POG 100: Introduction to Politics and

Governance, Section 1/2/3/4

F2007

October 02 2007
 October 02 2007
• Review: Political regimes
• Approaches to the Study of Politics
• Ideas and ideologies
• Film: The Prophets and promise of
Classical capitalism
 Review: Political regimes
• Regime can be defined as a form of rule
• Brodie (Text, 2005:90) refers to regimes also as ‘a mode
of governance over the organized activity of a social
formation within and across a particular
configuration of society, state, market and global
insertion’
• Regime contains four spheres, all of which are
interrelated and interlocking:
– State
– Society
– Market
– Globalization
 Review:Typologies and Ideal-types
• To construct typologies, we lean heavily on an idea
popularized by Max Webber (1864-1920).
• Webber advocated the use of what is known as ideal-types to
distinguish between social or political orders.
• Ideal-types are artificially constructed or abstract concepts
used to describe the most ideal form of social organization.
• The characteristics attributed to ideal-types are often not fully
realized in actual life examples but approximate them – social
democracy, communism, capitalism, liberal democracy,
market economy as examples of ideal-types
• The use of ideal-types in the social sciences is similar to the
use of experiments in the natural sciences. Its application is
aimed at generalizing social behaviour
Ideal-types and social formations
• Critique: Ideal types suggest a static form of order. However,
human beings are dynamic and the organization of human
societies changes with time
• Karl Marx (1818-1883), building on Webber’s ideas
developed the concept of social formations which suggests
that society is organized through flexible social, economical,
political and cultural processes that allow it to achieve
coherence over time
• Social formations are systems with interlocking and
interacting dimensions
• This approach speaks to the ability of social organizations to
change while also maintaining stability
 Review: Regime typology
• The classic regime typology includes three forms:
– Authoritarian
– Democratic
– Revolutionary
• More recently, the questions raised about the extent to
which regimes are subject to the power of institutions
such as corporations
• Others argue that not all democratic regimes are the
same – they show significant variation and diversity
• Theorists have suggested a new formulations that seek
to address the influence of corporations on modern
governments/societies
– Corporatist regime
 Authoritarian regimes
• Characterized by rule by the few
• Force or threat of use of force used implicitly or explicitly
to maintain order
• There is a continuum of authoritarian regimes that runs
from benevolent dictatorships to totalitarian and
governed by adherence to strict ideological or religious
beliefs - theocracy, communism, fascism
• Bureaucratic-authoritarianism describes military
dictatorships whose project was nation building and state
led development in post-colonial periods in Latin
America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East
• Many were able to survive because of support from
super powers who used them a satellite states
 Democratic Regimes
• Characterized as rule by the people (as self-determining citizens)
• Majority consent is the basis for legitimacy
• Majority benefit from and support the political order
• Include representative, social democratic, socialist, oligarchic, dependent,
limited democracies
• In reality, these regimes are more representative and pluralist, than
participatory – procedures exist to facilitate participation but other
structures limit participation to small majorities
• Individuals have rights of citizenship and civic responsibilities, chief
among them is the electoral process that determines who governs
• They are said to be the form of government most closely identified with the
capitalist mode of production.
• Some have suggested that they represent the interests of ruling elites -
oligarchies dominate decision making at the expense of the masses
• Examples: Canada, USA, Sweden, France, Great Britain, Chile, Brazil
 Revolutionary regimes
• Characterized by the overthrow of the preceding socio-
political and economic order by a few or many (class or
vanguard rule).
• Most are born out of violence and tend to have a disciplinary
dimension to them
• Rarely are they pluralist and they often become totalitarian
• Founded on ideologies that represent radical idea of how to
organize society - radical transformation of the society, its
social relations and the state
• Marxists, communist, Anti-colonialist, nationalist, Islamic
• Examples include: Russia, China, Vietnam, Iran
• People power in Philippines, Bolivia, South Africa
demonstrate that they are not necessarily violent overthrows.
 Corporatist regimes
• Decision making is state directed, with the cooperation of
key institutions – e.g: business and labour in Europe
• Decision making is directed by powerful national or
transnational interests representing
• Has its roots in the C18th with the writing of such
theorists as Emile Durkheim
• Argued for the most efficient form of governance
• Lead to an over reliance on expert class or technocracy
for ‘rational’ decision making and implementation
• Public accountability is limited because most decisions
are not subject to political debate
• Potential for alienation of citizens over time
• Historical examples include fascist Italy under Mussolini
 Corporatism
Corporatist movement in the 1920s –France, Italy,
Germany
Emile Durkheim (C19th):
• The corporation was to become the elementary division
of the state, its fundamental political unit
• Obliterates the distinction between public and private
• Challenges the idea of the public interest
• Through the corporation, scientific rationality achieves its
rightful place as the creator of collective reality
• Philippe Schmitter (1970)
– Neo-Corporatism: A form of benign dictatorship
– Interest representation seen as a form of corporatism
 Critique of Corporatism
• Corporate rule undermines the role of the
individual in liberal democracy
• Leads to worship of self-interest and denies the
public good
• Claims rationality as the virtue that directs its
form of governance
• Imposes conformity and passivity on individuals
• Corporate rule secures for the state the
deference of citizens
 Approaches to the study of politics

Politics is studied from a number of different

approaches which suggest different
ideological perspectives to key issues.

• Institutionalism
• Pluralism
• Elitism
• Public Choice
• Class analysis
 Institutionalism
• The earliest approach to politics emphasized political orders based
on key formal institutions, laws and processes of governance.
• According to the approach, institutions help us understand the
process through which the questions of who gets what, how, why
and when are resolved.
• The focus is on the similarities and differences between
constitutional orders - parliamentary, presidential systems and
dictatorial systems, and how these deal with such issues as the
separation of power, federal and unitary forms of governance, and
the legal structures that made governance orderly.
• Political systems are assumed to be working to produce outcomes
that are acceptable to the population.
• Citizens are assumed to be engaged in the political process and
well informed so that they can make informed choices
• It is assumed that citizens have equal access to engage in the
political process
 Institutionalism
• This approach is also related to Structural functionalism because
it emphasizes the functions of the political system - rule making,
rule application, rule adjudication.
• However, it has its limits and these have become increasingly clear.
• For instance, the persistent breakdown in constitutional orders
especially during World War II was difficult to explain and created a
crisis of confidence in the institutional approach.
• It is also hard to use it to explain those societies with no formal
constitutional orders in the liberal democratic sense - for instance
those societies that have been referred to as quasi-states or
collapsed states
• It has also become clear that most citizens are not directly engaged
in the formal process of politics and in fact many are effectively left
out of the processes of decision making
• There is a mismatch between the theory and the political practice on
the ground.
 Pluralism
• In the post-war period, political scientists adopted what is called the
behaviouralist approach to the study of politics.
• It was considered more scientific and theorists such as Robert Dahl
argued that although the individual was the basic unit of political analysis,
the complexity of modern society precluded the role of the informed
individual in the policy making process
• The individual had been replaced by groups who act on behalf of
individuals and their interests in a process of interest brokerage overseen
by the government.
• Power is assumed to be widely dispersed in the political system among
various actors
• According to the pluralists, these groups form around issues of political
interest and articulate them to gain a policy advantage.
• In essence, while direct political participation was impossible, a new
equally effective means of political participation though interest groups
was able to maintain the democratic process and offer fair outcomes from
the political system.
 Pluralism
• Pluralism is based a set of assumptions:

– That the state is democratic

– Power is dispersed and not monopolized by state or corporate elite
– Individuals are free agents employing a variety of resources to organize
groups that make demands of the system
– Authorities make decisions that represent compromises brokered
between competing interest groups - a sort of market place
– Different policy areas attract different individuals and groups
– Interest group activity replaces individuals’ role in the political process
 Elitism
• Those who disagree with pluralism such as C. Wright Mills argue that a
few people in all societies manipulate the levers of government to their
benefit.
• As a critique of the Pluralist approach, Elite theory suggests that the focus
should not be on individuals and the freely formed groups based on
interests but that society breaks down into two groups
– the few on top who hold power and rule (the ones Plato referred to as
philosopher kings) or the Oligarchy
– the many below who are governed by them.
• Elite theory acknowledges that human society is not homogeneous and that
the differences among people in society make elite rule or the rule of the
oligarchy inevitable.
• Elites straddle both the public and private realms. For instance various
political elites and corporate elites become bureaucratic elites over time
and influence the direction of state policies in their various public and
private capacities
 Elitism
• Elites of various groups in society - political, corporate, workers,
ethnic, regional, and other groups of common bond tend to find what
is called Elite Accommodation
• Elites also tend to reproduce them selves as they come to rely on
each other for advice and action. They come to share a common
world view and defend their common interests
• Some have suggested that the state elites can become autonomous
from society through this process of elite accommodation. What
emerges is what is called the Embedded State
• Critics of elite theory have pointed to it over-emphasis of the
cohesion of the elites or oligarchy and lack of attention to the
competition within the ruling elites.
• Further, that in modern society political constraints make it
impossible for rulers to ignore the interests of the masses.
 Public Choice
• This approach is based on the assumption that society is
democratic and individuals have free choice to
participate in politics
• Politics represents majoritan rule and individuals and
groups are conscious of their common interests
• Individuals are rational and exercise their political
choices rationally
• Political representative will do anything to keep them in
power. They take credit for good outcomes of policies
and blame others, events outside their control for their
failures
 Public Choice
• Voters and politicians act in a self-interested manner so
politicians make promises that attract the self-interested
attention of voters
• Political parties adopt policies that correspond to the
interests of the largest number of voters
• Political parties often focus on the marginal voters,
undecided or strategically located voters
• Political parties seek to maximize their successes and
minimize their failures
• Politicians are engaged in a bargaining process with the
bureaucracy, the media and other authorities
 Class Analysis
• Another social stratification approach is class analysis
• According to this approach, society is organized hierarchically, with
different levels or strata having unequal access to power, authority,
influence and resources.
• Following the work of Karl Marx, theorists from this school see social
classes as antagonistic because their interests are in conflict, especially in
the economy.
• The capitalist organization of the economy and politics – political economy
– means that different social classes co-exist in society in tension.
• Marx provided the most comprehensive theory of class society in which he
argue that the economic mode of production was the foundation of political
organization in society. Therefore the working classes and the capital
owning classes had different interests leading to class antagonisms.
• More importantly it deals most effectively with the issue of power and how
it is distributed in society.
• The focus here is largely on capitalist society but not exclusively so
 Class analysis
• Class analysis is useful in understanding how power and wealth are
unevenly distributed in society - the political consequences being political
instability in the long run.
• Class analysis explains how modern capitalist society works and accounts
for many of the other issues raised by the other approaches.
• But class analysis has been criticized as economically too deterministic and
not able to explain changes in modern societies where people from
different strata show mobility as they benefit from the dynamic
organization of the capitalist economy.
• Another critique of class analysis is that, because of the focus on the
production, it tends to ignore the fact that social stratification in society
occurs along various planes and not just economic organization as.
• Others have identified stratification on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity
as key to understanding most societies. These distinction also create their
own hierarchies that intersect with class distinctions
 Radical approaches
• Feminism
• Post-colonial
• Post modernism
– These tend to build on the Marxist conflict analysis seeing
society as divided into groups in conflict, but not just as
classes based on economic organization
– Rather they emphasize other modes of stratification based
on gender, race, colonial history, etc
– Society is organized in an unequal, hierarchical order
– They argue that liberal democratic structures cannot
provide substantive equality unless there are positive
(affirmative) corrections by the state
 Review
The approaches – Institutionalism, pluralism, elite, public choice and class
analysis provide a useful way to understand political society.
• While the institutional approach emphasizes formal political institutions
and constitutional structures, pluralists in contrast emphasize the informal
processes involving individual political actors and political competition
among groups, as well as the role of citizens and groups as individual
actors in a competitive political system. Public choice assumes a market
environment for policy.
• On the other hand, the elite approach focuses on elites domination of
political life with an alienated majority accepting their role in society,
while the class analysis approach suggests that social classes arise in
society because of the nature of the organization of the economy and exist
in antagonism against each other.
• The other approaches characterized as radical including feminist, post-
colonial and post-modernist emphasize the existence of divisions between
men and woman, race and geography (North-South) and how they
determine how society is governed.