Politics Power

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Politics Power Authority
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What is Politics?

• What do you think of politics?
• CLICKER participation
• Are you involved in politics?
• A yes
• B no
• CNO, NEVER !
• DHuh? What?

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What is Politics?

• The Master Science Aristotle
• The process of peacefully reconciling social and
  economic differences Turner et al

Persistent patterns of human relationships that
involve a significant degree of control,
influence, power or authority. Robert Dahl
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What is Power?

• Is it evil?
• Is it dictatorial?
• Does it require force?
• Yes power is always based on force
• Power usually based on force
• Power may or may not be connected to force
• Power definitely does not need force

Clicker
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What is Power?

• An aspect of a relationship between 2 social
  actors where one actor A can induce or
  influence actor B to do something in line with
  A's preferences when B would not do that
  otherwise.
• Adapted from Robert Dahl

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Sources of Power

• David Easton
• Force
• Physical Violence or the credible threat thereof
  (including incarceration)
• Not just angry or harsh words
• Rewards
• Payment for good behavior
• Withholding benefits for bad behavior
• Legitimacy (authority)
• Established moral right to rule
• Moral obligation for followers to obey

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Sources of Power

• Force
• Physical Violence or the credible threat thereof
• Not just angry or harsh words
• Consequences of Force?
• Quick compliance
• Resentment and hostility
• Requires monitoring Costly
• Generates revolt and sabotage
• Unstable by itself

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Sources of Power

• Rewards
• Payment for good behavior
• Withholding benefits for bad behavior
• Consequences
• Compliance without hostility
• Costly, requires constant payoffs
• Requires monitoring
• Reward inflation
• Bankruptcy

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Sources of Power

• Legitimacy (authority)
• Established moral right to rule
• Moral obligation for followers to
• obey
• Consequences
• Obedience without monitors
• Loyalty and respect
• Low cost to ruler
• Efficient and stable

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Sources of Power

• Legitimacy (authority)
• Consequences Continued
• Abuse of power
• Followers become victims
• Corruption
• All these can undermine legitimacy in time

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Sources of Power

• REAL political groups use some combination of
  Force, Rewards, and Legitimacy
• Stable systems must have some element of
  Legitimacy/Authority
• Legitimacy/Authority, while effective and stable,
  must be constrained to avoid abuse

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Authority (Legitimacy)

• Max Weber
• 1864-1920 Germany
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
• Sociology of Religion
• Economics
• Government

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Weber on Authority3 Types

• Rational Legal
• Modern
• Based on rules and processes
• Bureaucracy
• Traditional
• Old Europe
• Inherited authority
• Charismatic
• Special, Personal, Revolutionary
• Based on individual leaders special
  characteristics

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Rational Legal Authority

• Authority established through a process
• Procedural Authority
• Elections
• Government Hiring Processes
• Rules for decisions
• Rules for a trial
• Rules and procedures to earn a degree
• Rules for law-making in Congress
• Rules for getting a marriage license, etc.

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Rational Legal Authority

• Authority is bounded
• Limited to a particular context
• Relationships are specific and bounded
• Limited to a context
• Limited to a time
• Limited within specific range of action

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Rational Legal Authority

• Strengths
• Predictable
• Orderly
• Transparent
• All are equal
• Relatively little chance for abuse
• Protects subordinates rights

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Rational Legal Authority

• Problems
• Slow
• Rigid and inflexible
• Impersonal
• Processes may overwhelm goals
• Stupid outcomes may result
• Quick obvious solutions blocked

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Rational Legal Authority

• Typical of modern, democratic governments
• Focuses on procedures more than outcomes
• Emphasizes equality
• Both protects and frustrates most citizens

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Traditional Authority

• Authority is inherited or simply is
• Leaders are leaders because they are
• Divine right of Kings
• Village elders
• Inherited priesthood lineage (Old Testament)
• Usually has patterns of inheritance
• Stable transitions

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Traditional Authority

• Authority is diffuse and unbounded
• No particular limits firmly established
• No time frame limitations
• Relationships are whole-person
• Leader not limited to particular aspects of life
• Leader may tread on private matters
• Relationships are reciprocal but asymmetrical
• Mutual obligations of benevolence and loyalty

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Traditional Authority

• Potential Strengths
• Stable and orderly
• Flexibility, not bound by excessive rules
• Generates strong positive associations
• Right doesnt get blocked by process or rules

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Traditional Authority

• Potential Problems
• Right seen only from leaders perspective
• Fickle
• No way to remove incompetent leaders
• No room for exemplary talent to rise
• Unlimited or unrestrained power leaves potential
  for abuse wide open
• Little room for the individual

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Charismatic Authority

• Charisma vs charisma
• Personal characteristics of leader
• Super-human
• Uniquely able to resolve grand problems
• The Charismatic leader IS the solution
• Special relation to deity? Sometimes

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Charismatic Authority

• Followers believe leader to be infallible
• Leader can command ANYTHING
• Violate traditional values? OK
• Change everything, even beliefs? OK
• Do things I used to consider evil? OK
• This is MORE than just a strong, dynamic leader.

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• Webers CHARISMA
• Leader is super human
• Leader IS the answer to major problems
• Leader demands MAJOR change and gets it

newspaper charisma
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Charismatic Leaders

• Only recognizable if
• Demand dramatic, life-altering changes
• Require followers to change dramatically
• Even doing things they previously believed to be
  morally wrong
• Followers accept and follow those demands
• Some leaders may have this ability, but if they
  dont test it, we dont know

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Real Examples

• Mao Tzedong
• Jim Jones
• Moses
• Christ
• Joseph Smith
• Adolph Hitler

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Newspaper charisma but NOT Webers CHARISMA

• John F Kennedy
• Mother Teresa
• Barack Obama
• Oprah Winfrey
• Ronald Reagan

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How does it happen?

• Major crisis either personal or societal
• Charismatic proposes DIAGNOSIS
• Diagnosis rings true to potential followers
• Charismatic presents SOLUTION
• Solution relies on Charismatics ability
• Solution will bring salvation, resolve problems
• Solution requires total obedience and major
  change
• Troubled people choose to follow all the way

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Charismatic Authority

• Potential Strengths
• Rapid change is possible
• Old, corrupt systems can be overthrown
• A new world is possible
• May really solve major problems

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Charismatic Authority

• Potential problems
• New world is worse than the old
• Leader is an idiot and everything crashes
• Grand Schemes are OK, but not details
• Leader abuses authority followers victimized
• Transitions of authority very dicey
• Leaders usually very jealous of subordinate
  leaders
• Leaders resist routinization
• Collapse at leaders demise

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Webers 3 Authority TypesReview

• Rational legal
• Modern, procedures, limits, common in democratic
  government
• Traditional
• Old monarchy, family, sometimes religion
• Charismatic
• Rare, Revolutionary, Leader is superhuman and
  unlimited

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What is Government?

• Generic
• The system of offices that oversee and guide the
  interactions of individuals in a political system
• The Government of a Country
• A government that successfully upholds a claim to
  exercise the exclusive regulation of the
  legitimate use of force in enforcing its rules
  within a territorial area

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Why Government

• Thomas Hobbes
• Human life in the state of nature is nasty,
  brutish and short.
• Create Order
• Protect life
• Defend property rights
• Enforce contracts

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The problem

• How does a nation create a government with enough
  authority and power to keep order, protect
  property, and preserve life and at the same time
  prevent that governments officials from using
  their power to enrich themselves and persecute
  their rivals?

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Human nature and power

• Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
  absolutely
• We have learned by sad experience that it is the
  nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon
  as they get a little authority, as they suppose,
  they will immediately begin to exercise
  unrighteous dominion. DC 12139

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American Solution

• Divide power
• 3 branches
• Federal and States
• Check power with power
• Create a balance where each, by seeking his own
  power checks the power of others
• Establish core rights and limits in the
  Constitution
• Entrust enforcement of those limits to the self
  interest of balancing powers