Chapter 7

Political Economy

• Separation of politics and economy is unsustainable

• Study of the interaction between politics and economics
• Relationship between state and markets
• Has a long association with Marxism
➢ Links power to ownership of wealth
• Use of theories and approaches developed within economics to analyze politics
Approaches to Political Economy

State-centric political economy

• Developed out of mercantilism

➢ takes the state to be the most significant economic actor
• Also called “economic nationalism”
• Markets
➢ Not natural
➢ Shaped by the exercise of state power
• Mercantilist strategy
➢ High on export, low on import (protectionism- import restrictions)
➢ Defensive mercantilism
- Designed to protect infant industries and weaker economies from unfair
competition from stronger economies
➢ Aggressive mercantilism
-strengthen national economy for the purpose of expansionism and war
• Weakened with its association with “beggar-thy-neighbor” policy (policies pursued at the
expense of other states)
• Revived with the idea of state capitalism

Classical/ Neoclassical political economy

• Derived from Adam Smith and David Ricardo

• Individuals
➢ Rationally self-interested creatures
➢ Utility maximizers
➢ Key economic actors
• Unregulated market economy tends towards long-run equilibrium
• Adam Smith
➢ Invisible hand of the market (price mechanism) brings supply and demand
➢ First systematic attempt to explain workings of economy
➢ Free-market theorist
• Implies a policy of laissez-faire
➢ State leaves the economy alone
➢ Market is left to manage on its own
 ➢ “leave to do”
➢ Explained by theory of perfect competition

Marxist political economy

• Capitalism
➢ System of class exploitation
➢ Fatal instability
• Social classes
➢ Key economic actors
• Karl Marx
➢ Defined class in terms of economic power
➢ Division of capitalist society
- Bourgeoisie and proletariat
➢ Surplus value
- Value that is extracted from the labor of the proletariat through capitalist
exploitation
➢ Economic exploitation
- Essential feature of the capitalist mode of production

Capitalism

• As economic system
➢ generalized commodity production
➢ privately owned
➢ resources being allocated through price mechanism
➢ wage labor
➢ material self-interest
• As ideology
➢ Overlaps with classical liberalism
➢ Defending private property, personal self-striving, and meritocracy

Economic system

• Form of organization
• Goods and exchanges are produced, distributed, and exchanged
• For Marxists: mode of production

Pure capitalist and socialist systems

• An illusion

Varieties of Capitalism

Enterprise capitalism

• “liberal capitalism”
• “American business model”
• “pure” capitalism
 • Faith in the untrammeled workings of market competition
• Market as self-regulating mechanism
• Keep public ownership to a minimum
• Strong labor organizations are viewed as obstacle to profit maximization
• Has a tendency towards material inequalities and social fragmentation
• Growth of the public and private debt
Social capitalism

• Friedrich List
➢ State intervention should be used to protect infant industries from rigours of foreign
competition
• Social market
➢ Market competition + social cohesion and unity
➢ Largely free from government interference
➢ Stress on partnership, cooperation, and subsidiarity, as opposed to free market
• Provide workers and vulnerable groups with social guarantee
• Stakeholder capitalism
• Tends to encourage inflexibility and push-up taxes due to high levels of social expenditure

State capitalism

• “authoritarian capitalism”
• State plays crucial directive role
• Non-liberal
• Emphasis on cooperative, long-term relationships
• “collective capitalism”
• Relational markets
• Emphasis on teamwork and collective identity
• State as the one that guides investments
• Tends to be unresponsive to global market conditions

Keynesianism

• By John Maynard Keynes

• Against the idea that the market is natural and is self-regulating
• Laissez-faire policies caused instability and unemployment
• Regulating aggregate demand
• Macroeconomics
• When unemployment rises, government should increase public spending or cut taxes
• Was unable to anticipate stagflation

Neoliberalism

• Rolling back of the government’s intervention

• Reaganism (USA) and Thatcherism (UK)
• Amounts to market fundamentalism
 ➢ Absolute faith in the market

Globalization

• Complex of processes
• Kenichi Ohmae
➢ Borderless world
• Scholte
➢ Linked to growth of supraterritorial
• Goes hand in hand with localization, regionalization, and multiculturalism
• Complex web of interconnectedness
• National and global events constantly interact
• Proto-globalization
➢ established transnational economic globalization
➢ early form of globalization
• Contemporary globalization
➢ World economy as a single economy
➢ Gone hand in hand with neoliberalism

Forms of Globalization

Economic Globalization

• No national economy is an island

• Global economy
• Reduced capacity of national governments to manage their economies
Cultural Globalization

• Information, commodities, and images that have been produced in one part of the world enter
into a global flow
• McDonaldization
• Empowered by information revolution

Political Globalization

• growing importance of international organizations

• supranational bodies are able to impose their will on nation-states
• idealist commitment to internationalism

Washington Consensus

• remaking of the world economy along neoliberal lines

• led developing and transition states to pursue policies such as free trade, market liberalization,
etc.
• coined by John Williamson
• based on orthodox model of development as growth and drawing on the ideas of neoliberalism
• stabilize, privatize, and liberalize
Chapter 8

Society

• collection of people (but not always)

• occupy the same territorial area
• has regular patterns of social interaction
• stable set of interrelationships
• characterized by social divisions
• very stuff and substance of politics itself
• shapes politics
➢ distribution of wealth and other resources conditions nature of state power
➢ social divisions and conflicts help to bring about political change
➢ influences public opinion and political culture
➢ shapes political behavior (with processes involved with elections)
• Marxist: is characterized by irreconcilable conflict
• Liberal: harmony exists amongst competitions
• Conservative: organic
• Modern society
➢ Hollowing out of social connectedness
➢ Changes linked to postindustrialism, information societies, and growth of individualism

Status

• Position within a hierarchical order

• Person’s role, rights, and duties

Industrialization

• Major factor for shaping modern societies

• Caused social class to be the central organizing principle of society
➢ Group of people to share similar social and economic position
➢ Non-Marxist: Based on income and status (middle “non-manual” class vs. working
“manual” class)
➢ Marxist: class as the most fundamental social division
➢ History of class struggle (bourgeoisie vs. proletariat)
➢ Max Weber: theory of stratification
- Economic or class differences + political parties and social statuses
- Status as social estimation of honor
➢ Weakened with postindustrial societies

Postindustrial societies

• Decline of labor-intensive industries

• More on service industries rather than manufacturing ones
• Significant growth in white-collar workforce
• More individualistic and instrumentalist attitudes
• Distinguished by growing atomism
➢ Collection of self-sufficient and self-interested individuals
• Weakening of social connectedness
• Popularized by Daniel Bell
• From labor theory to knowledge theory of value
• Shift from Fordist to non-Fordist era
➢ Large-scale mass-production methods pioneered by Henry Ford
➢ Produced standardized cheap products
➢ Structured by solidaristic class solidarity
• “2/3, 1/3” society
➢ 2/3 are relatively prosperous
• J.K Galbraith: contented majority
➢ Provided electoral base for anti-welfarist and tax-cutting policies
• Underclass
➢ Suffered from social exclusion and not just deprivation of material necessities
➢ Suffers from multiple deprivations
• Has a knowledge/weightless economy
➢ Knowledge is the key source of competitiveness and productivity
• Caused by borderless digital media
➢ Source of citizen empowerment and constraint on government power
➢ Internet- networks of networks
➢ Connectivity- links between devices
• Tendency for cult of information
➢ People can’t distinguish between information and knowledge, experience, and wisdom
• Information society
➢ Information is the core of economic and cultural activities
➢ Wider use of computerized processes and internet
➢ Replaced physical capital with knowledge
• Individualism
➢ Caused by industrial capitalism
➢ Belief in importance of individual over any social group or collective body
➢ Consumerism
- Encourages people to think and act on their own
- Consumption as self-expression
- Personal happiness is equated with acquisition of material possessions
- Emphasis on immediate gratification
➢ Margaret Thatcher: “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women
and their families
➢ Emile Durkheim: anomie
- Weakening of values that may lead to negative emotions
- caused by weakening social codes and norms
➢ Socialists: legitimized selfishness and greed
➢ Liberals: mark of social progress
➢ Protestant religions: Yes
 ➢ Catholic societies: nope

Identity politics

• Politics of difference
• Defiance against group marginalization and disadvantage
• Embracing and asserting a sense of collective identity
• Source of liberation
• Laid out by postcolonialism
➢ Expose and overturn the cultural and psychological dimensions of colonial rule
➢ Inner subjugation can still persist even after institutional decolonialization
➢ Legitimizing non-Western political ideas and traditions
➢ Franz Fanon: imperialism theory
- decolonialization is more than just a political process
- psychological dimension of colonial subjugation
➢ Edward Said (founding figure of postcolonial theory): orientalism
- Western political and cultural hegemony over the rest of the world

Manifestations of identity politics

Race and ethnicity

• Black nationalism
➢ Prototype for identity politics
➢ Emphasis on consciousness raising
- Remodel social identity through pride, self-worth, and self-assertion

Cultural Diversity

• Multiculturalism
➢ Attempts to balance diversity against cohesion
➢ As descriptive term: diversity arising from the existence within a society of two or more
groups
➢ As normative term: positive endorsement of communal diversity
➢ Importance of beliefs, values, and ways of life in establishing a sense of self-worth for
individuals and groups alike
➢ Liberal multiculturalism
- Commitment to freedom and toleration
- Ability to choose one’s own moral beliefs
➢ Pluralist multiculturalism
- Based on value pluralism (competing and equally legitimate conceptions of “good
life”)
- Exposes corrupting nature of Western culture
➢ Cosmopolitan multiculturalism
- Endorses cultural diversity and identity politics as transitional states in a larger
reconstruction of political sensibilities and priorities
- Celebrates what cultures can learn from other cultures
 - Society as melting pot
➢ May be incompatible with a sense of national identity
➢ May endorse diversity at the expense of unity

Gender and Identity

• Gender
➢ Social and cultural distinctions between males and females
➢ Social construct
• gender equality
➢ sexual differences have no social or political significance
➢ Simone de Beauvoir: “women are made, they are not born”
• Equality feminism
➢ Gender equality in terms of formal rights, control of resources, or personal power
• Difference feminism
➢ There are deep and possibly ineradicable differences between men and women
• Trans theory
➢ Rejection of binary conception of gender
➢ Gender continuum

Religion and Politics

• Liberal secularism
➢ Emphasis on public/private divide
• Religion
➢ potent means or regenerating identity politics and social identity in modern
circumstances
➢ because of diversity, people tend to have greater thirst for the sense of meaning,
purpose, and certainty
➢ gives people ultimate frame for reference
➢ powerful sense of social solidarity
• Islamism
➢ Upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism
➢ Intense and militant faith in Islamic beliefs that is above the principles of social life and
politics
➢ Religion over politics
➢ Political creed based on Islamic ideas and principles, but is not Islam itself
➢ Ayatollah Khomeini
- supreme leader of first Islamic state)

Chapter 9

Political culture

• emerged in the 50s and 60s

• people’s psychological orientation
• pattern of orientations to political objects
Approaches to Political Culture

Civic-culture approach

• specific attitudes which are crucial to the success of modern democracies

• evident in the writings of Almond and Verba (identified political culture that will effectively
uphold democratic politics)
• blend of:
➢ participant political culture
- citizens pay close attention to politics
- popular participation is desirable and effective
➢ subject political culture
- passivity amongst citizens
- have limited capacity to influence government
➢ parochial political culture
- absence of a sense of citizenship
- people identifying with their locality rather than the nation
- having no desire/ ability to participate in politics
• reconciles the participation of citizens in the political process with the viral necessity for
government to govern
• democratic stability
➢ underpinned by a blend of activity and passivity
➢ deference to authority is healthy
• political values and attitudes shape behavior

Marxist approach

• “the ideas of the ruling class are in epoch the ruling ideas”
• Ideas and culture are part of a superstructure that is determined by economic base (mode of
production)
• Culture is essentially class-specific
• The social existence of an individual determines their consciousness
• Everything is just bourgeois ideology and has hegemony over the rest of the classes
➢ Ascendancy or domination of an element of a system
➢ Antonio Gramsci
- ability of a dominant class to exercise power by winning the consent of its subjugates
- Class system is upheld by thus bourgeois hegemony
• Competitions in ideologies and politics exist but are very unequal

Conservative approach

• Traditional values that have been passed down from earlier generations
• Belief in a cultural bedrock
• Michael Oakeshott
➢ Traditional values must be respected on account of their familiarity that brings a sense
of reassurance, stability, and security
 ➢ Prefer to the familiar to the unknown
• Has a tendency to impose a particular moral system on the rest of society

Political Culture in Crisis

Decline of social capital

• Social capital
➢ Social and cultural factors that underpin wealth creation
➢ Social connectiveness
• Robert Putnam
➢ Influenced by communitarianism
- A person is constituted through the community
- Individuals are shaped by the communities
➢ Emergence of post-civic generation
➢ Caused by suburbanization, rise of 2-career families, and television
• Traditional political attitudes and allegiances have been weakened
Culture wars

• Due to political polarization

• Consensus and compromise have been replaced by antagonism and hatred
• Wars of identity
• Gained impetus from globalization
• Open vs. closed political attitudes
• Anywhere vs. somewhere (Brexit)

Media

• Politically significant and powerful political actors

• Instead of family, media has become the principal mechanism where issues and policies are
presented to the public

Theories of media

Pluralist model

• Highlights diversity and multiplicity

• Media as an ideological marketplace
• Political impact is neutral
• Ensures informed citizenry
• Watchdog role of media

Dominant-ideology model

• Mass media as politically conservative

• Aligned to interests of economic and social elites
• Promotes compliance or political passivity
 • Gramsci (Marxist): media propagates bourgeois ideas, acting in the interests of major
corporations and media moguls
• Ownership dictates what the media shows the public
• Noam Chomsky & Ed Herman
➢ Propaganda model
- Has five filters of media distortion:
- Business interests of owner
- Sensitivity to views of advertisers and sponsors
- Getting info from people that are also of power (agents of power)
- Pressure applied to journalists
- Belief in benefits of market competition and consumer capitalism

Elite-values model

• Focuses on how media output is controlled instead of ownership

• Journalists and editors enjoy significant professional independence
• Media political bias is based on the values of groups that are disproportionally represented
among its senior professionals

Market model

• Media reflects, rather than shape, the views of the general public
• Media will give what people want to watch and would agree with to maximize their profits
• Tyranny of ratings

Impact of Traditional Media

Enhancing/Threatening democracy

• Free press is considered one key feature of democratic governance

• Promotes democracy by fostering public debate and being a watchdog
• Agents of political education
• Media has a tendency to be tainted by clear political biases
• Power without responsibility
• Often times, media professionals and political elites have a symbiotic relationship

Media and Political leadership

• Growing interest in the personal lives and private conducts of senior political figures
• Obsession with image rather than issues and policies
• Turns elections into horse races and beauty pageants that just depend on televisual skills of the
candidate
• Greater media attention, greater political leverage
Culture of contempt

• Created a climate of corrosize cynicism leading to popular disenchantment with politics

Policy-making
 • There is a surplus of information
• 24/7 governments
• Quick answers are given at the expense of good analysis
• Media sets political agenda

Chapter 12

Elections

• Democracy in practice
• Means through which people can control their government

Representation

• Politicians as server of the people

• Individual or group stands/acts on behalf of larger body of people
• Indirect form of democratic rule

Models of representation

Trustee model

• Trustee
➢ Acts on behalf of others
➢ Uses his/her superior knowledge
➢ Edmund Burke: “your representative owes you his judgment and he betrays if he
sacrifices it to your opinion”
➢ Gives mature judgment and has enlightened conscience
• had strong elitist implications
• John Stuart Mill: not all political values are of equal value, plural voting
• Not all citizens know what is best for them

Delegate model

• Delegate
➢ Has no or little capacity to exercise his or her own judgment or preferences
➢ Bound closely to the views of represented
➢ Mouthpiece
➢ Doesn’t think for himself/herself
➢ Controlled by the public
➢ Doesn’t provide own vision/ inspiration but just reflects the views of constituents
➢ Favors the use of referendums
- Electorate can express a view on a particular issue of public policy
- Device of direct democracy
- Provides checks for government

Mandate model
 • Party gains a popular mandate that authorizes it to carry out whatever policies or programs it
outlined during campaign
➢ Instruction or command from a higher body that demands compliance
• Party as the agent of representation
• Limits government policies to the manifesto commitments made during campaigns
➢ Document outlining the policies or programs a party proposes to pursue if elected to
power

Resemblance model

• Representatives are selected based on how much they typify or resemble the group they claim
to represent
• Government is a microcosm of the society
➢ Miniature version of a larger body with exact features and proportion
• Government members are drawn from all groups and sections in society
• Descriptive representation
➢ Takes account of a politician’s social and other characteristics to determine whether
they are qualified to be a representative of a group

Elections

• Intrinsically linked to representative process

• Joseph Schumpeter
➢ Very heart of democracy
➢ Democracy as a means of filling public office by a competitive struggle for the people’s
vote

Functions of elections (Harrop & Miller)

Bottom-up/ conventional view:

Recruiting politicians

Making government

Providing representation

Influencing policy

Top-down/ radical view:

Educating voters

Building legitimacy

Strengthening elites

• Proudhon: “universal suffrage is counter-revolution”

➢ Political discontent and opposition can be neutralized by elections

Electoral system
 • Set of rules that governs the conduct of election
• Majoritarian vs. proportional systems

Majoritarian

Single-member plurality system

• “first past the post”

• Single-member constituencies
• Voters select a single candidate
• Plurality of votes (not absolute majority) is needed to win
• Results in a single-party government

Second ballot system

• Single-candidate constituencies
• Single-choice voting
• Overall majority is needed by a candidate to win on the first ballot
• If overall majority is not met, second ballot is run between the two leading candidates

Alternative vote system/ supplementary vote

• Single-member constituencies
• Preferential voting
• Voters provide a ranking of preferred candidates (just one alternative in supplementary vote
system)
• 50% of votes are needed to win
Proportional

Mixed-member proportional system/ additional member system

• Proportion of seats are filled using single-member constituencies

• Remaining seats are filled by using the party-list system
• Voters choose a single candidate and a preferred party
Single-transferable- vote system

• Multimember constituencies
• Parties may put forward as many candidates as there are seats to fill
• Voters provide candidate preferences (ranks)
• A quota (based on Droop formula) must be met to win
Party-list system

• Single constituency (entire country) or multimember constituencies (by regions)

• Voters will choose a party
• Parties will be given a number of seats directly based on the percentage they got from elections
• Some countries require a threshold of percentage for a party to be given seats
Theories of voting

Party-identification model

• Earliest theory of voting behavior

• Electors regard parties as their own party
• Voting as a manifestation of partisanship

Sociological model

• Links voting behavior to economic and social position of the group where they belong
• Social alignment
• Interest plus socialization
• Tendency to ignore individual and the role of personal self-interest
• Has weakened with postindustrialism

Rational-choice model

• Shifts attention to individual

• Voting as a rational act
• Basis of personal self-interest
• Encouraged by pluralism and individualism

Dominant-ideology model

• How voters interpret their position depends on how it has been presented top them through
education, by the government, and media
• Tendency to take individual calculation and personal autonomy out of the picture altogether
Chapter 11

Political parties

• Organized for the purpose of winning government power

• Has formal membership
• Adopt broad issue focus
• United by shared political preferences and general ideological identity
• Recent inventions
• Major organizing principle of modern politics
• Vital link between state and civil society
• May be authoritarian or democratic
• Mark of political modernization
• Part of a superstructure of mass politics

Types of Party

By membership

Cadre
 • Party of notables
• Trained and professional party members that have a high level of political commitment and
doctrinal discipline
• Reliance on politically active elite that can offer leadership to masse s
Mass party

• Heavy emphasis on broadening membership to construct a wide electoral base

• Heavier stress on recruitment and organization rather than ideologies and political convictions
• Otto Kirchheimer: catch-all parties
➢ Reduce their ideological baggage to appeal to the largest possible number of voters

By representation (by Sigmund Neumann)

Representative parties (delegate vibes)

• primary function of securing votes in election

• reflect public opinion rather than shaping them
• adopt a catch-all strategy
• pragmatism before principle

Integrative parties (trusteeship vibes)

• proactive political strategies

• mobilize, educate, and inspire masses
By obedience with rules

Constitutional parties

• acknowledge rights of other parties

• operate within a framework of rules and constraints
• belief in division between party and state
• respect in electoral competitions

Revolutionary parties

• anti-system
• anti-constitution
• aim to seize power and overthrow existing constitutional structures
• upon winning becomes ruling or regime parties
• establishes permanent relationship with state machinery once elected
• creates a fused party-stated apparatus

By ideologies

Left-wing parties

• commitment to change through social reform or wholesale economic transformation

• gain support from poor and disadvantaged
Right-wing parties

• uphold the existing social order

• force for continuity
• gain support from contented middle class

By governance

Mainstream parties

• conventional/traditional parties
• operate within the established rules of political game
• strongly oriented around acquisition and maintenance of power
• have catch-all features
• tendency toward center ground of politics

Populist parties

• challenges authority of a political establishment

• only legitimate source of political and moral authority rests with “the people”
• anti-party parties
• have narrowly focused electoral and political strategy

Functions of parties

Representation

• primary function of parties

• articulate the views of members and voters
• inputting devices of the government
• Anthony Downs: politicians as entrepreneurs

Elite formation and recruitment

• Provide training ground for politicians

• Political leaders are drawn from a relatively small pool of talent

Goal formulation

• Parties as major source of policy initiation

• Mandate
• Reduced by catch-all and personalized politics

Interest articulation and aggregation

Socialization and mobilization

• Parties as agent of education

Organization of government
 • Give governments a degree of stability and coherence
• Facilitate cooperation between branches of government

Party systems (Duverger)

One-party systems

• Single party enjoys monopoly of power

• Party functions as permanent government
• One-party states
• May be due to communism or nation building after experiencing colonialism

Two-party systems

• Dominated by two major parties

• Only 2 parties enjoy sufficient electoral and legislative strength
• Larger party is able to rule alone
• Power alternates between the 2 parties
• Offers healthy opposition

Dominant-party systems

• Number of parties compete, but only a single party dominates and enjoys prolonged periods in
power
• Causes for factional conflicts within the dominating power

Multiparty systems

• Competition amongst more than 2 parties

• Increased likelihood of coalition
• Create internal checks and balances

Chapter 12

Interest groups

• Children of representative government

• Have distinct and clear-cut position
• Tocqueville- associations that are powerful instruments for action
• Aim to influence policies or government actions
• Seek to exert influence from outside instead of capturing political power
• Have a narrow issue
• Have more formal organizations than social movements

Classification of groups

Communal groups

• Embedded in the social fabric

• Membership based on birth
 • Shared heritage, tradition, and loyalties

Institutional groups

• Part of the machinery of the government

• Enjoy no measure of autonomy or independence
• E.g, bureaucracy & military

Associational groups

• People who come together to pursue shared, but limited, goals

• Voluntary membership
• Usually seen as a feature of industrial societies
• E.g: interest groups/ pressure groups (UK)
➢ By the scope of the people who would benefit from the actions taken by interest group
- sectional groups- “protective/functional groups”, “private interest group”
- exist to advance/protect the interest of their members
- functional- only concerned with material aspect
- promotional- “cause/attitude group”, “public interest groups”, NGOs (may be
operational [projects-centered] or advocacy [promoting knowledge]
- advance shared values, ideals, or principles
- promote collective benefits not limited to their members
➢ By their relationship with government
- insider groups – regular, privileged, and institutionalized access to government through
routine consultation
- usually key economic interests
- outsider groups – not consulted, or at least not regularly, by government
- lacking formal access to government

Models of interest group politics

Pluralist model

• Most positive image of group politics

• Groups can defend individuals from government and promote democratic responsiveness
• Political power is fragmented and dispersed
• Decisions made through bargaining ang interaction
• Arthur Bentley: “when the groups are adequately stated, everything is stated”
➢ organized groups are building blocks of the political process
• groups as agents of interest articulation and aggregation and is the very stuff of democratic
process
• Robert Dahl
➢ Developed a conventional pluralist position
➢ Neopluralism- against corporations holding power over government
➢ Coined the term polyarchy
➢ Groups can make themselves heard during the stages of decision making
Corporatist model

• Aims to trace the implications of closer links between groups and the state
• Certain groups enjoy privileged positions in relation to government
• Corporatism
➢ State-specific phenomenon
➢ Incorporating organized interests into the processes of government
➢ Authoritarian corporatism
- Political intimidation of industry and destruction of independent trade unions
➢ Liberal corporatism
- Organized interests are granted privilege and access to policy formulation
• Invariably favors economic or functional groups

New right model

• Derived form the individualism that lies at the heart of neoliberal economics
• Preference for market economy driven by self-reliance and entrepreneurialism
• Influenced by public-choice theory
➢ Public goods- benefits can’t be withheld even from individuals that didn’t contribute
• Interest groups as major determinant of prosperity or economic failure
• Inverse relationship between strong interest groups and economic growth and national
prosperity

Principal factors determining group influence

Political culture

• Determines whether interest groups are legitimate or not and if their formation is allowed or
prohibited

Institutional structures

• Establishes points of access of groups

Relationship with political parties

• Interest groups may influence political parties to have more direct access to power
Public policy

• How much the state intervenes in economic and social life

• Interventionism goes hand in hand with corporatism
• The reach of the government will also be just the reach of interest groups
Channels of access of interest groups

Bureaucracy

• Key institution for policy formulation

Assembly
 • Lobbying

Courts

• Only limited significance since judiciary are usually unable to challenge legislation

Political parties

• Via campaign financing

Media

• To attract attention and garner public sympathy

International organizations

Social movements

• Collective behavior
• Requires a level of commitment and political activism
• Intended and planned
• New social movements are leftist and postmaterialistic

Chapter 13

Constitution

• Supposed to provide a description of government

• Supposed to be a linchpin of liberal democracy
• There is nothing to prevent a constitution being undemocratic or authoritarian
• Lays down meta-rules for the political system
• Rules that govern the government itself
• Bring stability, predictability, and order
• Establish duties and functions of government institutions
• Relatively recent development
• Usually established after an upheaval (war, revolution, or national independence)
• Constitutional change
➢ Reapportionment of both power and political authority

Classifications of constitutions

By form/status

Written constitution

• Enshrined in laws
• Human artefacts
• Not entirely written

Unwritten constitution
 • Custom and tradition
• Organic entities
• Not entirely unwritten
• Convention
➢ Significant in unwritten constitution
➢ Based on custom and precedent
➢ Present in all forms of constitution, whenever rules aren’t clear

Codified constitution

• Based on the existence of single authoritative document

• Document itself is authoritative
• Highest law of the land
• Difficult to amend or abolish
• Power of legislature is constrained
• Supremacy lies with non-elected judges
Uncodified constitution

• absence of a single authoritative document

• legislature enjoys sovereign or unchallengeable authority

By changeability

Rigid

Flexible

By enforcement

Effective

• practical affairs of government are constitutional

• can limit governmental behavior

Nominal

• may accurately describe behavior but fail to limit it

Façade

• constitution is only a propaganda

By content/ institutional structure

Monarch vs. republic

Unitary vs. federal

Parliamentary vs. presidential

Pluralistic vs. monopolistic

Purpose of constitution

Empowering states

• mark existence of states

• lays-out state’s jurisdiction

Establishing values and goals

• embody a set of political values, ideals, and goals

• not neutral
• entangled with ideological priorities

Providing government stability

• acts as organizational chart

• defines guidelines for government
• formalize and regulate relationships between political bodies
• provides predictability

Protecting freedom

• freedom
➢ ability to think or act as one wishes
• constrains government

Legitimizing regimes

• to promote compliance
• to determine membership and acknowledgment by other states

Law and Morality

Law

• distinctive form of social control

• backed up by means of reinforcement
• what may or may not be done
• objective
• Aristotle and Plato: must be rooted in a moral system of some kind
• Protects individual liberty
• Above politics
• International law
➢ Soft law- can’t be enforced
➢ Obeyed by countries in the hopes to gain benefit or reduce harms

Morality

• ethical questions
• between right and wrong
 • what should and should not be done
• subjective

Positive law

• by John Austin
• defined law in terms of the fact that it was established and enforced
• law is law because it is obeyed
• not based on conformity of law to moral or religious principles
• H.L.A. Hart
➢ Primary rules- regulate social behavior
➢ Secondary rules- confer powers on the institutions of government
- lay-out how primarily rules are made

Judiciary

• Decides legal disputes

• Adjudicate on the meaning of the law
• Liberal-democratic: must be independent and non-political
• May have external or internal biases

Chapter 14

Branches of government

Executive

• Branch of government
• Execution or implementation of policy
• Political executive
• Bureaucratic executive
• Pyramidal
• Tends to be centralized around the leadership of a single individual
• Provides leadership
Legislature

• Makes law

Judiciary

• Interprets law

Functions of political executives

Ceremonial leadership

• Giving state authority personal form

• Maintains public support and therefore sustains legitimacy
Policy-making leadership

• Direct and control the policy process

• Develop coherent economic and social programs

Popular leadership

• Mobilize support that ensures public cooperation and compliance

Bureaucratic leadership

• Running the machinery of the government

Crisis leadership

• Take swift and decisive action

• Emergency powers

Presidents, prime minister, & cabinet

President

• Formal head of a state

• Constitutional presidents
➢ Non-executive presidents
➢ Feature of parliamentary governments
➢ Confined largely to ceremonial duties
➢ Figurehead
➢ No power
• Presidential executives
➢ Limited
- Operates within constitutional framework
➢ Unlimited
- Dictatorships
- Unchecked powers

4 crucial relationships of presidents

With congress

• Most crucial
• Success rate- proportion of legislative programs by the president that survives congressional
scrutiny

With federal bureaucracy

• Acts as a constraint
With media
Prime ministers

• Responsible to the assembly

• Power is derived from their leadership of the majority party

Cabinet

• All political executives feature a cabinet of some sort

• Committee of senior ministers
• Represents various departments

Theories of leadership

Natural gift

• Aristotle: leaders are born

• Nietzsche: ubermensch

Sociological phenomenon

• Leaders are created by particular sociohistorical forces

• Product of collective behavior

Organizational necessity

• Arises because of the need for coherence, unity, and direction within any complex institution
Political skill

• Skill can be learned and practiced

• Akin to the art of manipulation
• Cults of personality

Styles of leadership (Burns, 1978)

Laissez-faire leadership

• Leader doesn’t interfere much

• Hands-off approach

Transactional leadership

• Hands-on style
• Unity and government cohesion

Transformational leadership

• Leader is an inspirer or visionary

• Gardner: leader who creates a story

Populism

• Anti-politics
• Not driven by ideologies, but by the demands of the people
• Not a representative but a part of the people
• Unafraid to be politically unconventional