GOVT1641 Final Revision PDF

Preview

Summary

final revision...

Description

Week 1 Republican view of politics: The Republican Party's conservatism involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, business, a strong national defense, deregulation, restrictions on labor unions, social-conservative policies, and traditional values, usually with a Christian foundation! - Public space," - Citizenship," - Participation," - Collective action," - Arguments over ‘the good’ ! Government and governance: Thomas Hobbes judged that government provides us with protection from the harm that we would otherwise inflict on each other in our quest for gain and glory. ! Three aspects of politics: • It is a collective activity, occurring between and among people. A lone castaway on a desert island could not engage in politics, but if there were two castaways on the same island, they could have a political relationship ! • #It involves making decisions on matters affecting two or more people, typically to decide on a course of action, or to resolve disagreements ! • Once reached, political decisions become authoritative policy for the group, binding and committing its members " Luke’s three dimensions of power: The implication of these examples is that the most efficient form of power is to shape people’s information and preferences, thus preventing the first and second dimensions from coming into play ! • Power should be judged by examining whose views prevail when the actors involved possess conflicting views on what should be done ! • Capacity to keep issues off the political agenda ! • Power is extended to cover the formation, rather than merely the expression, of preference! The State: Provides the legal or formal mandate for the work of governments, allowing them to utilise the authority inherent in the state. The state is also intimately related to two   concepts that lie at the heart of our understanding of government and politics: authority and legitimacy. The legal and political authority of a territory containing a population and marked by boarders. The state defines the political authority of which government is the managing authority; that authority is regarded as both sovereign and legitimate by the citizens of the state and the governments of other states ! Emergence of the state system • Emerged from the embers of medieval Europe (c.1000-1500) ! • European governance had been dominated by the transnational Roman Catholic Church and powerful feudal lords ! • War was a powerful force to the transition into the modern state ! • Commerce grew and rulers began to establish formal diplomatic relations with their overseas counterparts ! The birth of the modern state is tied to the 1684 peace of Westphalia. This brought to an • end the Thirty Years’ war in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years’ war between Spain and the Dutch republic ! • As central authority developed in Europe, so did the need for its theoretical justification (sovereignty) ! Challenges to the state • Globalisation: the process by which the links between people, corporations, and governments in different states become integrated through such factors as trade, investment, communication and technology ! • Intergovernmental organisations have diluted their independent existence. IGO’s are cooperative bodies whose members are states that are established by treaty, possess a

Page 1  of 20 

permanent secretariat and legal identity, and operate according to stated rules and with some autonomy " Ideology: A system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for how politics, economies and society should be structured. An ideology is today understood as any system of thought expressing a view on: ! • Human nature ! • The proper organisation of, and relationship between, state and society ! • The individual’s position within this prescribed order " Political Economy: Relationship between political activity and economic performance. Good government is more likely to produce a successful economy, and a bad government less so; this is measured through economic output in the form of GNI, which refers to the total domestic and foreign output by the residents of a country in a given year ! Definitions • Politics: the process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing shared or collective decisions ! • Authority: the right to rule; authority creates its own power, so long as people accept that the person in authority has the right to make decisions ! • Legitimacy: the state or quality of being legitimate. A legitimate system of government is one based on authority, and those subject to its rule recognise its right to make decisions ! • Sovereignty: the ultimate source of authority in a society. The sovereign is the highest and final decision-maker within a community !

Week 2 Liberalism: Commitment to the individual and the desire to construct a society in which people can satisfy their interests and achieve fulfilment. Liberal societies are organised politically around the twin principles of constitutionalism and consent, designed to protect citizens from the danger of government tyranny ! • The liberal party’s ideology is a mixture of 19th century liberal and conservative assumptions and beliefs ! • Freedom has more weight than equality ! • Conservative elements of the liberal tradition: importance of laws, rules and conventions " Democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.! • Government by the people ! • Majorities and minorities should be taken into account ! • Democracy produces decision- making in the general interest " Classic and Modern Liberalism: The moral and ideological state of liberalism is embodied in a commitment to a distinctive set of values and beliefs: Individualism, freedom, reason, justice, toleration ! • Classical liberalism: seeks to maximise the realm of unconstrained individual action, typically by establishing a minimal state and reliance on market economies ! • Modern liberalism: provides a qualified endorsement for social and economic intervention as a means of promoting personal development. Its distinctive ideas include: individuality, positive freedom, social liberalism and economic management " The Liberal State: Liberals have traditionally believed that protection can only be provided by a sovereign state, as a balanced and tolerant society will not simply develop out of the free actions of individuals and voluntary associations. Therefore, freedom can only exist under the law !

Page 2  of 20 

Constitutionalism • The constitution is a set of rules that seeks to allocate duties, powers and functions among the various institutions of government. It therefore constitutes the rules that govern the governments themselves. ! • Constitutionalism is the practice of limited government brought about by the existence of a constitution. In this sense, it can be said to exist when government institutions and political processes are effectively constrained by constitutional rules ! Liberal Democracy: A political regime in which a ‘liberal’ commitment to limited government is blended with a democratic belief in popular rule, where the scope of democracy is limited by constitutional protection of individual rights: ! • The right to rule is gained through success in regular and competitive elections based on universal adult suffrage; ! • #Constraints on government imposed by a constitution, institutional checks and balances, and protections for individual rights; and ! • A vigorous civil society including a private enterprise economy, independent trade unions and a free press " Liberalism and Globalisation • Intensified international competition encourages governments to deregulate their economies and reduce tax levels in the hope of attracting inward investment and preventing transnational corporations from relocating elsewhere (neoliberal globalisation) ! • Liberal democracy has become a worldwide force; the process of democratisation involved the spread of the competitive party’s system and a growing enthusiasm for market reforms. By 2000, two- thirds of the states in the world had political systems that exhibited significant liberal-democratic features ! • The advance of globalisation has had an important ethical dimension. As people know more about events that occur and circumstances that exist in other parts of the world, it becomes more difficult to confine their moral sensibilities merely to members of their own state " Postmodernism: Highlights the shift away from societies structured by industrialisation and class solidarity to increasingly fragmented and pluralistic ‘information societies’, in which individuals are transformed from producers to consumers, and individualism replaces class, and religious and ethnic loyalties ! Definition • Negative freedom: the absence of external restrictions or constraints on the individual, allowing freedom of choice ! • Positive freedom: self-mastery or self-realisation; the achievement of autonomy or the development of human capacities ! • Federalism: legal and political structures that distribute power between two distinct levels of government, neither which is subordinate to the other ! • Economic liberalism: the greatest possible number of economic decisions are made by individuals or households rather than by collective institutions or organisations ! • Social Darwinism: inspired by Darwinism, by which the social order is accounted as the product of natural selection of those people best suited to existing living conditions and in accord with which a position of laissez-faire is advocated !

Page 3  of 20 

Week 3

• Community: people are social beings and better off overcoming social problems as a community rather than individually (comrades)! • #Cooperation: much more can be achieved by society through cooperation rather than competing ! • Equality: belief in equal society that upholds justice and fairness (rule of " law) ! • Class politics: social class is both an analytical tool within socialism and Marxism and is also a way of dividing society and follows on the importance of community ! • Common ownership: property means to wealth or capital is seen as ‘bad’ as it is viewed as unjust, morally corruptive, materialistic and divisive " Fascism: At times of crisis people flee from freedom and seek security in submission to powerful leaders and totalitarian states: • Anti-rationalism: people don’t think rationally; driven by powerful emotions ! • #Struggle: based on the idea of natural selection, some people are born superior to others, some must struggle to get ahead ! • #Leadership: elitism; natural and desirable qualities, strong supreme leader with charismatic authority- all power is invested into the leader ! • Socialism: theory of social organisation which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole ! • Ultra-nationalism: asserts the superiority of one nation over the other, militant sense of national identity, Social-Darwinism, rebirth of national pride " Green Ideology • Ecology: recognition that plants and animals sustained by self-regulating natural systems, a network of interrelationships previously existed and these sustain the human species ! • Holism: ecology that we are a part of the world, apart of a complex system and therefore we must respect the planet ! • Sustainability: we don’t have endless possibility for growth, upset balance has been created in the pursuit of wealth and industrialisation in society will lead to the eventual decline of the ecosystems! • Environmental ethics: moral obligation to the human world ! • From having to being: we need to discard the idea of materialism and focus on the natural world and our happiness in just being ! Communism: the principle of the common ownership of wealth, or a system of comprehensive collectivism- often viewed as Marxism in practice ! Social Democracy: a moderate or reformist brand of socialism that favours a balance between the market and the state, rather than the abolition of capitalism !

Page 4  of 20 

Week 4 Assembly democracy: 500BCE • Self-government of adult male citizens ! • Equality ! • Face-to-face public communication by word of mouth ! • Politics as public life ! • Exclusion of slaves, foreigners, women ! • Voting by consensus or majority rule ! • Deities watching " Representative Democracy • Self-government of the people through elected representatives ! • Large-scale polities; nation states ! • Periodic elections by secret ballot ! • Adult male suffrage→universal franchise ! • Multi-party systems ! • Parliaments, executives (presidents, PMs) ! • Free press (books, pamphlets, daily newspapers) and civil association ! • Written constitutions; courts; bureaucracy ! Monitory Democracy • Self-government of people through multiple (un-elected) representatives + protected by anti- corruption accountability mechanisms ! • Free and fair elections→spread of the culture of voting ! • Public accountability principle: dangers of arbitrary power ! • Human rights networks; participatory budgets; public interest litigation; citizens’’ juries; truth commissions; bio-regional assemblies; WikiLeaks ! • Cross-border monitoring of power (European parliament; civic initiatives + social movements) ! • Digital information flows and networks " Features of Modern Democracy: • The core principal of democracy is self-rule; the model democracy is a form of self- government in which all adult citizens participate in shaping collective decisions in an atmosphere of equality and deliberation, and in which state and society become one ! • #Representative systems of government based on regular, fair, and competitive elections ! • Well-defined, stable, and predictable political institutions and processes, based on a distribution of powers and a system of political checks and balances ! • A wide variety of institutionalised forms of political participation and representation, including multiple political parties with a variety of platforms ! • Limits on the powers of government, and protection of individual rights and freedoms under the law, sustained by an independent judiciary ! • An active, effective and protected opposition ! • A diverse and independent media establishment, subject to few political controls and free to share a wide variety of opinions " E-Democracy: A form of democratic expression through which all those with an interest in a problem or an issue can express themselves via the internet or social media • Deliberate provocation! • Privacy concerns! • Access to internet! • Manipulated by authoritarian regimes !

Page 5  of 20 

Civil liberties in liberal democracy: There are certain rights and freedoms that citizens have relative to government and that cannot be infringed by actions of government. These include the right to liberty, security, privacy, life, equal treatment and a fair trial, as well as freedom of speech and expression, of assembly and association, and of the press and religion ! Democracy and modernisation: Liberal democracy flourishes in modern conditions: in highincome industrial or post-industrial states with an educated population. Middle-income states are more likely to be flawed democracies, and low- income countries will tend to be authoritarian ! Liberal democracy in modern societies: • Wealth softens the class struggle, producing a more equal distribution of income and turning the working class away from ‘leftist extremism’, while the presence of a large middleclass tempers class conflict between rich and poor ! • Economic security raises the quality of governance by reducing incentives for corruption ! • High-income countries have more interest groups to reinforce liberal democracy ! • Education and urbanisation also make a difference. Education inculcates democratic and tolerant values, while towns have always been the wellspring of democracy " Waves of Democracy • #First wave: 1828-1926, nearly 30 countries established at least minimally democratic national institutions (Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, US). Political competition gradually broadened, as the right to vote extended to the wider population. ! • Second wave: 1943-1962: established democracies emerged after 1945 from the ashes of defeated dictatorships. The second wave democracies established firm roots, helped by an economic recovery which was nourished by US aid (India, Israel, Japan, West Germany) ! • Third wave: 1974-1991: characterised by the ending of right- wing dictatorships in Greece, Portugal and Spain. The retreat of the generals in much of Latin America, the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe " Democratisation stages: 1. Liberalisation: initiation of the reform sequence, usually as a result of recognition by authoritarian rulers that change is inevitable ! 2. Arrangements are made for the new system of government ! 3. Widespread acceptance of the new system, supported by evidence that it works ! 4. Democracy evolves from the superficial to the substantial " Authoritarian regime: Regimes based on submission to authority, characterised by ruling elites, limited political pluralism, centralised political control, intolerance of opposition, and human rights abuses. They exploit three key control devices: the military, patronage and the media ! Hybrid regime: They are political systems that have some of the appearances of being democratic, but where institutions, processes, laws, and policies and manipulated to keep rulers or elite groups in power. Leaders or ruling parties are elected, but they use state resources and their influence over the media to determine the outcome of elections long before campaigns begin. Hybrid regimes are normally founded on a powerful leader or political party, rather than on strong institutions ! Forms of Authoritarian Rule • Absolute monarchy: a ruling sovereign exerts control, with other members of the royal family in key political and military posts ! • Ruling presidents: the presidency dominates government and the media, with opponents kept off- guard and the opposition marginalised ! • Ruling parties: rule by a single party, often combined with a strong president ! • Military rule: government by the military, often ruling through a junta comprising the leaders of each branch of the armed forces ! • Theocracy: a rare form of rule in which religious leader govern directly "

Page 6  of 20 

Democratisation: the process by which states build the institutions and processes needed to become stable democracies ! Checks and balances: an arrangement in which government institutions are given powers that counter-balance one another, obliging them to work together in order to govern and make decisions !

Week 5 Justice as Fairness 1. Equal basic rights and liberties; ! 2. Inequality is ok only under two conditions: Everyone must have opportunity. All inequality must benefit the least well off " Fraser’s three types of status injury: • Cultural domination: A dominant culture is a cultural practice that is dominant within a particular political, social or economic entity, in which multiple cultures are present. It may refer to a language, religion/ritual, social value and/or social custom. These features are often a norm for an entire society.! • Non-recognition: refusal to acknowledge the existence, validity, or legality of something.! • Disrespect and stereotypes " Procedure Justice: About the fair, equitable, and inclusive institutional processes of a state. There is quite a direct link between both distributional inequity and misrecognition and exclusion form the political order ! week 6! Rights and Natural Rights • Rights: a moral or legal entitlement to have or to do something. In the liberal tradition, rights are primarily (though not exclusively) held by individual citizens, and can be claimed against other individual citizens (in private law) or against the state (in public law). ! • #Natural rights (and later, human rights): a moral or legal entitlement to have or to do something, and which belongs to every individual human being, regardless of membership in a political community " Sovereign supremacy: 1. The sov...