Slides presentation

1. POLITICS &
GOVERNMENT
LECTURER: NOOR SYAFIKA RAMLI
FOR: SOCA 1010

2. CONTENT
POWER &
AUTHORITY
3 Types of
Authority
POLITICS IN
GLOBAL
PERSPECTIVES
Types of
Politics
THEORIES OF
POWER IN
SOCIETY

3. POWER AND AUTHORITY
:SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
POLITIC POWER MICROPOLITICS
MACROPOLITICS
LEGITIMATE
POWER
ILLIGETIMATE
POWER
GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY

4. POWER AND AUTHORITY
• Essentially, politics is associated with the
govt, kings, queens, coups, dictatorship,
voting , etc. But the term actually has a
much broader meaning.
• Definition of Politics – polity
: Is the social institutions that distributes
power, sets a society’s goals and make
decision.
: the exercise of power and attempts to
maintain or to change power relations.

5. • Definition of Power – Max Weber
claimed that every society is based on
power.
– Power is the ability to achieve desired ends
despite resistance from others.
– Power is the ability to carry out one’s will,
even over the resistance of others.
– Power struggles – workers with their bosses,
power struggle within family members, (all
these attempts to gain or keep power) these
also consider as political actions.

6. • Therefore, in our everyday life, we practice
power. Additionally, the elements of power
according to symbolic interactionist could
be categorized into two:
i) Micropolitics – to refer to the exercise of
power in everyday life
ii) Macropolitics – refers to the exercise of
power over a large group
E.g.: the governments; whether dictatorship
or democracies, they are the examples of
macropolitics.

7. POWER AND AUTHORITY
• For every society development, it is
inevitably for a society to encompassed a
system of leadership.
• Some people must have power over
others
• Weber perceive power into two type that is
legitimate power and illegitimate power.
– Legitimate power : is called as authority i.e.
power people accept as right.
– Illegitimate power : known as coercion i.e.
power that people do not accept as just.

8. POWER AND AUTHORITY
• The use of power is the business of
government. Government is a formal
organization that directs the political life of a
society.
• How do government try to make itself seem
legitimate in the eyes of the people?
• Through – “authority” as mentioned by
Weber.
• Authority - power that people perceive as
legitimate rather than coercive. This relations
of power authority is legitimate
• How do governments transform raw power
into more stable authority?

9. POWER AND AUTHORITY
: Types of Authority
Traditional
Authority
Rational
Legal
Authority
Charismatic
Authority

10. Traditional Authority
• Traditional Authority; power legitimized by
respect for long-established cultural patterns.
• Characteristics of Traditional Authority:
a) preindustrial societies
b) populations collective memory –
people’s accept a system
c) usually one of hereditary leadership
d) strong power in political system,
absolute power and almost godlike
e) Source of strength for patriarchy,
domination by men

11. • Examples of Traditional Authority:
- Chinese emperors
- Aristocratic rulers in medieval Europe
• Traditional authority declines as societies
industrialize.
• Traditional authority remains strong only as long
as everyone shares the same belief and way of life
(Hannah Arendt,1963).
• How ?
a) Through modern scientific thinking,
b) the specialization demanded by industrial
production and,
c) the social changes and,
d) the cultural diversity resulting immigration all
combine to weaken tradition.

12. • There are still hereditary rulers who claim
a traditional right to rule. But this claim is
easily out of step with modern society.
• Today's hereditary rules, their power over
society has been minimized, relinquished,
and regulated by another authority;
government.
E.g. : In the United Kingdom, Malaysia.

13. Rational Legal Authority
• Weber defined rational legal authority
(bureaucratic authority) :as power legitimized by
legally enacted rules and regulations.
• Rational legal authority is power legitimized in the
operation of lawful government.
• Weber viewed bureaucracy as the type of
organization that dominates in rational thinking,
modern societies.
• Members of today’s high income societies seek
justice through the operation of a political system
that follows formally enacted rules of law.
• Rationally enacted rules also guide the use of
power in everyday life.

14. • Examples of Rational Legal Authority:
a) the authority of deans / classroom
teachers/ lecturers – rests on the offices
they hold in bureaucratic colleges and
universities
b) the police officer / police traffic / security
guard in uniform possessed rational legal
authority

15. • Traditional authority - comes from family
background – ascribed status
• Rational legal authority - comes from a
position in government organization
• Traditional monarch - rules for life
• Rational legal/modern rules - the
president or the prime minister accepts
and gives up power according to law,
which shows that presidential authority lies
in the office not in the person

16. Charismatic Authority
• Charismatic authority: is power legitimized
by extraordinary personal abilities that inspire
devotion and obedience.
• Charismatic authority depends less on a
person’s ancestry or office and more on
personality.
• Charismatic authority characteristics:
a) using their personal skills to turn an
audience into followers
b) make their own rules and challenge the
status quo

17. • Examples:
a) Jesus of Nazareth
b) Adolf Hitler
c) India’s liberator, Mahatma Gandhi
d) US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
• Charismatic authority flows from a single
individual, the leaders death creates a crisis.
• Survival of a charismatic movement, Weber
explained, requires the “routinization of
charisma” – the transformation of charismatic
authority into some combination of traditional and
bureaucratic authority.

18. • Example:
After the death of Jesus, followers
institutionalized his teachings in a church,
built on tradition and bureaucracy.
Routinized in this way, the Roman Catholic
Church has lasted for 2000 years.

19. POLITICS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
: Types of Politics
(refer to another slide)
Monarchy Democracy Authoritarianism
Totalitarianism
Dictatorship &
Oligarchies

20. MONARCHY VS.DEMOCRACY
ASPECT MONARCHY DEMOCRACY
RULER  Single ruler
 Collective / majority
ruler
SELECTION OF THE
RULER
 Ascribed status
 Inheritance / singles
family rules from
generation to gen.
 Achieved status
 Election / people’s
decision
RULING SYSTEM /
RULING MECHANISM
 Royal
 Only few line
 Legislative, judiciary
and executive
TYPE
 Traditional political
system
 Modern political system
POLITICAL RIGHTS
 Right and power meant
to the royal families
 No freedom of speech
 Right and power to the
people
 Stress on the freedom
of speech
TYPE OF AUTHORITY  Traditional authority  Rational-legal authority