Society in Iranã¢â‚¬â€institutions Such as Schools, Religion, Families, Government

xiv.2 Types of Political Systems

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of representative commonwealth.
2. Explicate why authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are more unstable politically than democracies and monarchies.

Diverse states and governments plainly exist around the world. In this context, state means the political unit within which power and authority reside. This unit of measurement can exist a whole nation or a subdivision within a nation. Thus the nations of the globe are sometimes referred to equally states (or nation-states), as are subdivisions within a nation, such as California, New York, and Texas in the U.s.a.. Government means the group of persons who directly the political affairs of a country, merely it can too mean the type of dominion past which a state is run. Another term for this second meaning of government is political system, which we volition use here forth with government. The blazon of government under which people alive has fundamental implications for their freedom, their welfare, and even their lives. Accordingly nosotros briefly review the major political systems in the globe today.

Democracy

The type of regime with which we are most familiar is democracy, or a political system in which citizens govern themselves either directly or indirectly. The term democracy comes from Greek and ways "dominion of the people." In Lincoln's stirring words from the Gettysburg Address, democracy is "government of the people, past the people, for the people." In direct (or pure) democracies, people make their own decisions about the policies and distribution of resources that affect them straight. An example of such a democracy in action is the New England town meeting, where the residents of a town meet one time a twelvemonth and vote on budgetary and other matters. However, such direct democracies are impractical when the number of people gets beyond a few hundred. Representative democracies are thus much more mutual. In these types of democracies, people elect officials to correspond them in legislative votes on matters affecting the population.

Representative democracy is more practical than direct democracy in a society of any meaning size, but political scientists cite another advantage of representative democracy. At least in theory, it ensures that the individuals who govern a society and in other ways aid a social club office are the individuals who have the appropriate talents, skills, and noesis to do and so. In this way of thinking, the masses of people are, overall, likewise uninformed, as well uneducated, and too uninterested to run a club themselves. Representative democracy thus allows for "the cream to rise to the acme" so that the people who actually govern a club are the most qualified to perform this essential task (Seward, 2010). Although this argument has much merit, it is likewise true that many of the individuals who do get elected to office turn out to exist ineffective and/or decadent. Regardless of our political orientations, Americans tin recall of many politicians to whom these labels use, from presidents downwards to local officials. Every bit we discuss in Affiliate fourteen "Politics and Government", Section 14.four "Politics in the United States" in relation to political lobbying, elected officials may too exist unduly influenced by entrada contributions from corporations and other special-interest groups. To the extent this influence occurs, representative republic falls brusk of the ideals proclaimed by political theorists.

The defining feature of representative democracy is voting in elections. When the U.s.a. was established more than 230 years ago, most of the globe'due south governments were monarchies or other authoritarian regimes (discussed shortly). Like the colonists, people in these nations chafed under arbitrary power. The instance of the American Revolution and the stirring words of its Proclamation of Independence helped inspire the French Revolution of 1789 and other revolutions since, as people around the world accept died in order to win the correct to vote and to have political freedom.

Democracies are certainly not perfect. Their controlling process can exist quite dull and inefficient; equally just mentioned, decisions may be fabricated for special interests and non "for the people"; and, as nosotros take seen in earlier chapters, pervasive inequalities of social class, race and ethnicity, gender, and historic period tin exist. Moreover, in not all democracies have all people enjoyed the right to vote. In the U.s., for example, African Americans could non vote until later the Civil War, with the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870, and women did not win the right to vote until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

In addition to generally enjoying the right to vote, people in democracies too take more than freedom than those in other types of governments. Figure 14.1 "Freedom Around the Globe (Based on Extent of Political Rights and Civil Liberties)" depicts the nations of the world co-ordinate to the extent of their political rights and civil liberties. The freest nations are found in North America, Western Europe, and certain other parts of the earth, while the least complimentary prevarication in Asia, the Center Due east, and Africa.

Figure 14.1 Freedom Around the Globe (Based on Extent of Political Rights and Civil Liberties)

Monarchy

Monarchy is a political organization in which power resides in a single family that rules from ane generation to the next generation. The power the family unit enjoys is traditional authority, and many monarchs command respect because their subjects bestow this type of authority on them. Other monarchs, however, have ensured respect through arbitrary power and fifty-fifty terror. Majestic families nevertheless dominion today, but their ability has declined from centuries agone. Today the Queen of England holds a largely ceremonial position, simply her predecessors on the throne wielded much more power.

Queen Elizabeth 2 of England holds a largely ceremonial position, but earlier English monarchs held much more than power.

This example reflects a historical change in types of monarchies from absolute monarchies to constitutional monarchies (Finer, 1997). In accented monarchies, the imperial family unit claims a divine correct to rule and exercises considerable power over their kingdom. Absolute monarchies were common in both ancient (e.g., Egypt) and medieval (east.g., England and Prc) times. In reality, the power of many absolute monarchs was not totally absolute, as kings and queens had to proceed in mind the needs and desires of other powerful parties, including the clergy and nobility. Over time, accented monarchies gave way to ramble monarchies. In these monarchies, the regal family serves a symbolic and ceremonial role and enjoys little, if whatsoever, real power. Instead the executive and legislative branches of authorities—the prime minister and parliament in several nations—run the government, fifty-fifty if the royal family continues to command admiration and respect. Constitutional monarchies exist today in several nations, including Denmark, Great Britain, Kingdom of norway, Spain, and Sweden.

Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism are general terms for nondemocratic political systems ruled by an individual or a group of individuals who are not freely elected by their populations and who often practice arbitrary power. To be more specific, absolutism refers to political systems in which an individual or a group of individuals holds power, restricts or prohibits popular participation in governance, and represses dissent. Totalitarianism refers to political systems that include all the features of absolutism but are even more repressive as they attempt to regulate and control all aspects of citizens' lives and fortunes. People tin can be imprisoned for deviating from acceptable practices or may even be killed if they dissent in the mildest of ways. The purple nations in Figure 14.1 "Freedom Around the World (Based on Extent of Political Rights and Civil Liberties)" are generally totalitarian regimes, and the orange ones are authoritarian regimes.

Compared to democracies and monarchies, disciplinarian and totalitarian governments are more unstable politically. The major reason for this is that these governments enjoy no legitimate authority. Instead their power rests on fright and repression. The populations of these governments do non willingly lend their obedience to their leaders and realize that their leaders are treating them very poorly; for both these reasons, they are more likely than populations in democratic states to want to rebel. Sometimes they do rebel, and if the rebellion becomes sufficiently massive and widespread, a revolution occurs. In contrast, populations in autonomous states usually perceive that they are treated more than or less fairly and, further, that they can modify things they do not like through the balloter process. Seeing no need for revolution, they exercise not defection.

Since World State of war Ii, which helped make the United States an international power, the United States has opposed some disciplinarian and totalitarian regimes while supporting others. The Cold War pitted the United States and its allies confronting Communist nations, primarily the Soviet Wedlock, China, Cuba, and Northward Korea. But at the same time the United States opposed these authoritarian governments, it supported many others, including those in Chile, Guatemala, and South Vietnam, that repressed and fifty-fifty murdered their own citizens who dared to engage in the kind of dissent constitutionally protected in the United states (Sullivan, 2008). Earlier in U.Southward. history, the federal and state governments repressed dissent past passing legislation that prohibited criticism of Earth State of war I and and so by imprisoning citizens who criticized that war (Goldstein, 2001). During the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI, the CIA, and other federal agencies spied on tens of thousands of citizens who engaged in dissent protected past the First Amendment (Cunningham, 2004). While the United States remains a beacon of freedom and hope to much of the globe's peoples, its own back up for repression in the recent and more afar by suggests that eternal vigilance is needed to ensure that "liberty and justice for all" is non just an empty slogan.

Key Takeaways

• The major types of political systems are democracies, monarchies, and disciplinarian and totalitarian regimes.
• Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are more than unstable politically because their leaders do not enjoy legitimate authority and instead rule through fright.

For Your Review

1. Why are democracies generally more stable than authoritarian or totalitarian regimes?
2. Why is legitimate authorisation every bit Max Weber conceived it not a characteristic of disciplinarian or totalitarian regimes?

References

Cunningham, D. (2004). There's something happening here: The new left, the Klan, and FBI counterintelligence. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Finer, S. E. (1997). The history of government from the earliest times. New York, NY: Oxford Academy Press.

Goldstein, R. J. (2001). Political repression in mod America from 1870 to 1976 (Rev. ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Seward, M. (2010). The representative merits. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Sullivan, Grand. (2008). American adventurism abroad: Invasions, interventions, and regime changes since World War 2 (Rev. and expanded ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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Source: https://open.lib.umn.edu/sociology/chapter/14-2-types-of-political-systems/

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