Contact Infomation

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Contact Infomation

• www.nuigalway.ie/soc
• Niall O Dochartaigh
• Room 304, Tower 1
• Niall.ODochartaigh_at_nuigalway.ie
• Mondays 11.15-12.15
• Tuesdays 10.00-11.00

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Soc. and Pol. first year opinion poll 2003/04
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What is Politics?

• An aspect of collective human behaviour
• Making, changing and preserving the rules
• Decision making
• Conflict resolution
• "Politics is the activity through which people
  make, preserve and amend the general rules under
  which they live
• Heywood (1997) Politics, p.4.

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• Is it about parties?
• Is it about government?
• Is it about big ideas?
• The link to power

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Reading

• Heywood, Politics, ch.1.

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Power in a liberal democracy

• Sovereignty supreme power
• A sovereign state
• The people are sovereign

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Power and Sovereignty in the Irish constitution

• Article 1
• The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable,
  indefeasible, and sovereign right to choose its
  own form of government.
• Article 6
• All powers of government, legislative, executive
  and judicial, derive, under God, from the people

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Power and corruption

• Power and corruption
• Power tends to corrupt and absolute power
  corrupts absolutely
• Lord Acton
• Constraints on power checks and balances

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Legitimate power

• Popular acceptance of the right of rulers to rule
• There are different sources of legitimacy
• Monarchy
• Religious authority
• Democratic legitimacy

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Three faces of Power ?

• Decision-making
• Agenda-Setting
• Shaping the way in which people think