The
definition of political science given above is concise and logical. Politics involves the addressing of human
needs, necessitating the distribution of finite material resources. Inasmuch as that is true, the focus of political
science is on the people in a given society as distributors and recipients of
resources. Who shall be the recipients
of what resources? Who shall be in
charge of distributing the resources? Is
there an attempt to distribute resources evenly among the populace and to all
areas within the bounds of governance?
How is governing to ensue: Who
will rule as the chief executive, and who will occupy the various positions in
the governing administration? How will
the government gain revenue? What claim
will those who govern make on the revenue gained, and how much will be
redistributed to the governed? By what
mechanisms will government distribute resources? Where and how do those who are governed
receive resources and services?
These are
among the key questions to be explored through a study of political
science. Political scientists group
themselves under two broad categories:
1) theorists; and 2)
behaviorists. Theorists are interested
in the ideal forms of governance, extrapolating from human experience thus far
to postulate the most favorable forms of government for the future. Behaviorists observe people as they have
acted in the past and as they act in the present; they study data pertinent to the behavior of
people as participants in elections, as garnered in surveys, and as revealed in
statistics. Many of the greatest early
thinkers about politics used what evidence they could gather about political
behavior to categorize and examine the various forms of governance, and to
posit ideal forms of governance in their political theories; thus, they combined behavior and theory.
In the
course of this chapter, I will similarly categorize forms of governance based
on past and present political behavior and consider the political theories of
major philosophers. Toward the end of
the chapter, I will examine the governmental system of the United States,
especially with reference to the framework established in the United States
Constitution.
I. Classification of Government Types Prevalent
Before the Twentieth Century
The classification scheme given
below is an adaptation of that used by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. I have adapted some of Aristotle’s
nomenclature with reference to terms used by historians in describing
governments prevailing during particular historical periods that succeeded
Aristotle’s own lifetime. My adaptation
is made so as to help students understand those governing styles that have
typified the past. First, I give
value-neutral terms that describe power as exercised by one, a few, or many
people; second, I give terms that apply
to power as corruptly used by one, a few, or many power-holders.
A. Locus of Power
1.
Monarchy
Monarchy is
the style of governance in which the chief power-holder is one person. Before
the twentieth century such a person was typically a king (or, in a few cases, a queen) or an emperor
(or, in a few cases, an empress). A king or queen typically inherited power
from a parent and ruled over a territory associated with a particular culture
(society with certain readily identifiable customs and traditions). An emperor also typically held power as a
result of hereditary right but ruled over vast territories including people of
diverse cultures and ethnicities.
2. Aristocracy
Aristocracy
is the style of governance in which power is located in the hands of a few people who typically have
inherited the right of governance, along with other privileges. Ancient Greece had certain periods during
which a few people held power collectively, the Roman Republic was governed at
times primarily by patricians
(an aristocratic elite), and the Roman Empire at times had collective rule by triumvirates (collective
governance by three people) or tetrarchies
(collective governance by four people).
During the
feudal era of Europe circa 500 A.D. (CE) – 1500 A.D. (CE), aristocrats typically
held power locally (in the domains
that they ruled based on their fiefs
[territorial holdings originally officially bestowed by a monarch, then passed
down with the family from generation to generation]). Similar arrangements also described
governance in some societies, at some times, during the same period in Asia,
Africa, and the Americas. Monarchs who
could control sophisticated military weaponry eventually asserted firmer centralized political
control, so that from 1500 A.D. (CE) forward, aristocrats increasingly yielded
power to kings or queens.
3. Democracy
Democracy is
the style of governance in which power is located in the hands of many people.
Organizationally
simple hunter-gather societies had known a kind of rudimentary democracy, but
the Greek city-state of Athens
famously undertook the world’s first experiment with democracy in a complex
civilization. In Athens, the “many
people” did not include women or slaves;
all adult males, though, could participate in gatherings at the Acropolis for the purpose of
debating issues and making decisions.
Democracy had only a brief heyday in the 5th century B.C.
(BCE), but the Athenian tradition informed the governing style of the Roman Republic. In Rome of the 3rd through 1st
centuries B.C. (BCE), representatives of the patricians (aristocrats) gathered in a legislative assembly
known as the Senate, while representatives of the plebeians (commoners) congregated in a legislative assembly
known as the Tribune, with consensus between the two bodies deemed as important
for promulgating law. But by the early
centuries A.D (CE), decision-makers in Rome were continually dominated by
emperors; thus, historians label the
government that ruled from that period until the official fall of Rome in 476
A.D. (CE) the Roman Empire (superseding the Roman Republic)
In the
course of time, a republic came
to be regarded as any form of government that was not a monarchy or an empire--- not,
that is, ruled by a monarch (king or queen) or an emperor. While the term continues to have democratic
connotations, rulers in many non-monarchical societies have claimed to derive
their mandate from the people and to govern for the people, while in fact
exercising power as dictators. Today, democracy, which calls for the
exercise of decision-making citizenship rather than mere public authorization
of a ruler’s power, is fully developed in only a few nations. Select examples of democracy may be witnessed
in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan
(Republic of China), Mexico, and Brazil.
The democratic spirit is now flourishing in many places of Africa, South
America, Southeast Asia, and East Europe, but in most nations wherein people
are pushing for democracy, the full expression of that form of government in
well-developed institutions is a matter of aspiration rather than achievement.
B. Corruptive Tendencies: Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Mobocracy
Each form of
government described above may be so corrupted as to necessitate a different
appellation:
The one dominant ruler in a monarchy may rule so
irresponsibly and with such disregard for the welfare of the people as to
become a tyrant: The government of such a ruler is known as tyranny.
The few
dominant rulers in an aristocracy
may exercise power so recklessly as to become oligarchs: The government of such rulers is known as oligarchy.
The many
dominant rulers in a democracy
may exercise their power so chaotically as to form a mob: The government of such rulers is known as mobocracy.
These
transformations may be given clearly as follows:
Locus of Power Corrupted Form
One person Monarchy Tyranny
A few people Aristocracy
Oligarchy
(small
percentage of
the population)
Many people Democracy Mobocracy
(the large number of
people who have
citizenship
status)
II. Classification of Government Types Associated
with the Twentieth Century
(And This Early Stage of the
Twenty-First Century)
A. Absolute Monarchy
By the time (late
17th century into the early 18th century) of Louis XIV of France and
the Tudor and Stewart dynasties (vied for control from the 12th into
the early 18th centuries) of Great Britain, European monarchs had
succeeded in centralizing power, building armies that made use of guns and
artillery, and cultivating relationships with successful people from the mercantile
class. In doing these things, monarchs
diminished the power of feudal lords and increased their own power while also
abetting the rise of a middle class (bourgeoisie). The latter consisted of professionals (physicians,
lawyers, and theologically well-trained pastors), scholars, and business people
whose status depended on their level of education, expertise, and wealth. In the course of the 19th century,
the aristocratic class lost much of its prestige; inherited, landed wealth as found in the
feudal domains increasingly could not match the commercial riches generated by
the mercantile class.
In time, the
middle class on whose tax base monarchs depended would induce the development
of other governmental styles, but during the 17th and 18th centuries (and the early 19th
century) absolute monarchies in Europe dominated the political scene. Sometimes even claiming a divine right to
rule, monarchs exercised great power at the central level of governance. This European style of governance had strong
correlates in the central administrations of China, Japan, and Korea; and the form also had parallels in Africa and
the Americas.
Absolute
monarchy featured a single hereditary ruler who held paramount authority over
executive, legislative, and judicial aspects of governance. But as early (1215) as King John’s signing of
the Magna Carta, other political
actors imposed certain restrictions on the power of
the
monarch. The Glorious Revolution
(1688-1689) in Great Britain culminated in the monarchical duo of William and
Mary conceding significant additional power to Parliament. By the 19th century those who
sought to check the power of monarchs were drawing upon such precedents to
produce a monarchical form in which the king or queen had to rule with much
greater attention to the viewpoints and legislative initiative of those who sat
in lawmaking bodies such as Parliament.
B. Constitutional Monarchy
From the
time of the Glorious Revolution forward, Great Britain had a constitutional
monarchy. This is the appellation
applied to a political system that maintains a monarch possessing limited or
merely ceremonial powers but places most governing authority in citizens and
their representative institutions. These
institutions--- executive, legislative,
and judicial--- function according to
overriding principles of constitutional law or legal precedent. Great Britain, although it is the
prototypical constitutional monarchy, actually has no formal constitutional
document. Legal precedent (acquired via judgments
made over the years that form the basis for agreed-upon legal principles),
therefore, acts as a surrogate for the constitutional document.
Other
political systems, influenced by the limited monarchical system of Great
Britain but also guided by legal principles featured in documents inspired by
the United States Constitution, are more literally constitutional monarchies. Today, nations operating as constitutional
monarchies include Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Scandinavian countries
(Sweden, Norway, and Denmark). Such
systems model their legislative bodies on the British Parliament, headed by a
prime minister. The latter is not
elected directly but rather emerges as prime minister by virtue of leading the
party that garners the most votes in national elections for Parliament.
In Great
Britain, there are upper (House of Lords) and lower (House of Commons) chambers
in the Parliament. In the course of the
20th century, the House of Commons emerged as the dominant lawmaking
chamber. By tradition a chamber reserved
for the aristocracy, the House of Lords today has little power; most legislation passes as a consequence of
proposals emanating from and voted on by members of the House of Commons. Most other constitutional monarchies are also
dominated by a legislative body similar to the House of Commons, or by that
body in conjunction with an upper house of the American Senatorial type.
C. Liberal Democratic Republic
In the same
way that the British political system is the exemplar of the constitutional
monarchy, the political system of the United States serves as the model for the
liberal democratic republic. At the
advent of the establishment of the United States of America, advocates for the
republican (non-monarchical) form of government prevailed over those who would
have preferred the constitutional monarchical system of Great Britain--- the imperialist, colonial power against
which those in the fledgling nation had just successfully rebelled.
The
existence of a prestigious if not very powerful king or queen lends a different
tone to the political system in constitutional monarchies, but in most ways
liberal democratic republics function similarly. Many liberal democratic republics do, though,
follow the United States in elevating the position of President to the apex of
national government. The president is
elected in her or his own person, rather than as the leader of a party that
emerges dominant in the parliamentary style.
In the
United States, there is a popular vote that determines the presidential winner
in each state, each of which has a number of electors in an Electoral College
who cast the official votes for president;
the number of electors assigned to each state consists of that state’s total
number of members in the United States House of Representatives, together with
the two members each state has in the United States Senate. Whether direct or indirect, most liberal
democratic republics have some such vote of the citizenry for a president who
possesses actual governing power.
Liberal
democratic republics are strongly associated with capitalist economic
institutions. The latter is true, too,
of constitutional monarchies. In this
sense, the politico-economic institutions prevailing in both constitutional
monarchies and liberal democratic republics feature free elections and free
enterprise; these in turn define the
liberal society, as distinguished, for example, from fascist, communist,
radical socialist, or dictatorial(authoritarian) socioeconomic
formulations. When one reads,
therefore, of “liberal democracy,” the reader should understand that the
nomenclature pertains to democratic systems of both the constitutional
monarchical and the liberal democratic republican type.
D. Radical Socialism and Communist Dictatorship
As
capitalist economic systems in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States
became ever more efficient in the production of marketable goods, the German
philosopher and economist Karl Marx became convinced that the financial success
of these systems lay in the ability of the bourgeoisie (owners and managers) to
exploit the labor of the proletariat (factory workers). In a theory that I will explore in more
detail in a succeeding section of this chapter, Marx predicted that there would
be a proletarian revolution in which the expropriated class (proletariat)
overthrew the expropriating class (bourgeoisie) and in so doing reverse the
direction of the expropriation. The
proletariat would rise to power, with governance being exercised by leaders in
a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Such a style of governance is properly labelled, “radical socialism.”
Marx
predicted that the dictatorship of the proletariat would eventually wither away
as society become ever more cooperative, replacing the competitive spirit that
drives capitalism. According to Marxist
theory, as the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat waned and the state withered
away, a new type of person and an ideal
society would appear: An ethically
evolved human being possessing a compelling instinct to cooperate with one’s
fellows would form a society that operated according to the principle of
communal sharing, or “communism.”
Two major
efforts were made in the 20th century to establish the radical
socialist state as a stage in route to pure communism.
The first
such effort culminated in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the
establishment
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union). Vladimir Lenin led the new government into
the early 1920s. Josef Stalin
outmaneuvered rivals such as Leon Trotsky to emerge as the paramount leader by
the 1930s and would rule until his death in 1953. In part inspired by and in part compelled by
the USSR to form similar states, most nations of East Europe also became
radical socialist states governed by communist parties in the aftermath of
World War II.
The second
major effort resulted in the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution and the
establishment of the People’s Republic of China with Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung)
as revolutionary strategist and paramount leader until his death in 1976. The Maoist revolution proved inspirational to
some leaders in Africa, and in the course of the 1950s and succeeding decades
communist revolutions succeeded in parts of Latin America. Most famously (though his revolution began as
a guerrilla movement not avowedly communist), Fidel Castro eventually
established a communist government;
although his revolution was propelled by peasant energies reminiscent of
the Chinese case, Castro responded eagerly when leaders in the Soviet Union
offered economic assistance, and it was the Soviet-Cuban relationship that
proved so troubling to the United States between the years 1959-1991.
The
communist system came to an end in Russia in 1991, two years after the
crumbling of communist regimes in such East European nations as Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and East Germany in 1989. Cuba still officially features a communist
government, as does China and the Asian nations of Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia. But all currently existing
communist regimes have moved to incorporate features of capitalist
economy--- officially at odds with Marxist
ideology.
Karl Marx
identified major incongruities in the capitalist system and promulgated a
compelling theory of proletarian revolution.
But at least three historical circumstances have thus far forestalled
the establishment of an enduring communist regime. First, the revolutions in Russia and China
both took place in countries in which industrial development was nascent and
the proletariat was very small; Marx had
predicted proletarian, not peasant revolution.
Second, in both major cases of communist dictatorship, the regimes
proved far more authoritarian and less benevolent to the masses than Marx had
envisioned for the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Third, liberal capitalist democracies borrowed
certain features from socialist paradigms, with central government management
of the Keynesian sort far exceeding anything that Adam Smith had foreseen; this socialist strain, along with the formation
of labor unions, paradoxically forestalled proletarian, radical socialist
revolution.
Only time
will tell if more fully developed industrial and postindustrial economies will
produce anything like radical socialist or communist revolutions or institutions. Efforts to do so in the first act on the
historical stage are either moribund or on the wane.
E. Democratic Socialism
But
socialist institutions may be implemented in contexts that do not describe the
Marxist ideal.
Leaders and
citizens in a number of nations have opted for a political system that takes Keynesian economics beyond the
level of application apparent during Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal
and in the ongoing entitlement
programs (Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid) of the United
States. These nations include the
Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; Germany;
and Canada. Western European
nations in general--- including France,
the Netherlands, and Belgium--- feature
governments that provide more generous social welfare programs than is the case
in the United States.
Democratic
socialist nations (also known as the socialist
democracies) have elections and political institutions in much the
manner of the United States and other Liberal Democratic societies. They also have a large capitalist component
to their economies. But democratic
socialist systems feature central governments that control and manage programs
for inexpensive universal health care, nation-wide transportation services
(airlines, railroads, ocean-liners), and daycare; and they tend to maintain ownership and
managerial control over key industries such as iron, coal, petroleum,
auto-making, shipbuilding, and the like.
Most of these facets of the economy are left to the private sector in
the United States, where similar initiatives such as the Affordable Care Act
(which comes far short of establishing the single-payer
health care system common in the socialist democracies) generate great
political controversy. In the United
States, liberal Democrats favoring such programs must contend with conservative
Republicans who, objecting to the higher taxes and government intervention that
accompany democratic socialism (and entitlement programs), prefer a more purely
free enterprise approach.
Political
scientists describe the United States as a center-right
nation that leans heavily toward
private
enterprise as the provider of goods and services; versus the Western European center-left socialist democracies that also function substantially
according to private enterprise but manifest considerably more enthusiasm for
social welfare programs and socialized industry managed by the central
government.
F. Fascist Dictatorship
By the 1920s
in Europe, politico-economic conditions in three nations presented an
opportunity for leaders seeking to attract public support for a political
message that was different from that descriptive of Marxist radical socialism,
democratic socialism, or liberal democracy.
Following
their loss in World War I (1918), the German people felt humiliated, especially
in view of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919). This treaty blamed German aggression for the
war; assessed heavy reparations (payment for destruction caused); and forced heavy demilitarization (large-scale reduction of personnel and
weaponry in the armed services) on Germany.
There was an attempt to establish liberal democracy in the form of the
Weimar Republic. But the October 1929 stock
market
crash in the
United States and the succeeding Great Depression of the 1930s caused
international economic dislocations that fell hard on an already challenged
German economy. The public tended to
blame policies of Weimar Republic leaders and to give enthusiastic reception to
the fiery oratory of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler
castigated the Western democracies for their punitive actions against Germany
in the aftermath of World War I. He accused
the Jews of selfishly manipulating the German capitalist system for their own
purposes, to the disadvantage of the German people. He touted the superiority of the Aryan race,
his conception of the majority German population as ideally blonde, blue-eyed,
and physically robust , possessing an intellectual acumen that made them destined
to rule the world. He advocated greater
control of the German economy by his Nazi (National Socialist) Party, not for
establishing democratic socialism, and
certainly not for instituting Marxist socialism
with its emphasis on international proletarian solidarity. Rather, Hitler touted “national socialism,” entailing
a particular blend of government control with private capitalism for the advancement
of German economic might, military strength, and German power across the globe.
Under the
Nazis, German society was subject to a totalitarian
system in which secret police (the S. S. guards) conducted raids in the
middle of the night, rounding up Jews and others considered offensive by the
Nazi leadership; paramilitary S. A.forces (“Brown Shirts”) patrolled the streets in intimidating fashion; propaganda was fiercely disseminated via a
variety of media; and every aspect of
the lives of the people were monitored.
The regimes
of Benito Mussolini (Italy)and Francisco Franco (Spain) did not establish such
thoroughgoing totalitarian control, but they shared numerous features of
fascism: supra-nationalism,
glorifying the state and exalting patriotic fervor; the assertion of a classless society, with
all citizens united in support of the state;
“state capitalist” economies in which the central government favored
those industries and firms deemed most useful to the state; heavy propaganda meant to ensure ideological
uniformity; and the use of paramilitary
forces highly effective in weeding out opponents. Many of these features could be seen, too, in
the Japanese government and society led by Tojo Hideki during this same period
of the 1930s and 1940s in which fascist regimes held power in Europe; thus, the regimes that dominated the Axis
coalition (opposed by the Allies) during World War II were all effective in
espousing a chauvinist (supra-nationalist) ideology capable of motivating the unified,
officially classless masses to seek personal identity in support of expansionist
military efforts for glorification of the state--- and, therefore, the self.
The regimes
of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo ended with defeat in World War II; Franco, who warily had kept Spain on the
fringe of the Axis coalition, held power until his death in the 1970s. Leaders in a number of Latin American and
African regimes established rightist governments with fascist characteristics during
the decades succeeding World War II; for
many decades, governments in Taiwan and in South Korea also maintained
institutions and operated from ideologies at the right end of the
political continuum, opposite from
radical socialism and communism on the far left. But in the course of the 1990s, rightist
regimes tended to meet the same fate as their leftist counterparts, as
democracies of variously liberal republican, constitutional monarchical, or
democratic socialist types seemed destined to lead most of the world’s
population into the 21st century.
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