Power, Politics, and Government

1. Power, Politics, and Government • power • The essence of politics is power. Power is the capacity of people or groups to control or influence the actions of others, whether those others wish to cooperate or not. • There are three mechanisms for controlling the actions of others: reward, punishment, and controlling of information.

2. Authority and power legitimation • Sociologists classify power into two categories, depending on the circumstances surrounding its use. Power used in a way that is generally recognized as socially right and necessary is called legitimate power. • Power used without social approval is referred to as illegitimate power. • A single example can clarify this distinction. Gangsters who demand and receive protection money from a shopkeeper by threatening violence are using illegitimate power. Government agencies that demand and receive a sales tax from the same shopkeeper are using legitimate power.

3. Forms of government • Democracy • Democracy means literally “rule of the people.” In a true democracy, the powers of government derive from the formal consent of the governed, and citizens have a right to participate in decision-making process. In a representative democracy, the most common type, citizens vote for officials to represent them. Only in very small democratic systems can each citizen affect government by direct involvement; this type of democracy is called participatory or direct democracy.

4. Totalitarianism （极权主义） • Totalitarianism is a form of government, run by a single party, in which there is governmental surveillance（监视） and control over all aspects of life. • The totalitarian state creates an official ideology, a total worldview and a set of rules of behavior. Rival worldviews are suppressed, rival religious groups are persecuted, and the works of many artists and intellectuals are censored.

5. Authoritarianism • Authoritarianism is a form of government in which ultimate authority is vested in a single person. The ruler may be either a monarch (a hereditary ruler), or a dictator (someone who has come to power and typically holds that power by means of force). Ideology and political parties do not play a major role in the authoritarian regime. • There are important differences between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes: • An authoritarian regime is one that does not tolerate political opposition but is prepared to allow institutions and sectors of society to function free of the state provided they do not engage in political activity. A totalitarian regime is one that seeks to impose state control over every institution of society, regardless of whether it engages in political activity or not and with the intention of …integrating society as a whole within an all-embracing political design. (Berger, 1986:83-84)

6. Authority refers to legitimate power that is institutional in nature. Max Weber classified the main sources of social authority into three types: • Traditional authority is authority that is conferred by custom and accepted practice. In a hereditary monarchy, the power of the head of the government is legitimated by birth. • Charismatic authority is authority that is generated by the personality or exceptional personal appeal of an individual. • Legal-rational authority is authority that rests on rationally established rules.

7. The state • Some legitimate power or authority is found in every group or organization. But in modern societies it is the state, or nation-state, ‘that successfully claims a monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion and physical force within a territory” (Weber, 1919). • The state is the institution that holds supreme power in a society and that claims a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. It dictates when, where, and how much physical force may be rightfully used.

8. Perspectives on the distribution of political power • The pluralist perspective considers society to be the sum of many different interest groups—including social classes, political groups, unions, economic organizations, and consumers. • These different groups continually make demands on,, and attempt to influence, the state’s leaders and officials. • The role of the state is to mediate among the interest groups, achieve a public consensus, and pass laws that reflect that consensus, thereby maintaining social order (Rose, 1967; Dahl, 1961).

9. The elitist perspective. The so-called classical elitists—notably Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca, and Vilfredo Pareto—tended to see the masses as “apathetic, incompetent, and unwilling or unable to govern themselves” (Marger, 1982). • These were some of the conditions, they believed, that naturally led to a situation know as oligarchy, or rule by a select few. • What has become known as the “iron law of oligarchy” asserts that that elite rule will eventually prevail in every large-scale, bureaucratic grouping almost as a basic reality of human nature, no matter how democratic the grouping may appear to be.