-American academia in the form of a critical reaction to John Rawls landmark 1971 book A Theory of Justice. Drawing primarily upon the insights of Aristotle and Hegel, political philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor and Michael Walzer disputed Rawls assumption that the principal task of government is to secure and distribute fairly the liberties and economic resources thatindividuals need to lead freely chosen lives. These critics of liberal theory never identified themselves with the communitarian movement (the communitarian label was pinned on them by others, usually critics), much less offer a grand communitarian theory as a systematic alternative to liberalism. Nonetheless,certain core arguments meant to contrast with liberalisms devaluation of community recur in the works of the four theorists named above, and for purposes of clarity one can distinguish between claims of three sorts: ontological or metaphysical claims about the social nature of the self, methodological claimsabout the importance of tradition and social context for moral and political reasoning and normative claims about the value of community. Each strand of the debate has largely evolved from fairly abstract philosophical disputes to more concrete political concerns that may have motivated much of the communitarian critique in the first place. Communitarian accounts of the ontology of the self were rejected by early liberal critics as internally contradictory, but they are now widely accepted asessential to most forms of liberalism. Retrospectively, this communitarianliberalmerger makes sense, because close textual analysis shows that every argument made by the major communitarian philosophers was, in fact, politicalnot metaphysical. To wit, all of the communitarians arguments led to the conclusionthat communitarianism would provide a firmer political grounding for the liberal ideal of equal individual freedom than was offered by the individualist ontologies.The Politics of Communitarianism and the Emptiness of Liberalism traces thispolitical mode of philosophizing to the British New Left that shaped AlasdairMacIntyre and Charles Taylor; and to the threat to Rawlsian liberalism representedby Robert Nozick, against whom both Michael Sandel (Taylors student) and Michael Walzer were arguing. Communitarianism points to the shortcomings of liberalism and attemptsto redefine the relation between an individual and the community. Liberalismpromotes individualism to focus on individual freedom, which undermines anindividuals affinity with the community. Liberals base their theories on notions ofindividual rights and personal freedom, but neglect the extent to which individualfreedom and wellbeing are only possible within community. Once, you recognizethe dependence of human beings on society, then your obligations to sustainthe common good of society are as weighty as your rights to individual liberty.Hence, communitarians argue, the liberal politics of rights should be abandonedor at least supplemented by, a politics of the common good.When every individual turns to seek his own good, no one is emotionallyattached to any one. An individual would manage to have many means of comfort at the expense of his emotional security. In other words, if an individual devoteshimself to the pursuit of self-interest, he cannot secure good life in the fullestsense of the term. Communitarians hold that only community is capable ofrealizing the common good.

5 Explain any five merits and demerits of democracy.Answer: Democracy has both merits and demerits. These are discussed as follows:Merits (Strength) of democracyIn democracy, you agree upon certain common principles. You respect oneanothers point of view. Democracy provides the framework within which themoral life of the individual is possible. A.D. Lindsay in his book Essentials ofDemocracy, says that the end of democratic government is to minister to thecommon life of society and remove the disharmonies that trouble it. Thus,democracy is an ideal, a means and a way of life. The merits of democracy areas follows: A rational form of government: It is based upon the premise that noman is infallible. Every man is liable to commit mistakes. As no man isinfallible, democracy adopts a process of discussion and criticism in whichevery man is allowed to take part. The continuous process of discussionand scrutiny acts as a necessary corrective of abuse of power. It provides rights to the individual: Democracy provides political, socialand economic rights to the individuals. The right to vote, the right to life,the right to religion, the right to education, the right of minorities, the rightto work, the right to a reasonable way and the right to rest and leisure aresome of the rights, which democracy provides. There have been somemovements for rights, such as the American War of Independence 1776,the French Revolution 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Withoutthese rights, life would be meaningless. Equality: Democracy not only provides rights but also provides equality.All are equal in the political, social and economic spheres. All enjoy equalrights. There is no discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, sex,caste and place of birth. Democracy is an efficient and responsible form of government: Themethod of free election at certain intervals and the method of popularcontrol at every stage of administration, either through criticism inside thelegislature or outside through public opinion, make it extremely efficientand responsible. Democracy promotes the welfare of the people: It is clear from itsdefinition that democracy is the government of the people. It also providessecurity to the individuals. Welfare is the yardstick of the security of thegovernment.DemeritsDemocracy has the following demerits or weaknesses: Since the time of Plato and Aristotle democracy has been criticized:Plato criticized democracy because it put his master Socrates to death.Aristotle regarded it as a prevented form of government. It is the governmentof average men and women. The average men, in the words of Maxey,are sheep-minded, ape-minded and wolf-minded. It is said that democracy is based on number: It counts the heads butnot the contents in the heads. So, it is based on quantity instead of quality. Cult of incompetence: The French writer, Faguet, describes democracyas the cult of incompetence. Bryce says that it is government by theincompetent. It is the ignorant and inefficient men who come to power.Such men are unintelligent, uninformed, prejudiced, emotional andresentful of superiority of others. They are the most numerous in society. Tyranny of the majority: The majority may impose their will on the minority.The minority view is either suppressed or ignored. The majority in thelegislature walk like a colossus. Hence, it may ignore the view of the minority. Expensive: Democracy is very expensive. There are frequent electionsin democracy. Besides, much money is spent on propaganda andmobilizing public opinion. There is wastage not only of money, but alsotime and opportunity. It is the most extravagant and indifferent system.

6Politicians who are already in office mistreat their powers to a huge extent. Hence what is the role of ethics in todays political system?Answer: Time and again, morality is described as the principle of actions, whether theyare right or wrong. Also, morality is synonymous with ethics. Morality cannot besomething which is wrong or simply convenient. In the same way, immoralitycannot be what is right and just, or born of sound principles and designed toencourage the social good.According to Jeremy Bentham, an English jurist, philosopher, and legaland social reformer, The greatest happiness of the greatest number is thefoundation of morals and legislation. Generally, principles and convictions arein conflict with expediency; but what is expedient is not moral, and what is moralis almost always inexpedient. Taking this view into consideration, we thereforesee a conflict and a confrontation between morality and politics. Morality has astrong influence on justice and fair play. Besides, according to Sidney Hillman,an American labour leader, politics is the science of who gets what, when andwhy.Morality insists on an impartial distribution of goods and services. Politics,on the other hand, signifies to take hold of whatever one can get, withoutconsidering the requirements and requests of others. As opposed to politicians who are selfish and self-centred, moralists are altruistic and advocate justice inevery sphere of life.Therefore, morality in politics plays a vital role in evaluating the quality of aState or society. If morals are strictly followed by the people, particularly thepoliticians, they would help establish a healthy and sound society. However, ifthey do not follow the morals and disrespect them, they would constitute anunhealthy society, which will come to an end in a short time.Today, the political scenario in several countries is deeply lacking the moralfervour. Most of the politicians today are sacrificing the interests of a vast sectionof the society in order to make their lives comfortable and to live a life of luxury.This is even more evident when we see that truth, which is a significant facet ofmorality, is poles apart from politics. The two are basically incompatible. Todayspoliticians are mostly typified by deceit and duplicity, even after swearing by theprinciples, ideologies and the remarkable precepts of the Constitution.Corruption, and not morality, is the keyword in politics today. If moralityhad been considered as the basis of modern society, then no one would havehad the courage to condemn politics and politicians. But we cannot blame themodern age and its implications to be solely responsible for teaching politiciansto become immoral; such failings have existed for ages.Plato, one of the most important Greek philosophers, in his historic LettersVII and VIII relates how he envisioned a bright political career when he wasyoung and how he was quite confident of bringing about a revolutionary changewhen the famous batch of Thirty Wise Men were placed in power. I expectedthat this government would bring about a change from corrupt to an uprightadministration. I found that it took these men no time at all to make the previousgovernment look like an age of gold.Yet again, when Socrates, Platos great teacher, was assassinated, heconcluded that considering the kind of men who were active in politics, and theprinciples on which things were managed, it was difficult to take part in publiclife and retain ones integrity, and this feeling became stronger the more I observedand the older I became.As a matter of fact, on the basis of Platos political wisdom, several politicaldictators took up merciless measures to achieve their ambitions. Although Platowas not satisfied with the kind of politics of his time, he never encouraged theremoval of the Constitution or the government of his State from power. The basis of true morality in politics is personal conduct and integrity. It isevident that authentic social and moral progress cannot be achieved as long aspolitical leaders follow a dual personality, posing to be what they are not. It is,therefore, attainable only when they sacrifice deception, double dealing andstratagem of any type for their personal interests and actually work for thedevelopment of the society.Public opinion plays a very important role against corrupt persons whoare responsible for the disorder of both morality and politics. Morality can berestored back in the public life of a democratic country in an effective manneronly when the prominent leaders of the country would trust the right instincts ofthe free people, their capacity to differentiate between right and wrong, andtherefore, act accordingly. Only this consciousness and wakefulness can bringabout an improvement in the conduct of politicians, who are deeply embeddedin the iron grip of power.Politics without EthicsMost of the countries in the world today are referred to as civilized, with thecommencement of modern values that are based on scientific thought andremarkable progress in the field of technology. The system of governanceworldwide has undergone a significant change over the past two centuries, andcurrently we find that most of the countries are governed on the principles ofdemocracy. At present, India has more than 60 million voters, which makes itthe largest democracy in the world.Therefore, it is evident that in the midst of corrupted and deceitful people,there are several politicians across the country who are willing to actually servethe people. However, not only in India, but politicians worldwide can go to anyextent to achieve the ultimate goal, i.e., the seat of power.Those politicians who are already in office mistreat their powers to a hugeextent. At times, politicians order transfers of government officials as per theirpersonal interests. It is quite popularly known that money brings power andpoliticians of India know it too well. A lot of money is spent during electioncampaigns. Most of which has been attained through ill-gotten ways, which areoften termed as donations. The politicians never think that this money couldhave been used for public welfare, which would have automatically attractedvotes of people for them.