Key Concepts of Political Science

8/12/2019 Key Concepts of Political Science

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Key Concepts of Political Science

Government -- refers to the institutions or structures that are responsible primarily for making public policy

for an entire society, country, nation, and/or state.

-- determines who gets what, when, and how. (Harold Lasswell)

-- authoritatively allocates values. (David Easton)

-- is the helmsman for the ship of state. (Plato)

-- is the steering mechanism for a given society. (Karl Deutsch)

-- is the institution of a given society that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Politics -- is the process whereby decisions are made by groups and institutions.

-- is the art of the possible.

-- are the interactions between individuals, groups, and institutions whereby public policydecisions are reached.

-- is the exercise of power and influence to achieve ones objectives.

-- is the democratic process of campaigning for office, holding elections, and making public

decisions through these elected officials.

Power -- is the ability to get someone else to do something based on persuasion. I may influencesomeone because large numbers support me, because I have money to advertise or bribe, because of my

position in an organization or within society, or because I threaten you.

Force -- the use of violence to coerce you to do something. If I must actually use force, I have lost

power to control your behavior. Fear of the use of force is, however, a tool of power. Force may be used

legitimately (by a police officer most of the time) or illegitimately (by a bank robber).

Authority -- is the right to issue orders or commands. Authority depends on legitimacy. There are

different types of legitimate authority: traditional, charismatic, and legal-bureaucratic. The German sociologist

Max Weber described these ideal types of authority at length in his writings.

Structure -- refers to the ways that an organization or institution is put together.

-- refers to the hierarchical arrangement of offices within a bureaucracy.

-- refers to the organization of government into branches and levels.

Function -- what an organization or institution does; its purpose. The function of the legislature is to

legislate; the function of the executive is to execute or carry out the laws made by the legislature; and the

function of the judicial is to adjudicate cases and controversies.


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Structural-Functionalism -- a model, theory, or conceptual framework used in political science that holds

that any structure carries out functions; and any function what can be analyzed or identified requires structuresto carry them out. One can rationally classify the functions (purposes) of government and then proceed to look

at the structures created to carry out these functions. To provide for the common defense is one of the

functions of government; the military (Army, Navy, and Air Force) are structures that carry out that function.

System -- any entity that is made up of parts that work or relate to each other.

-- has cohesion and covariance. Several parts fit together and changing one part impacts on allthe other parts. Our bodies are systems; so is our car; the solar system, and human societies.

Political System -- describes those structures, functions, and processes of a society that relate to

government and politics. This is another model, theory, or conceptual framework used in the discipline of

political science to analyze and understand political behavior. This model was developed by David Easton inthree influential books.

-- may be analyzed in terms of inputs, conversion structures, outputs, feedback, and environment.

Constitution -- a legal document that outlines the basic structure and functions of an organization.

U.S. Constitution -- supreme or highest law of the United States. It outlines the basic structure and functions

of the American National Government, creates the system of Federalism between the National and the State

Government, and limits the powers of government particularly through the Bill of Rights. It was written in 1789at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention and went into effect with the election of George Washington as

the first President and the election of the First Congress in 1791. It has been amended 27 times to date.

Separation of Power -- The creation of and the relationship between the executive, legislative, and judicial

branches of government.

Division of Poweris a synonym for Federalism. This is the constitutional relationship between our national

government and the fifty state governments. Federalism is a major topic within the subfield of Americangovernment.

Balance of Poweris a concept of the subfield of International Politics. It refers to the relationships between

sovereign states within the international system. During the Cold War, the balance of power was bipolarbetween the United States and the Soviet Union. During most of the history of the modern state system from

1648 onward, the balance of power has been multipolar. It has been the result of the interactions of the so-

called Great Powers that included France, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, Prussia (Germany), and Austria

Hungary. A new global balance of power may be forming that includes the United States, European Union,China, India, Japan, and Brazil.

Democracy -- When I ask my students to describe American government, the answer which I get mostfrequently is that we are a democracy. We are. But the concept is much more complex than the simple word

democracy would seem to imply. The ancient Athenians in the fifth century BCE were the first people todevelop the form of government called democracy. Democracy derives from the Greek and means rule by the

people. The Athenians had direct democracy where the people ruled themselves in what we would now call a

city-wide town meeting. The United States does not have a direct democracy. We have what is usually

described as a representative democracy. The American citizens vote for candidates who representthem. The people rule indirectly through their representatives who are periodically elected. How

representative, how democratic, are our elected officials remains a contested question. Representative

democracy is certainly less democratic than direct democracy.


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In a representative democracy, like our own, the key question becomes one of elections. The people express

their will through elections. Are the elections free, open, competitive? What role does money play incampaigning and winning elections. How informed is the public? Are they interested in politics? Are they

knowledgeable? Do they vote? Elections can be manipulated as appears to have been the case in 2009 in Iran.

Communist regimes used to have elections at which 98 percent of the eligible voters voted. But there was only

one list of approved candidates. The old Soviet Union used to be a one-party state.

Democracy does not tell you how a political system is organized. Both the United States and the UnitedKingdom are democracies but they differ significantly in their forms of government. The United States is a

republic with a presidential system. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system. Bothelect their leadership through democratic elections.

A democracy is a political system where the political leadership is elected through competitive, free electionswith a nearly universal franchise. The franchise is the group of citizens who have the right to vote. All

eighteen year old citizens of the United States, male and female, black and white, have the right to vote. But

remember at one time, women and slaves could not vote. During the days of George Washington, a majority of

the people could not vote. Were we then a democracy?

Republic -- Any form of government that is not ruled by a monarchy or other hereditary leadershipgroup. Without the hereditary principle, Republics require some form of election to choose their

leadership. They thus they implicitly point in the direction of democracy. They implicitly carry the seeds ofdemocracy within themselves. If, over time, the franchise is extended to all, they may become democracies. At

their origins, republics usually have a restricted franchise with property requirements limiting who mayvote. Foreigners, slaves, and women are excluded from the right to vote.

Republics, in addition to not being monarchies, usually provide for a mixed constitution of various checks andbalances. Simple rule by a majority is usually rejected. The tyranny of the majority is to be feared as much as

the tyranny of one person or the tyranny of factions. There is often a balance of rule by the one, the few, and

the many. Cicero, the Roman statesman, popularized the idea that the Romans had a republic. The Romans had

their two consuls (almost rule by one), the Senate (few), and various popular assemblies (many). The Romanrepublic ended during Ciceros lifetime when Caesar Augustus subverted it into the principate, a disguised form

of monarchy and military dictatorship. The United States with its separation of power and checks and balancespreserves the republican principle of limited government. We have our President (rule by one), the Congress

(rule by the few), and our popular elections (rule by the many).

Monarchy -- During most of history, human societies have been ruled by kings. The pharaoh of Egypt wasa god-king. The Persian Empire was ruled by Darius, a king of kings. In a monarchy, the king holds power

through hereditary right. A series of kings from the same family is called a dynasty. There are different

variants of monarchy: tribal monarchy, feudal monarchy, absolute monarchy, limited monarchy. Monarchy isa kind of one-man rule. The legitimacy of the king depends on the orderly hereditary succession. At the

beginning of each dynasty, there is usually some kind of usurpation. Some ruthless general or nobleman makeshimself illegitimately by force.

Dictatorship -- is one-man rule that is illegitimate. The dictator takes power from whoever ruled before by

trickery, violence, bribery, or other method. If the dictator can pass power to his son, he may be able to

establish a monarchy. General Napoleon Bonaparte seized power during the French Revolution and madehimself Emperor of France.

Totalitarianism is a concept that was developed during the 20th

century to describe one party-dictatorships

both of the right (Nazism and Fascism) and of the left (Communism) where the government based on an official

ideology sought to control all aspects of human life. Totalitarianism goes beyond dictatorship in that it tries to


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dominate not only government and politics, but also the economy, the press, and even the thoughts of its

subjects. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Salazar, and Peron were, or tried to be, totalitarian rulers.

Parliamentary System -- the leader of the majority party of the lower (popularly elected) house of the

legislature is the prime minister (United Kingdom), premier (France), or Chancellor (Germany). The primeminister is the head of the government. The prime minister and the other chief ministers (the cabinet) all serve

in the legislature. They also control of executive or administrative apparatus of the government. There is a

large permanent civil service which implements the political decisions of the elected leadership There is no

separation of power in a parliamentary system. If the prime minister loses a majority vote in the House ofCommon (lower house of Parliament in the United Kingdom), he must either resign or call for new elections.

In addition to the prime minister, there is also a ceremonial chief of state. This can be either a king or queen in

monarchies or a president in republics. This king (or queen) or president is largely a ceremonial leader. Real

power resides in the Prime Minister.

In a parliamentary system, the executive may be viewed as a committee of the legislature. There is what we

might call fusion of power.

Presidential Systems -- have a chief executive who is directly elected by the voters and who is in control of the

executive or administrative branch of government. Presidential systems usually have a legislative branch ofgovernment, which operates independently. If the legislature is independent of the president, then we can talk

about separation of power.

In some presidential systems, the president controls the legislature. The legislature is merely a rubber stamp for

everything the president wants. Presidential systems can deteriorate into one-man dictatorship. If the President

eliminates term limits and remains in office for life, he has become a dictator. If he can pass his position on to

his children, the system has in effect become a monarchy. Even if elections are held regularly, if the Presidentcreates a one-party system and outlaws opposing candidates and political parties, the system has deteriorated.

Presidential systems with a separately elected legislature may result in stalemate between the executive and

legislative branches. Presidents may depend on a political party to help them get their legislative agendathrough the legislature. If both the President and a majority of the legislature belong to the same political party,

it is more likely that the Presidents agenda will be enacted. A strong political party can be used as a tool tocoordinate executive-legislative relationships.

In a Presidential system, the President is both head of state and chief executive.

Legitimacyexpresses the idea that the government has a right to rule. It is a normative principle that also

depends on factual circumstances in a given country. Aristotle developed the idea of legitimacy. Legitimategovernments rule for the benefit of all. Illegitimate governments rule for the benefit of the ruler. Monarchies,

aristocracies, and polities were classified as legitimate and tyrannies, oligarchies, and democracies were

classified as illegitimate by Aristotle.

The hereditary principle and the elective principle have been accepted as the basis for making governments

legitimate. In our times, only freely elected, or democratic, governments are legitimate. Monarchies andtheocracies are increasingly viewed as illegitimate.

Ultimately, the legitimacy of a government depends on the consent of its people. Or, put negatively, anygovernment can be overthrown if the overwhelming majority of the people is sufficiently determined to

overthrow it by violence and revolution if necessary.


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Political Partiesare linked to the development of democracy. Since direct democracy, where the people

individually participated in politics through what might be called mass town meetings, was possible only insmall city-states, it was not a form of government that could be applied to large countries. It is only with the

invention of representative democracy that a method was devised whereby large numbers of people could,

indirectly through voting, participate in helping to govern themselves. Electing a chief executive for a fixed

number of years was another major innovation in the art of government. We elect a king, the president, for fouryears with one renewal of his contract possible. But even with elections and a mass franchise, there is still a

huge gap between the ordinary man and women on the streets, the people, and the elected representatives, the

rulers.

Mass political parties have been the tool for bridging the gap. Political parties can be viewed as transmission

belts between the people and the government. Political parties aggregate the opinions of sections of the people,Republican voters and Democratic voters for example, field candidates for office that express the values of their

parties, and get them elected. As elected office holders, the candidates try to implement the values of their

voters and their parties as functional public policies. Medical coverage for all Americans. No new taxes.

No more war.

Political parties can be classified by the ideology which they espouse: Liberal or Conservative. They can alsobe classified by their organizational structures: centralized parties with dues paying membership or highly

decentralized alliances of would-be office holders.

Since political parties are organized to gain control of the government, one can also classify different types of

political party systems: one party systems, two party systems, and multi party systems. Totalitarian states have

depended on single-party systems to maintain total control over both the government and the people. Many

defenders of democracy, believe that two-party systems maximize the effectiveness of the people in having theirwill carried out by the government. Multi-party systems, especially in parliamentary systems, have, at times,

produced grid-lock and discredited the effectiveness of the democratic process. Coalition governments with

many different political parties as coalition partners tend to be fragile, but not always.

Pluralism -- Democracy is rule by the people. But the concept of the people is an ambiguous term. All the

people never agree on any issue, let alone on a major public policy. The people turns into majority rulewhen it comes to representative democracies. And even majorities are composed on individual voters from

many different backgrounds and differences.

The United States, and most countries, are divided by class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Societies are made up

of many different social groupings. Voting behavior studies have shown that individuals belong to different

social groupings and that most members of a social group vote similarly. The black vote went overwhelmingly

(more than 90%) for President Barak Obama.

In addition to social groupings, societiy is divided into many organized groups: business, labor, and agriculturalorganizations. These organized groups, as part of their functioning, keep an eye on what the government is

doing because government impacts on the welfare of their organization. When organized groups engage inpolitics, they become special interest groups and lobbying organization.

Thousands of organizations lobby our government. Many feel that organized groups have more power than

the people. The group basis of politics is a prominent model for explaining American government. Pluralism

is the view that groups, organized and unorganized, dominate American politics and run the country.

Interest groups make campaign contributions to their favorite candidates for office. Courting votes indemocratic elections costs money. Most of the elected representatives of the people are really mouthpieces for

organized interest groups. Critics charge that we have the best government that money can buy. The people

clearly want health care coverage for all Americans; the private insurance companies, profiting from the


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premiums that we pay, do not. President Harry S. Truman was the first American president to propose a

national health insurance system. Sixty years later, we still have fifty million uninsured Americans. Will weget coverage for all this time? Who really runs America?

Elite-Mass Model -- Another model that seeks to explain how America is governed and who really rules us isthe elite-mass model. This model derives from sociology, including Marxian analysis. All human societies are

viewed as hierarchically structured. You have the people at the top and the people at the bottom. The people at

the top are the rich; the people at the bottom are the poor; and in the middle, you have the middle class.

The people at the top have more power, are wealthier, better educated, and hold the more important decision-

making jobs in our society. The few at the top form an elite; the rest of us are the mass.

All societies and all organizations, including labor unions and political parties agitating for democracy and the

poor, are led by a minority of their members, their leaders, their elite. Some political scientists are proposed aniron law of oligarchy.

Even a democratically elected leadership is still an elite. There is also an elite of basketball, football, hockey,and soccer players. There is an elite of Hollywood actors and popular vocal artists. The elite of students

presumably go to Harvard, Yale, and other Ivy League Colleges. The elite of businessmen are billionaires.

There is an elite of elected public officials, top government bureaucrats, generals, and judges.

The dominant elite may itself be divided into factions and counter elites may form.

The political elite manipulates mass public opinion through the media. A broad culture war between liberal and

conservative ideologues has erupted on our airwaves. Fox News has become Mr. Murdochs conservative

propaganda machine. MNBC feeds us a more liberal diet of slanted news.

The mass is not entirely powerless. The mass still votes. Elections chose between different candidates

representing different parts of the dominant elite. Elections do matter and preserve an element of democracy inthe system. But many citizens have become apathetic and do not participate. Maybe you can fool most of the

people most of the time, but the hope for democracy is that, you cant fool all ofthe people all of the time.

The elite mass model claims to be based on an empirical analysis of society. There are always people at the top

in any system. Those people can be empirically, factually, described as an elite.

The word elitist has an entirely different meaning. Elitist has a normative content. An elitist is a person who

believes that a particular elite should rule. Aristocracy, in Greek, means rule by the best. Aristotle was an

elitist because he opposed direct or radical democracy and favored the rule by the best educated. Often the richfancy themselves as the best people who should rule the country. For many centuries, the landed warrior

aristocracy dominated Europe and thought they had a god-given right to rule their peasant serfs. Sometimes

priests lay claim to superiority over the laity and seek to impose their morality on the rest of us. In Iran, the

mullahs are both elitists and a ruling elite. Democrats and populists oppose elitists.

Elite refers to an empirical fact; elitist is a normative term that implies a right of superiority.

Oligarchy and Democracy-- From the writings of Plato and Aristotle during the time of the Greek city-states,

it has been clear that politics is a struggle for power and influence. While philosophers have asked themselvesthe question on how to create a just society, they have sadly noted that the few and the many have often

competing interests. When the rich rule they neglect the poor and when the poor rule, which has been very

rarely in history, they have sought to fleece the rich. The needy tend to kill the goose that lays the golden

eggs. The privileged often oppress the underprivileged.


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In ancient Greece, the power struggle was between the aristocrats and the democrats. During the Roman

republic, you had the conflict between the patricians and the plebeans and later between the optimates and thepopulares. The current conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats in the United States is in part a

class struggle. It has been described as a culture war.

Politics evolves around the axis of the defenders of privilege (the status quo) and social reformers who want

more equality (changes in the status quo.) Who gets the benefits and who pays the price is always the

undercurrent of politics.

Justice -- Oh, that happy country where justice prevails. Justice is an ideal that goes beyond law and

order. Order can be maintained, and often is, through oppression. Law can often enshrine injustice. The lawprohibiting the sleeping in public places does not impact equally on people. Authoritarian police practices

coupled with prejudice and racial profiling create a climate of disrespect and fear.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated the four freedoms: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of

religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Roosevelt went beyond the liberties and rights enshrined

in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Freedom from want implies that societies must provide a degree

of social justice. Freedom from fear implies a degree of peace and social harmony in the world.

How would we create a just America and a just world?

Civil Libertiesare found largely in the Bill of Rights, and particularly the First Amendment of the

Constitution. They include the seven freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press; freedom of religion;freedom of petition, and freedom of assembly (these five are listed); and the freedom of association and the

right of privacy (implied by the previous five). Civil liberties place limits on the government to restrict

individual behavior. We seek to encourage individual rights by limiting the government from interfering with

them.

Civil liberties were developed during the eighteenth century in opposition to conservative, religiously based,monarchies. They were rooted in the philosophical ideas articulated by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-

Jacques Rousseau about the state of nature, human nature, and the social contract. We often refer to these rightsas our inalienable rights. These rights are said to be universal and to pre-exist the formation of the state and

government.

Civil liberties are part of the cherished heritage of the Anglo-American tradition of law and government.

Civil Rightsare group rights. They are based constitutionally on the 5th

and 14th

Amendments protection of

equal rights. The rights of American citizens may not be denied on the basis of race, color, or previous

condition of servitude. Laws that discriminate against blacks violate the equal rights of that group. Laws thatdiscriminate against women are unconstitutional. We are still debating whether all laws that discriminate

against homosexuals, male or female, are illegal. If heterosexual couples can marry in a civil ceremony, then

why are homosexual couples, who want to do so, prohibited in many states from marrying each other (anddivorcing when the time comes like so many couples)? Is this discrimination.

The idea of group rights is still controversial among some conservative jurists. They accept the rights ofindividuals but attack the idea of dividing society into groups entitled to equal treatment. They do not want to

go beyond the individual case (a given women is denied promotion) to a generalized group (women in general

are often denied promotion because they are women)

Groups rights have now been generally accepted in all legal traditions of the world. The aged, children, the

handicapped, prisoners, and the sick, including the mentally ill, are other groups whose rights may need specialprotection.


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Positive legislative action to overcome previous illegal discrimination has been called affirmative action. Some

conservatives have criticized affirmative action on behalf of various minorities as reverse discrimination.

Bill of Rightsrefers to the first ten Amendments of the United States Constitution. It includes both

substantive rights (First Amendment) and procedural rights (4th

through 8th

Amendments). Procedural rights arelargely rights concerning the conduct of a fair trial. They include the right of due process of law, right to be free

on bail, no unreasonable searches and seizures, trial by jury, fair trial, speedy trial, right to counsel, right

against self-incrimination, and no unreasonable punishments. The substantive rights include both civil liberties

and civil rights.

Human Rights -- are based on the liberal Anglo-American tradition of civil rights and liberties but go beyondthat tradition to the fundamental values of other cultures. The United Nations has become a prime advocate for

human rights.

Many advocates of human rights go beyond the traditional rights for political liberty to focus on the right for

social inequality. Freedom from fear, from tyranny, from oppression, from disorder, from hunger, from

ignorance, and from homelessness may be more essential than whether you have the right to read a book or to

write an article or to organize a meeting. Advocates of these broader human rights focus on the United NationsMillennial Goals. Economic and social rights may be more fundamental than political freedom. Clean drinking

water, inoculations for children to combat childhood diseases, an education, adequate housing, food, and a jobare viewed as important human rights.

Even within the traditional sphere of civil liberties and civil rights, advocates of human rights profess a broader

cultural perspective. The Catholic Church, for example, has not always been happy with the entire list of civilliberties developed during the nineteenth century. Freedom of religion, for example, has raised many

concerns. What is the right of non-Catholics to practice and promulgate their religion in predominantly

Catholic countries? This question also arises in Islamic countries. Since the Catholic Church still opposes

divorce, contraception, and abortion, the role of women within the Catholic tradition is quite different fromwhat it is in American law. There are also questions about the rights of the unborn. Do fetuses have rights? Is

there a right to die, with medical assistance?

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Key Concepts of Political Science