FACULTY OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE AND POLICY UITM SHAH ALAM

PAD 120 INTRODUSTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

Question: Elaborate 4 (four) forms of Autocracy.

Provided by: MOHD FADZLI BIN JAAMAT ( 2011499472 ) MD ROSDI BIN IBRAHIM ( 2011232866 ) MOHAMAD AL-FAIZ BIN OMAR ( 2011831602) MUHAMAD NOOR BIN AZMI ( 2011232866 )

Lecture: MR. AZMAN AYOB

PAD 120: INTRODUSTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

Question: Elaborate 4 (four) forms of Autocracy.

Autocracy is a form of government in which a person has absolute power. Autocrats are someone (like a king) ruled with absolute power which his power is limitless. The term is derived from the autokratr autocracy (, literally. "Self-government", or "a ruling by himself"). Compare with oligarchy ("order by number") and democracy ("the order by the people"). At times the term is usually understood autocrats as synonymous with Simon Legree, Tyrant, and the dictator, though each of these terms originally had a different meaning and different. Among the forms of autocracy is as follows:

Military Rule Armed forces have been influential actors in the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East since World War II. Some Third World countries under military rule are not new. Ethiopia, Thailand, and Latin American countries were independent states long before 1945. Many countries in these areas hardly can be called developing ones either. In not a few, per capita income has stagnated or declined in recent decades. Thus we cannot take for granted that armed forces come to prominence in new states or in developing ones. Indeed, military forces have been significant actors in ancient Rome and in the empires that have grown up and disintegrated in Asia and the Middle East. What should interest us is how civil-military relations change over time within countries or differ from country to country at similar periods of history. Armed forces have comparative advantages in moving people and material by virtue of their logistical abilities. They are usually, but not always, relatively well-armed compared to other groups in society. This brings us to the distinction between the official and regular military forces of the state and bands of warring people, guerrillas, local police, and other organizations of force. These organizations may well compete with regular
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military forces; they may sometimes be heavily armed. Insurgents can become organized into regularized armed forces, as occurred during the Chinese and Vietnamese anticolonial and civil wars. Also, the official armed forces may vary from huge armies with highly specialized service branchesIndia and China, for example, each have a million or more soldiers under armsto the small, largely infantry units of some African countries. An armed force may expand very rapidly, as the Nigerian army did during the Nigerian Civil War when it grew from 10,000 to over 250,000 between 1968and1970. It is striking, however, that in many non-Western states, both large and small, militaries play a powerful role in the politics of their countries. In the industrial countries of the West such as the United States and France, militaries are important interest groups, take significant shares of government budgets, and may have veto power over crucial public issues. In 19581960, in the aftermath of the Algerian War of Independence, the French military posed a challenge to continued civilian rule. Military rule, however, in contrast to military influence, has been rare in the countries of Western and Eastern Europe since 1945. Military rule may be defined by the fact that the head of state achieves a ruling position by virtue of a place in the military chain of command. True, junior officers may come to power. In Africa especially it has not been unknown for junior and even noncommissioned officers to seize power, as exemplified by Captain Marien Ngouabi's ascendancy in Congo-Brazzaville (1968), Sergeant Samuel Doe's coup d'tat in Liberia (1980), and Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings's coup in Ghana (1979). The military establishment itself may be highly fragmented, and an officer or noncommissioned officer may stage a coup as much against a segment of the army as against civilians. This pattern characterized Idi Amin's 1971 coup in Uganda and also occurred periodically in postwar Argentina. Moreover, it is a mistake to think that militaries rule without civilian allies. In fact, civilians often may try to provoke military takeovers in order to bolster their class or ethnic positions. The military coup of 1964 in

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Brazil is a case in point where business groups feared the growing populism of civilian elites and growing working-class activism. In the Middle East and in Africa, one ethnic group may act against others through military coups. Thus, for example, the prominence of Shii officers has been striking in Syria under Hafiz Al-Assad since 1970. Coups and countercoups in Nigeria have had critical ethnic components. To talk then of the military is something of a misnomer. Armed forces are split by service branch, ethnic group, rank, and often class background. It is a matter of empirical investigation as to how cohesive are military organizations. Similarly, it is a matter of empirical study to find out how professionalized are armed forces and whether or not they are distinctive corporate bodies marked off from civilians by education, training, and socialization processes. Militaries usually have specific codes, uniforms, and training, and their officers go to special academies. But whether this training and recruitment makes them cohesive and distinctive by attitude or policy preference as compared to civilians is an open question. It is not always easy to decide whether a particular leader maintains power by virtue of place in the chain of command or the support of the armed forces. Mao Zedong rose to power in China by forging the Chinese Communist Party and leading a broad revolution, but during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s he came to rely on particular military units as well as components of the Communist Party and students. Both Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat tried to civilianize their leadership in Egypt in the 1960s and 1970s. Both were military figures, but they used civilian parties and interest groups to maintain their power and to give them freedom from their own militaries. Yet military support was critical to their continued rule. The social science literature on coups and military rule has established few generalizations that we can put forward with great confidence with respect to why and when military coups take place or what are the consequences of military rule in terms of policy preferences and development outcomes. Coups have occurred in nations large

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and small, have been carried out by armies large and small. Clearly, however, it is difficult to stage a junior officer coup in a large armyPakistan's, for example. Within Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, few countries have escaped at least some period of military rule. India has been one. But India does not have a relatively high per capita income even within developing countries. It has a tradition of British civilian supremacybut so do many former British colonies. Nor has the Congress Party in India proved to be highly institutionalized and coherent over the last two decades. It is not true that militaries are more likely to be modernizers or more successful in bringing about economic development than are civilian counterparts. Indeed, both the case study literature on military rule and cross-national aggregate data work that has utilized statistics to test hypotheses show us that there is as much differentiation within the category of military rule as there is between military and civilian regimes. Personal leadership has been important to the evolution of specific patterns of military rule. As within civilian regimes, the class and ethnic composition of society has been a powerful factor within military rule. If militaries have not been associated typically with higher growth rates or particular patterns of economic development, they frequently have tried to curtail political participation by parties and interest groups only to find that they need allies in civilian society in order to extend their influence beyond the barracks or the statehouse. Sometimes these allies have been civilians with a bent for revolution, as in Ethiopia after 1975 or Peru during the early period of the Velasco-Alvarado regime (19681975). Often they have been elites with status quo tendencies, as in Brazil, Paraguay, or Pakistan. Looking at foreign policy outcomes, we do not find that military regimes align themselves in clear-cut ways. The Argentine military came to grief after its failed invasion of the Malvinas/Falklands, as did the Greek colonels after their Cyprus fiasco. But military regimes have not proved to be more aggressive or nationalistic than civilian ones.
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Idiosyncratic leaders such as Idi Amin in Uganda have destroyed their own militaries in order to stay in power. Others, such as General Evren in Turkey (19801983), have tried to guide their countries back to civilian rule. One relatively understudied phenomenon is that of transitions from military rule. Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, among other Latin American countries, reverted to civilian rule in the late 1980s. A number of African countries have had oscillating periods of military and civilian rule, Ghana and Nigeria in particular. Where the armed forces have carried out bloody repression of civilians, as in Argentina and Chile, civilian rule is more difficult to achieve and to sustain, for the officers insist on protection against prosecution. Frequently, as in Brazil and Argentina, the armed forces have left civilians with large debt burdens and bloated state enterprises. The policies of expanding the state sector have not been unique to military regimes, but these regimes have been especially closed off from broad public scrutiny and accountability.

Absolute monarchy Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the sovereign state and its subject peoples. In an absolute monarchy, the transmission of power is twofold (hereditary and marital). Absolute monarchy differs from limited monarchy, in which the monarchs authority is legally bound or restricted by a constitution. The absolute monarch exercises total power over the land and its subject peoples, yet in practice the monarchy is counterbalanced by political groups from among the social classes and castes of the realm (the aristocracy, clergy, bourgeoisie, and proletarians). Some monarchies have weak or symbolic parliaments and other governmental bodies that the monarch can alter or dissolve at will.
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In contrast to the constitutional monarchy in which the Prime The Minister is the head of the Executive, this position play a less important role in the government's absolute monarchy. Even in some countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brunei, the king will also hold office as Prime Minister. Historical examples One of the best examples of an absolute monarch was Louis XIV of France. His alleged statement, The state, it is me (L'tat, c'est moi), summarizes the fundamental principle of absolute monarchy (sovereignty being vested in one individual). Although often criticized for his extravagances, such as the Palace of Versailles, he reigned over France for a long period, and some historians consider him a successful absolute monarch. More recently, revisionist historians have questioned whether Louis' reign should be considered 'absolute', given the reality of the balance of power between the monarch and the nobility. Absolutism was underpinned by a written constitution for the first time in Europe in the 1665 Kongeloven ("King's Law") of Denmark- Norway, stipulated that the monarch shall from this day forth be revered and considered the most perfect and supreme person on the Earth by all his subjects, standing above all human laws and having no judge above his person, neither in spiritual nor temporal matters, except God alone. This law consequently authorized the king to abolish all other centers of power. Most important was the abolition of the Council of the Realm. The Swedish king Karl XI introduced absolute monarchy in Sweden during his reign. This he passed on to his son, Karl XII, but after his death in 1718, that system was ended. Absolutism was officially reinstated in 1789 during the reign of Gustav III of Sweden, and it lasted until 1809 when Gustav IV Adolf was deposed in a coup and a more liberal constitution put in its place. Until 1905, the Tsars of Russia also governed as absolute monarchs. Peter I the Great reduced the power of the nobility and strengthened the
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central power of the Tsar, establishing a bureaucracy and a police state. This tradition of absolutism, known as the tsarist absolutism, was built on by Catherine II the Great and other later Tsars. Although Alexander II made some reforms and established an independent judicial system, Russia did not have a representative assembly or a constitution until the 1905 Revolution. However, the concept of absolutism was so ingrained in Russia that the Russian Constitution of 1906 still described the tsar as an autocrat. Still, Russia became the last European country to abolish absolutism and the only one to do so as late as the 20th century (the Ottoman Empire drafted its first constitution in 1877). Throughout much of history, the Divine Right of Kings was the theological justification for absolute monarchy. Many European kings, such as the Tsars of Russia, claimed that they held supreme autocratic power by divine right, and that their subjects had no rights to limit their power. James I and Charles I of England tried to import this principle; fears that Charles I was attempting to establish absolutist government along European lines were a major cause of the English Civil War. By the 19th century, the Divine Right was regarded as an obsolete theory in most countries in the Western world, except in Russia where it was still given credence as the official justification for the Tsar's power. Enlightenedd espotism

During the Renaissance, the theory of absolute monarchy supported by many philosophers French as a form of despotism or despotism Enlightened reform. They argued that a king who has a consciousness or Enlightened able to introduce a progressive as well as curb feudalism and the clergy reactions. This theory was fading after the fall of the Napoleonic.

PAD 120: INTRODUSTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

List of Countries Absolute Monarchy In modern times, there are only six countries under absolute monarchy, namely:

Saudi Arabia (King Abdullah ibn 'Abd al' Aziz Al Sa'ud) Bhutan (King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck) Brunei (Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzadin Waddaulah) Oman (King Qaboos bin Said Al Said) Swaziland (King Mswati III) Vatican City (Pope Benedict XVI).

Monarchy in the Vatican City is quite unique because the king was chosen and not inherit the throne of other departments such as the absolute monarchy. In Jordan and Morocco, the king has a lot of power but can not be regarded as an absolute monarchy. While in Liechtenstein, almost two-thirds of the voting population has given a veto (veto) the head of state Prince Hans-Adam II.

Authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy. In politics, an authoritarian government is one in which political authority is concentrated in a small group of political elite, typically unelected by the people (but not necessarily), who possess exclusive, most of the time unaccountable, and arbitrary power. Authoritarianism differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under the government's control. Characteristics Authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated, and centralized power maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime.
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Authoritarianism emphasises the rule of the few, it often includes election rigging, political decisions being made by a select group of officials behind closed doors, a bureaucracy that sometimes operates independently of rules, which does not properly supervise elected officials, and fails to serve the concerns of the constituencies they purportedly serve. Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, a leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors," the arbitrary deprivation of civil liberties, and little tolerance for meaningful opposition; A range of social controls also attempt to stifle civil society, while political stability is maintained by control over and support of the armed forces, a pervasive bureaucracy staffed by the regime, and creation of allegiance through various means of socialization and indoctrination Authoritarian political systems may be weakened through "inadequate performance to demands of the people." Vestal writes that the tendency to respond to challenges to authoritarianism through tighter control instead of adaptation is a significant weakness, and that this overly rigid approach fails to "adapt to changes or to accommodate growing demands on the part of the populace or even groups within the system." Because the legitimacy of the state is dependent on performance, authoritarian states that fail to adapt may collapse. Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a single-party state) or other authority. The transition from an authoritarian system to a more democratic from of government is referred to as democratization. John Duckitt of the University of the Witwatersrand suggests a link between authoritarianism and collectivism, asserting that both stand in opposition to individualism. Duckitt writes that both authoritarianism and collectivism submerge individual rights and goals to group goals, expectations and conformities. Others argue that collectivism, properly defined, has a basis of consensus decision-making, the opposite of authoritarianism.

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Oligarchy Oligarchy is a form of government where most political power effectively rests with a small segment of society (typically the most powerful, whether by wealth, military strength, ruthlessness, or political influence). The word oligarchy is from the Greek for "few" and "rule". Some political theorists have argued that all societies are inevitably oligarchies no matter the supposed political system. Oligarchies are often controlled by a few powerful families whose children are raised and mentored to become inheritors of the power of the oligarchy, often at some sort of expense to those governed. In contrast to aristocracy ("government by the 'best'"), this power may not always be exercised openly, the oligarchs preferring to remain "the power behind the throne", exerting control through economic means. Unlike plutocracy, oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged cadre. It has also been suggested that most communist states fit the definition of oligarchy. A society may become an oligarchy by default as an outgrowth of the shifting alliances of warring tribal chieftains, although any form of government may transform into an oligarchy at some point in its evolution. The most likely mechanism for this transformation is a gradual accumulation of otherwise unchecked economic power. Oligarchies may also evolve into more classically authoritarian forms of government, sometimes as the result of one family gaining ascendancy over the others. Many of the European monarchies established during the late middle Ages began in this way.

Examples of oligarchies Since the collapse of the Soviet Union on 31 December 1991, privately owned Russiabased multinational corporations, including producers of petroleum, natural gas, and metal have become oligarchs. Privatization allowed executives to amass phenomenal wealth and power almost overnight. In May 2004, the Russian edition of Forbes identified 36 of these oligarchs as being worth at least $1 billion.
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Modern democracy as oligarchy Robert Michels believed that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. He called this the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought, modern democracies should be considered as oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an acceptable and respectable political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites. Thus the popular phrase: there is only one political party, the incumbent party.

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