Fundamentals of Political Science.pdf

Fundamentals of
Political Science
ROMMEL R. REGALA, Ph.D.
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Catanduanes State University

Introduction: The Study of Politics
‘Man is by nature a political animal.’
ARISTOTLE

Politics, in its broadest sense, is the
activity through which people make,
preserve and amend the general
rules under which they live.
Politics is inextricably linked to the
phenomena of conflict and
cooperation.
Defining Politics

Defining Politics
Any attempt to clarify the meaning of ‘politics’ must
nevertheless address two major problems:
• The first is the mass of associations that the word has
when used in everyday language; in other words, politics
is a ‘loaded’ term. Whereas most people think of, say,
economics, geography, history and biology simply as
academic subjects, few people come to politics without
preconceptions.
• The second and more intractable difficulty is that even
respected authorities cannot agree what the subject is
about.

Defining Politics
Approaches to defining politics

Defining Politics
Politics as the art of government
• ‘Politics is not a science . . . but an art’.
- Chancellor Bismarck
• Politics is the exercise of control within society through
the making and enforcement of collective decisions.

Defining Politics
• The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, meaning
literally ‘city-state’.
• Politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the
polis – in effect, ‘what concerns the polis’.
• People are said to be ‘in politics’ when they hold public
office, or to be ‘entering politics’ when they seek to do
so.

Defining Politics
• To study politics is, in essence, to study government, or,
more broadly, to study the exercise of authority.
• Politics as the ‘authoritative allocation of values’.
• Politics is associated with ‘policy’.

Defining Politics
• Politics is what takes place within a polity, a system of
social organization centered on the machinery of
government.
Polity: A society organized through the exercise of
political authority; for Aristotle, rule by the many in
the interests of all.
• Anti-politics: Disillusionment with formal or established
political processes, reflected in non-participation,
support for anti-system parties, or the use of direct
action.

Defining Politics

Defining Politics
Politics as public affairs
• The distinction between ‘the political’ and ‘the non-
political’ coincides with the division between an
essentially public sphere of life and what can be thought
of as a private sphere.
• It is only within a political community that human beings
can live the ‘good life’.
• Politics is an ethical activity concerned with creating a
‘just society’; it is called the ‘master science’.
- Aristotle

Defining Politics
• Two views of the public/private divide

Defining Politics

Defining Politics
Politics as compromise and consensus
• Politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conﬂict:
that is, by compromise, conciliation and negotiation,
rather than through force and naked power.
• Politics [is] the activity by which differing interests
within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them
a share in power in proportion to their importance to the
welfare and the survival of the whole community.
(Crick, [1962] 2000)

Defining Politics
Politics as power

Defining Politics
Politics as power
• Politics is, in essence, power: the ability to achieve a
desired outcome, through whatever means. This notion
was neatly summed up in the title of Harold Lasswell’s
book Politics: Who Gets What, When, How? (1936).
• Politics can be seen as a struggle over scarce resources,
and power can be seen as the means through which this
struggle is conducted.

Defining Politics
Politics as power
• Politics as a process, speciﬁcally one related to the
exercise of power over others.
• Politics as ‘power-structured relationships, arrangements
whereby one group of persons is controlled by another’.
- Kate Millett (Sexual Politics ,1969)

Defining Politics
Politics as power
• Politics to refer to the apparatus of the state.
• Political power as ‘merely the organized power of one
class for oppressing another’.
• Politics, together with law and culture, are part of a
‘superstructure’ that is distinct from the economic ‘base’
that is the real foundation of social life.
• Politics is the most concentrated form of economics.
• Class struggle is the very heart of politics.

Defining Politics
Politics as power
POLITICS IN ACTION…
• The rise of Women’s Liberation: making politics personal?
• Feminists look to an end of ‘sexual politics’
achieved through the construction of a non-
sexist society, in which people will be valued
according to personal worth, rather than on
the basis of gender. Marxists believe that
‘class politics’ will end with the
establishment of a classless communist
society. This, in turn, will eventually lead to
the ‘withering away’ of the state, also
bringing politics in the conventional sense to
an end.

Basic Concepts of Politics
• Politics is he process by which a community selects rulers
and empowers them to make decisions, takes action to
attain common goals, and reconciles conflicts within the
community.
• We start our language lesson with three words that carry
a great deal of political freight:
• Power,
• Order
• Justice

Power
• Power is the capacity to influence or control the
behavior of persons and institutions, whether by
persuasion or coercion.
• Power is the currency of all politics. Without power, no
government can make and enforce laws, provide security,
regulate the economy, conduct foreign policy, or wage
war.

Power
• Power is defined in terms of national wealth or military
spending.
• Hard Power refers to the means and instruments of brute
force or coercion, primarily military and economic clout.
• Soft power is “attractive,” rather than coercive: the
essence of soft power is “the important ability to get
others to want what you want.”

Power
• Power is never equally distributed.
• Who wields power?
• In whose interests?
• And to what ends?
• BUT the most basic question of all is “Who rules?”

Power
• GUNs, GOONs, and GOLD…
“Political power flows from the barrel of a gun.”
Political power is clearly associated with the means of
coercion (the regular police, secret police, and the army),
but power can also flow from wealth, personal charisma,
ideology, religion, and many other sources, including the
moral standing of a particular individual or group in
society.
- Mao Zedong

Power
• Authority. Command of the obedience of society’s
members by a government.
• Legitimacy. The exercise of political power in a
community in a way that is voluntarily accepted by the
members of that community.
• Legitimate Authority. The legal and moral right of a
government to rule over a specific population and control
a specific territory; the term legitimacy usually implies a
widely recognized claim of governmental authority and
voluntary acceptance on the part of the population(s)
directly affected.

Order
• Order. In a political context, refers to an existing or
desired arrangement of institutions based on certain
principles such as liberty, equality, prosperity, and
security. Also often associated with the rule of law (as in
the phrase ‘‘law and order’’) and with conservative
values such as stability, obedience, and respect for
legitimate authority.
• Society. An aggregation of individuals who share a
common identity. Usually, because people who live in
close proximity often know each other, enjoy shared
experiences, speak the same language, and have similar
values and interests.

Order
• Social Contract. A concept in political theory most often
associated with Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacques Rousseau,
and John Locke, the social contract is an implicit
agreement among individuals to form a civil society and
accept certain moral and political obligations essential to
its preservation.
• Basic to social contract theory is the notion that the right
to rule is based on the consent of the governed.

Order
• Government. The persons and institutions that make and
enforce rules or laws for the larger community.
• Republic. A form of government in which sovereignty
resides in the people of that country, rather than with
the rulers. The vast majority of republics today are
democratic or representative republics, meaning that
sovereign power is exercised by elected representatives
who are responsible to the citizenry.

Order
• State. In its sovereign form, an independent political-
administrative unit that successfully claims the allegiance
of a given population, exercises a monopoly on the
legitimate use of coercive force, and controls the
territory inhabited by its citizens or subjects; in its other
common form, a state is the major political-
administrative subdivision of a federal system.
• Sovereignty. A government’s capacity to assert supreme
power successfully in a political state.

Order
• Country. As a political term, it refers loosely to a
sovereign state and is roughly equivalent to ‘‘nation’’ or
‘‘nation-state’’; country is often used as a term of
endearment—for example, in the phrase ‘‘my country ’tis
of thee, sweet land of liberty’’ in the patriotic song every
U.S. child learns in elementary school; country has an
emotional dimension not present in the word state.
• Nation. Often interchangeable with state or country; in
common usage, this term actually denotes a specific
people with a distinct language and culture or a major
ethnic group—for example, the French, Dutch, Chinese,
and Japanese people each constitute a nation, as well as
a state, hence the term nation-state.

Order
• Nation-State. A geographically defined community
administered by a government.
• Stateless Nation. People (or nations) who are scattered
over the territory of several states or dispersed widely
and who have no autonomous, independent, or sovereign
governing body of their own; examples of stateless
nations include the Kurds, Palestinians, and Tibetans (see
also nation).

Order
• Dawn of the Nation-State System: Europe in 1648
The Peace of Westphalia (1648). The Origins of the Modern Nation-State System

Justice
• Justice. Fairness; the distribution of rewards and
burdens in society in accordance with what is deserved.
• Nation-Building. The process of forming a common
identity based on the notion of belonging to a political
community separate and distinct from all others; often
the concept of “nation” is based on common
ethnolinguistic roots.
• Political Literacy. The ability to think and speak
intelligently about politics.

Studying Politics
• Aristotle is the father of political science. He not only
wrote about politics and ethics, but he also described
different political systems and suggested a scheme for
classifying and evaluating them. For Aristotle, political
science simply meant political investigation; thus, a
political scientist was one who sought, through
systematic inquiry, to understand the truth about
politics. In this sense, Aristotle’s approach to studying
politics more than 2,000 years ago has much in common
with what political scientists do today. Yet the discipline
has changed a great deal since Aristotle’s time.

Studying Politics
For What Purposes?
By What Methods?
• Methodology. The way scientists and scholars set about
exploring, explaining, proving, or disproving propositions
in different academic disciplines. The precise methods
vary according to the discipline and the object, event,
process, or phenomenon under investigation.

Studying Politics
By What Methods?
• Positivism. A philosophy of science, originated by
Auguste Comte, that stresses observable, scientific facts
as the sole basis of proof and truth; a skeptical view of
ideas or beliefs based on religion or metaphysics. The
theory that social, and indeed all forms of, enquiry
should adhere strictly to the methods of the natural
sciences.
• Behaviorism. An approach to the study of politics that
emphasizes fact-based evaluations of action. The belief
that social theories should be constructed only on the
basis of observable behaviour, providing quantifiable data
for research.

Studying Politics
By What Methods?
• Normativism. An approach to the study of politics that
emphasizes the key role of intentional human behavior
based on values, principles, and reason as opposed to
instincts, impulses, and deterministic forces - “ought”
versus “is”; normative theory focuses on fundamental
and enduring questions.

Studying Politics
The Study of Human Behavior
Political scientists often disagree not only about
how to study politics, but also about which questions
to ask. Behaviorists typically prefer to examine
specific and narrowly defined questions, answering
them by applying quantitative techniques –
sophisticated statistical methods such as regression
analysis and analysis of variance. Many broader
questions of politics, especially those raising issues of
justice, lie beyond the scope of this sort of
investigation. Questions such as “What is justice?” or
“What is the role of the state in society?” require us
to make moral choices and value judgments. Even if
we cannot resolve such questions scientifically, they
are worth asking. Confining the study of politics only
to the kinds of questions we can subject to
quantitative analysis risks turning political science
into an academic game of Trivial Pursuit.

Studying Politics
The Political (Science) Puzzle
Thus, political science, like politics, means different
things to different people. The subject matter of politics is
so wide ranging that it is difficult to study without being
broken down into more manageable pieces. Like
physicians, political scientists often divide into specialties
and subfields – some specialize in political theory, whereas
others focus on (Philippine) government and politics,
comparative politics, international relations, political
economy, public administration, and public policy.

Studying Politics

Studying Politics
• Political Theory seeks answers to such questions through
reason, logic, and experience.
• Because people on opposite sides of the political fence
believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong,
understanding politics requires us, at a minimum, to be
open-minded and familiarize ourselves with arguments
pro and con. Knowledge of costs and moral consequences
in politics is essential to a clear sense of purpose and
coherent policy.

Studying Politics
• Rational Choice. The role of reason over emotion in
human behavior. Political behavior, in this view, follows
logical and even predictable patterns so long as we
understand the key role of self-interest.
• Political Realism. The philosophy that power is the key
variable in all political relationships and should be used
pragmatically and prudently to advance the national
interest; policies are judged good or bad on the basis of
their effect on national interests, not on their level of
morality.
• Political Culture. The moral values, beliefs, and myths by
which people live and for which they are willing to die.

Studying Politics
• (Philippine) Government and Politics. Understanding our
own political institutions.
• Teaching and learning about one’s own government is, in
effect, an exercise in civic education.
• Citizens in a democracy need to know how the
government works, what rights the Constitution
guarantees them, and how to decide what to believe.

Studying Politics
• Comparative Politics seeks to contrast and evaluate
governments and political systems.
• Comparing forms of government, stages of economic
development, domestic and foreign policies, and political
traditions allows political scientists to formulate
meaningful generalizations.

Studying Politics
Simplified Model of the Political System
SOURCE: Copyright © 1965, 1979 by David Easton. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Studying Politics
• International Relations. Specialists in international
relations analyze how nations interact. Why do nations
sometimes live in peace and harmony but go to war at
other times? The advent of the nuclear age, of course,
brought new urgency to the study of international
relations, but the threat of an all-out nuclear war now
appears far less menacing than other threats, including
international terrorism, global warming, energy security,
and, most recently, the economic meltdown.

Studying Politics
• Public administration is all about how governments
organize and operate, about how bureaucracies work and
interact with citizens and each other.
• Students of public administration examine budgets,
procedures, and processes in an attempt to improve
efficiency and reduce waste and duplication.
• Political scientists who study public administration
frequently concentrate on case studies, paying attention
to whether governmental power is exercised in a manner
consistent with the public interest. In this sense, public
administration shares the concerns of political science as
a whole.

Studying Politics
The Power of Ideas
• In politics, money talks – or so people say.
• It isn’t what you know but who you know.”
• If money is all that matters, justice is an illusion, ideas
are irrelevant, and things can never change.
• Intelligence, not money, is what really matters: smart
people are the inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs
who make things happen: “The strongest force shaping
politics is not blood or money but ideas.”
• “The people who influence government the most are
often those who generate compelling ideas.” If true,
ideas do matter and justice is possible.

Studying Politics
The Power of Ideas
• In a world operating on free-market principles, the argument
goes that intelligence is the great equalizer. The children of
the poor can – and often do – have greater native intelligence
than rich kids.
• Do ideas have the same impact in the realm of politics in
today’s world? Do smart people get elected to high office in the
same way as they climb the corporate ladder to become CEOs
and join the ranks of the super-rich?
• And one word of caution; don’t expect to find easy answers.
And don’t expect the answers to be revealed suddenly in a
burst of divine light. The role of education is to ask the right
questions. The key to a life well lived is to search for the right
answers—wherever that might take you.

References:
Heywood, Andrew. 2013. Politics. Fourth edition. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Magstadt, Thomas. 2013. Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions, and
Issues. Tenth edition (International student edition).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

S – elf Governing
T – ribe
A – uthority
T – erritory
E – mpire

Meaning of the State
State is a
community of persons,
more or less numerous,
permanently occupying a
definite portion of
territory, independent of
external control, and
possessing a government to
which a great body of
inhabitants render habitual
obedience.

Elements of State
1. People
2. Territory
3. Government
4. Sovereignty

People
 This refers to the mass of
population living within the
state.
 There is no legal requirement
as to the number of people
that should compose a state.
But it should be neither too
small nor too large: small
enough to be well-governed
and large enough to be self-
sufficing.

Territory
 This refers to the fixed portion of the
surface of the earth inhabited by the
people of the State.
 The components of territory are the
land mass, otherwise known as the
terrestrial domain, the inland and
external waters, which make up the
fluvial and maritime domain, and the
air space above the land and waters,
which is called the aerial domain.
 As a practical requirement only, it must
be neither too big as to be difficult to
administer and defend nor too small as
to be unable to provide for the needs of
the population.

Government
 This refers to the agency or
instrumentality through which the
will of the State is formulated,
expressed and realized.
 From the viewpoint of international
law, no particular form of government
is prescribed, provided only that the
government is able to represent the
State in its dealings with other
States.

Sovereignty
 This refers to the supreme power of
the state to command and enforce
obedience to its will from people
within its jurisdiction, and to have
freedom from foreign control.

Sovereignty
 Two manifestations of Sovereignty:
1. Internal Sovereignty - the power of the
state to rule within its territory; and
2. External Sovereignty - the freedom of
the state to carry out its activities
without subjection or control by other
states.
 External Sovereignty is often referred to as
Independence.

QUIZ: Identification
______1. It refers to the community of persons, more or less numerous,
permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, independent of external
control, and possessing a government to which a great body of inhabitants render
habitual obedience.
______2. It is the smallest state in the world.
______3. A manifestation of sovereignty which refers to the power of the state to
rule within its territory.
______4. The agency or instrumentality through which the will of the State is
formulated, expressed and realized.
______5. This refers to the supreme power of the state to command and enforce
obedience to its will from people within its jurisdiction, and to have freedom from
foreign control.
______6. It refers to the fixed portion of the surface of the earth inhabited by the
people of the State.
______7. The mass of population living within the state.
______8. A manifestation of sovereignty which refers to the freedom of the state
to carry out its activities without subjection or control by other states.
______9. It is the air space above the land and waters.
_____10. This is the other term for external sovereignty.

 The internal and external aspects of
sovereignty are not absolutely true in practice
because of the development of international
relations and consequently international law.
 5th Element of State
 Recognition – the acknowledgment and
acceptance of one state to the validity of the
other states.
 The recognition of the sovereign status of a
new state by other state is called International
Recognition.

 Legal sovereignty is the possession of unlimited
power to make laws. It is the authority by which
law has the power to issue commands.
 Political sovereignty is the sum total of all the
influences in a state which lie behind the law. It
is roughly defined as the power of the people.

What is imperium? Dominium?
Imperium is the right of the State to pass or
enact its own laws and employ force to secure
obedience thereto, maintain peace and order
within its territorial limits, defend the State
against foreign invasion, and do any other act of
government over its people and territory.

Dominium refers to the independent proprietary
right of possession, use, conservation, disposition
or sale, and control by the State over its
territorial lands.

 How do you treat the Claim of the Philippines
over Sabah? Is it imperium or dominium?
Answer:
 It is both imperium and dominium. We seek to own
exclusively Sabah and in so owning, we have to
exercise our sovereignty to govern the same.

Characteristics of Sovereignty
1. Permanence
2. Exclusivity
3. Comprehensiveness
4. Absoluteness
5. Individuality
6. Inalienability
7. Imprescritibility

Permanence means it exist in the same form
forever or for a very long time.
Exclusivity means it is limited to a group of
people.
Comprehensiveness means including everything,
so as to be complete comprehensive knowledge
of the subject.
Absoluteness means possessing unlimited
power: having total power and authority.

Individuality means the state or condition of
being separate from others.
Inalienability means it is impossible to take away
or not able to be transferred or taken away, e.g.
because of being protected by law.
Imprescribility it means not to be taken away or
impossible to remove or violate the people's
imprescriptible rights.

State Vs. Society
State Society
1. State came into existence 1. Society is prior to the state.
after the origin of the society.
2. The scope of the state is limited. 2. The scope of society is much wider.
3. State has fixed territory. 3. Society has no fixed territory.
4. State is a political organization. 4. Society is a social organization.
5. The state has power to 5. Society has no power to enforce laws.
enforce laws.
Society – is consists of a large number of individuals, families, groups and
institutions.
• The early political thinkers considered both state and society as one.
• State is a part of society but is not a form of society.

State Vs. Nation
State Nation
1. Existed not only at present but also 1. Modern phenomenon.
in the ancient period.
2. It is legal and political. 2. It is racial and cultural.
3. People organized for law within a 3. People psychologically joined
definite territory. together with common will to live
together.
4. A state must be sovereign. 4. People continue as a nation even
if they do not remain sovereign.
5. Inhabited by heterogeneous 5. Inhabited by homogeneous
groups of people. groups of people.
Nation - is derived from the Latin word “natio” which means birth or race.
• According to Leacock, a nation is a body of people united by common
descent and language.
• People who share common ideas and naturally linked together by some
affinities and united are now called a nation. In the case of state feeling of
oneness is not necessary as in the case of the four elements constituting the
State.

State Vs. Government
State Government
1. State consists of population, territory, 1. Government is part of the state.
government and sovereignty.
2. State possesses original powers. 2. Powers of the government
are derived from the state.
3. State is permanent and continues forever. 3. Government is temporary. It
may come and go.
4. State is abstract and invisible. 4. Government is concrete and
is visible.
Government is often used with the ‘state’ as synonym.
• But both the government and the state are two different entities.
• There are differences between the state and the government.

Theories of Origin of States
• Divine right theory. - It holds that the state is of divine creation and the
ruler is ordained by God to govern the people.
• Necessity and force theory. - It maintains that states must have been
created through force by some great warrior who imposed their will upon
the weak.
• Paternalistic theory. - It attributes the origin of states to the enlargement of
the family which remained under the authority of the father or mother. By
natural stages, the family grew into a clan, then developed into a tribe
which broadened into a nation, and the nation became a state.
• Social contract theory. - It asserts that the early states must have been
forced by deliberate and voluntary compact among the people to form a
society and organize government for their common good. This theory
justifies the right of the people to revolt against a bad ruler.

Inherent Powers of the States
1. Power of Eminent Domain - Eminent domain is the right or power of a
sovereign state to appropriate private property to particular uses to
promote public welfare. It is an indispensable attribute of sovereignty; a
power grounded in the primary duty of government to serve the common
need and advance the general welfare.
2. Police Power – is the power of the government to regulate behaviors and
enforce order within its territory, often framed in terms of public welfare,
security, health, and safety. The exercise of police power can be in the
form of making laws, compelling obedience to those laws through physical
means with the aim of removing liberty, legal sanctions, or other forms of
coercion and inducements.
3. Power of Taxation – the power to impose and collect taxes and charges on
individuals, goods, services, and other to support the operation of the
government.

Prepared and demonstrated by:
To God be the Glory!

Political and Governmental Systems

Governance
1. manner of government: the system or manner of government;
2. state of governing a place: the act or state of governing a place;
3. authority: control or authority

Functions of Government
LEGISLATIVE EXECUTIVE JUDICIARY
Make laws Veto legislation Review legislative acts
Recommend
legislation
Confirm executive appointments Enforce laws Review executive acts
Override executive veto Issues injunctions
Impeach Grant pardons
Create or eliminate courts Nominate judges Interpret laws
Government
Judiciary
Executive
Legislative

The principal forms are the following:
1. As to number of persons exercising sovereign powers;
2. As to extent of powers exercised by the central or national government;
3. As to relationship between the executive and the legislative branches of
the government;
4. As to source of power or authority:
Forms of Government:

Forms of Government:
Based on Aristotle’s Typology of Governments
Number of
rulers
Ideal or Proper
Form
Perverse Form
One
Few
Many
Monarchy
Aristocracy
Democracy
Tyranny
Oligarchy
Mobocracy
Anarchy

1. As to number of persons exercising sovereign
powers:
 Government by one
 Monarchy – is one in which the supreme and
final authority is in the hands of a single person
without regard to the source of his election or
the nature or duration of his tenure.

Monarchy, form of government in which one
person has the hereditary right to rule as head of
state during his or her lifetime; the term is also
applied to the state so governed.
 Monarchs include such rulers as kings and queens, emperors and empresses,
tsars, and kaisers.

1. Absolute Monarchy – is one in which the ruler rules by divine right; and
2. Limited monarchy – is one in which the ruler rules in accordance with a
constitution.
 The power of the monarch varies from absolute to very limited; the latter is
exemplified in modern-day constitutional monarchies.
Two types of Monarchical government:

 Authoritarian or one in which the supreme power of the dictator whose
power is usually through force.
o Strict and demanding obedience: favoring strict rules and established
authority;
o Demanding political obedience: belonging to or believing in a political
system in which obedience to the ruling person or group is strongly
enforced.

Tyranny – the monarch rules not for the good of
the people, but rather to benefit his own ego to
accumulate wealth and to satisfy a lust for power.

Government by few
 Aristocracy – is one in which political power is
exercised by few privileged class.
o People of highest social class: people of noble families or the highest
social class
o Superior group: a group believed to be superior to all others of the
same kind
o Government by elite: government of a country by a small group of
people, especially a hereditary nobility
o State run by elite: a state governed by an aristocracy.

 Oligarchy – Few people take over the power of
government not for the benefit of the people,
not in the pursuit of wise and just government,
but rather for their own material benefits and for
their own boastful pride.
o Small governing group: a small group of people who together govern a
nation or control an organization, often for their own purposes;
o Entity ruled by oligarchy: a nation governed or an organization
controlled by an oligarchy;
o Government by small group: government or control by a small group of
people.

Sources of their power:
1. By birth
2. By wealth
3. By wisdom
 In an aristocracy, although the power of government is wielded by a few,
theoretically the administration of government is carried on for the welfare
of the many.
 Whenever the interests of the people as a whole are made subservient to the
selfish interests of the rulers, aristocracy becomes a form of government
known as oligarchy.

 Government by many
 Democracy – is one in which political power is
exercised by the majority of the people.
 It is further classified into:
1. Direct/Pure Democracy
2. Indirect/Representative/Republican Democracy

 Direct or Pure Democracy
 is one in which the will of the state is formulated or expressed directly
and immediately through the people in a mass meeting or primary
assembly rather than through the medium of representatives chosen by
the people to act for them.
 Indirect, Representative or Republican Democracy
 is one in which the will of the state is formulated and expressed through
the agency of a relatively small and select body of persons chosen by the
people to act as their representatives.

 Article II. Section 1. The Philippines is a democratic and Republican State.
Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates
from them.
 The 1987 Philippine Constitution

Mob Rule or Anarchy
– Individual citizens go into the chambers of
government not to do social justice, but rather
each goes to seek his or her own ends.

2. As to extent of powers exercised by the
central or national government:
Unitary government – is one in which the control of
national and local affairs is exercised by the national
government.
Federal government – is one in which the powers of
government are divided between two sets of organs,
one for national affairs and the other for local affairs,
each organ being supreme within its own sphere.

Distribution between Federal
and Unitary Government
 Federal states, such as the U.S. and Switzerland, comprise unions of states
in which the authority of the central or national government is
constitutionally limited by the legally established powers of the constituent
subdivisions.
 In unitary states, such as the United Kingdom and Belgium, the constituent
subdivisions of the state are subordinate to the authority of the national
government.
 Countries with federal political systems have both a central government and
governments based in smaller political units, usually called states, provinces,
or territories. These smaller political units surrender some of their political
power to the central government, relying on it to act for the common good.
 In a federal system, laws are made both by state, provincial, or territorial
governments and by a central government. In the United States, for
example, people who live in the state of Ohio must obey the laws made by
the Ohio legislature and the Congress of the United States.

Distribution between Federal
and Unitary Government
 Federal political systems divide power and resources between central and
regional governments.
 Central governments decide issues that concern the whole country, such as
organizing an army, building major roads, and making treaties with other
countries.
 In unitary systems, with laws giving virtually all authority to the central
government. The central government may delegate duties to cities or other
administrative units, but it retains final authority and can retract any tasks it
has delegated.
 The central government in a unitary system is much more powerful than the
central government in a federal system.

As to relationship between the executive and the
legislative branches of the government:
 Parliamentary – legislative and executive bodies
are fused together
 Presidential – the executive is constitutionally
independent of the legislature
 Presidential-Parliamentary – strong ties
between the legislative and executive; weak
legislative

• Parliamentary System
Head of State
President or
Monarch
Cabinet
Prime Minister &
Other Ministers
Judiciary
Parliament Administration
The Ministers
Majority Party
or Lead Party of
Multi-party Coalition
Other Political
Party
Voters
Upper
House
Lower
House

• In a parliamentary system, the legislature maintains extremely close bonds with the
system’s executive leadership and significant power of its own.
• The same executive leadership directs the work of the legislature called Parliament
(Fusion of the executive and the legislative functions and the work of the
bureaucracy – the Administration – all the departments or ministries of the
government).
• The Chief executive, usually called the Prime Minister is the head of the
government; The head of the state is the Monarch – the person who asks the party
leader to try to form a government (this is the most important role or at least the
most politically powerful role, the other functions are all purely ceremonial).
• Other characteristics:
• Party responsibility
• Indefinite term of office
• Temporary irrelevance of the minority
• Collegial executive
• Process of election (How to choose a Prime Minister) – To become Prime Minister,
one must be a leader of an important political party, if that party wins a majority of
the seats in the lower house of the legislature, its senior leader will be asked to try
to form a government, then the new government is established and the party
leader in question becomes the Prime Minister.

• Presidential System
Presidency
President, Staff &
Cabinet
Legislature
Judiciary
Administration
The Departments Majority Party Minority Party
or Parties
Voters
Upper
House
Lower
House

• The Presidential System is characterized by weak ties between the legislative
and the executive branches and a shifting balance of power.
• The government is divided on the principle of SEPARATION OF POWERS into 3
branches: legislative, executive and judicial.
• Each branch is given a separate domain, a separate source of power (the chief
executive and the legislators are elected independently; the highest judges
are appointed), and the power to correct the abuse of others.

• Presidential-Parliamentary System
Head of State
President
Cabinet
Prime Minister &
Other Ministers
Judiciary
Parliament Administration
The Ministers
Majority Party
or Lead Party of Multi-party
Coalition
Other Political
Party
Voters
Upper
House
Lower
House

• The Presidential-Parliamentary System is characterized by strong ties
between the legislative and the executive and weak legislature.
• The President chooses a Prime Minister, who must win the approval of the
lower house of the legislature for a cabinet.
• The President has the power to appoint anyone at all as prime minister and to
remove that person at will.
• It is normal in such a system for the President to be elected directly by the
people; the prime minister and cabinet members need not have been elected
at all..
• The constitution may also give the President the right to name the highest
judges, to rule the nation directly during state of emergency, and to declare
when such a state of emergency exists.
• Clearly, in such a system the President is not a ceremonial leader but rather
the most powerful figure in the government.
• The Prime Minister retains the formulation and execution of policy but it must
be satisfactory to the President.

Distinctions between Presidential and
Parliamentary Systems
 In parliamentary governments, of which the United Kingdom, India, and
Canada are examples, the executive branch is subordinate to the
legislature.
 In presidential governments, such as in the U.S., the executive is
independent of the legislature, although many of the executive's actions are
subject to legislative review.

As to source of power or authority:
De facto is one not so constituted or founded
with the existing constitution but has the general
support of the people and has effective control of
the territory over which it exercises its powers.

 De Jure is one which is constituted or founded in
accordance with the existing constitution of the
state but has no control of the territory.
 Hereditary and Elective

Checks and Balances
 The doctrine and practice of dispersing political power and creating mutual
accountability among political entities such as the courts, the president or
prime minister, the legislature, and the citizens.
 The system of checks and balances is a basic feature of the United States
government.
 The first check comes from the fact that different branches of the
government have overlapping authority, so each branch can act as a limit on
the other.
 For example, the president can veto an act of Congress. A two-thirds
majority in Congress can then override the president’s veto. The president
appoints major federal officials, but only if the Senate by majority vote
agrees.

Separation of Powers
 The doctrine and practice of dividing the powers of a government among
different branches to guard against abuse of authority.
 A government of separated powers assigns different political and legal
powers to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
 The legislative branch has the power to make laws.
 The executive branch has the authority to administer the law -primarily by
bringing lawbreakers to trial - and to appoint officials and oversee the
administration of government responsibilities.
 The judicial branch has the power to try cases brought to court and to
interpret the meaning of laws under which the trials are conducted.
 A government of separated powers is less likely to be tyrannical and more
likely to follow the rule of law: the principle that government action must be
constrained by laws.

Separation of Powers
 A separation of powers can also make a political system more democratic by
making it more difficult for a single ruler, such as a monarch or a president,
to become dictatorial.
 The division of powers also prevents one branch of government from
dominating the others or dictating the laws to the public. Most democratic
systems have some degree of separation of powers.

POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES
 Liberalism, attitude, philosophy,
or movement that has as its basic concern the
development of personal freedom and social
progress.

 The course of liberalism in a given country is
usually conditioned by the character of the
prevailing form of government.

 For example, in countries in which the political
and religious authorities are separate, liberalism
connotes, mainly, political, economic, and social
reform.

 In countries in which a state church exists or a
church is politically influential, liberalism
connotes, mainly, anticlericalism.

In domestic politics, liberals have opposed feudal
restraints that prevent the individual from rising
out of a low social status; barriers such as
censorship that limit free expression of opinion;
and arbitrary power exercised over the individual
by the state.

In international politics, liberals have opposed
the domination of foreign policy by militarists and
military considerations and the exploitation of
native colonial people, and they have sought to
substitute a cosmopolitan policy of international
cooperation.

 In economics, liberals have attacked monopolies
and mercantilist state policies that subject the
economy to state control.

 In religion, liberals have fought against church
interference in the affairs of the state and
attempts by religious pressure groups to
influence public opinion.

 Conservatism, a general state of mind that is
averse to rapid change and innovation and strives
for balance and order, while avoiding extremes.
Originally conservatism arose as a reaction
against the Age of Enlightenment.

 Conservatives advocated belief in faith over
reason, tradition over free inquiry, hierarchy over
equality, collective values over individualism, and
divine or natural law over secular law.

 Conservatism emphasizes the merits of the status
quo and endorses the prevailing distribution of
power, wealth, and social standing.

 Democracy (Greek demos,”
the people”; kratein, “to rule”), political system
in which the people of a country rule through any
form of government they choose to establish.

 In modern democracies, supreme authority is
exercised for the most part by representatives
elected by popular suffrage.

 The representatives may be supplanted by the
electorate according to the legal procedures of
recall and referendum, and they are, at least in
principle, responsible to the electorate.

 Socialism, economic and social doctrine, political
movement inspired by this doctrine, and system
or order established when this doctrine is
organized in a society.

The socialist doctrine demands state ownership
and control of the fundamental means of
production and distribution of wealth, to be
achieved by reconstruction of the existing
capitalist or other political system of a country
through peaceful, democratic, and parliamentary
means.

 The doctrine specifically advocates
nationalization of natural resources, basic
industries, banking and credit facilities, and
public utilities.

 It places special emphasis on the nationalization
of monopolized branches of industry and trade,
viewing monopolies as inimical to the public
welfare.

 It also advocates state ownership of corporations
in which the ownership function has passed from
stockholders to managerial personnel.

 Capitalism, economic system in which private
individuals and business firms carry on the
production and exchange of goods and services
through a complex network of prices and
markets.

 Capital in this sense means the buildings,
machines, and other equipment used to produce
goods and services that are ultimately consumed.

 Second, economic activity is organized and
coordinated through the interaction of buyers
and sellers (or producers) in markets.

 Third, owners of land and capital as well as the
workers they employ are free to pursue their own
self-interests in seeking maximum gain from the
use of their resources and labor in production.

 This principle, called consumer sovereignty,
reflects the idea that under capitalism producers
will be forced by competition to use their
resources in ways that will best satisfy the wants
of consumers.

 Fourth, under this system a minimum of
government supervision is required; if
competition is present, economic activity will be
self-regulating.

 Communism, a theory and system of social and
political organization that was a major force in
world politics for much of the 20th century.

As a political movement, communism sought to
overthrow capitalism through a workers’
revolution and establish a system in which
property is owned by the community as a whole
rather than by individuals.

 In Theory, communism would create a classless
society of abundance and freedom, in which all
people enjoy equal social and economic status.

In practice, communist regimes have taken the
form of coercive, authoritarian governments that
cared little for the plight of the working class and
sought above all else to preserve their own hold
on power.

It is a written enactment by the direct action of
the people by which the fundamental powers of
the government are established, defined and
limited and by which those powers are distributed
among several departments for their safe and
useful exercise for the benefit of the body politic.

Thank You!
Prepared by:
To God be the Glory!

Political Regime
 is an aggregate of patterns, explicit or not,
that determines the forms and channels of
access to principal governmental positions, the
characteristics of the actors that are admitted
or excluded from such access, and the
resources and strategies that they can use to
gain access.
 This necessarily involves institutionalization,
i.e., the patterns defining a given regime must
be habitually known, practiced, and accepted,
at least by those which these same patterns
define as participants in the process.
 For the purposes of summary comparison and
generalization, these ensembles of patterns are
given generic labels such as authoritarian and
democratic, and occasionally broken down
further into subtypes.

Definitions of Different Types
of Political Regime
 Democracy is an institutional
arrangement for arriving at
political decisions in which
individuals acquire the power to
decide by means of a
competitive struggle for the
people’s vote. This is of course
no more definite than is the
concept of competition. To
simplify matters we have
restricted the kind of
competition for leadership,
which is to define democracy,
to free competition for a free
vote.

Definitions of Democracy
 Direct Democracy means that
the citizens themselves
assemble to debate and decide
on collective issues.
 Representative Democracy
means that citizens elect
politicians to reach collective
decisions on their behalf, with
the governing parties held to
account at the next election.

Definitions of Democracy
 Liberal Democracy refers to the scope of
democracy that includes constitutional
protection of individual rights, including
freedom of assembly, religion, and speech.
 New Democracy is a democracy in which an
authoritarian legacy continues to influence
political action and debate. Democracy is
not the only game in town.
 Semi-Democracy refers to illiberal
democracy in which elected politician do
not respect individual rights, or in which
elected governments form a façade behind
which previous rulers continue to exercise
effective power.

Examples of Diminished Subtypes of Democracy

Rod Hague and Martin Harrop (2004: 47) further developed
a distinction between ‘new democracies’ that are still
developing in terms of political regime and already established
semi-democratic regimes:
A semi-democracy blends democratic and
authoritarian elements in stable combination. By
contrast, a new democracy is one that has not yet
had time to consolidate; that is, democracy has not
become the „only game in town’. In practice, new
democracies and semi-democracies show similar
characteristics but a new democracy is transitional
while a semi- democracy is not. Assuming a new
democracy does not slide back into authoritarian
rule, it will develop into either an established
democracy or a semi-democracy.

Definitions of Different Types
of Political Regime
 Authoritarian Regime is a
political system with limited,
not responsible, political
pluralism, without elaborate
and guiding ideology, but with
distinctive mentalities [of the
people, without extensive nor
intensive political
mobilization, except at some
points in their development,
and in which a leader or
occasionally a small group
exercises power within
formally ill-defined limits, but
actually quite predictable
ones.

Definitions of
Authoritarian Rule
 Authoritarian Rule refers to any form of non-democratic
rule. Those non-democratic regimes which, unlike totalitarian
states, do not seek to transform society and the people in it.
 Totalitarian Rule is a regime that aims for total penetration
of society in an attempt, at least in theory to transform it.
 Communist Regime is a political system in which the
communist party monopolizes power, leading to an all-
encompassing bureaucratic state. In theory, the objective is
to implement Marx’s vision of a classless society.
 Fascist Regime is a regime based on an anti-liberal doctrine
that glorifies the nation and advocates a warrior state, led by
an all-powerful leader, to whom the masses show passionate
commitment and submission.
 Military Rule is a government by the military, often ruling
through a junta comprising the leader from each branch of
the forces.

Historical Development and
Change of Regimes
 Until modern times states were normally ruled by authoritarian regimes and
most of these were hereditary monarchies. These monarchical authoritarian
regimes were based on a traditional form of inherited personal rule that was
restrained to varying degrees by traditional customs and institutions.
However, once democracy began to compete with the monarchies, the latter
would increasingly be replaced by at least semi-democratic republics or
constitutional monarchies.
 In his highly influential book The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late
20th Century (1991) American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington
suggested that historically there were three major periods of transition from
various forms of authoritarian rule to democracy worldwide. He calls them
waves of democratization. In between these waves, there were significant
shifts back to authoritarianism in some of the newly democratized countries
(reverse waves).

Change of Regimes
Samuel Huntington’s three waves of democratization

Change of Regimes
Robert Dahl’s typology of democratization processes

Typologies of Democracy and
Authoritarian Rule
Models of Democracy
Majoritarian and Consensus Democracies

Majoritarian and Consensus Democracies

Decentralist and Centripetal Democracy
 Centripetalism. Institutions in a centripetal system] must be inclusive – they
must reach out to all interests, ideas, and identities and they must be
authoritative – they must provide an effective mechanism for reaching
agreement and implementing that agreement. The concept of centripetalism
thus implies both (a) broad-based inclusion and (b) centralized authority.
Centripetal institutions thus encourage a search for common ground and
culminate in an authoritative decision-making process, one not easily waylaid
by minority objections
 Decentralism. Diffusion of power, broad political participation, and limits on
governmental action. Decentralist government is limited government. Each
independent institution acts as a check against the others, establishing a high
level of interbranch accountability. The existence of multiple veto points
forces a consensual style of decision-making. Decentralized authority
structures may also lead to greater popular control over political decision-
making. Efficiency is enhanced by political bodies that lie close to the
constituents they serve.

 What are the specific institutional embodiments of
decentralism? Separate powers implies two elective lawmaking
authorities as well as a strong and independent judiciary.
Federalism presumes the shared sovereignty of territorial units
within the nation-state. Both also suggest a bicameral legislature,
to further divide power at the apex and to ensure regional
representation. The decentralist model seems to imply a written
constitution, perhaps with enumerated individual rights and
explicit restrictions on the authority of the central state. Most
decentralists embrace the single-member district as a principle of
electoral law, maximizing local-level accountability. Some
advocate preferential-vote options or a system of open primaries,
thus decentralizing the process of candidate selection.

 Unitary (rather than federal) sovereignty, unicameralism or
weak bicameralism, parliamentarism (rather than presidentialism),
and a party-list proportional electoral system. In addition, the
centripetal polity should be characterized by a strong cabinet,
medium- strength legislative committees, strong party cohesion,
no limits on tenure in office, congruent election cycles, closed
procedures of candidate selection (limited to party members),
party-centered political campaigns, multiparty (rather than two-
party) competition, centralized and well-bounded party
organizations, centralized and party-aligned interest groups, a
restrained (nonactivist) judiciary, and a neutral and relatively
centralized bureaucracy
Such institutional arrangement is approximated by the political
system of the USA. The centripetal democracy, by contrast, results
from a completely different institutional juncture:

Holistic Models of Democracy
 Holistic models are increasingly undermined by cross-national
learning processes, and the diffusion of particular institutional
arrangements. Democracies, in short, are less and less likely to be
closed or self-contained systems, and in this sense they are also
less and less likely to reflect totally consistent patterns when
subject to comparative whole- system analysis.
There are at least two problems with the holistic models of
democracy, such as those proposed by Lijphart and Gerring et al.
According to Peter Mair (2011: 97), ‘in practice, democracies rarely
prove as sharply bounded or as internally coherent as the various
theoretically informed whole-system models might suggest.’ Most real-
world cases usually have certain features of both of the contrasting
ideal types. What is more:

Types of Authoritarian Rule
 Populist Presidential Authoritarianism. Emerges through an
elected president’s personal misappropriation of power, which
Latin America long ago labelled an autogolpe or ‘self- coup’’.
Although [it] does not involve any military or party organization, it
can be analyzed in principal–agent terms as a reversal of the
relationship between the electorate as principal and the elected
president as its agent. By reversing the relationship, the president
makes the electorate the instrument of his personal rule in the
sense of providing him with a claim to democratic legitimacy,
which he usually confirms by having himself re-elected. These new
elections will be un- democratic, but the populist president may be
genuinely popular with a wide section of the people.

Types of Authoritarian Rule
 The communist regime is historically the most important as
well as most numerous subtype. It produced one of the 20t h
century’s super-powers, the Soviet Union, and seems set to
produce another superpower in the 21st century if China maintains
its rate of economic progress. At their numerical peak in the 1980s
there were nearly two dozen regimes that espoused the basic
communist ideolog y of Marxism-Leninism. But about a third of
these regimes were actually personal dictatorships, which left less
than a dozen „true’ cases of organizational rule by the communist
party. And so many communist regimes collapsed in the late 1980s
and early 1990s that now only three of these organizational
dictatorships still survive – China, Vietnam, and Laos.

Overview: Political Regime
 The political regime is arguably the most
holistic criterion that defines the political
system of any state. Covering all patterns that
determine the actors, procedures, and
resources to access state power, political
regimes ultimately fall under the two main
categories known to political science –
democracy and authoritarian rule. There are,
however, real-world political systems that
manage to incorporate both democratic and
authoritarian institutions. Some of them are in
a transitional phase on the way to either
authoritarianism or democracy. The others, as
the post-transition paradigm in comparative
politics would have us believe, have reached a
stable institutional condition and are best
classified as hybrid semi-democratic regimes.

Introduction: Legislature
 Legislatures are one of the most important
institutions in the modern state; they are present
throughout the world and play a central role in
almost all political systems. However, according
to Amie Keppel (2011:122), ‘Different scholars
have come to very different conclusions about
political power and policy influence of
legislatures general evaluations vary depending
on the cases that are studied, the theoretical
framework employed, the historical period under
examination, and the precise understandings of
‘power’ and ‘influence’ invoked.’
 Nonetheless, legislatures are symbols of
representation in politics. According to Hague and
Harrop (2004:247), ‘they are not governing
bodies, they do not take major decisions and
usually, they do not even initiate proposals for
laws. Yet they are still the foundation of both
liberal and democratic politics. How then does
their significance arise? Legislatures join the
society to the legal structure of authority in the
state. Legislatures are representative bodies:
they reflect the sentiments and opinions of the
citizens’.

Definition of Legislature
 Legislature as ‘a multimember representative
body which considers public issues. Its main
function is to give assent, on behalf of a political
community that extends beyond the executive
authority, to biding measures of public policy.’
 A ‘legislative body’ or a ‘body of persons having
the power to legislate’, making efforts to clearly
distinguish between them difficult. And yet, most
would agree that the terms are not
interchangeable and that there are different
meanings implied by the use of one rather than
the others.’

 Linkage and Representation.
 Many scholars see citizens’ linkage to the government as a
fundamental task of any legislature.
 Even when the legislature is weak in terms of its other roles, it
is always able to serve ‘as an intermediary between the
constituency and the central government. In this context,
legislatures act as a conduit of information allowing local-level
demands to be heard by the central government and the
policies and actions of the central government to be explained
to citizens.
The Role of Legislatures

Interpretations of the
Representative Responsibility

 Control and oversight
 One of the foundations of representative democracy is the
ability of the governed to control the government.
 Generally, this is achieved through free and fair elections,
however, according to Kreppel 2011:126, ‘in most cases
citizens lack sufficient time, access, and information, as well
as the technical skills needed, to effectively oversee the
details of the daily political activity of the executive branch.
It is the task of the legislature to fill this lacuna.’

Legislatives’ Control Functions
in Different Systems

 Policy-Making.
 There are several ways in which legislators can affect policy-
making. Kreppel distinguishes three main ways – consultation,
delay and veto, amendment, and initiation.
 According to Kreppel (2011:128), ‘the most basic, and
generally least influential, type of legislative is consultation.
This power grants the legislature the authority to present an
opinion about a specific legislative proposal, general plan of
action, or broad policy program. Consultation in no way
guarantees that the executive branch will abide by the
opinion of the legislature. Yet, the ability to present an
opinion and to differentiate the views of the legislature from
that of the executive can be important in many contexts.’

Structures of Legislature
The Number of Chambers

Number, Quality, and Consistency of Members
Size of Legislature (Lower House) in Some Central East European Countries

Number, Quality, and
Consistency of Members
Types of the Parliamentary Committee

Influence of Committees
Number, Quality, and
Consistency of Members

 Institutional independence. The level of institutional autonomy of the
legislature depends on its relationship with the executive branch. In the
fused power systems, legislative authority tends to be central, while in the
separation of powers systems legislative decision-making is decentralized.
 Member Independence. Two main factors indicate legislature member –
party system and electoral system. Depending on the party system, the
party elites’ role in the re-election of legislature members may be very
different.
Legislature’s Power

The Executive: Introduction
Within the institutional structure of modern states/political systems, the
executive branch of government occupies a central position to be perceived
synonymously with ‘the government’ or ‘the state’ itself.
A broad definition of government includes all public institutions that make
or implement political decisions – the executive, legislative, and judicial
branches.
The term ‘government’ implies a collective agency, the executive power
can be vested with individual actors (presidents, prime ministers, dictators,
governing monarchs, etc.) as well as collectives (cabinets of ministers,
Swiss Bundesrat, etc.).
In some cases, there can even be a ‘dual executive’ with the president (or
a relatively powerful monarch) and prime minister sharing the executive
power.
The executive is any regime’s energizing force, setting priorities, making
decisions and supervising their implementation.

The Executive: Definitions
 It is implied by the term itself (exsequi means ‘carry out’ or ‘implement’ in
Medieval Latin) and it is essentially tied to the principle of the separation of
powers.
 It is ‘the branch of government concerned with implementing domestic and
foreign policy and applying the law’.
 The executive is the branch of government mainly responsible for initiating
governmental actions, making and implementing public policy, and
coordinating the activities of the state.
 It refers to ‘the top tier of government that directs the nation’s affairs,
supervises the execution of policy, mobilizes support for its goals and offers
crisis leadership.’
 Executives are charged with acting to address the policy questions that affect
the broader interest of the nation, as well as to articulate national goals.

The Executive: Definitions
 The top government officials inevitably rely on lower-rank executive officers
(civil servants) to put their decisions into practice. Some of them are more
important than others in carrying out the definitive functions of the
executive.
 Core Executive refers to all those organizations and structures which primarily
serve to pull together and integrate central government policies or act as
final arbiters within the executive of conflicts between different elements of
the government machine.
 While the government in the narrow sense constitutes its center, the core
executive also comprises top civil servants, the key members of ministers’
private cabinets, and a list of actors that varies over time and space.
 The executive – even the core of it – by definition, includes not only
politicians elected by popular vote, but also unelected officials holding their
office based on professional performance.

Evolution of the Separation of Powers
and Contemporary Types of Government
 Today’s governments emerged through the piecemeal splitting-off of the state functions
from a traditionally undivided central government – mostly a monarch. In other to limit
the government’s power, judicial functions were transferred to courts, and legislative
functions to parliaments. This process began in 12th- and 13th-century England. It had
many national variations and, in Europe, was not completed before the 20th century.
The constitutional doctrine of the separation of powers – as developed first and
foremost by the political philosophers Locke, Montesquieu, and Madison – provided a
normative justification for the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive
institutions in order to guarantee liberty and justice.
 The Framers of the US Constitution did not even contemplate an executive responsible
to the representative assembly. Indeed, such a type, which we would now know as
parliamentarism, had yet to exist. In Britain, the cabinet was still the responsibility of
the monarch, whose authority, of course, did not rest upon any connection, direct or
indirect, with the electorate. Thus, the Framers were in effect replicating the
essentials of a form of government that then existed in Britain only with the ‘monarch’’
[i.e., the President] popularly legitimated.

Evolution of the Separation of Powers
and Contemporary Types of Government
 Scholars typically identify three ‘versions’ of
the separation of powers:
 Parliamentarism,
 Pure Presidentialism, and
 Semi-Presidentialism.
 The distinctions across democratic regimes
center around the process of selecting the
executive and legislative branches, and the
way in which the executive and legislature
subsequently interact to make policy and
administer state affairs.

Evolution of the Separation of Powers and Contemporary Types of Government
GOVERNMENT CREATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY UNDER DIFFERENT REGIME TYPES

Government Functions and Autonomy of Action
 The executive branch of government, being at the top of the
political pyramid, performs three main functions:
 Decision-making – initiating government action and formulating
public policy;
 Implementation – executives implement (apply) their policies,
which means they must also run the main departments and
bureaucracies of state; and
 Coordination – coordination and integration of the complex
affairs of state.

 Government Autonomy: The Party Dimension.
 It is the electoral connection that makes governments democratic, and it
is political parties which play a crucial role in structuring elections, even
when the electoral system allows the choice of individual candidates.
 Modern democracies, therefore, have party governments in a general
sense. Yet, what role parties have after the elections is subject to
normative and empirical discussions.
 Partyness of Government indicates the proportion of formal
governmental power exercised following the ideal model of party
government.
 To the extent that system is high in partyness of government, what formal
government there is will be party government.

Several characteristics of a political system that determine the partyness of the executive
 Presidential or parliamentary government. Party government is more likely
in parliamentary systems because a parliamentary cabinet needs a continuous
majority of those voting to remain in office. Party is a device by means of
which stable majorities may be achieved. Presidential government, on the
other hand, makes personalism more likely. A president, with the resources of
the state at his command, the status and visibility of head of state and head
of government, and the security of a fixed term is likely to think of himself as
separate from and independent of his party. Directly elected presidents tend
to appoint officials with weak or no party ties.
 Integration and centralization. Decentralized government also makes the
centralization of the party more difficult to maintain. This is especially so if
the basis of decentralization is geographic. Implementation of policies
initiated at one level may depend on cooperation of officials at another level
where government has a different partisan complex- ion. Responsibility [to
the party] is naturally obscured.

 Electoral system. Various aspects of the electoral system should have an impact on the level
of party government. Probably the most significant is the presence or absence of some form
of intraparty electoral choice. In some systems, voters can choose only parties; the choice of
the particular individuals who will be elected if their parties are victorious is an internal
party decision. In other systems, however, voters either can influence or entirely determine
the choice of persons. It gives a successful candidate an independent base; not owing his
election only to the party, he has less reason to be loyal to it. Electoral systems in which the
choice of candidates may cut across party lines – single transferable vote, PR with
panachage, or the open primary – should be particularly inhibitive of party government.
 Size of the public sector. Enlargement of the public sector is likely to decrease the
partyness of government. Firstly, a large public sector makes the ruling party more
dependent on outside experts. Secondly, the larger the sphere of government activity, the
more difficult will be the problem of coordination and the greater degree of bureaucratic
uncontrollability [as such]. Thirdly, expansion of government gives more groups a greater
stake in politics, but many of these groups are rivals for party. Fourthly, as more of the
economy comes under public control, the need for stability, the party’s desire to evade
responsibility if things go wrong, all grow. This has led to the creation of nonpartisan boards
of executive control, for example, in banking and nationalized industries.

 Private government. To maintain the collective responsibility that is the
hallmark of party government is easier if the public is denied access to
intraparty decision-making. Unable to attribute blame to any particular
individual or faction, the voters are encouraged to reward or punish the party
as a whole. This, in turn, gives each member of the party a stake in the
success of its policies, even if he opposes them personally.
 Input, representation, and communication. When party is the primary
channel for public participation, demand articulation and aggregation, and
communication from leaders to followers, party government will be stronger.
Where other structures, e.g., mass media and interest groups, share in
performing these functions, party control over politics will be weaker. In
particular, if the party is sufficiently in control of communication to control
the political agenda, party government will be stronger.

 Bureaucratic anonymity. Bureaucrats are both potential rivals for party
politicians and potential scapegoats for their failures. Party government is
furthered when politicians cannot avoid responsibility by blaming the
bureaucracy and bureaucrats are more likely to implement policies they
personally oppose if they know they will not suffer for efforts made. Party
government is undermined whenever the bureaucrats can appeal around their
political masters directly to the public or to a powerful interest group
clientele.
 Social segmentation. Where each party represents a clearly discernable
interest, segment, class, or viewpoint within society, party unity will be
easier to maintain, the distinction between parties will be clearer, and party
government will be more likely.

Government Functions
and Autonomy of Action
 Presidentialization of politics.
 It is difficult to overstate the scale of this debate in
the academic literature.
 It refers to three main claims:
 there has been a centralization of coordination,
 a pluralization of advice, and
 the personalization of party leadership and
elections.

 Presidentialization of politics.
 Two crucially important political arenas:
 the political executive of the state (for governing parties), and
 the political party itself (for all parties).
 One way in which we might expect to find evidence of presidentialization
of power would be through a shift in intra-executive power to the
benefit of the head of government – whether this is a prime minister or a
president.
 At the same time, executives as a whole would become increasingly
independent of direct interference from ‘their’ parties.
 While partified government means governing through parties,
presidentialized government implies governing past parties. This brings us
to the third face of presidentialization, which concerns electoral
processes. Again, it involves a shift from partified control to the
‘personalized’ or ‘candidate-centered’ campaigns of certain leaders
and the growing significance of leader effects in voting behavior.

 Government Autonomy: The Bureaucratic Dimension.
 The idea of bureaucratic government rests on the assumption that such a
small group cannot run the whole show and critically depends on the
permanent bureaucracy.
 Bureaucrats can set the agenda of their political masters by identifying
problems that need to be addressed; [thus] they can limit political
choices by presenting a narrow set of alternatives and by undermining the
viability of ideas that run counter to the department’s common wisdom.
Such ideas are labelled, for instance, as not workable, too expensive,
having huge undesirable side effects, etc.
 Under the strong bureaucratic influence, the politicians may continue to
dominate the public stage so that they seem to be the decisive actors,
but they are often just ‘flying the flag’ of policies thoroughly worked out
by their subordinates.

The Political Capacity & Effectiveness of Government
 Majority vs. Minority Government.
 Majority Government. Governments that
are supported by the majority of members
of the legislature (at least 50% of the seats
plus one) are not only better positioned to
enact their political program, but – in the
case of parliamentary and semi-
presidential systems – can be more secure
about their very survival.
 Minority Government. Governments that
do not enjoy such support – so-called
minority governments – are not, however,
an uncommon phenomenon. They are
neither less stable nor less effective than
majority cabinets

 A parliamentary majority need not be a functional requisite for government
formation. At the same time political parties are not motivated solely by
office / power considerations, but also to a significant extent by
opportunities for policy influence. One need not hold government office in
order to gain policy influence, much less pleasing policy outcomes. Even
opposition parties can enjoy some policy influence in most parliamentary
democracies. Finally, full explanation requires that we investigate the costs
of holding office as well. The typical trade-off parties face is between power
(and policy influence) now and electoral success in the future. The reason this
temporal trade-off exists is that government incumbency typically represents
an electoral disadvantage, which we can call the incumbency effect. Several
empirical studies have shown that governing parties do in fact tend to lose
votes in subsequent elections.

 Unified vs. Divided Government.
 To put it simply, Divided Government means that the presidency is held
by one party and at least one of the two chambers of the legislature by
another;
 Unified Government, in turn, signifies a situation when all three are
under the control of the same party.
 The term Divided Government refers only to those situations in which a
legislative majority is held by a party that is different to that of the
president.
 A situation in which no party holds a legislative majority suggests the
category of no-majority. It is useful to keep it distinct, as it includes
phases in which the chief executive’s usually president’s party, albeit a
minority in the legislature, may be a part of most legislative coalitions
along with one or more other parties.

 Single-Party vs. Coalition Government.
 Single-Party Governments have the distinctive
advantage that no party line of division runs
through the government. That implies that the
government goals will be relatively
uncontroversial internally, they can make
decisions quickly, avoid foul compromises, and
maintain a common front.
 Coalition Governments, in turn, need to satisfy
at least some of the ambitions of each of the
government parties. This typically lengthens the
internal decision-making process and often
exposes internal divisions to the public. The
alternative of one party quietly submitting would
allocate the costs of coalition one-sidedly: that
party would be considered to be selling out to its
coalition partner(s) by its activists and voters.
These problems tend to remain modest in
ideologically homogeneous coalitions but
accelerate in heterogeneous ones.

 Internal composition and decision-making of government: theoretical
models
 Monocratic Government may be defined as the exercise of personal
leadership. It has two variants, presidential government and prime
ministerial government, the latter also corresponding to equivalent
terms, such as chancellor democracy.
 Collective/Cabinet Government. Governments that deliberate and
arrive at their most important decisions collectively are historically
typical of parliamentary monarchies since the strengthening of prime
ministers was for a long time withheld by monarchs. Theoretically
‘collective government may be defined as continuing political
leadership structures and practices through which significant decisions
are taken in common by a small, face-to-face body usually a cabinet
of ministers with no single member dominating their initiation or
determination. Under this model, no individual is in a position to
direct the decision-making process and all decision-makers have more
or less equal influence’

 Internal composition and decision-making of government: theoretical models
 Ministerial Government. Contrary to power concentrated in the hands of
the chief executive or the cabinet acting as a single body, the model of
ministerial government describes a situation where the decision-making
power is dispersed among individual cabinet members according to their
departmental field of responsibility. Individual ministers, under their
positions as the political heads of the major departments of state, can
have a significant effect on policy in areas that fall under their
jurisdiction.
 Shared Government. This is a mixed system in which a highly restricted
number of people – two or three individuals and rarely more – have joint
and equal decision-making responsibilities. It may occur both in semi-
presidential regimes between the president and prime minister, or in
parliamentary regimes between the prime minister and the deputy prime
minister. It may also occur in either of these regimes between the
president / prime minister and a senior minister, such as the finance
minister; or between a ‘troika’’ consisting of, say, the president / prime
minister, finance minister, and foreign affairs minister. The main task of
other political actors will be to implement and publicly defend decisions
made by these people.

Summary: The Executive Branch of Government
 The Executive Branch of Government is the single most important actor in modern-day political
systems. Although according to the separation of powers doctrine the executive is nominally
entrusted with implementation tasks only, modern governments tend to assume as many functions
as to determine the very direction a country will take. This is especially characteristic to polities
where cohesive political parties allow the fusion of executive and legislative powers.
 First, the autonomy of government decisions and actions can be prominently restricted by political
parties and state bureaucratic apparatus since the members of the central executive ultimately rely
on their parties for re-election and bureaucrats for policy resources.
 Secondly, the effective functioning of any government and its capacity to arrive at important
decisions depends on the political support from other political actors, first and foremost the
legislature. The executive is empowered to act in the majority or unified government situations and
less politically capable when faced with only minority support or divided government. Another major
factor in terms of government’s capabilities is cabinet coalition status, although empirical data show
that coalition governments are just as stable as single-party cabinets.
 The last dimension that describes governments is their internal working; political scientists normally
single out at least three ideal models of government decision-making – monocratic, collective, and
ministerial – as well as some mixed modes of working. These modes, however, are bound to change
according to the prevailing political conditions and the century-long transition from cabinet to prime
ministerial or ministerial government in parliamentary democracies worldwide is probably the most
prominent long-term trend.

Political Participation
and Elections

Introduction: Aristotle's Notions
of Citizenship and Political
Participation
• More than two thousand years ago Aristotle noted
that a citizen is not a citizen because he lives in a
certain place, but the citizen is a member of a
community (Aristotelis, 1997: 133–134). Moreover,
he suggested that a citizen is someone who shares in
the administration of justice and the holding of public
office, i. e. in the polis, assemblies of citizens made
decisions in bodies whose modern equivalents are
law courts and city councils, and these assemblies
rotated membership so that every citizen served a
specific term. Aristotle ultimately argued that just
government works best when the masses are
allowed to participate.

Political Participation:
• Definition: Political participation, a cornerstone
of democratic societies, encompasses a spectrum
of activities through which individuals express,
influence, and shape political decisions. Beyond
the act of voting, it spans a wide array of actions,
reflecting the depth and diversity of citizens'
engagement with the political process.

Political Participation:
• Forms of Political Participation:
1. Voting: The bedrock of political involvement, where
citizens exercise their right to choose representatives
and influence policy decisions.
2. Political Activism: Organized efforts that range from
protests and demonstrations to advocacy campaigns,
aiming to impact the political, economic, or social status
quo.
3. Interest Group Participation: Collective action as
individuals join groups advocating for specific causes,
such as labor rights, environmental protection, or
business interests.
4. Community Engagement: Involvement at the local level,
contributing to community organizations, neighborhood
councils, and grassroots initiatives.
5. Online Political Participation: Leveraging the digital
realm, citizens engage in politics through social media,
online forums, and digital activism.

Political
Participation:
• Factors Influencing Political
Participation:
1. Socioeconomic Factors: Income,
education, and occupation play
a significant role, with higher
socioeconomic status often
correlating with increased
political engagement.
2. Political Culture: Shared values,
beliefs, and attitudes shape the
civic consciousness of a society,
influencing the level of political
participation.
3. Institutional Factors: The design
and accessibility of political
institutions impact the ease
with which citizens can engage,
contributing to varying levels of
participation.

Elections:
• Definition: Elections, as a formalized
mechanism, serve as the linchpin
translating popular will into political
authority. These dynamic events are
critical for shaping the composition of
representative bodies and determining
the trajectory of governance.

Types of Elections:
• Presidential Elections: Choosing
the head of state, often with a
separate ballot for legislative
representation.
• Legislative Elections: Selection of
representatives for the
legislative body, influencing the
formulation and passage of laws.
• Local Elections: Addressing issues
at the grassroots level, from the
election of mayors to local
council members.
• Referendums: Direct expressions
of public opinion on specific
policy issues or constitutional
changes.

Key Concepts in Elections:
• Electoral Systems: Rules governing the casting,
counting, and translation of votes into seats,
influencing the nature of political representation.
• Political Parties: Organized groups shaping electoral
outcomes by nominating candidates and advocating
for specific policy positions.
• Campaigns and Political Communication: Strategies
employed by candidates and parties through media,
debates, and advertising to convey messages to
voters.
• Voter Turnout: The percentage of eligible voters
participating in an election, a key metric reflecting
the health of a democratic process.

Challenges and Issues in Elections:

Conclusion
• This exploration into political participation
and elections within the realm of
comparative politics unveils the intricate
dynamics that shape the functioning of
diverse political systems. Through this
comprehensive lens, we gain valuable
insights into the mechanisms influencing
governance, the vibrancy of citizen
engagement, and the myriad factors
contributing to the democratic fabric of
nations worldwide.

Prepared by:

Political Parties and Party System

• Political parties and party systems are pivotal
elements in the study of comparative politics. They
serve as key actors in the democratic process,
shaping governance, policy formulation, and
political representation. This comprehensive
discussion delves into the definitions, functions,
types, influencing factors, challenges, and the
comparative analysis of political parties and party
systems.
Introduction:

Political Parties:
• Definition and Role:
• Political parties are organized
groups of individuals united
by common political goals.
Their primary role is to
influence public policy by
endorsing candidates for
public office, creating a
crucial link between citizens
and the government. Parties
articulate and aggregate
diverse societal interests into
coherent policy platforms.

Political Parties:
• Functions:
• Representation: Parties represent various
segments of society, providing a means for
citizens to engage in the political process.
• Governance: They play a crucial role in
government formation, shaping the
direction of policies and decisions.
• Political Socialization: Parties contribute to
shaping political attitudes and beliefs
among the electorate.

Political Parties:
• Types of Political Parties:
• Ideological Parties: Grounded in specific beliefs or ideologies.
• Catch-All Parties: Appeal to a broad spectrum of voters.
• Single-Issue Parties: Focused on a specific social or economic issue.
• Ethnic or Religious Parties: Represent specific ethnic or religious groups.

Party Systems:
• Types of Party Systems:
• Two-Party System: Two dominant
parties compete for power (e.g., the
United States).
• Multi-Party System: Several parties
compete, often leading to coalition
governments (e.g., many European
countries).
• Dominant-Party System: One party
predominates, even though others
exist (e.g., China).
• One-Party System: Only one party is
allowed to exist (e.g., North Korea).

Party Systems:
• Factors Influencing Party Systems:
• Electoral Systems: Different systems
shape party systems differently (e.g.,
first-past-the-post, proportional
representation).
• Cultural and Historical Factors: Events
and cultural elements influence party
system development.
• Social Cleavages: Divisions within
society, like class, ethnicity, or religion,
shape party systems.
• Institutional Design: Government
structures impact party systems.

III. Challenges and Issues:
• Party Polarization: The degree to which political parties move away from each other ideologically,
potentially hindering cooperation and bipartisan governance.
• Party Finance and Corruption: Concerns related to the funding of political parties and the potential
for corrupt practices.
• Populism: The rise of populist movements and their impact on traditional party systems, often
characterized by anti-establishment sentiments.
• Fragmentation vs. Cohesion: Balancing the advantages of multiple parties with the need for
effective governance.

Comparative Analysis:
• Case Studies: Analyzing specific countries
and their party systems to draw
comparisons and contrasts, considering
historical, cultural, and institutional factors.
• Global Trends: Identifying overarching
trends in party politics on a global scale,
such as the rise of new political movements
or the impact of globalization on party
ideologies.
• Adaptation and Change: Exploring how party
systems evolve over time in response to
societal, economic, and political changes,
highlighting the resilience and adaptability
of political parties.

Fundamentals of Political Science.pdf

Fundamentals of Political Science.pdf

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